We learn from the text:
I. That the commands of God are of different degrees of importance. There are matters of more weight than others among the Divine precepts. That God has commanded a thing always invests it with a certain importance, but all His commandments are not of equal gravity. There are higher and lower obligations; and the higher will be first attended to, nay, if need be, will absorb into them the lower.
II. The weightiest of all God's commands have respect to judgment, mercy, and faith. That is a truth which is emphasized over and over again by the prophets in the Old Testament, and the Apostles in the New. The inner is more important than the outer; the spirit than the letter; the principle than the action; the character than the isolated deed. The heart is the great thing, for out of it are the issues of life; and therefore it should have the first and the greatest attention. If that be wrong, nothing can be right; but if that be right, everything will partake of its quality.
III. Attention to the matters of less importance will not compensate for the neglect of those which are of essential moment. Punctilious tithe-paying will not condone oppression, or injustice, or the lack of humble faith in God. Ritual is not religion: it is only, even at the best, the outer garment which she wears on certain occasions; but religion herself is character, and that is a moral unit, giving its quality both to the worship and to the ordinary conduct of the man. It is no vindication for not doing a most important duty, to say that I have done something else that is on a far lower plain.
IV. Where the heart is right with God through faith in Jesus Christ, both the weightier matters and those of less importance will be attended to. The performance of one duty must not be pleaded as an excuse for the neglect of another. In all such matters what is put before us is not an alternative whether we shall do this or that but an aggregate, for we are to do this and that.
W. M. Taylor, Contrary Winds,p. 356.
I. On closer observation, the sins of the Pharisees resolve themselves chiefly into four Pride, hypocrisy, superstition, and a dislike to real spiritual religion. To understand Christ's feelings and actions towards them, you must remember that the men who committed these sins were the enlightened ones of the earth. They knew their Bibles wonderfully. They had the Name and Word of God constantly on their lips. And the cause of truth and of God was committed to them. Hence Christ's exceeding severity with these men. For there are two points on which Christ was always most jealous: the one was the glory of the Father; and the other the interests of religion, and especially the consciences of young believers. Whatever compared with these, whatever offended against these and hurt them, was sure to awake Christ's holy anger, and incur His awful malediction. And this is exactly what pride and hypocrisy, superstition and severity, do. Therefore Christ's utter revulsion of a Pharisee.
II. (1) God is in His holy temple, and all creation lies poor and sinful at His feet. Whatever lifts itself up offends against God's holiness, and rebels against God's sovereignty. Hence Christ's detestation of a Pharisee. (2) And the characteristic of our religion as a test of everything is reality.There is no false sheen thrown upon any part of God's creation. The beauty of the interior generally exceeds the beauty of the, exterior. God in His work and in His truth is all real. He abhors hollowness. Hence Christ's woe to a Pharisee. (3) Truth is always simple. Superstition complicates and clouds God's great, simple plan. Therefore God repudiates it. (4) God is one God, therefore He loves unity because it is His own reflection; therefore he hates all separation. All sitting aloof, all unkind feeling towards brethren, all party spirit is offensive to God; and this is just what the Pharisees did. Hence again, the rejection and curse of a Pharisee.
J. Vaughan, Sermons,11th series, p. 109.
References: Matthew 23:23. J. Vaughan, Sermons,9th series, p. 109. Matthew 23:23; Matthew 23:29. D. Fraser, The Metaphors of the Gospels,p. 181.Matthew 23:31-32. F. W. Farrar, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xxv., p. 401.Matthew 23:32. Homiletic Magazine,vol. xiii., p. 55.Matthew 23:34-39. Clergyman's Magazine,vol. iii., p. 347.