Matthew 23:16, commentary and pictures

Christ spoke these words in His final public teaching in the temple courts to expose the character and errors of the rulers and to warn the people against trusting leaders who claimed authority to explain God's law but did not practice it. The temple is greater than its gold because it is the temple that makes the gold sacred, so valuing the gold above the temple turns true worth upside down. He condemned their dishonest rule that an oath by the temple means nothing while an oath by the temple's gold binds the one who swears, a false distinction that made God's law seem arbitrary and let guilt be measured to excuse wrongdoing for profit. He called them blind guides and hypocrites because their outward zeal and strict observance hid corrupt motives, pride and transgression, and because they refused the light and mercy He offered and blocked others from entering God's kingdom. That rebuke was recorded for later generations because exalting human authority over conscience has harmed the church in every age, and the same woes still fall on those in sacred trust who profess great light while their works deny Christ.

False Oaths Exposed

This denunciation belongs to Christ's final public teaching in the temple courts on His last day there, exposing the character and errors of the rulers and elders. It warned the people against trusting leaders who claimed authority to explain God's law but did not practice their own teaching. It was meant to challenge customs, traditions and unquestioning trust in a corrupt priesthood, with its lesson intended for people in every age and nation.

The valuation it attacks was backward and foolish, for the temple is greater than its gold because it sanctifies the gold. It condemns the dishonest distinction that an oath sworn by the temple is nothing and nonbinding, but an oath sworn by the gold of the temple is binding and makes one a debtor. That included imaginary distinctions between degrees of guilt in different transactions, treating God's law as arbitrary.

Their rules let them accept money to excuse people from vows and to overlook serious crimes for payment, while imposing severe judgments for trivial or lesser offenses. In this they put their own narrow standards above God's requirements, to excuse wrongdoing and profit from it. They confused people about sin and holiness, so that their followers risk perishing with them.

Their blindness is spiritual inability to discern the relative importance of matters they should understand. People claiming authority in religion can thus distort the value of sacred things and displace what is sacred and true. By denying the force of the law's requirements and prohibitions they give sinners license to violate it, removing the basis of moral responsibility and letting theft, perjury and other sins be carried on under the cloak of Christianity. The same blindness excuses serious wrongs while condemning lesser faults, neglecting justice, mercy and love while dealing unjustly and overlooking its own greater sins.

Hypocrisy Rebuked Today

The woe denounces the scribes and Pharisees as blind guides and hypocrites whose religious pretensions concealed corrupt motives and refusal to follow the light God had given them, who rejected Christ's offer of salvation and obstructed others from entering God's kingdom, bringing divine rebuke upon themselves. Their outward religious zeal and strict observance concealed pride, iniquity and transgression of God's law and neglect of what mattered most, and they rejected His counsel and despised His mercy. Their piety did not excuse their wrongdoing, and those who follow the same path and reject their own light likewise incur God's rebuke.

Christ hates all vain pretense, and the heavy denunciation upon all hypocrisy applies to those who profess truth and great light while their works do not correspond with their profession and who do not advance in the divine life. It applies to those who claim to represent Christ while their lives deny Him, when selfishness and love of money and worldly honor take possession of the heart and lead to rejection of truth. Neglect to improve light and opportunities leaves such professors in darkness.

Rejecting and neglecting God-given light leaves people in darkness in a worse position for perfection of Christian character than those in error or lifelong sin who gladly accept truth and come to God in penitence. There is more hope for an open sinner than for a hypocrite whose religious profession conceals iniquity, for Christ treats even the chief of sinners who comes in penitence with tenderness while denouncing hypocritical profession. Religious pretenders whose profession hides deeds of sin are under God's curse and judgment, their hypocrisy desecrating the soul that belongs to Christ, and iniquity practiced under the appearance of godliness brings heavier retribution than open sin. Those who neglect to follow the light incur the same danger and rebuke as the Jews in their rejection of light.

The warning not to follow blind guides who claim undue authority was recorded for later generations because exalting human authority to rule the conscience has harmed the church in every age. It applies beyond the time of the Jewish dispersion as an admonition against religious leaders who assume authority over conscience. Pharisaism persists in the Christian world where rigid, self-appointed authority hinders the spread of truth, as when priests holding lawful authority used it for unlawful ends.

The image of blind guides applies to religious teachers who lead others into spiritual blindness by evading the Sabbath commandment through arguments they do not hold consistently, changing positions to avoid keeping the seventh day. It applies to popular ministers who, like the Pharisees, become angry when their authority is questioned, denounce the warning message as satanic, and stir people to persecute its messengers. It is connected with an exacting and intolerant spirit whose messages have no more effect on their hearts than Christ's warnings had on the Pharisees, and those who reject the Lord's reproof and persist in that path face judgment.

If Christ were on earth today, priests and rulers who persist in impenitence and oppose truth and righteousness would also receive His rebukes and woes. People in sacred positions may likewise face His public condemnation if their characters call for it.

The woe Christ pronounced on the Pharisees for spiritual blindness falls just as surely unless they repent on men in positions of responsibility and trust who by subtle reasoning tamper with conscience and do a like work, making imaginary distinctions between degrees of guilt in different transactions and treating one oath as nothing and another as binding. Their dimmed spiritual eyesight misrepresents Christ's righteousness through an overbearing and imperious spirit, lack of principle, neglect of God's great and sacred work, failure to reveal justice, mercy and the love of God and practical love for brethren, and unjust dealing with His heritage. While very scrupulous about little matters, they lightly pass over very serious wrongs of their own in cherishing and working false principles, yet condemn with great severity lesser wrongs that do not compare, and that sin brings ruin as surely for individuals as for nations.

Christ fearlessly exposed hypocrisy and dishonest practices and denounced with burning earnestness and words of terrible severity the abominations He saw in the church and in the world, meeting artful intrigue with authority and power. He would not allow the people to be deceived by false claims to righteousness and sanctity, and His words show righteous indignation against grave sins, not retaliation for personal abuse, exposing wrongdoing without an irritated temper. His example calls His followers and those who work for God to stand in God-given manhood with freedom of speech and freedom of faith where no binding or masterful spirit holds them speechless or cowers them into silence. They are to refuse to verify statements they know are not true or to harmonize with wrong plans, and to protest and correct false statements and wrong sentiments instead of listening in silence.