Matthew 23:27, commentary and pictures

Jesus calls the religious leaders hypocrites who look righteous and beautiful on the outside like whitened and decorated tombs, but inside are full of hypocrisy, iniquity, evil and decay. He spoke this as one of the woes against the scribes and Pharisees in the temple courts on His final day of teaching, publicly exposing their character to warn and condemn them and to instruct seeking people in every age. They taught the law and claimed divine authority while not practicing it, imposing heavy burdens, neglecting justice, mercy and love, and cloaking selfishness, covetousness and impurity under religious pomp and ceremony. No outward profession, polish, reform or nominal acceptance of truth can purify the soul or hide corruption from God, but the heart must be renewed and cleansed until truth governs the life and outward forms agree with inward purity. The same condemnation reaches all in later generations who claim to represent Christ while their lives deny Him, including professed Christians who appear devotional and orthodox while remaining uncleansed within, whose empty profession bears no fruit and is more guilty than open sin.

Setting and Manner Spoken

Matthew 23:27 belongs to Jesus' final day of teaching in the temple courts, when He publicly exposed the character of the rulers and elders. His words in that setting both warned and condemned those leaders and instructed the people who were seeking understanding. They were meant to speak not only to those present but to every people and age.

The verse is one of the woes in Matthew 23:13-33 denouncing the scribes and Pharisees as hypocrites. Those leaders exercised an assumed authority, and their influence led people away from truth. The denunciations and warnings against following these blind leaders were recorded as an admonition to later generations.

The denunciation was spoken fearlessly, from holy zeal for truth and with the authority of true greatness. It was uttered with burning earnestness and terrible severity, yet with no irritated temper. Christ's indignation against grievous sin was righteous, not retaliation or unholy passion. A Christian can therefore remain in harmony with God and possess love and mercy while feeling righteous indignation against serious sin.

Jesus had called the priests and scribes hypocrites and exposed their religious pretensions. Such language was familiar among the Pharisees and Sadducees in their accusations against one another. For that reason it would carry no weight with the Romans and was not brought forward as a persuasive charge at His trial.

Meaning of the Image

The verse means those addressed appear righteous and beautiful outwardly to men, like tombs whitened, whitewashed and decorated on the outside, yet within are full of hypocrisy, iniquity, evil, decay, dead men's bones and all uncleanness. Their outward religious beauty and respectability, pomp and ceremony, and show of holiness conceal inward corruption and cloak iniquity. Their claims to righteousness and devotion, to appear righteous and to have God's law in their hearts, are empty pretense and vain, since inwardly they are full of hypocrisy and sin.

It describes spiritual blindness that cannot discern relative importance. It is outward religious carefulness and scrupulousness without right principles in heart and life, neglecting weightier matters while focusing on lesser concerns.

Outward profession, polish, reform, or nominal acceptance of truth does not purify the soul or hide corruption from God, for a person may seem godly and appear clean while the heart remains morally defiled and full of sin within. An outward profession of faith without inward rectitude is hypocrisy, like a tomb that looks beautiful and clean outside but is full of corruption and uncleanness within; the heart must be renewed, cleansed, and have truth take root there and govern the life before the life can be right. Continuing to whiten the sepulchre without cleansing it is appearing religious while the heart and soul temple remain polluted by evil thoughts, evil speech, jealousy, envy and suspicion and need cleansing. Ceremonies become meaningless rites when outward religious forms do not accord with inward purity, and the same danger exists when people take it for granted they are Christians because they subscribe to certain theological tenets but have not brought the truth into practical life, believed and loved it, and received through its sanctification its power and grace. Profession of faith in the truth that does not make a person sincere, kind, patient, forbearing and heavenly-minded is a curse to its possessor and through influence a curse to the world; the righteousness taught instead is conformity of heart and life to the revealed will of God, which sinful men gain only by faith in God and vital connection with Him, so that true godliness elevates the thoughts and ennobles the life, a profession of Christ is matched by a life made good bearing good fruit, and outward forms agree with inward purity.

The whited-sepulchre image describes claims to holiness and sanctity that declare a person exceptionally righteous while character contrasts with Godlike goodness, deceiving the people with pretense of holiness while hearts are full of corruption and sin. Christ's life and character of untainted purity, which hated sin alone as the one thing He could hate, rebuked and exposed this hypocrisy and denounced every evil. That exposure brought Him sorrow and pain and produced bitter hostility against Him, with sneering, despising, rejection, insult, abuse, contradiction of sinners against Himself, and being hurried out of the world. Had He allowed license to transgressors, praised evildoers, tolerated sin, allowed evil license to passions, or called sin holiness and holiness sin, He would have been hailed with shouts of praise instead.

Pharisees' Hypocrisy Exposed

The scribes and Pharisees claimed divine authority and taught the law, yet they did not practice their own teaching but imposed burdens they would not bear themselves. While scrupulously careful in outward religious observance they neglected justice, mercy and love, and their fair outward show of righteousness concealed inward hypocrisy, iniquity and uncleanness. Their disregard for the law's principles of love for God and for others proved that outward religious care without inward obedience leaves the heart corrupt, and their stern rebuke came because they resisted light and refused reform.

Their religious pomp, ceremony, outward honors and care for the prophets' tombs cloaked iniquity and deceived the people, covering hearts opposed to God's messengers. Their lives were marked by hypocrisy, selfishness, covetousness, deceit, impurity and unfair dealing, and their burdensome man-made demands weighed down the people while their pretentious profession of sanctity hid inward corruption. Their pretended holiness concealed refusal of the light brought by the prophets and by Jesus, rejection of salvation through Christ, and selfish clinging to custom, wealth and status, so that those who follow the same course stand likewise liable to rebuke.

They rejected Jesus not because He lacked external honor, riches and glory, but because His holiness condemned their sins. Shining as the Sun of Righteousness amid moral darkness He revealed the contrast between sin and holiness and between purity and defilement, and that unwelcome light and righteous denunciation of their sins was harder to bear than even disappointed hopes of an earthly deliverer. At the cross those He had called whited sepulchres reviled Him, though He had come from heaven to save the perishing and was devoted to right, justice and God's glory. In choosing Barabbas and in their conduct against Christ they showed that profession of piety and love for God and knowledge of Scripture does not make people God's children nor lead them to represent His character.

They condemned sick and needy people as sinners under God's anger, while their own hearts and lives were more corrupt than those they judged. Though they prayed, fasted and observed outward forms of godliness, their ceremonies were meaningless rites because outward forms did not accord with inward purity. Religious leaders can still hold lawful authority yet become wicked and use it for unlawful ends, with outward position concealing inward corruption. Such leaders become angry when their authority is questioned and denounce those who proclaim unwelcome truth.

Ananias and the chief priests and rulers were outwardly fair in office and zeal but inwardly full of wickedness and uncleanness. Their eager agreement to the cruel assassination plot against Paul, instead of rebuking it, proved Paul right to compare Ananias to a whited sepulchre, beautiful outwardly but full of dead men's bones and uncleanness within. Paul's calling the high priest a whited wall was a prophetic denunciation of the same hypocrisy, spoken under the Holy Spirit and not from passion. It was terribly fulfilled when the iniquitous hypocritical high priest was murdered by assassins in the Jewish war.

Warning for Later Generations

Christ's denunciation of the scribes and Pharisees and His warning against following blind religious leaders reach beyond the dispersion of the Jews. The effort to exalt human authority and to rule the conscience would persist in the church through every age and bring great harm. Those denunciations and warnings were recorded to admonish future generations.

The self-righteous Jewish nation stands as a symbol of people in every age who claim to represent Christ while their lives deny Him. They scorn infinite love and reject the light of truth and counsel and mercy when selfishness and love of money and desire for worldly honor possess their hearts. The woes pronounced on the scribes and Pharisees for spiritual blindness, for outward correctness covering inward uncleanness and lack of principle, and for misrepresenting Christ's righteousness will verily fall on all engaged in a like work unless they repent and are converted. This includes priests and rulers who are impenitent and oppose truth and righteousness, and men in positions of trust and in sacred positions whose spiritual eyesight is dimmed and who are overbearing and imperious in spirit. They neglect God's great and sacred work, are not actuated by right principles, and do not reveal justice and mercy and the love of God nor give practical evidence of love for their brethren. While very scrupulous about little matters, making a man an offender for a word, they deal unjustly, tamper with conscience, make imaginary distinctions between degrees of guilt by subtle reasoning, lightly pass over very serious wrongs while condemning with great severity wrongs that do not compare with their own sin in cherishing and working on false principles. Such sins are great in God's sight and bring ruin to individuals as surely as to nations, and the messages of appeal and warning and reproof that had no more effect on the Pharisees' hearts than present appeals have on hardened hearts expose that exacting and intolerant spirit and pronounce the judgments that fall on those who reject reproof and keep the stumbling block of iniquity before their eyes. The time is near when God by His providence will make manifest what principles have been cherished by men connected with the management of His work, and unless they are converted and cease walking in the same path with the same spirit they will be separated from the work and the same judgments and the same kind of condemnation will fall upon them for the gap between religious standing and a character that misrepresents Christ.

Pharisaism is not extinct. A Pharisaic spirit among those claiming to serve God appears in pride and desire to rule and combative resistance to correction, with human plans eclipsing sacred instruction and showing departure from the Bible standard. It appears in the Christian world in rigid, established ways of working that hinder rather than advance God's work, and in those who assume kingly power and restrict where divine wisdom and present truth may go. Those entrusted with God's work must cherish what is sacred and keep it pure, while the spirit of Christ hides self and guides human passions, since authority exercised without God's sanction harms others.

Rejecting light and failing to follow a holy calling brings severe condemnation. Religious leaders may look pure and honorable outwardly while corrupt and unclean within, and Christ hates all vain pretense so His denunciations fall heavily upon all hypocrisy. Those who profess to have light far in advance of others while their works do not correspond with their profession and their hearts feel no sanctifying influence stand warned, for neglect to improve given light and opportunities leaves men and women in darkness. Those who neglect greater light stand in a worse position than those Jews who received the woe, and neglecting light and turning from a holy calling leaves people in a worse position than those who received that woe. Those with great light who fail to improve it stand in a less favorable position for the perfection of Christian character than those from the darkness of error and a life of sin who penitently accept the truth when it is opened to them, while in contrast to His severity toward hypocrites Christ treats the penitent with tenderness even when they have been the chief of sinners.

Application to Professed Christians

An attractive outward appearance cannot hide inward corruption and uncleanness from God, and hours spent adorning the body to look beautiful like the world leave spiritual pride and decay uncovered before Him. Pride in decorating the body to please the eye while spiritually dying makes a person like a whited sepulchre, beautiful outside but corrupt within. The mortal body so adorned will soon decay in the grave.

A fair outside pursued through fashionable beauty deranges the whole system while appearing beautiful outwardly. A fine complexion kept from sunlight, heavy dressed hair, waist girted tight over the lungs, close-fitted shoulders, trailing dresses, costly silks, tight shoes for a small foot, and a soft white jeweled hand kept from use derange circulation and every bodily function, leaving the body full of vile impurities and unfit for a healthy, well-developed mind. The lesson is care for life and the body and reality rather than care for meat and raiment and mere appearances.

A person may seem honest, true, fair, and good outwardly while the heart is spotted and stained with sin, and too many in the family and in the church make little account of such glaring inconsistencies, especially young men who appear what they are not. That inward condition stands recorded in the heavenly courts after a process has gone on in the mind that has made them callous and past feeling. When character is weighed in the balances of the sanctuary and pronounced wanting in the great day of God, it will be a calamity they do not now comprehend. Precious untarnished truth must become part of the character, the heart garrisoned with pure principles in constant battle against selfishness and corruption, with prayer to be held up from slipping, since carelessness toward eternal interests opens the tempter's nets and uncertain paths and binding habits like iron that forfeit God's blessing.

Among those who know and profess the truth there are whited sepulchres, whitewashed by sin covered over and concealed for years while appearing beautiful outwardly. Knowing the truth, professing it, or having great light will not save unless its pure principles are brought into the soul to sanctify it and interwoven in life practice to make a man like-minded with God, battling every inherent tendency to evil. Without a pure heart, communion with God, and fruit of righteousness, holiness, mercy, truth, purity, and love, a man bears thorn berries instead of grapes and remains all impurity and moral deformity within while the outside of the platter appears clean, for God sees within as He who judges righteous judgment.

The verse exposes acting devotional to appear righteous while motives and conduct remain wrong, knowing the theory of truth and observing forms of worship and professing to honor God's law while the heart remains uncleansed and full of idols and the life does not show Christ's purity, holiness, and devotion. Such outward reform that does not reach the heart is only a flimsy covering for deception, and true religion is not external display but a heart shaped by Christ's Spirit with transforming influence throughout life and work. Churches and members ruled by self, self-love, and self-confidence, lacking simplicity, true modesty, humility, and meekness, walk the ground trodden by the Pharisees of old, intercept light from God, lose power to distinguish light from darkness, unwittingly sustain evil, pick to pieces faithful messengers through whom God works while receiving those who misunderstand and misinterpret, and are unable to travail in soul for convicted sinners or educate and lead them forward step by step.

What looks beautiful from a distance may prove deformed on close examination, for appearance of devotion or knowledge of truth does not prove true worship but may hide presumption, apostasy, resistance to God's word and Spirit, and exaltation of human reason above revealed wisdom. Appeals to God's mercy must not excuse or overlook sin. Under test and trial it must yet be made manifest whether professed Christians have subdued carnal traits or remain pure only in appearance like a sepulchre concealing defilement, for merely professing Christianity with outward polish and profession does not make a person a Christian. To keep whitening the sepulchre without cleansing it is to appear religious while the soul temple remains polluted by evil thoughts, evil speech, jealousy, envy, and suspicion.

Phariseeism expressed as self-righteousness, self-exaltation, pride of position, and self-importance is outward form without true life, and when it takes hold of the heart and shapes character true religion dies out. Christ's righteousness, not display of self-righteousness, is the needed covering. Outward profession without fruit to His glory leaves a person inwardly defiled like a fruitless fig tree making a show of serving God but bearing no fruit, lacking repentance, faith, and obedience, and such empty profession is more hateful to Christ and more guilty than open sin. Practicing sin under a cloak of religion brings especially heavy retribution, and those who defile the soul through licentiousness and other sins, bringing reproach on the truth while persistently rejecting it, become more hopeless than open sinners.

Outward religion without inward renewal illustrates the deceitfulness of sin, by which Satan blinds and leads to destruction while leaving prayer and religious duties intact. High-professing subjects who talk of heaven while corrupt at heart thus become more useful in his service as decoys drawing others into the same net.

Standing Against False Claims

Christ is one who reads the human heart, and in this verse He displays the authority of His greatness against abominations in the church and in the world. He speaks with burning earnestness and words of terrible severity, lays open deceptions with scathing rebuke, and refuses to allow the people to be deceived by false claims to righteousness and sanctity. His warnings are definite and plain, given so that the church need not be confused by the devices of the accuser in the perpetual conflict with wicked men under the control of evil angels that lasts till the close of time, and they call for plain truth-speaking even when it cuts to the quick.

His example requires His followers to stand where no binding influence holds them speechless when wrong sentiments are expressed. They must refuse to verify statements they know are not true, and must protest and correct false statements rather than listen without protest. To listen without protest does great harm to the speaker himself.

The same example sets the standard for Christian missionaries and physicians to stand in God-given manhood with freedom of speech and freedom of faith. They are not to harmonize with wrong plans, nor to verify statements they know are not true, nor to be cowered into silence and held speechless by a masterful spirit and binding influence. When they hear wrong sentiments and false statements they are to protest and correct them.

The verse shows that the Lord hates all deception, secrecy, guile, duplicity and hypocrisy. Such hatred condemns meeting a brother day by day with apparent friendship while working in silence and secrecy and plotting against him in unity with unbelievers and satanic agencies to uproot, tear down and remove him. The right course instead is to go to him openly, to redeem and heal him if he is in error, or to vindicate him and put the rebuke upon the evil plotters if he is not in the wrong. Working against a child of God on the strength of the enemy's testimony in that concealed, suggesting, instigating, planning manner is Satan's work, while God's work is open and frank.