Wherefore ye be witnesses unto yourselves, that ye are the children of them which killed the prophets.
Christ spoke these words in the temple courts as part of His woes denouncing the scribes, Pharisees, priests and lawyers to expose their hypocrisy and warn them. By their own admission that they were the children of those who killed the prophets and would not have joined their fathers, they bore witness against themselves that they were the spiritual heirs of the prophet-killers, sharing their persecuting spirit, character and hostility toward God's messengers. Building and honoring the tombs and monuments of the prophets while disregarding their teachings did not change that kinship but testified further against them. While professing to honor past prophets they rejected present light, refused Christ and His messengers and plotted to kill Him, thus following the same path as their fathers and doing even worse when truth required self-denial. Their guilt was their own, not merely their ancestors', for repeating those evils and rejecting their own warnings and light, bringing certain retribution and judgment, and the warning was recorded to admonish every later generation not to exalt human authority, resist correction, or outwardly appear righteous while inwardly opposing God.
Setting and Self-Testimony
The verse belongs to Christ's denunciation and woes against the scribes, Pharisees, priests and lawyers, spoken in the temple courts to lay bare their character, expose their hypocrisy, and warn and condemn them. He spoke fearlessly with authority and holy indignation against leaders who taught human commandments as God's truth and practiced dishonesty. His teaching in that exposure was meant to reach people of every age and nation. Testimony that He had denounced the priests and scribes as hypocrites and murderers would not help secure a Roman conviction, and disputes between Pharisees and Sadducees made such testimony useless to the Sadducees.
By their own words and conduct the leaders are witnesses against themselves, for in claiming to be the children of those who killed the prophets and saying they would not have joined their fathers they identify themselves as those killers' children. Their honoring of the prophets' tombs while rejecting God's messengers reveals that they continue their ancestors' opposition and share their guilt and hostility toward God's messengers. Their actions identified them with the ancestors who killed the prophets, and Christ's denunciation of the church's abominations in this way exposed false claims to righteousness and sanctity so people would not be deceived. Their supposed service to God came from forgetting their Creator and not knowing Him, and their false sense of superiority led them to kill the one who alone could give them life.
Children here means spiritual heirs, for in spirit, character and deed they share the persecuting spirit and hostility of their ancestors toward God's messengers. By condemning their ancestors for killing the prophets while cherishing the spirit that led their fathers to those crimes, they testified against themselves as descendants in spirit. The prophets had brought messages from God to correct Israel and were slain at the instigation of the leaders because they denounced the sins of those in authority and the people refused reproof. In Christ's day the Jews lamented their humiliation under the Romans while priests and elders still cherished in their hearts the spirit that would lead them to commit the same crimes. Those who oppose and persecute God's messengers repeat the conduct of the Pharisees and thereby testify that they are children of the people who killed the prophets.
Building and honoring the tombs and monuments of the prophets while disregarding their teachings and warnings testifies against them and does not change their kinship with the prophets' killers. Their claim that they would not have joined their fathers was empty, for they shared the same rejection of God's messengers and followed the same path as those who killed the prophets. By honoring the prophets' tombs while rejecting their teachings and plotting to kill Jesus, they showed they were following their ancestors' course by rejecting Christ and planning His death. Honoring past witnesses while resisting truth and refusing obedience to God makes people witnesses against themselves, and their conduct reveals their kinship with those who persecuted God's messengers.
The verse describes people so spiritually blinded that they cannot discern the relative importance of the matters they need to understand. It belongs to Christ's description of those blinded to what matters most and unable to discern the relative importance of the things they should understand.
Hypocrisy Exposed in Detail
While building and honoring the tombs of the prophets their ancestors had killed, the scribes and Pharisees rejected present light, refused Christ, rejected His messengers, and plotted to kill Jesus Himself, and by that contradiction they followed the very path of their fathers. Their claim that they would not have joined their ancestors in shedding prophetic blood was overturned by their own deeds, for outward reverence for the prophets while rejecting their teachings and resisting the truth made them witnesses against themselves. In honoring past witnesses while refusing obedience to God they revealed kinship with those who persecuted God's messengers. In this they did even worse than their ancestors, sharing fully their persecuting spirit while opposing the greater Light in Jesus. Their refusal to obey truth when obedience required self-denial exposed that they were descendants in spirit as well as in blood. That outward respect and profession of righteousness concealed hearts full of deceit and iniquity. Religious profession was made a cloak for wrongdoing, and this is why the open sinner has more hope than the one who practices sin under a show of godliness. With authority and holy indignation their hypocrisy and dishonest practices were fearlessly laid bare, especially their teaching of human commandments as God's truth. The prophets had been sent with messages from God to correct Israel, yet they were slain at the instigation of the leaders because they denounced the sins of those in authority. It was refusal to be reproved, slighting of God's warnings, and folding sin closer to the heart that brought such guilt. Their real condition was laid bare in love and mercy, and persistence in wrongdoing was shown to bring certain retribution. That exposure came with righteous indignation yet without retaliation, free of retaliation while full of love and mercy toward those condemned.
Guilt, Accountability, and Judgment
That generation was not condemned merely for the sins of its ancestors, but because by repeating their evil practices it made their guilt its own. It rejected its own present warnings and mercies and light, persecuted the messengers God sent to it, and so became accountable for the same pattern of opposition as those who killed the prophets. That rejection brought responsibility for the light given through Jesus and placed those who refused Him under divine rebuke and judgment. The same condemnation rests on all who claim to represent Christ while denying Him by their lives, rejecting the light of truth and despising His mercy through selfishness and love of wealth or worldly honor.
Israel had refused to be reproved for iniquity, slighted God's warnings, and folded sin closer to the heart, and that course brought punishment in captivity to a heathen nation. The prophets had brought messages from God to correct Israel and were slain at the instigation of the leaders because they denounced the sins of those in authority and rebuked them. In Christ's day the Jews condemned their fathers for stoning the prophets yet were their children in spirit and deed, still cherishing in their hearts the spirit that would lead to the same crimes. Lamenting their humiliation under the Romans did not excuse the priests and elders for cherishing that murderous spirit.
Persistence in wrongdoing brings certain retribution, for the leaders' rejection of Jesus and their evil deeds laid bare their real condition and shared character with the prophets' killers. Their impenitence and opposition to truth and righteousness drew Christ's rebuke, and their rejection of the Son brought divine retribution for the light entrusted to them. Jerusalem's guilt included rejecting and killing the Son of God, and the city faced divine wrath. Those who follow the same course will likewise face God's rebuke.
That guilt could not be cleansed by animal sacrifices, because it was their own present rejection of warnings, mercies and messengers. Honoring monuments to the prophets did not change the leaders' kinship with their killers, since their own conduct testified that they were the persecutors' children. Their sinful neglect of the prophecies about the Messiah and their deference to worldly powers showed they had lost sight of the honor God offered them. Their supposed service to God sprang from forgetting their Creator and not knowing Him, for had they known God they would not have persecuted and killed the prophets. That false sense of superiority led them to kill the one who alone could give them life, and sin with resistance to God's authority brings judgment, warning against minimizing sin or questioning God's justice.
Christ's denunciation falls especially on religious profession used as a cloak for wrongdoing, on hypocritical professors who claim to follow God but bear no fruit to His glory. An open sinner has more hope than a hypocritical pretender who practices sin under a show of godliness. Christ calls His followers instead to deny self, take up the cross, and become fruit-bearers.
Prophecy Fulfilled and Repeated
In that setting Jesus foretold that they would kill and scourge and persecute prophets and other messengers sent to them. That prediction was fulfilled in the treatment of Christ himself and of the messengers God sent by the Jews. Their claim that they would not have joined their fathers in killing the prophets was contradicted by their own conduct, which showed they shared the persecuting character and spirit of those killers.
The influence of those religious leaders led the Jewish nation to reject Christ. The account identifies those leaders as heirs of the prophet-killing spirit when they reject clear evidence and oppose God's message. It shows that priests could turn lawful authority to unlawful ends, so that obedience to them became sin.
The same persecuting spirit could lead people in the last days to repeat those deeds. Those who nourish and cherish that spirit risk repeating their deeds and carrying out what Jesus condemned. The warning applies to anyone who appears righteous outwardly while inwardly clinging to hypocrisy and rejecting God's messengers.
Jesus had denounced the priests and scribes as hypocrites and murderers. Testimony that he had spoken against them in this way would not help secure a Roman conviction. Their own disputes between Pharisees and Sadducees also made such testimony useless to the Sadducees.
Warning to Later Generations
Christ's denunciations of the scribes and Pharisees and His warning not to follow blind leaders were recorded to admonish later generations, because the exaltation of human authority over conscience would continue to curse the church. His exposure of the rulers and elders to warn and condemn them was meant to reach people of every age and nation. Their treatment of the prophets exposed them as heirs to the same opposition to God's messengers, and that warning was preserved against leaders who claim undue authority and rule consciences.
The warning stands against exalting human authority over conscience, claiming undue authority, ruling consciences, and misusing religious authority over others. It stands against putting human plans and authority in God's place by those who take pride in their own authority, resist correction, and seek to rule others instead of learning from Jesus.
The verse warns anyone who appears righteous outwardly but is inwardly hypocritical, resists God's messengers, and opposes and persecutes them, thereby repeating the Pharisees' conduct. By claiming they would not have joined their fathers in killing the prophets, the scribes and Pharisees testified against themselves as their descendants in spirit, for their conduct exposed them as sharing the persecuting character of those who killed God's messengers. That prediction that messengers would be killed, scourged and persecuted was fulfilled in the Jews' treatment of Christ and the messengers God sent, and those who nourish the same spirit risk carrying out in the last days what Jesus condemned.
Its condemnation applies to people who claim to represent Christ but deny Him by selfish lives, reject the light of truth, and despise His mercy through selfishness and love of wealth or worldly honor. It falls on those who profess to have light far in advance of others while their works do not correspond with their profession, and on those who while claiming to serve God act with spiritual blindness, neglect justice, mercy and love, treat others unjustly, and condemn lesser faults while excusing serious wrongs of their own. Christ hates all vain pretense, yet ever treats the penitent with tenderness even though they had been the chief of sinners, while His denunciations fall heavily upon all hypocrisy.
Neglecting light and repeating Israel's unfaithfulness brings judgment, and Christ's woe against the Jews warns that the church that follows the same path is in an even more unfavorable position. When God's people fall away from their calling, join in works of darkness, and neglect the light they have received, they are left in darkness in a more unfavorable position than those Jews. Neglect to improve the light and opportunities granted leaves men and women in darkness, and those who have had great light and have failed to improve upon it are in a less favorable position for the perfection of Christian character than those from the darkness of error and a life of sin who gladly accept the truth when it is opened to their understanding and come to God in penitence. The ruling Pharisees manifested an exacting and intolerant spirit, rejected the Lord's reproof, and set the stumblingblock of their iniquity before their eyes, and the same judgments that fell upon them will fall upon all who continue to walk in that same path and reject reproof.
Appeal to fathers' religious practices and inherited religious practice did not excuse rejection of Christ, for their own words and actions testified to their kinship with those who had killed the prophets. Inherited practice is no proof of acceptance with God and no reason to resist further truth.
Those addressed must repent, deny self, take up the cross, and become fruit-bearers, for the warning applies to fruitless professors who claim to follow God but bear no fruit to His glory. There is more hope for an open sinner than for a hypocritical pretender. Those who follow a course of spiritual blindness, neglecting justice and mercy and dealing unjustly with others, will face the same denunciation and judgment unless they repent and improve light and opportunities. People in sacred positions of trust may likewise face Christ's judgment if they fail to reform their characters. Christ hates vain pretense but treats the penitent, even the chief of sinners, with tenderness.
With burning earnestness Christ denounced with terrible severity the abominations He saw in the church and in the world, exposing false claims to righteousness and sanctity so people would not be deceived. Therefore Christian missionaries and physicians are to stand in God-given manhood exercising freedom of speech and freedom of faith. They are to refuse to harmonize with wrong plans or to be cowered into silence by a masterful spirit, to refuse to affirm statements they know are not true, and to refuse to hear false statements and wrong sentiments without protest and correction, standing where no binding influence holds them speechless when wrong is expressed.
Christ spoke these words in the temple courts as part of His woes denouncing the scribes, Pharisees, priests and lawyers to expose their hypocrisy and warn them. By their own admission that they were the children of those who killed the prophets and would not have joined their fathers, they bore witness against themselves that they were the spiritual heirs of the prophet-killers, sharing their persecuting spirit, character and hostility toward God's messengers. Building and honoring the tombs and monuments of the prophets while disregarding their teachings did not change that kinship but testified further against them. While professing to honor past prophets they rejected present light, refused Christ and His messengers and plotted to kill Him, thus following the same path as their fathers and doing even worse when truth required self-denial. Their guilt was their own, not merely their ancestors', for repeating those evils and rejecting their own warnings and light, bringing certain retribution and judgment, and the warning was recorded to admonish every later generation not to exalt human authority, resist correction, or outwardly appear righteous while inwardly opposing God.
Setting and Self-Testimony
The verse belongs to Christ's denunciation and woes against the scribes, Pharisees, priests and lawyers, spoken in the temple courts to lay bare their character, expose their hypocrisy, and warn and condemn them. He spoke fearlessly with authority and holy indignation against leaders who taught human commandments as God's truth and practiced dishonesty. His teaching in that exposure was meant to reach people of every age and nation. Testimony that He had denounced the priests and scribes as hypocrites and murderers would not help secure a Roman conviction, and disputes between Pharisees and Sadducees made such testimony useless to the Sadducees.
By their own words and conduct the leaders are witnesses against themselves, for in claiming to be the children of those who killed the prophets and saying they would not have joined their fathers they identify themselves as those killers' children. Their honoring of the prophets' tombs while rejecting God's messengers reveals that they continue their ancestors' opposition and share their guilt and hostility toward God's messengers. Their actions identified them with the ancestors who killed the prophets, and Christ's denunciation of the church's abominations in this way exposed false claims to righteousness and sanctity so people would not be deceived. Their supposed service to God came from forgetting their Creator and not knowing Him, and their false sense of superiority led them to kill the one who alone could give them life.
Children here means spiritual heirs, for in spirit, character and deed they share the persecuting spirit and hostility of their ancestors toward God's messengers. By condemning their ancestors for killing the prophets while cherishing the spirit that led their fathers to those crimes, they testified against themselves as descendants in spirit. The prophets had brought messages from God to correct Israel and were slain at the instigation of the leaders because they denounced the sins of those in authority and the people refused reproof. In Christ's day the Jews lamented their humiliation under the Romans while priests and elders still cherished in their hearts the spirit that would lead them to commit the same crimes. Those who oppose and persecute God's messengers repeat the conduct of the Pharisees and thereby testify that they are children of the people who killed the prophets.
Building and honoring the tombs and monuments of the prophets while disregarding their teachings and warnings testifies against them and does not change their kinship with the prophets' killers. Their claim that they would not have joined their fathers was empty, for they shared the same rejection of God's messengers and followed the same path as those who killed the prophets. By honoring the prophets' tombs while rejecting their teachings and plotting to kill Jesus, they showed they were following their ancestors' course by rejecting Christ and planning His death. Honoring past witnesses while resisting truth and refusing obedience to God makes people witnesses against themselves, and their conduct reveals their kinship with those who persecuted God's messengers.
The verse describes people so spiritually blinded that they cannot discern the relative importance of the matters they need to understand. It belongs to Christ's description of those blinded to what matters most and unable to discern the relative importance of the things they should understand.
Hypocrisy Exposed in Detail
While building and honoring the tombs of the prophets their ancestors had killed, the scribes and Pharisees rejected present light, refused Christ, rejected His messengers, and plotted to kill Jesus Himself, and by that contradiction they followed the very path of their fathers. Their claim that they would not have joined their ancestors in shedding prophetic blood was overturned by their own deeds, for outward reverence for the prophets while rejecting their teachings and resisting the truth made them witnesses against themselves. In honoring past witnesses while refusing obedience to God they revealed kinship with those who persecuted God's messengers.
In this they did even worse than their ancestors, sharing fully their persecuting spirit while opposing the greater Light in Jesus. Their refusal to obey truth when obedience required self-denial exposed that they were descendants in spirit as well as in blood. That outward respect and profession of righteousness concealed hearts full of deceit and iniquity. Religious profession was made a cloak for wrongdoing, and this is why the open sinner has more hope than the one who practices sin under a show of godliness. With authority and holy indignation their hypocrisy and dishonest practices were fearlessly laid bare, especially their teaching of human commandments as God's truth.
The prophets had been sent with messages from God to correct Israel, yet they were slain at the instigation of the leaders because they denounced the sins of those in authority. It was refusal to be reproved, slighting of God's warnings, and folding sin closer to the heart that brought such guilt. Their real condition was laid bare in love and mercy, and persistence in wrongdoing was shown to bring certain retribution. That exposure came with righteous indignation yet without retaliation, free of retaliation while full of love and mercy toward those condemned.
Guilt, Accountability, and Judgment
That generation was not condemned merely for the sins of its ancestors, but because by repeating their evil practices it made their guilt its own. It rejected its own present warnings and mercies and light, persecuted the messengers God sent to it, and so became accountable for the same pattern of opposition as those who killed the prophets. That rejection brought responsibility for the light given through Jesus and placed those who refused Him under divine rebuke and judgment. The same condemnation rests on all who claim to represent Christ while denying Him by their lives, rejecting the light of truth and despising His mercy through selfishness and love of wealth or worldly honor.
Israel had refused to be reproved for iniquity, slighted God's warnings, and folded sin closer to the heart, and that course brought punishment in captivity to a heathen nation. The prophets had brought messages from God to correct Israel and were slain at the instigation of the leaders because they denounced the sins of those in authority and rebuked them. In Christ's day the Jews condemned their fathers for stoning the prophets yet were their children in spirit and deed, still cherishing in their hearts the spirit that would lead to the same crimes. Lamenting their humiliation under the Romans did not excuse the priests and elders for cherishing that murderous spirit.
Persistence in wrongdoing brings certain retribution, for the leaders' rejection of Jesus and their evil deeds laid bare their real condition and shared character with the prophets' killers. Their impenitence and opposition to truth and righteousness drew Christ's rebuke, and their rejection of the Son brought divine retribution for the light entrusted to them. Jerusalem's guilt included rejecting and killing the Son of God, and the city faced divine wrath. Those who follow the same course will likewise face God's rebuke.
That guilt could not be cleansed by animal sacrifices, because it was their own present rejection of warnings, mercies and messengers. Honoring monuments to the prophets did not change the leaders' kinship with their killers, since their own conduct testified that they were the persecutors' children. Their sinful neglect of the prophecies about the Messiah and their deference to worldly powers showed they had lost sight of the honor God offered them. Their supposed service to God sprang from forgetting their Creator and not knowing Him, for had they known God they would not have persecuted and killed the prophets. That false sense of superiority led them to kill the one who alone could give them life, and sin with resistance to God's authority brings judgment, warning against minimizing sin or questioning God's justice.
Christ's denunciation falls especially on religious profession used as a cloak for wrongdoing, on hypocritical professors who claim to follow God but bear no fruit to His glory. An open sinner has more hope than a hypocritical pretender who practices sin under a show of godliness. Christ calls His followers instead to deny self, take up the cross, and become fruit-bearers.
Prophecy Fulfilled and Repeated
In that setting Jesus foretold that they would kill and scourge and persecute prophets and other messengers sent to them. That prediction was fulfilled in the treatment of Christ himself and of the messengers God sent by the Jews. Their claim that they would not have joined their fathers in killing the prophets was contradicted by their own conduct, which showed they shared the persecuting character and spirit of those killers.
The influence of those religious leaders led the Jewish nation to reject Christ. The account identifies those leaders as heirs of the prophet-killing spirit when they reject clear evidence and oppose God's message. It shows that priests could turn lawful authority to unlawful ends, so that obedience to them became sin.
The same persecuting spirit could lead people in the last days to repeat those deeds. Those who nourish and cherish that spirit risk repeating their deeds and carrying out what Jesus condemned. The warning applies to anyone who appears righteous outwardly while inwardly clinging to hypocrisy and rejecting God's messengers.
Jesus had denounced the priests and scribes as hypocrites and murderers. Testimony that he had spoken against them in this way would not help secure a Roman conviction. Their own disputes between Pharisees and Sadducees also made such testimony useless to the Sadducees.
Warning to Later Generations
Christ's denunciations of the scribes and Pharisees and His warning not to follow blind leaders were recorded to admonish later generations, because the exaltation of human authority over conscience would continue to curse the church. His exposure of the rulers and elders to warn and condemn them was meant to reach people of every age and nation. Their treatment of the prophets exposed them as heirs to the same opposition to God's messengers, and that warning was preserved against leaders who claim undue authority and rule consciences.
The warning stands against exalting human authority over conscience, claiming undue authority, ruling consciences, and misusing religious authority over others. It stands against putting human plans and authority in God's place by those who take pride in their own authority, resist correction, and seek to rule others instead of learning from Jesus.
The verse warns anyone who appears righteous outwardly but is inwardly hypocritical, resists God's messengers, and opposes and persecutes them, thereby repeating the Pharisees' conduct. By claiming they would not have joined their fathers in killing the prophets, the scribes and Pharisees testified against themselves as their descendants in spirit, for their conduct exposed them as sharing the persecuting character of those who killed God's messengers. That prediction that messengers would be killed, scourged and persecuted was fulfilled in the Jews' treatment of Christ and the messengers God sent, and those who nourish the same spirit risk carrying out in the last days what Jesus condemned.
Its condemnation applies to people who claim to represent Christ but deny Him by selfish lives, reject the light of truth, and despise His mercy through selfishness and love of wealth or worldly honor. It falls on those who profess to have light far in advance of others while their works do not correspond with their profession, and on those who while claiming to serve God act with spiritual blindness, neglect justice, mercy and love, treat others unjustly, and condemn lesser faults while excusing serious wrongs of their own. Christ hates all vain pretense, yet ever treats the penitent with tenderness even though they had been the chief of sinners, while His denunciations fall heavily upon all hypocrisy.
Neglecting light and repeating Israel's unfaithfulness brings judgment, and Christ's woe against the Jews warns that the church that follows the same path is in an even more unfavorable position. When God's people fall away from their calling, join in works of darkness, and neglect the light they have received, they are left in darkness in a more unfavorable position than those Jews. Neglect to improve the light and opportunities granted leaves men and women in darkness, and those who have had great light and have failed to improve upon it are in a less favorable position for the perfection of Christian character than those from the darkness of error and a life of sin who gladly accept the truth when it is opened to their understanding and come to God in penitence. The ruling Pharisees manifested an exacting and intolerant spirit, rejected the Lord's reproof, and set the stumblingblock of their iniquity before their eyes, and the same judgments that fell upon them will fall upon all who continue to walk in that same path and reject reproof.
Appeal to fathers' religious practices and inherited religious practice did not excuse rejection of Christ, for their own words and actions testified to their kinship with those who had killed the prophets. Inherited practice is no proof of acceptance with God and no reason to resist further truth.
Those addressed must repent, deny self, take up the cross, and become fruit-bearers, for the warning applies to fruitless professors who claim to follow God but bear no fruit to His glory. There is more hope for an open sinner than for a hypocritical pretender. Those who follow a course of spiritual blindness, neglecting justice and mercy and dealing unjustly with others, will face the same denunciation and judgment unless they repent and improve light and opportunities. People in sacred positions of trust may likewise face Christ's judgment if they fail to reform their characters. Christ hates vain pretense but treats the penitent, even the chief of sinners, with tenderness.
With burning earnestness Christ denounced with terrible severity the abominations He saw in the church and in the world, exposing false claims to righteousness and sanctity so people would not be deceived. Therefore Christian missionaries and physicians are to stand in God-given manhood exercising freedom of speech and freedom of faith. They are to refuse to harmonize with wrong plans or to be cowered into silence by a masterful spirit, to refuse to affirm statements they know are not true, and to refuse to hear false statements and wrong sentiments without protest and correction, standing where no binding influence holds them speechless when wrong is expressed.