PHARISEES AND SADDUCEES
Elder Joe Nettles
John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness of Judea in the days of Christ. What about this man? We can read an account of his birth and purpose in the gospel according to Luke. Basically, his purpose was revealed as the fulfillment of the prophecy of Isaiah 40:33: “The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.”
In making his paths straight and preparing the way of the Lord, it was his calling to preach repentance to the rebellious and stiffnecked (proud) Jews who, for the most part, had become very worldly and self-righteous. John commanded repentance and baptism as an open token of that belief in the Lord of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and their transgression against Him. Included in these expressions of repentance was also the declaration and warning that “the kingdom of heaven is at hand” or very near. John was proclaiming to the Jews that Jesus, the blessed fulfillment of the promises of God unto them, was here!
This good news (gospel) was great news to some among the Jews. The poor, meek and down-trodden remnant that faithfully had been seeking the Promised One rejoiced and gladly came forward in acknowledgment of their failures and need of a Saviour. They did not have any grand organization or institution with which they were identifying themselves. They just desired God and his glory. Therefore, many came to repent and be baptized by this wild-looking prophet of God.
To some, however, this message of repentance was not welcome. They did not see themselves as disobedient or contrary to God’s holy law. They rested their hopes of eternal life and blessings upon the fact that they had genealogies proving their physical relation to Abraham. The problem was that they had no spiritual relation to Abraham. They were just as alienated from God as so many of the heathens that they loved to condemn and snub. These men primarily were associated with either the Pharisees or the Sadducees.
The Pharisees, the foremost persecutors of Jesus, were a religious group of Jews that were outwardly zealous for the law of Moses above all other people in existence in that day. They were proud of the fact that they tithed, prayed and studied more than any of the other Jews. They perceived themselves as in obedience to the Law to the point that they even started adding new laws and observances. This manifested their pride and self-righteousness more than anything. Why? because Paul (himself a leader among the Pharisees before his regeneration and conversion to follow Christ Jesus) expressed the experience of the born-again in Romans 7:9-10: “For I was alive without the law once: but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died. And the commandment, which was ordained to life, I found to be unto death.” Paul here expressed that there was a time when he felt no guilt, or was “alive,” in relation to the law of God. Ironically, this was when he was a Pharisee and was most zealously advocating the Law as his hope of righteousness before God. He saw laws written in stone tablets, which he perceived himself as keeping blamelessly. However, when the Lord gave the new birth and the condemnation of the law was written in his heart, he saw himself as a worthless sinner and in need of a Saviour. He saw himself at that point as being worthy of everlasting death (punishment). As he expressed it above, he “died.” But, praise God, the only way he saw himself as worthy of death was when he already had received the new life!
The Sadducees were no less proud and errant, but in a different way. They were the educational upper crust among the Jews. They were comprised mainly of the priests (those who served in the Temple) and scribes (those who were charged with copying the Scriptures). Sadducees did not believe in the resurrection of the dead, in angels or in the after life. How pathetic and disobedient were they to disregard the teaching of the Scriptures! They were also major persecutors of Christ.
Please notice how the more things change, the more they stay the same. Can you see any similarities in the errors of the Pharisees and Sadducees as compared to the educational elite and religious establishment of today? Lord, help us to see the strait gate and narrow way and walk in it!