NEW TESTAMENT CONTEXTUAL COMMENTARY

by Dr. Robert R. Seyda

GOSPEL OF MATTHEW

CHAPTER THREE

Part III (con’t)

The Pharasees and Sadducees were almost direct opposites in their beliefs, yet so often we find them together in their opposition of Jesus. While the devil tempted Jesus in the wilderness with hunger, pride and greed, his method during our Lord’s ministry was through constant criticism, harassment, and resistance. He is more about who the Sadducees really were:

SADDUCEES: The name comes from the singular form of an adjective denoting someone as “an adherent of the Bene Ẓadoḳ,” the chief of the priesthood in the days of David and Solomon and who developed the Temple hierarchy all through the era of the First and Second Temples, down to the days of Ben Sira,¹ but who degenerated under the influence of Greek thought, especially during the rule of Seleucus, when to be a follower of the priestly aristocracy was tantamount to being a worldly-minded philosopher. The Sadducees represented views and practices of the Law and interests of Temple and priesthood directly opposite to those of the Pharisees. Over the course of time, the name applied to all the aristocratic circles connected with the high priests by marriage and other social relations, as only the highest noble families intermarried with the priests officiating at the Temple in Jerusalem. The Sadducees, says Josephus, have none but the rich on their side.² Rabbi Yehudah HaLevi also speaks of the Sadducees and their origin. He states: “…the next generation was that of the High Priest Simon the Just, and his disciples and colleagues. He was followed by Antigonos of Socho of great fame. Among his disciples were Tsadok and Boethos, who set down the foundations for the sects named after them as ‘Sadducees’ or ‘Boethusians.’” He goes on to say, “they were heretical sectarians who denied the World to Come; they are the heretics for whom we pray for their downfall in our prayers.”³ This is why they were so opposed to the teachings of Jesus on the world and life to come, especially the term, “eternal life.” One Christian Bishop in the 4^th Century AD acknowledged: “Sadducees, meaning ‘most righteous,’ are descended from the Samaritans and from a priest named Zadok. They denied the resurrection of the dead and did not recognize the existence of angels or spirits. But in all other respects they were Jews.”⁴ Some feel that this Bishop was incorrect about the name meaning “most righteous.” However, he may have been using that as a term to describe their attitude. In his section on Samaritans and the Samaritan Sects, this same Bishop goes on to explain: “…these did not stay true to their master’s teaching. They rejected the resurrection of the dead and held the same opinion as other Samaritans’. They do not admit the existence of angels, although their fellow Samaritans deny this. And they do not know the Holy Spirit, for they have not been deemed worthy of Him. All their observances are just like the Samaritans’. But they were Jews, not Samaritans; for they offered sacrifices in Jerusalem, and cooperated with Jews in everything else.”⁵ Another revered Rabbi adds this: “Antigonus of Soko received this traditional saying from Simon the Just who said: ‘Be not like hirelings who work for their master for the sake of receiving recompense; but be like servants who minister to their master without any thought of receiving a reward; and let the fear of Heaven be upon you’.”⁶ In looking at the teachings of the Sadducees, especially their questions of Jesus, we can see how they followed or ignored the teachings of their founders. In speaking of them, John the Baptizer did not choose the term “offspring of vipers” arbitrarily. He was well aware of the implications of such a phrase. The devil had been identified as the embodiment of a snake since the Garden of Eden. In other words, he was calling them children of the devil. Christ also added to this by giving them the same name when He told them that Satan the liar was their father. There was no intention here of claiming that Satan had somehow been able to plant his seed in their mothers’ wombs. Rather, both John and Jesus were referring to their innate tendency to lie and attempt to use falsehoods as the truth, despite what God already said about it, something the devil still does quite well. Could it be that John the Baptizer recalled what King David said: “Those wicked people started doing wrong as soon as they were born. They have been liars from birth. Their anger is as deadly as the poison of a snake. They shut their ears like a deaf cobra that does not listen to the music of the snake charmers, no matter how well they play.”⁷ John did not support the idea of cheap grace. He no doubt refused to baptize anyone who did not show contrition and repent of their sins with a vow to live better to the glory of God.

Verse 9: “I know what you are thinking. You can’t wait to say, ‘but Abraham is our father!’ That means nothing to me. Let me tell you something, God could make sons for Abraham from these stones.”

John the Baptizer’s anger here is not against Abraham or his progeny, but rather the egotistical claims of the Pharisees and Sadducees that as children of Abraham they were in no need of repentance. To show his utter contempt for such thinking, John the Baptizer stated rather sarcastically: “God could carve children of Abraham out of stone,” who also would have no need for repentance because they would be cold and heartless. What John implied is that whether these Pharisee’s or Sadducee’s were made by God out of human flesh or out of the pebbles along the beach, neither one stood above the other by simply claiming their kinship with Abraham; both would still need repentance in order to receive God’s forgiveness. They were in John the Baptizer’s eyes, not better than dead idols. The idea of ancestral or inherited righteousness to dismiss any need for being born again should be equally denounced today.

One renown Jewish convert to Christianity and great Biblical scholar made this statement: “For, no principle was more fully established in the popular conviction, than that all Israel had part in the World to Come, and this, specifically, because of their connection with Abraham. This appears not only in the New Testament,⁸ but from the writings of Philo, Josephus, and in many Rabbinic passages. In fact, ‘The merits of the Fathers,’ is one of the most common phrases in the mouth of the Rabbis.⁹ Abraham was represented as sitting at the gate of Gehenna, to deliver any Israelite who otherwise might have been consigned to its terrors. In fact, by their being descendants of Abraham all the children of Israel were nobles, infinitely higher than any person not born a Jew, even converts from paganism. The Jewish convert mention earlier goes on to say: “‘What,’ exclaims the Talmud, ‘shall the born Israelite stand upon the earth, and the proselyte be in heaven?’ In fact, the ships on the sea were preserved through the merit of Abraham; the rain descended on account of it. For his sake alone had Moses been allowed to ascend into heaven, and to receive the Law; for his sake the sin of the golden calf had been forgiven; his righteousness had on many occasions been the support of Israel’s cause; Daniel had been heard for the sake of Abraham; nay, his merit availed even for the wicked. In its extravagance the Midrash thus punctuates Abraham’s effect: “If your children were even morally dead bodies, without blood vessels or bones, your merit would still be efficient to save them!’”¹⁰

My father often told how his father, a Lutheran pastor, reacted when he informed him that he had been born again and become a Pentecostal believer. His father said: “Born again! You don’t need to be born again! You were born a Lutheran, christened as a child in the Lutheran Church, and raised a Lutheran and went through Lutheran catechism. That’s all you need to get to heaven!” Thankfully, later they reconciled and his father admitted that my dad’s born again experience had done wonders for his life. One Jewish writer tells us that the use of “stones” and “sons” in our text is a good alliteration to preserve a wordplay found in Hebrew that the Greek totally ignores. “Sons” in Hebrew is banim, “stones” is written abanim.¹¹ We can see a similar play on words in the writings of Amos: “ADONAI asked, ‘Amos, what do you see?’ I answered, ‘A basket of summer fruit.’ Then ADONAI said to me, ‘The harvest has come for my people, I will never again overlook their offenses.”¹² To put this in English prose and make it more understandable we could say: “The basket held the last fruit of the harvest being offered by God’s people as an act of repentance in order to receive forgiveness, and at the same time it represented as God’s last act of forgiveness being given to His people.”

Verse 10: “The ax is now ready to cut down the trees. Every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.”

The grammatical reference to the word “tree” as used in this verse, shows that the ax has already been placed and is laying next to the tree’s roots ready for use; just waiting for someone to come along and pick it up and put it to use. Jesus employed this same metaphor in His teaching.¹³ Since John the Baptizer was sent to herald the coming of the Messiah, the One with the ax was in fact already on His way. It can be expressed as follows: John the Baptizer was giving the Jews an opportunity to turn from their sins and begin to live for God in all their ways, because there was One to succeed him who would put an ax to their hypocritical way of living.

What John the Baptizer says here has a tone reminiscent of what the prophet Malachi said: “The Lord All-Powerful says, ‘I am sending my messenger to prepare the way for me. Then suddenly, the Lord you are looking for will come to His temple. Yes, the messenger you are waiting for, the one who will tell about my agreement, is really coming! No one can prepare for that time or stand against him when he comes. He will be like a burning fire. He will be like the strong soap people use to make things clean. He will make the Levites clean. He will make them pure, like silver is made pure with fire! He will make them pure like gold and silver. Then they will bring gifts to the Lord, and they will do things the right way. Then the Lord will accept the gifts from Judah and Jerusalem. It will be as it was in the past—as the time long ago. Then I will bring you to justice. I will be an expert witness and testify about the evil things people do. I will speak out against those who do evil magic or commit adultery. I will speak out against those who make false promises and cheat their workers and don’t pay them the money they promised. I will testify against those who don’t help strangers, or widows and orphans. And I will testify against those who don’t respect me.’ This is what the Lord All-Powerful said.”¹⁴

This warning, certainly went against the traditional thinking of that day. In Jewish writings on the coming of the Messiah, we find this comment: “Never allow your lips to utter any evil words and thereby sin in the very flesh which has been sanctified with the seal of the holy covenant, for by so doing you are in danger of being thrown into a burning pit made for evil and wrong-doing, the ruler of which is called Council Assembly [Duma] and is always operated by angels of destruction, keeping watch out for those who keep the covenant over whom they have no power to injure or afflict.”¹⁵ In other words, if you keep the covenant, destroying angels cannot touch you. Therefore you need not fear the place called Gehenna.

We also find in the Jewish Book of Light examples of the two classes of those who keep the covenant and those who break it. They explain: “Examples and instances of these two classes of individuals are found in the history of mankind. In the first category, were the famed teacher Hillel, president of the school of Jerusalem at the beginning of the Christian era, with his colleague Schammai. Their only object was the research of truth and the advancement of the divine glory, and though their disputes were very keen and sharp, yet friendship and good will always existed between them. In the second group, as an example, are Korah and his party and their contention with Aaron for supremacy, which resulted in their destruction and descent into Hell, the limbo and native place of dissension and discord.”¹⁶ Finally in the same Book of Light we find a quote from a respected Rabbi who says: “…hell itself will vanish; suffering, sin, temptation and death will be outlived by humanity and then be followed by an eternal feast, a Sabbath without end.”¹⁷

So we can see why those who felt as though they were keeping the covenant were offended by John the Baptizer’s warning that they too were headed for Gehenna’s fire if they did not repent and accept the new covenant that would be brought by the Messiah who would follow him. As a young boy growing up during World War II, I often heard the phrase, “Foxhole confessions.” It was coined to represent what happened when soldiers found themselves hiding in their foxholes which they dug as a means of protection, and as mortar shells came pounding in and gun fire screamed over their heads they would pray: “Oh God, get me out of this and I will serve you for the rest of my life.” The phrase foxhole confession became a stigma in that many who prayed those prayers never did what they promised God they would do. This is repeated today, but not in foxholes, but in automobile accidents, being lost and marooned in a snow storm, facing some dilemma at work or at home, etc. There is no need to wait for tragedy or terror to bring one to their knees in confession, but recognizing that one’s hope of eternal life can be secured by faith in Christ, then no matter what happens all is well with one’s soul.