Ministry At The Temple Completed

JESUS is making his last appearance at the temple. In fact, he is concluding his public ministry on earth except for the events of his trial and execution, which are in three days in the future. Now he continues his castigation of the scribes and the Pharisees. Three more times he exclaims: "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!" First, he proclaims woe on them because they cleanse "the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside they are full of plunder and immoderateness." So he admonishes: "Cleanse first the inside of the cup and of the dish, that the outside of it also may become clean."

Next he pronounces woe on on the scribes and the Pharisees for the inner rottenness and putrefaction that they attempt to hide by outward piety. "You resemble whitewashed graves," he says, "which outwardly indeed appear beautiful but inside are full of dead men's bones and of every sort of uncleanness."

Finally, their hypocrisy is manifest in their willingness to build tombs for the prophets and decorate them to draw attention to their own deeds of charity. Yet, as Jesus reveals, they "are sons of those who murdered the prophets." Indeed anyone who dares expose their hypocrisy is in danger!

Going on, Jesus utters his strongest words of denunciation. "Serpents, offspring of vipers," he says, "how are you to flee from the judgment of Gehenna?" Gehenna is the valley used as the garbage dump of Jerusalem. So Jesus is saying that for pursuing their wicked course, the scribes and the Pharisees will suffer everlasting destruction.

Regarding those whom he sends forth as his representation, Jesus says: "Some of them you will kill and impale, and some of them you will scourge in your synagogues and persecute from city to city; that there may come upon you all the righteous blood spilled on earth from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah son of Barachiah [called Jehoiada in Second Chronicles], whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar. Truly I say to you, All these things will come upon this generation."

Next time: Conclusion Of Ministry At The Temple Completed

The Greatest Man Who Ever Lived, 1991