The Condemnation of the Religious Leaders, Part 4

Jim ButlerMatthew 23:25–28

Matthew 23:25–28 presents Jesus' sixth and seventh woes against the scribes and Pharisees, condemning their emphasis on outward religious compliance while their hearts remain filled with extortion, self-indulgence, hypocrisy, and lawlessness. The cup and the whitewashed tomb function as related analogies: both expose the fatal gap between external religiosity and inward moral corruption, with the tomb analogy adding that such teachers actively defile those who come under their influence. The sermon draws the contrast through the Old Testament's consistent demand for heart religion — from the Shema to the prophets — and presses the application that the only cleansing of the inward cup comes through faith in the blood of Christ. Believers are warned equally against the twin errors of antinomianism and mere externalism, since justification produces progressive sanctification that reforms the outside as well as the inside.