Using the words of the Lord Jesus, we have been berating the Pharisees for the last several weeks. Our focus has been narrowed to one group of people, and since that was the focus of Christ, we have not done anything amiss. “Woe unto you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites…..” But for this message today, I’d like us to widen our vision. What was specifically true of that sect of the Jews, is more commonly true of ALL of us. “Woe unto you … for ye make clean the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within they are full of extortion and excess. Woe unto you … for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men’s bones, and of all uncleanness.”
Our subject for this morning is foundational to the gospel. The problem between these people and Christ lay in the fact that the Pharisees believed that they were righteous men, and they didn’t need the Saviour. “For they being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, (refused to submit) unto the righteousness of God.” They had cleaned up the outside of the bowl, polishing it to a glistering shine, but inside was left-over meat covered with maggots and flies. They painted the rocks around the outside of the local tombs, but their white-wash didn’t change the nature of the rotting flesh inside. Some of them were morally spotless before their neighbors, but the omniscient God, knew that their hearts were nothing but decaying spiritual death. “Even so ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity.” When someone doesn’t realize the nature of sin, and that they themselves are sinners before God, then those people will not come to Christ for deliverance. And this is why the doctrine of sin – “hamartiology” – is foundational to the gospel of Christ.
How do think those Pharisees felt and responded as the Lord continued to expose their hearts? Wasn’t their wrath – hatred – fury – growing with each syllable out of the Lord’s mouth? While it should be humbling, in reality doctrine of sin is an infuriating subject – it is hated – not just by Pharisees, but by all men in general. Our church has a published doctrinal statement and under the heading: “The Fall of Man” it says: “We believe that man, originally created in holiness and actually associated with God in innocence under His law, did, by voluntary transgression of the Lord’s command, fall from the high and happy state in which he was created, and, as a consequence, became a sinner alienated from God, and brought upon himself and all mankind just condemnation; and that he is now, by virtue of his fallen nature, utterly void of holiness, positively inclined to evil, and actually condemned to eternal ruin, without defense or excuse.” The average person doesn’t want to hear that humanity was originally created by God. He doesn’t want to hear that he isn’t evolving into an higher and happier state. He doesn’t want to hear that he is alienated from God or condemned. And he certainly doesn’t want to be told that he is positively inclined to evil. Those are humiliating words – “them are fight’n words.” Perhaps so, but they are also Biblical words and principles.
I have no doubt that the genius of deity often used simple sentences to combine ideas and lessons. Christ may have pointed to the sepulchres – the tombs – of the Jews, saying that they illustrate hypocrisy. But those sepulchres go farther, illustrating the true state of man – the spiritual death in which we all exist without Christ.
Those Pharisees, along with all the rest of mankind, carried death in their hearts.
Of course, God created the first pair of humans without sin. Adam was initially innocent – righteous in a sense, but not in the fullest sense of the word, because true righteousness isn’t revealed until it is tested. When his wife pressured him to disobey God, Adam made a deliberate choice to disbelieve and disobey his Creator: “And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” Now, what resulted on the fateful day that Adam ate of that fruit, has confused a lot of people. He died, but at the same time he didn’t. Adam’s heart didn’t stop beating; lightning didn’t strike, and his brain-functions continued to work although in a different way. Physically, Adam lived until he died – about 900 years later. But actually he did die on the day that he disobeyed God and ate that fruit – inevitably and spiritually. This death was not immediately physical, but it was just as real as physical – the poison of sin began flowing through his veins and his spirit instantly died. Those sepulchres to which Jesus referred give proof to the existence of the corruption in our hearts. They are posthumous proof to the death which is in us from the moment we are born.
A week ago yesterday, Judy was fixing chicken for last week’s church fellowship meal. She usually puts meat wrappers and trays in plastic bags before she throws them into the trash, but we think that the bags fell open that day or perhaps they were somehow torn. By Tuesday, our big trash container started to stink; Wednesday it was worse, and by Thursday it was unbearable. Built into every piece of chicken – every slice of beef – every living thing – every human being is corruption. And that corruption had its origination when Adam sinned against God.
Genesis 5 summarizes Adam’s life with these words: “This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made he him; Male and female created he them; and blessed them, and called their name Adam, in the day when they were created. And Adam lived an hundred and thirty years, and begat a son in his own likeness, after his image; and called his name Seth: And the days of Adam after he had begotten Seth were eight hundred years: and he begat sons and daughters: And all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years: and he died.” When Adam had completed his 960 years, I wonder how he died? Do you suppose that God came to him one day and said, “All right Adam, you’ve had enough, now it’s time for you to leave this world”? I doubt it. Do you think that he was out on the family tractor, plowing up the back forty, and it rolled over on him? My guess is that he simply got old – weaker and weaker – until his heart stopped beating, and he died. If I’m wrong about that, I’m wrong, and there is no harm done, but that is my guess. Before his death Adam begat a son who was very much like himself in a great many ways. Would you like to know the summary of the life of Seth, Adam’s son? It too is found in Genesis 5. “And Seth lived an hundred and five years, and begat Enos: And Seth lived after he begat Enos eight hundred and seven years, and begat sons and daughters: And all the days of Seth were nine hundred and twelve years: and he died.” Seth died, and so did Enos, and Enos’ sons and grandsons and all the children of the next thousand generations.
Why were there those tombs among the Jews? Why could Jesus point to the sepulchres of Israel and say that they were illustrations of Pharisaical hearts? Because every child of Adam has been born a sinner when Adam chose to become a sinner. All his children were born with the corruption to which Jesus refers here. They were all born spiritually dead. Apart from the miraculous birth of Jesus of Nazareth, there hasn’t been a child born to whom the sin of Adam has not been imputed, implanted or passed on. There are a great many scriptures which could be used to prove that statement, but Romans 5:12 is so conclusive that none other is really needed. “Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.” This verse is saying that all the children of Adam and Eve sinned when Adam sinned. And the proof of that can be seen in the absolute universality of physical death.
Fifteen months ago, I woke up displaying the symptoms of shingles. For more than fifty years I had been carrying the shingles virus around in my body. You could call it the death virus, because some shingles sufferers wish they could die. Without warning – apparently at the command of God – that virus erupted, and I was struck down. “It is appointed unto men once to die, and after this the judgment.”
Is this doctrine of imputed sin pleasing to the ear? Absolutely not! “If I am going to be sent to hell,” the unbeliever says, “I want to be responsible for it myself.” Well sir, in one sense of the word, you are. But at the same time, the father of your family made a decision which has affected every member of your family. If that doctrine bothers you, it might ease your mind to know that deliverance from sin, comes through the same sort of means – the imputation of the righteousness and eternal life of another – the Lord Jesus Christ. If someone hates the idea that Adam sinned as the representative of all his children, then he will logically have to hate the doctrine that Jesus’ died to save all of His chosen children. You can’t have the second without taking the first. The imputation of Christ’s righteousness to God’s adopted children is the Lord’s reply to the imputation of Adam’s sin to his children.
Getting back to the Pharisees, why were they such hypocrites about these things…..
Because the sin in us exposes itself in hypocrisy – among other sins.
In addition to the imputation of Adam’s sin, we are under the corruptive influence of sin. For the sake of argument, let’s say that my first point this morning isn’t true and never happened. Let’s say that there is no such thing as imputed sin or spiritual death as a result. The fact remains that we have all directly sinned and personally come short of the glory of God.
There is a compulsion within our hearts which often defies logic – it demands that we sin. Just look at those Pharisees as examples. Oh, once in a while, we are strong enough to tell that compulsion to sit down and shut up, but there have been times innumerable when we have submitted to the dictates of our sinfulness. And when that occurs, what do we do? We often cover ourselves with hypocrisy.
Has there ever been a time in your life, when you were dominated by a bully? Perhaps it was an older child in your family; perhaps it was a mean youngster in the play ground. Perhaps there were threats involved or even weapons. He, or she, demanded that you give up your candy or your toy; your lunch money; your wallet or something even more precious. Even if that has never been true physically, if you look closely, you’ll see that something in your own heart has been an evil dictator and bully towards you. I’m talking about the sin which resides within you.
Isn’t this to what Paul was referring in Romans 7? “For we know that the law is spiritual: but I am carnal, sold under sin. For that which I do I allow not: for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I. If then I do that which I would not, I consent unto the law that it is good. Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not. For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do. Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me. For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?”
We are all under the compulsion of sin.
To put it another way, we find ourselves under the SUBJUGATION of sin.
There are all kinds of addictions to which people are prone. For example, last Thursday morning, my alarm didn’t go off, and I woke up twenty minutes late. Because of some morning responsibilities, I had missed the small window I usually squeeze through to get some exercise. As a general rule, I feel guilty when I don’t get my exercise. The truth seems to be that I am addicted to that part of my life and if I don’t get it, I suffer from some sort of withdrawal for the rest of the day. Of course, I might be living in personal denial: But I know some people whose exercise addiction is clearly evil and sinful. Not only do they exercise, but they spend hundreds of dollars and even the Lord’s tithe buying equipment or time at the gym. And instead of attending the house of God on the Lord’s day, you can find them at the gym working on their health. I think that MY addiction doesn’t contain sin, because I’m not sacrificing my service to the Lord in doing it – or so I tell myself.
There are addictions which are clearly sinful. I believe that addiction to tobacco and alcohol are sinful addictions. I know people who are addicted to lying, to the point you can’t be sure what they are saying is the truth. There is addiction to fornication in various forms, and some people are addicted to gambling and stealing. Such people are under the subjugation of those sins – they are enslaved by them. They can’t escape them if they really want to, but of course they don’t really want to escape, because that is a part of the addiction – or the corruption. “What then? are we better than they? No, in no wise: for we … they are all under sin.”
Again, what about those Jewish sepulchres?
What is POSTHUMOUSLY PROVEN in this equation?
Let me take you back a week to that ubiquitous word in Matthew chapter 23 – “Woe, woe, woe.” As I pointed out it is an expression of grief, mourning, disaster. When the Son of God pronounces “woe” it’s time to worry about lightning strikes and divinely directed meteors.
There is a penalty for sin – every sin, from the least to the greatest. That penalty is eternal death, and it is illustrated in all those Jewish and American sepulchres and graves. From the dozens of scriptures which we would use to press the point, I need only Romans 6:23 – “The wages of sin is death.”
The point is this – even though the conclusion of this condemnation may be carried out at some time in the future, the its reality is already in place. Even though our death and burial may be years away, without Christ Jesus the Saviour, we are, right now, spiritually dead. “He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him.” “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.” In other words, unless we are abiding under God’s saving grace, we are already under the condemnation of sin.
If there isn’t evidence of salvation – seen in repentance of sin and faith in Christ – then you, my friend are still under the condemnation for your sins. Woe be unto you. It were better if you had not been born, than for you to leave this world still in your hypocrisy and sin. We are all under sin, but by the grace of the Lord, there is escape. As the Lord gives you an understanding of sin and a broken heart for your sins against God… As the Holy Spirit grants you faith to trust what Christ Jesus did on the cross to save sinners like you and me, believe Him and put your confidence in Him. Repent of your sins and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.