Matthew 23:29-39

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Introduction

29 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you build the tombs of the prophets and decorate the monuments of the righteous, 30 saying, ‘If we had lived in the days of our fathers, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.’ 31 Thus you witness against yourselves that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets. 32 Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers. 33 You serpents, you brood of vipers, how are you to escape being sentenced to hell? 34 Therefore I send you prophets and wise men and scribes, some of whom you will kill and crucify, and some you will flog in your synagogues and persecute from town to town, 35 so that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah the son of Barachiah, whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar. 36 Truly, I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation.

Lament over Jerusalem

37 “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! 38 See, your house is left to you desolate. 39 For I tell you, you will not see me again, until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.’ ”

This week we wrap up Jesus’ seven oracles of doom, or his seven oracles of woe. They are seven pronouncement of judgement against Israel's religious leaders, particularly the scribes and Pharisees. It’s the climax of the Jesus’ confrontation with Israel’s religious leaders that’ll ultimately culminate in his own death, they’ll plot and capture him in secret, and eventually deliver him over to the Roman government to have him killed.
In these seven woes Jesus highlights the depth of their religious hypocrisy. He says that they don’t practice what they preach, that they practice their deeds in public to be seen by others, to sit at the best seats of the synagogues, that they love the glory that comes from man rather than the glory that come from God, that they exalt themselves at every opportunity.
In his first woe he says that they shut the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces, and that they refuse to allow anyone inside, doing so by rejecting Jesus, Israel’s Messiah, who is the way the truth and the life. In the second woe he says that they’ll travel across land and sea to make a disciple, only to make them twice as much a child of hell as themselves. Then in the third woe he tells them that they’re blind guides, leading others even to sin, by distorting God’s law, their legalism binding others where God has not, and giving permission where God has not. In the fourth woe he tells them that they’ve been so careful to follow the law that they’ll strain out a gnat to avoid swallowing an unclean animal, yet only to turn around and swallow a camel, the largest of unclean animals, that they neglect the weightier matters of the law, such as justice and mercy and faithfulness. Then in the fifth woe he tells them that they’re keen to wash the outside of the cup but within they’re still full of greed and self-indulgence. That they care only of how other’s perceive them, how they look on the outside, but that they remain unclean on the inside. And similarly, in the sixth woe Jesus calls them whitewashed tombs, that they appear beautiful, but within they’re full of dead people’s bones, outwardly appearing righteous to others, yet within are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.

The 7th woe

Then finally we reach our text today, Jesus’ seventh and final woe. And with it Jesus moves away from their specific failures, and individual examples of hypocrisy, to their more general hostility toward God’s messengers. To show them that all of their hypocrisy has lead them to reject even God’s messengers, to reject God’s prophets. That while it seemed they should be first in line to receive and embrace God’s messengers, the arrival of John the Baptist and of Jesus proved otherwise. The coming of John and Jesus demonstrated that the scribes and Pharisees were indeed hypocrites through and through.
So Jesus says there in verse 29,

29 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you build the tombs of the prophets and decorate the monuments of the righteous, 30 saying, ‘If we had lived in the days of our fathers, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.’ 31 Thus you witness against yourselves that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets.

Jesus tells the scribes and Pharisees that they’re pretending to be someone they’re not. They decorate the tombs of the prophets and the righteous, they celebrate men like David, Jeremiah, and Isaiah, yet their rejection of John and Jesus tell a different story, instead it indicates that they’re like those who murdered the prophets. That they’re the very people they claim not to be despite saying in verse 30,

‘If we had lived in the days of our fathers, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.’

Building monuments to the righteous

And in our day not much has changed. We still build statues and monuments to those we revere and respect, like presidents, church leaders, champions of moral causes, etc., and it isn’t that we shouldn’t. In fact, I think Jesus is praising the monuments to their righteous forefathers, because it’s what Jesus uses to paint a contrast between what the monuments appear to say about the Pharisees versus what their rejection of John and Jesus says about them! The point is that their rejection of John and Jesus contradicts their building of monuments to their righteous forefathers. If they really were the type of people who wouldn’t have taken part in shedding the blood of the prophets, then they wouldn’t find themselves opposed to John and Jesus.
You see, the scribes and Pharisees knew who they were supposed to look up to, they knew who the righteous men of old were, they knew that it was wrong for the OT prophets to be persecuted and killed, they knew who they were supposed to celebrate and build monuments to, but when the Messiah himself approached them they found themselves conspiring to kill him. And it’s this fact that should give us pause, that we can celebrate and champion all the right people, get behind all of the right moral causes, but when Jesus shows up how do we respond? Will we be offended at him? Will we find ourselves standing in opposition to him? You see, the Pharisees built tombs and monuments to prophets, not because of the righteousness of those prophets, or because of the unrelenting faith of those prophets, but because it made them look righteous too!

Filling up the measure of your fathers

And so Jesus continues there in verse 32,

32 Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers. 33 You serpents, you brood of vipers, how are you to escape being sentenced to hell?

Throughout the Scriptures we see this recurring language and imagery of people’s sin accumulating, or filling up, eventually reaching a point of no return when God’s wrath finally breaks forth and consumes them in judgement. That’s what Jesus means there in verse 32 when he says, “Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers.”
To show you just a few examples turn with me to Genesis chapter 15, starting in verse 12, we read,
Often times I hear the objection from unbelievers that God was a moral monster for giving the Israelites a land that was not their own (the land of Canaan), and for commanding the Israelites to put the Canaanites to death. As though the Canaanites were an innocent people that hadn’t done anything wrong, or that God didn’t have the right to give the earth to whomever he pleased. Well, in this particular passage God promises Abram that he will give his offspring a land that is not their own (which we know would later be the land of Canaan), and that he will use Israel to execute judgement against the Amorites (who were the descendents of the Canaanites) who are in the land, but that he won’t judge them until after four generations have passed, because, “the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.” In other words, the Amorites deserve judgement for their sin, but God has determined that there’s a tipping point before he will bring that judgement to pass.
We also see this language used in the Book of Daniel, particularly chapters 8 and 9 when the prophet Daniel is given several visions. I won’t take the time go into detail but in chapter 8, Daniel is given an interpretation of one of his visions, and in verse 23 we read,

22 As for the horn that was broken, in place of which four others arose, four kingdoms shall arise from his nation, but not with his power. 23 And at the latter end of their kingdom, when the transgressors have reached their limit, a king of bold face, one who understands riddles, shall arise.

Now, my point here is this 1) to illustrate that this a typical way (both in the OT and NT) to describe how God acts in history when bringing judgement against people and nations, and 2) there’s almost always a prolonged period of time of forbearance, or God’s patience, before he executes his judgement. Which is precisely what Jesus is getting at back in Matthew 23, verse 32 when he says to the scribes and Pharisees,

32 Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers. 33 You serpents, you brood of vipers, how are you to escape being sentenced to hell?

In other words, judgement is coming, and your rejection of God’s messengers will fill up the measure of your forefathers, who murdered the prophets. And “how are you to escape being sentenced to hell?” The obvious answer is that they won’t. And as a matter of application, it’s important that we not forget that this sobering judgment is certain for us as well if we persist in our own rebellion against God.

Persecution of his disciples

Now, let’s continue then in in verse 34,

34 Therefore I send you prophets and wise men and scribes, some of whom you will kill and crucify, and some you will flog in your synagogues and persecute from town to town, 35 so that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah the son of Barachiah, whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar. 36 Truly, I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation.

Jesus here is speaking of his own disciples (their generation), and ultimately the many disciples after them, and the persecution that they will endure at the hands the scribes and Pharisees, which we see played out later in the Book of Acts.
And if you remember back in Matthew chapter 10 Jesus sent out his 12 disciples on their first mission to declare the kingdom of heaven was at hand. It’s sort-of a training mission, and when he sends them out he gives them special instructions to go from town to town preaching the kingdom, healing the sick, raising the dead, cleansing lepers, and casting out demons.
Then he goes on to warn them of the persecution they’ll face. He prepares them to expect exactly the kind of persecution that he says the Pharisees they will perpetrate here in chapter 23. Turn with me briefly to chapter 10, starting in verse 16,he says,

16 “Behold, I am sending you out as sheep in the midst of wolves, so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves. 17 Beware of men, for they will deliver you over to courts and flog you in their synagogues, 18 and you will be dragged before governors and kings for my sake, to bear witness before them and the Gentiles.

then down in verse 23 he goes on,

23 When they persecute you in one town, flee to the next, for truly, I say to you, you will not have gone through all the towns of Israel before the Son of Man comes.

So when Jesus tells the scribes and Pharisees that he’ll send them prophets and wise men and scribes, some of whom the will kill and crucify, he’s talking about his disciples. His disciples who will be flogged in their synagogues and persecuted from town to town.

The righteous blood of Abel to Zechariah

And Jesus says that he’ll send his disciples so that on the scribes and Pharisees “may come all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah.” In other words, the persecution of Jesus’ disciples will be the last straw, it’ll fill up the measure of their father’s sins, the iniquity of those who killed the prophets will be complete.
In verse 35 Jesus uses Abel and the priest Zechariah as bookends for all of those who have been killed for their faith. Abel is killed by his brother Cain for offering a more acceptable sacrifice in the Book of Genesis, and then in 2 Chronicles (ordered last by the Jewish version of the OT) Zechariah, assumed to be a priest, is killed by the king for prophesying judgement against Israel (2 Chronicles 24:20-22).

Impending judgement

And all of this sets us up for judgement, God’s judgement against the scribes and Pharisees. So Jesus says, starting there in verse 37,

37 “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! 38 See, your house is left to you desolate. 39 For I tell you, you will not see me again, until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.’ ”

Now, in the Scriptures there are a few times where a person’s name is repeated, and this literary device is usually used to communicate intimacy. For instance, when Abraham took a knife to slaughter his son, we’re told that the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven and said, Abraham, Abraham! And his intention wasn’t merely to get his attention. Or when Jesus said, My God, My God! and quotes Psalm 22:1, we’re to see the depth of his groaning while he bears the sin of his people.
So when Jesus cries, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem” we’re meant to see the anguish he feels for the Jewish people. The anguish he feels when her leaders kill the prophets and stone those who are sent to it. We’re mean to see his desire to gather her people as a hen gathers her brood under her wings to protect and to care for them, yet her religious leaders are not willing.

You were not willing

You may recall what Jesus said earlier in verse 13 of chapter 23, he said,
“… woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. For you neither enter yourselves nor allow those who would enter to go in.”
In other words, you’re standing in the way! You’re unwilling for me to gather the people as a hen gathers her brood under her wings.
Therefore, we read there in verse 38 again,

38 See, your house is left to you desolate.

Chapter 23 will be Jesus’ last time making his appeal to Jerusalem in the Temple. In fact, in chapter 24, verse 1 we’re told that Jesus left the Temple, and we know that he never returned.
And finally, in verse 39,

39 For I tell you, you will not see me again, until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.’ ”

At first this verse might seem somewhat abstract or cryptic, but all Jesus is saying is that I will not come to you again until you’re willing to listen to my messengers, and welcome me as your Messiah.

Conclusion

Now, as we close I want to leave you with a hymn that I think is applicable to our text , particular for us today. The famous hymn writer, Horatius Bonar, from the 1800’s wrote a hymn called I See The Crowd in Pilate’s Hall, and it goes like this,
​
I see the crowd in Pilate’s hall,
I mark their wrathful mien [mean];
Their shouts of crucify appall,
With blasphemy between.
​
And of that shouting multitude
I feel that I am one;
And in that din of voices rude,
I recognize my own.
​
I see the scourges tear His back,
I see the piercing crown,
And of that crowd who smite and mock,
I feel that I am one.
​
Around yon cross, the throng I see,
Mocking the sufferer’s groan,
Yet still my voice it seems to be—
As if I mocked alone.
​
’Twas I that shed the sacred blood,
I nailed Him to the tree,
I crucified the Christ of God,
I joined the mockery.
​
Yet not the less that blood avails,
To cleanse away my sin,
And not the less that cross prevails
To give me peace within.
​
And finally, theologian and evangelist John Stott once wrote, “Before we can begin to see the cross as something done for us, we have to see it as something done by us.”

Prayer

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