Why Did The Pharisees Opposed Jesus?

Bible Study – Why Did the Pharisees Oppose the Lord Jesus?

1. Note from the editor: Almost every believer is aware that when the Lord Jesus arrived at His place of employment, the Jewish Pharisees feverishly resisted and condemned Him before nailing Him on the cross, thereby committing the most heinous sin known to man.
2. Although a large number of the brothers and sisters are aware of the Pharisees’ opposition to Jesus, they are unable to see through their content to the source of their opposition.
3. Consequently, what accounts for their irrational hostility against the Lord and His teachings?
4. The solution will be revealed to you in this post.

• Greetings, brothers and sisters.
• May you be able to partake in the inner peace of the Lord!
• Every one of us is familiar with the Pharisees, who were the top authorities of Judaism throughout the Age of Law, possessing in-depth knowledge of the Bible and Jewish rules.
• Although they had been looking forward to the arrival of the Messiah for centuries, when the Lord Jesus emerged and began to act, they opposed and condemned Him, ultimately nailing Him on the cross and perpetrating an awful crime..

″Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!″ the Lord Jesus rebuked them several times, saying, ″Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!″ (Matthew 23), in which Jesus pronounces seven afflictions on them.The majority of brothers and sisters, on the other hand, are unable to discern the basis and substance of the Pharisees’ opposition to the Lord.Their belief is that the Pharisees were well-versed in the Scriptures, and that some of them traveled across oceans and continents to spread the gospel; they frequently expounded the Scriptures to people in the synagogues, stood before people to pray, and appeared to be very reverent on the outside; however, how come they engaged in such evil deeds as opposing and condemning the Lord Jesus?What is the underlying cause of this?

Regarding this question, my coworkers and I have discussed it several times, but we have not been able to come up with a good response.In recent years, I met a pastor who has been a believer in the Lord for many years, and it was through his patient fellowship that I finally realized that the Pharisees’ opposition to and condemnation of the Lord Jesus was not a coincidental event, but was a result of their core beliefs.The Coming of the Lord is approaching at a critical juncture in history.The reason why the Pharisees rejected God must be communicated to the public if we are to avoid following in their footsteps and doing the terrible crimes of opposing God and denouncing God.

1. We pray that the Lord will guide us!
2. Now, I’d want to share my thoughts on this matter with you as they pertain to me.
3. First and foremost, the Pharisees were haughty and despise the truth by nature.
4. ″And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength: this is the first commandment,″ the Lord Jesus told mankind two thousand years ago when He came to the world to labor.
5. Likewise, the second commandment is as follows: ″You should love your neighbor as yourself″ (Mark 12:29–31).

1. Among other things, he taught men that they should be tolerant and patient with one another, forgive one another seventy seven times, and love their adversaries.
2. When He was on the earth doing His work, He healed the sick, cast out demons, bestowed an abundance of grace on men, and performed many signs and wonders, including feeding five thousand people with only five loaves of bread and two fish, making the lame walk and the blind see, calming wind and sea, and raising the dead with a single sentence.
3. The act of the Lord Jesus shattered the foundations of the whole Jewish nation.
4. Many people saw that His work and speech had authority and power, and that they could show man the way to practice, which led them to accept that the Lord Jesus was the coming Messiah and to follow Him as their Lord and Savior.

And a large number of people were spreading the name of the Lord Jesus and bearing testimony to His deeds.Despite the fact that they had observed the authority and power of the Lord’s teachings, the Pharisees did not seek out or explore His work in any way.Instead, they came to the conclusion that the Lord Jesus’ ministry went beyond the boundaries of the Old Testament, condemned Him by claiming that He did not keep the Sabbath, and tempted Him.According to the Bible, the Lord Jesus instructed His followers to labor on the Sabbath, and when they were hungry, they picked and ate ears of grain.It was because of this that the Pharisees condemned the Lord Jesus for His failure to observe the rules and commandments, and they judged Him, declaring that ″this guy is not of God, since he does not keep the sabbath day″ (John 9:16).

There are other reports of the Pharisees questioning the Lord Jesus about His authority to do miracles, whether or not they were required to pay taxes to Caesar, and whether or not He was the Son of God, Christ, and other such questions.Truth and wisdom were used by the Lord Jesus to retaliate against their nefarious schemes.The Pharisees, on the other hand, were not interested in the truth in the least.

Instead, they grabbed every opportunity to condemn the Lord Jesus, culminating in His death on the cross.It can be seen by the Pharisees’ judgment on, as well as their condemnation and temptation of the Lord, that they were haughty by nature, without any regard or obedience to God, and that they were not lovers of the truth in the least.Afterwards, I stumbled upon the following passage: ″Do you want to know the real reason why the Pharisees opposed Jesus?″ Do you want to know what the Pharisees are really like inside and out?They had a lot of ideas about who would be the Messiah.Furthermore, they were solely concerned with the coming of the Messiah and did not seek the truth about life itself.

• As a result, people continue to look for the Messiah even now, since they have no understanding of the way of life, nor do they understand what the way of truth is.
• Do you think it’s possible for such a dumb, obstinate, and uninformed group of people to receive God’s blessing?
• And how could they possibly see the Messiah?

It was they who resisted Jesus because they did not grasp the direction in which the Holy Spirit was working, because they did not understand the path of truth proclaimed by Jesus, and moreover because they did not comprehend the nature of the Messiah.In addition, because they had never seen the Messiah and had never been in his presence, they made the error of clinging erroneously to the Messiah’s name while resisting the substance of the Messiah in whatever way they could think of.In essence, these Pharisees were obstinate and haughty, and they refused to submit to the truth.The guiding concept of their faith in God was as follows: No matter how profound Your preaching, no matter how great Your authority, You are not Christ unless and until You are designated as the Messiah (Christ).″Do these viewpoints not seem absurd and stupid to you?″ (″By the Time You See the Spiritual Body of Jesus, God Will Have Recreated Heaven and Earth,″ God says in Revelation 21:2).

• These comments have unmistakably disclosed the underlying reason for the Pharisees’ opposition to the Lord Jesus.
• On the whole, they were conceited and stubborn; they neither sought nor obeyed the truth, but instead restricted the scope of God to their own conceptions and imaginations, and even to the letters of the Bible, clinging to the belief that when God appeared, His name had to be Messiah, and that anyone who did not call himself the Messiah did not claim to be God.
• Therefore, no matter how profound and precise His preaching was, how much authority and force His words possessed, or how helpful His remarks were to mankind, they refused to recognize the Lord Jesus as the Messiah.

They even went to great lengths to vilify the Lord Jesus, denying that He was the Christ and God in the flesh.These religious leaders had no actual understanding of God, and they were so presumptuous that they believed their own conceptions and imaginations to be the truth, simply following the God conjured up by their imaginations and with no purpose of seeking or pursuing the truth.As the Lord Jesus said in his revelation to the Pharisees, ″But now you desire to murder me, a man who has given you the truth, which I have heard from God.″ ″And if I tell the truth, why don’t you trust me?″ I inquire.(See also John 8:40 and 46.) In the end, it’s clear that the Pharisees were haughty, obstinate, and truth-hating people by nature, and that they were in essence the devil Satan, God’s adversaries in every way.Second, the Pharisees were concerned about their social standing, and in order to safeguard their social standing and livelihood, they opposed the Lord Jesus with ferocity.In His preaching and activity, the Lord Jesus revealed many truths, bestowed upon mankind the path of repentance, and performed several miracles, all of which resulted in an increase in the number of people who followed Him.

When the Pharisees saw this, they were filled with rage, because they were well aware that if the Lord Jesus kept doing what He was doing, all Jewish believers would soon be following Him as well.That is, no one would enter the temple to give sacrifices or tithes, much less adore and look up to them or revolve around them, and eventually all of Judaism would be paralyzed and shut down, or even worse still, overthrown entirely.Therefore, in order to safeguard their own reputation and livelihood, the Pharisees did all they could to reject, condemn, and frame the Lord Jesus, spreading all kinds of stories in order to prevent others from following Him, and they were eager to crucify Him.During the nailing of the Lord Jesus on the cross, the sun went black, the earth trembled, and the curtain of the temple burst up, and He was raised three days later.

1. Following their discovery of these realities, a large number of individuals repented of their sins and placed their faith in Jesus Christ.
2. The Pharisees, on the other hand, refused to repent and even bribed off soldiers to bear false witness against the Lord Jesus and claim that he had not been raised from the dead.
3. When the apostles went forth to preach the gospel of the Lord Jesus, the Pharisees swooped in and persecuted them, preventing the gospel from spreading farther than it had already.
4. The devil and his minions not only blasphemed and condemned the Lord Jesus, but they also incited and deceived Christians to oppose and condemn Him as well.

These evidence demonstrate that the Pharisees were extremely concerned with their social standing, valued authority, and want to be worshipped and seen as authoritative by others.In truth, they were serving their own position and livelihood while professing to serve God on the outside; they were truly in a competition with God for status, as well as rejecting and contending with God.To achieve their dreams of permanently dominating all of Judaism and creating their own autonomous kingdom, they sought to have the work of the Lord Jesus banned from the world.This demonstrated their wicked essence of despise for the truth and despise for God.It is exactly as the Bible states: ″Then they called a council of the top priests and the Pharisees and said, ‘What do we do?’″ Because this man performs several miracles.If we allow him to continue in this manner, all men will come to believe in him, and the Romans will come and take away both our position and our nation.

So from that day on, the group decided to put him to death via lethal injection″ (John 11:47-48, 53).These passages describe how the Pharisees did all in their power to maintain their social standing and financial security.They went out of their way to attack, discredit, and condemn the Lord Jesus, and they did so on purpose.They would rather commit monstrous sins, resist God and offend God, and have their sons and grandsons cursed than nail the Lord Jesus to the cross—He who expressed the truth and redeemed mankind—and allow their sons and grandsons to be cursed.

1. To be sure, the Pharisees had no regard for God in their hearts, and they placed a high value on their positions and meal tickets above anything else.
2. As a result, when God’s work jeopardized their jobs and meal tickets, they were willing to go to such lengths as to murder Him.
3. None other than the antichrists, who stood in opposition to and at odds with God, as well as the demonic servants who devoured men’s souls and drew them into the fiery depths of hell.

As a result of their egregious behavior, the Lord Jesus condemned the Pharisees with the ″Seven Woes,″ which means ″seven curses.″ In its whole, this demonstrates God’s pure and just temperament, which cannot be offended.″There are individuals who read the Bible in great churches and repeat it all day long, yet not one of them knows the purpose of God’s work,″ says another section of words.No one among them has the ability to comprehend God, and even fewer of them are capable of complying with God’s will.They are all worthless, filthy individuals, everyone of whom is eminently qualified to lecture God.

They are actively working against God, despite the fact that they are carrying His banner.Despite their professed belief in God, they continue to consume human flesh and drink human blood.″All such individuals are devils who consume the soul of man, head demons who purposefully come in the way of those who are attempting to walk on the right road, and stumbling stones obstructing those who seek God,″ according to the book ″All People Who Do Not Know God Are People Who Oppose God.″ In appearance, the Pharisees were dedicated and knowledgeable about the Scriptures, as well as about Jewish law and customs; they constantly explain the Scriptures to people in synagogues, and they gave particular attention to participating in religious rites and respecting the laws of the land.They, on the other hand, did not worship God or strive for the truth in humility, and they were even capable of passionately opposing and condemning God’s work.This was sufficient evidence to demonstrate that the Pharisees have no knowledge of God’s will and that they were not concerned with putting God’s teachings into practice or with obeying God’s commands.

The entire course of action they took was in direct contravention to God’s will and requirements, and it was all part of their scheme to deceive and restrict others.They were solely concerned with establishing themselves in order to be worshipped, as well as with managing and consolidating their own positions and meal tickets.They went down a deceptive road of deceit and defiance against God, and in essence, they were antichrists who despised the truth and God!The failure of the Pharisees, who professed to believe in God yet refused to submit to God, is a lesson worth studying.We must not make the same error as the Pharisees, who were haughty, obstinate, and truth-hating.

• We must also not blindly cling to our own thoughts and fantasies, and rely on them to define the Lord’s return, as they did.
• Since the Lord Jesus went to heaven on a white cloud after His death and resurrection, many brothers and sisters have come to believe that He will descend among us on a white cloud when He returns.
• This belief has gained widespread acceptance in recent years.
• Even though it is unquestionably true that the Lord Jesus will make a public appearance, there are numerous prophecies of the Lord concerning His return, and we cannot simply pay attention to some of them while ignoring the others, such as ″Behold, I come as a thief″ (Revelation 16:15), ″For as the lightning, which shines out of one part under heaven, shines to the other part under heaven; so shall also the Son of man be in his day″ (Luke (Revelation 3:20).
• We are unable to grasp the manner in which the Lord Jesus will return, and as a result, we are unable to comprehend His return in the literal sense of the scriptures or characterize it in terms of our ideas and imaginations.
• As a result, we should spend more time in prayer, seeking the truth with a God-fearing heart, and listening to and following the counsel of the Holy Spirit.

Only in this way can we avoid making the same error as the Pharisees, who believed in God while refusing to submit to His will.When it comes to welcoming the Lord, we should follow the example of the wise virgins and learn to recognize the voice of God.″I still have many things to say to you, but you are unable to handle them at this time,″ the Lord Jesus stated.Nevertheless, when he, the Spirit of truth, appears, he will lead you into all truth″ (John 16:12-13).And it is foretold several times in the Book of Revelation, ″Allow him who has an ear hear what the Spirit says to the churches,″ which translates as ″let him who has an ear hear what the Spirit says to the churches″ (Revelation 2, 3).These scriptures inform us that when the Lord Jesus returns in the final days, He will reveal much more of the truth to the people of the world.

Because only Christ is the truth, the way, and the life, the only person who can speak the truth is unquestionably the risen Lord.As a result, we should have a fear of God in our hearts, and we should be someone who is prepared to embrace the truth.When someone claims to have witnessed the return of the Lord to us, we should not immediately condemn him, but should instead wisely investigate and diligently determine whether or not the words he expresses are true.as well as whether or not they are the spoken utterances of the Holy Spirit This is the only way for us to be able to celebrate the Lord’s coming again.

3 reasons why Jesus opposed the Pharisees

1. The Pharisees, I believe, were the ones who had the most conflicts with Jesus during his ministry.
2. The gospels record the numerous occasions when they and their ″cousins″ (the Sadducees and the experts on the law) would resist Jesus, and in those same narratives, we find Jesus opposing them as well as they attack him.
3. But have you ever paused to consider why Jesus and the Pharisees were unable to communicate with one another?
4. In today’s world, it’s quite simple to play the ″Pharisee card.″ Many Christians just label everyone who stands up for righteousness as a Pharisee without thinking about it.

• Understanding what it was about the Pharisees that Jesus did not agree with will help us better comprehend how we should behave ourselves in the present day.
• Jesus had no personal animosity for the Pharisees, but he was opposed to their religious ideas and teachings.
• Three Pharisees’ concepts that Jesus condemned, and why He also rejects modern-day legalism, are outlined in the following paragraphs.
• Putting too much stock in one’s own abilities rather than in God’s favor According to Ephesians 2:8-9, ″Because you have been saved by grace through your faith, And this is not your own doing; it is a gift from God, not a product of your efforts, so that no one may take credit for what you have accomplished.″ When it comes to winning God’s favor, the Pharisees, on the other hand, put up a great deal of work in order to increase God’s grace.

God’s relationship with us has always been characterized by love and kindness.While some of us mistakenly believe that only the New Testament is constructed on God’s grace, others believe that the Old Testament is as well.God would never have given Israel a second chance to redeem themselves if it hadn’t been for His grace.Jesus used Hosea 6:6 when he confronted the experts on the law, saying, ″For I seek steadfast love rather than sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt sacrifices.″ Concentrate on the rules rather than the connection When the disciples are confronted by the Pharisees about their Sabbath behavior, Jesus challenges them, saying in Mark 2:27, ″Do you think you can get away with it?″ ″The Sabbath was created for man, not for man to be able to observe it.

As a result, even on the Sabbath, the Son of Man reigns supreme.″ They were specialists in the law, but they were not very good at capturing the substance of the laws that were at the heart of each and every one of them.God has always intended for the laws He has given to be a pathway to good connection rather than a set of regulations.God is a relational God, and His rules are intended to draw us closer to Him rather than to distance us from Him.Exclusivity as a result of religious behavior According to the Christian religion, there is no caste system.

1. Due to the fact that, no matter how excellent you think you are, we ″all have sinned and come short of the glory of God,″ God places such a high emphasis on equality among all believers, God has placed such a high value on equality among all believers.
2. (See also Romans 3:23.) The Pharisees believed that they were more favorably treated by God as a result of their religious practices.
3. Nothing could be further from the truth.
4. ″For God so loved the world, that he sacrificed his one and only Son,″ John 3:16a says of Jesus.
5. God’s love extends to everyone on the planet, not only the religiously inclined.

Why Did the Pharisees Hate Jesus So Much?

1. When you talk to individuals who are not Christians today, you will find that they are often highly positive of Jesus and his teaching.
2. ″I don’t think that He was the Messiah, and I don’t believe that He was the Son of God, but Jesus was unquestionably a wonderful guy,″ they’ll declare.
3. He was an excellent instructor.
4. ″Perhaps He was a prophet.″ It is important to note that this type of strong admiration for Jesus is not universal.

• Even in the Bible, we find examples of people who were hostile toward Jesus, with the scribes and Pharisees being the most prominent of these individuals.
• In Luke 20, we learn that the scribes and chief priests attempted to have Jesus detained and arrested.
• In John 5, we are informed that they desired to murder Him, and in John chapters 8 and 10, we are told that they attempted to stone Him to death.
• The question that arises when we read these narratives in Scripture is: Why did these people behave in such a hostile manner toward Jesus, and why did they feel the way they did?

However, while it is impossible to offer a comprehensive explanation for why they were motivated in this manner, the following are three reasons why the religious leaders despised Jesus so intensely.The first of these was that they were envious of Him.Why would they feel envious of the Son of God, if they were not?Everywhere Jesus went, he drew large crowds, hordes, and throngs of people who pressed up against him, intent on hearing every word He spoke and seeing every action He made.

It is widely believed that he enjoyed widespread public support, whereas Jewish leaders burdened their people with enormous duties, and they treated those who lived among them — the inhabitants of the earth — with what appeared to be an attitude of contempt and derision.While the Pharisees would never contemplate eating supper with a tax collector, Jesus openly socialized with those whom the Pharisees deemed ″rabble.″ The people adored Jesus, and they welcomed Him with open arms, but what they perceived from the Pharisees was a sense of judgement.Due to the fact that the Pharisees were mainly concerned with the sin of the people, they held a certain amount of scorn for the regular people.They observed Jesus mixing with the ordinary people and observed them shouting for Him and adoring Him.

1. They were moved.
2. That’s because they were envious and distrustful of His growing popularity, and they couldn’t take it.
3. The second reason they despised Him was because He had revealed their identities to them.
4. Prior to the arrival of Jesus, it was the Pharisees in particular, as well as the Sadducees and scribes, who were responsible for setting the moral tone for the city.
5. They were seated in the most elevated sections of the synagogue.

1. However, as Jesus emphasized on several occasions, their virtue was really a façade.
2. They were the ones who were most lauded and celebrated for their virtue.
3. It was something external.
4. It seemed as if you were like dead men’s tombs, whitewashed sepulchers that were painted without a flaw on the outside but were filled with the bones of deceased people on the inside.

The outside of the plate has been cleaned, but the other side, the inner side, has been left unclean.The impurity, crud, and filthiness of your skin are concealed from the public eye by any means at your disposal.You make a show of being righteous, and you take pride in your pretense of being righteous.″ A group of religious leaders who were outraged that God’s people were losing the purity of the covenant that they had made with God and were becoming slack in their morals and adherence to God’s commands began to emerge during the intertestamental era.As a result, the Pharisees attempted to bring together and separate themselves from the crowds, as well as to set a moral example.

These were the traditional conservatives of the day.They possessed a great sense of dignity and morality, and they made a vow to God that they would follow his commands.In fact, one faction of the Pharisees thought that if they could obey every commandment that God provided to Israel in the Old Testament for just twenty-four hours, God would be compelled to bring the Messiah to Israel, according to their beliefs.

However, a great deal had transpired between the period of the Pharisees’ inception and the time of Jesus’ incarnation, during which time they pretended to be devotees of righteousness and devotion to the Law of Moses.To put it simply, they were forgeries.They were forgeries.Nothing, however, indicates a forgery quite like the presence of the actual article.The actual righteousness and holiness of Jesus were exhibited before the eyes of the people while He walked this world throughout His lifetime.

• For the most part, it didn’t require extraordinary intelligence to distinguish between the genuine article and the counterfeit.
• In this way, the Pharisees were revealed, and because they were exposed by the actual and authentic holiness of Christ, they despised Him and couldn’t wait to have Him removed from their midst and destroyed.
• There is a widely held belief that God must assign grades on a grading scale.

When an instructor administers an exam and everyone fails it, he or she will grade the students on a curve.As a result, it must have been a horrible or unfair exam, or the instructor must have failed in his or her instruction because the pupils failed to learn.In this case, the instructor grades on a curve, such that a F may be counted as a C and a C might be counted as an A, and so on.There is a formula for accomplishing this.But every once in a while, you come across a kid who defies the trend, meaning that everyone else failed the test but this one student scored really well.

• This throws off the formula, and as a result, most students dislike persons who defy the rules of physics or mathematics.
• Curve breakers cast a negative light on the rest of us.
• The bad news is that God doesn’t give grades on a scale of 1 to 10.

Quite a few people believe He will, yet there is no slope in the data.All persons will be judged according to His flawless standard of righteousness, which will be applied to everyone.There is no such thing as a sliding scale.The good news, on the other hand, is that Jesus reversed the trend.While we all fall short, He has established a perfect track record of righteousness for himself.He went out of His way to do so for us.

While this is a source of joy for those who have placed their faith in Christ, it caused the Pharisees to despise Him because He revealed their sham holiness for what it truly was, according to the Bible.Their hatred for Him, according to my estimation, sprang from their fear—not so much of what they could suffer at the hands of the Almighty in His fury as they were of the implications of allowing Him into their midst.What was the source of their apprehension?Take a look at Israel’s historical development.

1. Israelites have been subjected to the rule and tyranny of a foreign power virtually continuously since Abraham’s day.
2. You’ve probably heard of the Pax Romana, but you may not be aware of the Pax Israeliana.
3. The Pax Israeliana, often known as the State of Israel’s Peace, was always a fleeting phenomenon.
4. A conquered people almost often refers to a group of people who have been subjected to the oppression and tyranny of their adversaries.

In the case of the Jews in the first century, the oppressor was the Roman Empire.It had been the case throughout Jewish history that there would always be individuals who were devoted to revolution, who want to free themselves from the oppression of the foreigners who had imprisoned them.The history of Israel is filled with rebellion after uprising, each one destroyed by the overwhelming force of the adversary’s military might.There were a few persons among Jesus’ disciples who were known as Zealots: at least two, and most likely more.Those who held positions of power and authority, such as the Pharisees and Sadducees, were fearful of losing their positions of power and authority in the face of persecution.The Jewish leaders were concerned about the ramifications of an uprising against Rome.

That may be found on nearly every page of the New Testament.They were terrified of the Romans.They were concerned that Jesus would somehow instigate an insurrection, spark another rebellion, and result in a slaughter, and so they tried to have Him removed from the scene before he could cause trouble for them.

3 reasons why Jesus opposed the Pharisees

The Pharisees, I believe, were the ones who had the most conflicts with Jesus during his ministry.The gospels record the numerous occasions when they and their ″cousins″ (the Sadducees and the experts on the law) would resist Jesus, and in those same narratives, we find Jesus opposing them as well as they attack him.But have you ever paused to consider why Jesus and the Pharisees were unable to communicate with one another?

In today’s world, it’s quite simple to play the ″Pharisee card.″ Many Christians just label everyone who stands up for righteousness as a Pharisee without thinking about it.Understanding what it was about the Pharisees that Jesus did not agree with will help us better comprehend how we should behave ourselves in the present day.Jesus had no personal animosity for the Pharisees, but he was opposed to their religious ideas and teachings.

Three Pharisees’ concepts that Jesus condemned, and why He also rejects modern-day legalism, are outlined in the following paragraphs.Putting too much stock in one’s own abilities rather than in God’s favor According to Ephesians 2:8-9, ″Because you have been saved by grace through your faith, And this is not your own doing; it is a gift from God, not a product of your efforts, so that no one may take credit for what you have accomplished.″ When it comes to winning God’s favor, the Pharisees, on the other hand, put up a great deal of work in order to increase God’s grace.God’s relationship with us has always been characterized by love and kindness.

While some of us mistakenly believe that only the New Testament is constructed on God’s grace, others believe that the Old Testament is as well.God would never have given Israel a second chance to redeem themselves if it hadn’t been for His grace.Jesus used Hosea 6:6 when he confronted the experts on the law, saying, ″For I seek steadfast love rather than sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt sacrifices.″ Concentrate on the rules rather than the connection When the disciples are asked by the Pharisees about their Sabbath behavior, Jesus confronts them, asking in Mark 2:27, ″Do you think you can get away with it?″ ″The Sabbath was created for man, not for man to be able to observe it.

As a result, even on the Sabbath, the Son of Man reigns supreme.″ They were specialists in the law, but they were not very good at capturing the substance of the laws that were at the heart of each and every one of them.God has always intended for the laws He has given to be a pathway to good connection rather than a set of regulations.God is a relational God, and His rules are intended to draw us closer to Him rather than to distance us from Him.Exclusivity as a result of religious behavior According to the Christian religion, there is no caste system.Due to the fact that, no matter how excellent you think you are, we ″all have sinned and come short of the glory of God,″ God places such a high emphasis on equality among all believers, God has placed such a high value on equality among all believers.

(See also Romans 3:23.) The Pharisees believed that they were more favorably treated by God as a result of their religious practices.Nothing could be further from the truth.″For God so loved the world, that he sacrificed his one and only Son,″ John 3:16a says of Jesus.God’s love extends to everyone on the planet, not only the religiously inclined.

Why Did the Pharisees Resist Jesus the Messiah?

Note from the editor: Almost every believer is aware that when the Lord Jesus arrived at His place of employment, the Jewish Pharisees feverishly resisted and condemned Him before nailing Him on the cross, thereby committing the most heinous sin known to man.Although a large number of the brothers and sisters are aware of the Pharisees’ opposition to Jesus, they are unable to see through their content to the source of their opposition.Consequently, what accounts for their irrational hostility against the Lord and His teachings?

The solution will be revealed to you in this post.Greetings, brothers and sisters.May you be able to partake in the inner peace of the Lord!

Every one of us is familiar with the Pharisees, who were the top authorities of Judaism throughout the Age of Law, possessing in-depth knowledge of the Bible and Jewish rules.Although they had been looking forward to the arrival of the Messiah for centuries, when the Lord Jesus emerged and began to act, they opposed and condemned Him, ultimately nailing Him on the cross and perpetrating an awful crime..″Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!″ the Lord Jesus rebuked them several times, saying, ″Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!″ (Matthew 23), in which Jesus pronounces seven afflictions on them.

The majority of brothers and sisters, on the other hand, are unable to discern the basis and substance of the Pharisees’ opposition to the Lord.Their belief is that the Pharisees were well-versed in the Scriptures, and that some of them traveled across oceans and continents to spread the gospel; they frequently expounded the Scriptures to people in the synagogues, stood before people to pray, and appeared to be very reverent on the outside; however, how come they engaged in such evil deeds as opposing and condemning the Lord Jesus?What is the underlying cause of this?

Regarding this question, my coworkers and I have discussed it several times, but we have not been able to come up with a good response.In recent years, I met a pastor who has been a believer in the Lord for many years, and it was through his patient fellowship that I finally realized that the Pharisees’ opposition to and condemnation of the Lord Jesus was not a coincidental event, but was a result of their core beliefs.The Coming of the Lord is approaching at a critical juncture in history.The reason why the Pharisees rejected God must be communicated to the public if we are to avoid following in their footsteps and doing the terrible crimes of opposing God and denouncing God.We pray that the Lord will guide us!

Now, I’d want to share my thoughts on this matter with you as they pertain to me.First and foremost, the Pharisees were haughty and despise the truth by nature.″And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength: this is the first commandment,″ the Lord Jesus told mankind two thousand years ago when He came to the world to labor.Likewise, the second commandment is as follows: ″You should love your neighbor as yourself″ (Mark 12:29–31).Among other things, he taught men that they should be tolerant and patient with one another, forgive one another seventy seven times, and love their adversaries.

When He was on the earth doing His work, He healed the sick, cast out demons, bestowed an abundance of grace on men, and performed many signs and wonders, including feeding five thousand people with only five loaves of bread and two fish, making the lame walk and the blind see, calming wind and sea, and raising the dead with a single sentence.The act of the Lord Jesus shattered the foundations of the whole Jewish nation.Many people saw that His work and speech had authority and power, and that they could show man the way to practice, which led them to accept that the Lord Jesus was the coming Messiah and to follow Him as their Lord and Savior.And a large number of people were spreading the name of the Lord Jesus and bearing testimony to His deeds.Despite the fact that they had observed the authority and power of the Lord’s teachings, the Pharisees did not seek out or explore His work in any way.

Instead, they came to the conclusion that the Lord Jesus’ ministry went beyond the boundaries of the Old Testament, condemned Him by claiming that He did not keep the Sabbath, and tempted Him.According to the Bible, the Lord Jesus instructed His followers to labor on the Sabbath, and when they were hungry, they picked and ate ears of grain.It was because of this that the Pharisees condemned the Lord Jesus for His failure to observe the rules and commandments, and they judged Him, declaring that ″this guy is not of God, since he does not keep the sabbath day″ (John 9:16).

There are other reports of the Pharisees questioning the Lord Jesus about His authority to do miracles, whether or not they were required to pay taxes to Caesar, and whether or not He was the Son of God, Christ, and other such questions.Truth and wisdom were used by the Lord Jesus to retaliate against their nefarious schemes.The Pharisees, on the other hand, were not interested in the truth in the least.Instead, they grabbed every opportunity to condemn the Lord Jesus, culminating in His death on the cross.It can be seen by the Pharisees’ judgment on, as well as their condemnation and temptation of the Lord, that they were haughty by nature, without any regard or obedience to God, and that they were not lovers of the truth in the least.Afterwards, I stumbled upon the following passage: ″Do you want to know the real reason why the Pharisees opposed Jesus?″ Do you want to know what the Pharisees are really like inside and out?

They had a lot of ideas about who would be the Messiah.Furthermore, they were solely concerned with the coming of the Messiah and did not seek the truth about life itself.As a result, people continue to look for the Messiah even now, since they have no understanding of the way of life, nor do they understand what the way of truth is.Do you think it’s possible for such a dumb, obstinate, and uninformed group of people to receive God’s blessing?And how could they possibly see the Messiah?

• It was they who resisted Jesus because they did not grasp the direction in which the Holy Spirit was working, because they did not understand the path of truth proclaimed by Jesus, and moreover because they did not comprehend the nature of the Messiah.
• In addition, because they had never seen the Messiah and had never been in his presence, they made the error of clinging erroneously to the Messiah’s name while resisting the substance of the Messiah in whatever way they could think of.
• In essence, these Pharisees were obstinate and haughty, and they refused to submit to the truth.
• The guiding concept of their faith in God was as follows: No matter how profound Your preaching, no matter how great Your authority, You are not Christ unless and until You are designated as the Messiah (Christ).

″Do these viewpoints not seem absurd and stupid to you?″ (″By the Time You See the Spiritual Body of Jesus, God Will Have Recreated Heaven and Earth,″ God says in Revelation 21:2).These comments have unmistakably disclosed the underlying reason for the Pharisees’ opposition to the Lord Jesus.On the whole, they were conceited and stubborn; they neither sought nor obeyed the truth, but instead restricted the scope of God to their own conceptions and imaginations, and even to the letters of the Bible, clinging to the belief that when God appeared, His name had to be Messiah, and that anyone who did not call himself the Messiah did not claim to be God.Therefore, no matter how profound and precise His preaching was, how much authority and force His words possessed, or how helpful His remarks were to mankind, they refused to recognize the Lord Jesus as the Messiah.

• They even went to great lengths to vilify the Lord Jesus, denying that He was the Christ and God in the flesh.
• These religious leaders had no actual understanding of God, and they were so presumptuous that they believed their own conceptions and imaginations to be the truth, simply following the God conjured up by their imaginations and with no purpose of seeking or pursuing the truth.
• As the Lord Jesus said in his revelation to the Pharisees, ″But now you desire to murder me, a man who has given you the truth, which I have heard from God.″ ″And if I tell the truth, why don’t you trust me?″ I inquire.

(See also John 8:40 and 46.) In the end, it’s clear that the Pharisees were haughty, obstinate, and truth-hating people by nature, and that they were in essence the devil Satan, God’s adversaries in every way.Second, the Pharisees were concerned about their social standing, and in order to safeguard their social standing and livelihood, they opposed the Lord Jesus with ferocity.In His preaching and activity, the Lord Jesus revealed many truths, bestowed upon mankind the path of repentance, and performed several miracles, all of which resulted in an increase in the number of people who followed Him.When the Pharisees saw this, they were filled with rage, because they were well aware that if the Lord Jesus kept doing what He was doing, all Jewish believers would soon be following Him as well.That is, no one would enter the temple to give sacrifices or tithes, much less adore and look up to them or revolve around them, and eventually all of Judaism would be paralyzed and shut down, or even worse still, overthrown entirely.

Therefore, in order to safeguard their own reputation and livelihood, the Pharisees did all they could to reject, condemn, and frame the Lord Jesus, spreading all kinds of stories in order to prevent others from following Him, and they were eager to crucify Him.During the nailing of the Lord Jesus on the cross, the sun went black, the earth trembled, and the curtain of the temple burst up, and He was raised three days later.Following their discovery of these realities, a large number of individuals repented of their sins and placed their faith in Jesus Christ.

The Pharisees, on the other hand, refused to repent and even bribed off soldiers to bear false witness against the Lord Jesus and claim that he had not been raised from the dead.When the apostles went forth to preach the gospel of the Lord Jesus, the Pharisees swooped in and persecuted them, preventing the gospel from spreading farther than it had already.The devil and his minions not only blasphemed and condemned the Lord Jesus, but they also incited and deceived Christians to oppose and condemn Him as well.

• These evidence demonstrate that the Pharisees were extremely concerned with their social standing, valued authority, and want to be worshipped and seen as authoritative by others.
• In truth, they were serving their own position and livelihood while professing to serve God on the outside; they were truly in a competition with God for status, as well as rejecting and contending with God.
• To achieve their dreams of permanently dominating all of Judaism and creating their own autonomous kingdom, they sought to have the work of the Lord Jesus banned from the world.
• This demonstrated their wicked essence of despise for the truth and despise for God.
• It is exactly as the Bible states: ″Then they called a council of the top priests and the Pharisees and said, ‘What do we do?’″ Because this man performs several miracles.
• If we allow him to continue in this manner, all men will come to believe in him, and the Romans will come and take away both our position and our nation.

So from that day on, the group decided to put him to death via lethal injection″ (John 11:47-48, 53).These passages describe how the Pharisees did all in their power to maintain their social standing and financial security.They went out of their way to insult, defame, and condemn the Lord Jesus, and they did it on purpose.They would rather do enormous crimes, defy God and offend God, and have their sons and grandsons cursed than hang the Lord Jesus on the cross—He who expressed the truth and rescued mankind—and allow their sons and grandsons to be cursed.To be sure, the Pharisees had no regard for God in their hearts, and they placed a high value on their positions and meal tickets above anything else.

As a result, when God’s work jeopardized their jobs and meal tickets, they were willing to go to such lengths as to murder Him.None other than the antichrists, who stood in opposition to and at odds with God, as well as the demonic servants who devoured men’s souls and drew them into the fiery depths of hell.As a result of their egregious behavior, the Lord Jesus condemned the Pharisees with the ″Seven Woes,″ which means ″seven curses.″ In its whole, this demonstrates God’s pure and just temperament, which cannot be offended.

″There are individuals who read the Bible in great churches and repeat it all day long, yet not one of them knows the purpose of God’s work,″ says another section of words.No one among them has the ability to comprehend God, and even fewer of them are capable of complying with God’s will.They are all worthless, filthy individuals, everyone of whom is eminently qualified to lecture God.They are actively working against God, despite the fact that they are carrying His banner.Despite their professed belief in God, they continue to consume human flesh and drink human blood.″All such individuals are devils who consume the soul of man, head demons who purposefully come in the way of those who are attempting to walk on the right road, and stumbling stones obstructing those who seek God,″ according to the book ″All People Who Do Not Know God Are People Who Oppose God.″ In appearance, the Pharisees were dedicated and knowledgeable about the Scriptures, as well as about Jewish law and customs; they constantly explain the Scriptures to people in synagogues, and they gave particular attention to participating in religious rites and respecting the laws of the land.

They, on the other hand, did not worship God or strive for the truth in humility, and they were even capable of passionately opposing and condemning God’s work.This was sufficient evidence to demonstrate that the Pharisees have no knowledge of God’s will and that they were not concerned with putting God’s teachings into practice or with obeying God’s commands.The entire course of action they took was in direct contravention to God’s will and requirements, and it was all part of their scheme to deceive and restrict others.They were solely concerned with establishing themselves in order to be worshipped, as well as with managing and consolidating their own positions and meal tickets.

1. They went down a deceptive road of deceit and defiance against God, and in essence, they were antichrists who despised the truth and God!
2. The failure of the Pharisees, who professed to believe in God yet refused to submit to God, is a lesson worth studying.
3. We must not make the same error as the Pharisees, who were haughty, obstinate, and truth-hating.
4. We must also not blindly cling to our own thoughts and fantasies, and rely on them to define the Lord’s return, as they did.
5. Since the Lord Jesus went to heaven on a white cloud after His death and resurrection, many brothers and sisters have come to believe that He will descend among us on a white cloud when He returns.
6. This belief has gained widespread acceptance in recent years.

Even though it is unquestionably true that the Lord Jesus will make a public appearance, there are numerous prophecies of the Lord concerning His return, and we cannot simply pay attention to some of them while ignoring the others, such as ″Behold, I come as a thief″ (Revelation 16:15), ″For as the lightning, which shines out of one part under heaven, shines to the other part under heaven; so shall also the Son of man be in his day″ (Luke (Revelation 3:20).We are unable to grasp the manner in which the Lord Jesus will return, and as a result, we are unable to comprehend His return in the literal sense of the scriptures or characterize it in terms of our ideas and imaginations.As a result, we should spend more time in prayer, seeking the truth with a God-fearing heart, and listening to and following the counsel of the Holy Spirit.Only in this way can we avoid making the same error as the Pharisees, who believed in God while refusing to submit to His will.When it comes to welcoming the Lord, we should follow the example of the wise virgins and learn to recognize the voice of God.

″I still have many things to say to you, but you are unable to handle them at this time,″ the Lord Jesus stated.Nevertheless, when he, the Spirit of truth, appears, he will lead you into all truth″ (John 16:12-13).And it is foretold several times in the Book of Revelation, ″Allow him who has an ear hear what the Spirit says to the churches,″ which translates as ″let him who has an ear hear what the Spirit says to the churches″ (Revelation 2, 3).

These scriptures inform us that when the Lord Jesus returns in the final days, He will reveal much more of the truth to the people of the world.Because only Christ is the truth, the way, and the life, the only person who can speak the truth is unquestionably the risen Lord.As a result, we should have a fear of God in our hearts, and we should be someone who is prepared to embrace the truth.When someone claims to have witnessed the return of the Lord to us, we should not immediately condemn him, but rather instead properly study and meticulously determine whether or not the statements he says are true.as well as whether or not they are the spoken pronouncements of the Holy Spirit This is the only way for us to be able to celebrate the Lord’s coming again.

Why Were the Pharisees the ‘Bad Guys’ in the Bible?

Jesus only loses his temper a couple of times in the New Testament (just ask the moneychangers in the Temple), but in Matthew 23, he launches one of his most vehement tirades against the Pharisees and other ″teachers of the law,″ which is one of his most famous.In the seven sorrows, which are found in lines 13-39, Jesus refers to the Pharisees as ″hypocrites″ six times.Additionally, Jesus refers to them as ″blind″ (five times), ″children of hell,″ and ″a brood of vipers,″ and compares their phony piety and pretensions to ″whitewashed tombs,″ which appear lovely on the surface but are filled with the bones of the dead and everything filthy on the inside.

The Pharisees of the New Testament are unmistakably portrayed as the evil guys, serving as the ideal ideological and spiritual foils to Jesus and his disciples throughout the book.Traditionally, the Pharisees are depicted as nitpicky enforcers of Jewish law who are so preoccupied with the text of the law that they completely overlook the spirit of the law.As Jesus says: ″I am the way, the truth, and the life.″ ″You contribute a tenth of your spices, which include mint, dill, and cumin.

However, you have failed to address the most significant issues of the law, such as justice, kindness, and loyalty.You should have put in the time to do the latter while not ignoring the former.You deafening guides!

The gnat is extracted, but the camel is swallowed.″ Nevertheless, does this portrayal of the Pharisees — as legalistic hypocrites — accord with what historians and religious experts know about their real-life counterpart, the Pharisaic movement, which rose to prominence during the Second Temple period of Judaism?During our conversation with Bruce Chilton, a religion professor at Bard College and the co-editor of ″In Quest of the Historical Pharisees,″ we were able to gain a deeper understanding of what the Pharisees truly thought and why they were at odds with early Christians.

Who Were the Pharisees — and the Sadducees?

During Jesus’ lifetime, in the first century C.E., the Pharisees formed as a religious movement inside Judaism, rather than as a distinct sect or movement.The Temple, which was still standing in Jerusalem, served as the focal point of Jewish life.One of the most important considerations in Temple ceremonies was purity – that both the individuals who entered the Temple and the animals killed there were ″clean″ enough to meet God’s requirements for sacrifice.

Pharisees asserted that they had additional divine instructions that had been passed down through centuries of oral tradition that were not contained in the Torah (the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, beginning with Genesis).The Torah (the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, beginning with Genesis) contains written commandments that explain the proper way to conduct Temple sacrifices.’The Pharisees were under the impression that they possessed a unique reservoir of knowledge about cleanliness,’ explains Chilton.

Their oral tradition was said to date all the way back to Moses at Sinai, implying that in addition to a written Torah, to which everyone might have access at any time, there was also an oral Torah that was exclusively available to those associated with the Pharisaic movement.What was remarkable about the oral tradition of the Pharisees was that it extended the discussion of purity to include aspects of one’s life outside the Temple complex.It was possible for Jews who lived far away from Jerusalem (in Galilee, for example) and had no intention of making a journey to the Temple to conduct their lives in such a manner that they would be pure enough to enter the Temple on their own accord.

Consequently, according to Chilton, the Pharisees grew into a movement dedicated to maintaining the purity of the Jewish people.The Pharisees, on the other hand, were not a strong elite in first-century Judaism, as some believe.That group was comprised of the Sadducees, a priestly class that controlled Temple worship and wielded the greatest amount of political power with the Roman Empire, which ruled over Palestine.

The Sadducees rejected oral tradition in favor of written law, and they were the ones who established the written law (Torah).Working-class Jews were the core of the Pharisees’ movement, which sought to develop a distinct and consistent Jewish identity in everyday life.It is interesting to note that it was the Pharisees that held to the concepts of an afterlife and resurrection of the dead, both of which were rejected by the Sadducees because they were not addressed in the Bible.The Pharisees also thought that a messiah would come who would bring peace to the globe, however they did not believe that messiah to be Jesus, as the majority of them did.

Jesus Had Friends (and Followers) Who Were Pharisees

The Pharisees are depicted as a monolithic group in the New Testament, but according to Chilton, while all Pharisees were concerned with cleanliness, there was vigorous discussion within the Pharisees over the most effective means of achieving it.In the ancient world, there were probably Pharisees who felt that purity could only be gained from the outside in, who taught that ritual baths (mikvahs) and ceremonial cleaning of cups and cooking tools were the only ways to achieve purity.In Matthew 23, Jesus criticizes the pharisaic habit of cleansing the outside of cups and plates while the ″insides are full of greed and self-indulgence,″ as the practice is known.

‘Because Jesus himself was involved in the problem of cleanliness — despite the fact that he was not a Pharisee — his dispute with some Pharisees of his day was unavoidable,’ explains Chilton.″If you accuse someone of being impure, you are not implying that cleanliness is unimportant; rather, you are implying that there is a more effective method to obtain it.″ However, according to Chilton, there were some Pharisees who would have agreed with Jesus that the genuine process of cleansing begins with a pure heart and confidence in God, and that the true labor of purification begins with the heart.If you pay great attention to the New Testament, you’ll see that Jesus gained sympathizers and even disciples within the ranks of the Pharisees, who were reputedly despised by the Jewish people.

Nicodemus, a Pharisee who came to Jesus’ tomb at night to interrogate him and then donated money and spices to ensure that Jesus received a proper Jewish burial after the crucifixion, was a Pharisee (see John 3).In addition, in Luke 13:31, a Pharisee approaches Jesus and informs him that Herod has ordered his death.But it is the book of Acts that has the most important and crucial reference of ″friendly″ Pharisees, when a group of Pharisees is included among the early disciples of Jesus who stayed faithful after his death.

The Pharisees maintained an ideological stance in opposition to powerful apostles such as Paul and Peter, as Chilton notes, which may explain why the Pharisees had such a terrible reputation in the New Testament.

The Meeting That Doomed the Pharisees

At a conference or ″council″ in Jerusalem, recorded in Acts 15, Paul, Peter, James, and Barnabas are among the apostles and disciples of Jesus who are all in attendance.The conference’s agenda included settling a crucial dispute that had arisen among the early church: did non-Jewish males need to be circumcised in order to be baptized and receive the Holy Spirit?The answer would be revealed during the meeting.

The first to speak up were the Pharisees who were in the audience.″Then those of the Christians who belonged to the party of the Pharisees rose up and declared, ‘The Gentiles must be circumcised and obliged to obey the law of Moses,’″ according to Acts 15:5.It is important to note that the Pharisees were listed among the ″believers,″ providing more evidence that some Pharisees were among Jesus’ early disciples.

However, this is when everything start to go wrong.The apostles are in complete disagreement with the Pharisees, and they assert that everyone, whether circumcised or not, may have their souls pure by trust in the Lord Jesus Christ.In verses 10 and 11, Peter, while acknowledging the physical pain and danger of circumcising an adult, rebukes the Pharisees for their actions: ″After all, why do you think you’re going to be able to put a yoke around the necks of Gentile people that neither we nor our forefathers have been able to bear?

No!We believe that we have been rescued by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, just as they have been saved.″ When you go to this meeting in 46 C.E., the Pharisees are now on the opposite side of this incredibly momentous choice, according to Chilton.″Anyone who advocates the widespread practice of circumcision is branded a hypocrite, a legalist, and a person who has been cut off from Christ by the apostle Paul.

And that’s pretty much the New Testament’s perspective on the Pharisees, to put it mildly.There is evidence to suggest that it was an internal conflict among Jesus’ disciples that resulted in the sharp line of demarcation between Christians and Pharisees being drawn at this time.″One thing to remember is that the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John (which comprise the New Testament) were written beginning in the year 70 C.E., some decades after the Council of Jerusalem.Because of this, it’s plausible that Jesus himself did not have such animosity for the Pharisees during his lifetime, but that the writers of the New Testament did, as a result of their bitter divorce with the Pharisees over circumcision, and that this was reflected in their writings.In Chilton’s words, ″the gospels are written from the perspective of a rupture that had not yet occurred at the time of Jesus.″

What Happened to the Pharisees?

According to Chilton, when the Second Temple was destroyed in 70 C.E., the power structure of Judaism was also brought crashing down with it.After being dispersed during the Second Temple era, the Sadducees resurfaced as the most powerful force in Judaism, while the underdog Pharisees, who had ″been very much on the outside looking in,″ according to Chilton, ″actually emerged as the last authority standing″ in the Jewish community.After hundreds of years of oral transmission, the oral traditions of the Pharisees were finally written down in the Mishnah and subsequently commented on in the Talmud.

The Pharisaic ″sages,″ who had passed down the oral tradition from the time of Moses, were replaced by scholarly rabbis who studied the Torah and the sophisticated interpretations contained in the Talmud, and then passed on their knowledge to the next generation.Traditional Jewish practices are carried forth by the Pharisees and are, in a way, a continuation of their work.When you make a purchase after clicking on one of our affiliate links, H