WesleyGospel Ministries

I disagree with his 100% condemnation of all TV and all Christian rock, but I agree with his sentiments that Biblical and moral censorship needs to be strongly applied to these as well as all the other issues he raises.–edit

Refers to:
1953 sermon by Billy Graham against TV watching: unknown

Turmoil in the Toy Box by Phil Phillips

“Writings on Entertainment” by William Booth: unkown

The Holy War by John Bunyan

For more of Denny’s sermons click here.

Originally from here.

Woe to you lawyers! For you load people with burdens hard to bear, and you yourselves do not touch the burdens with one of your fingers.                               –Jesus in Luke 11:46

I have always thought, from my earliest youth ’til now, that the greatest scourge an angry Heaven ever inflicted upon an ungrateful and a sinning people was an ignorant, a corrupt, or a dependent judiciary.                                               –Chief Justice John Marshall

As a Christian, I do not hate anyone. In the legitimate case of someone who has hurt another person, and refuses to make restitution, I can understand the need for a lawyer; HOWEVER, in most situations, lawyers hurt innocent people, such as in divorce court. Only God knows how many marriages have been broken up, how many husbands have committed suicide, and homes have been destroyed, because of some greedy lawyer. 

A vengeful wife simply needs to hire a lawyer, alleging domestic abuse, and all the hordes of Hell will come down on that poor husband. Lawyers go for the jugular vein. 

This is how the system works. It is ruthless; but the average husband doesn’t understand this. So what do you think goes through a poor husband’s mind when the sheriff serves him a summons to divorce court, telling him that his wife wants everything he owns—his kids, his home, his car, alimony, child support, and a restraining order preventing him from even visiting his own home and kids? Suicide? That would be a reasonable conclusion. This is what “The System” is doing to husbands today, and women are being encouraged by a godless communist system to file for divorce for any number of frivolous reasons. 

Proverbs 19:22: “A poor man is better than a liar.”

Proverbs 17:23: “A wicked man taketh a gift out of the bosom to pervert the ways of judgment.”

Men are being absolutely crucified by a godless, ruthless, inhumane, hateful legal system which is controlled by a feminist agenda. There is NO injustice any more wrong than divorce court. It is rebellious wives who are at fault; not the husbands who have a Biblical right to rule over them (Genesis 3:16). I am not condoning abuse, which is what every feminist alleges. I am simply saying that it is much too easy for people to divorce these days. There is a lot of money in divorce. The bank keeps the house. The judge and lawyers make money. [And lawyers often win cases because they bribe judges with campaign donations–edit]. The wife gets alimony and child support. But the husband pays dearly, loses his life savings, and then some…Lawyers no doubt shift the blame on the sue-happy public; but it’s the ambulance-chasing lawyers that have nurtured this type of behavior today. Proof of this fact can be found no further than your TV screen. We frequently see ambulance-chasing lawyers on TV, begging for us to call them to sue someone…The legal profession is a tough business and I don’t envy the lawyers who are paid to handle people’s problems. It gets ugly. If the world were a loving place and everyone did the right thing, then there wouldn’t be a need for lawyers. Thank God for the experienced lawyers who are there when needed?

Write the vision and make it plain on tablets. –Habakkuk 2:2

I just dreamed that someone was writing me a letter of complaint and concern over the fact that I believe in dream interpretation. This person’s view was that it was too subjective, and therefore prone to error. This person’s conclusion was that I should rely on reason alone for all decision-making; and never resort to dream interpretation.

Well, I have several problems with this line of thinking, because I know it is popular, and has existed for centuries:

1. Biblical Symbols. All prophets and dream interpreters in the Bible relied on the prophetic symbols that had already been established by former Biblical figures. In other words, as the canon of Scripture developed, we may understand that Joseph, Isaiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel, the book of Revelation, and its likely even the parables of Jesus all relied on symbology that derived straight from the Scriptures that had already been accepted up until that time: the Old Testament. On Genesis 20:3, The NIV Study Bible says, “Dreams were a frequent mode of revelation in the Old Testament (see Genesis 28:12; 31:10-11; 37:5-9; 40:5; 41:1; Numbers 12:6; Judges 7:13; 1 Kings 3:5; Daniel 2:3; 4:5; 7:1).” In other words, the Old Testament prophets (and Christ and the apostles) would have resorted to the Old Testament for their understanding of dream symbols. For Christian prophets and dream interpreters, we are at liberty to use the Old Testament for understanding dream symbols, provided that we only use such symbols through the lens of the New Testament, and the Reformation understanding of salvation.

2. Human Imperfection. Even if Christians decide to practice Bible-based dream interpretation, they are still subject to error; as they are human and not likely able to interpret Biblical symbols accurately, at least all the time. In such cases, I believe the Holy Spirit will intervene and communicate more clearly for those who pray and seek more clarity about the will of God in such matters, because “interpretations belong to God” (Genesis 40:8). However, this does not mean that you need a “gift” of dream interpretation, and just be mysterious about it; God has given us the Scriptures and reason to be able to understand His signs and symbols, just as the Department of Transportation expects us to understand street signs and lights. Dream interpretation is just like that; look at the Bible for your understanding of dream symbols, because a great majority of the Bible is based on prophetic dreams and their interpretation in the Biblical tradition.

3. Dream Journaling. As you dream, if you truly believe a dream could be from God, as it may have divine elements, and an absence of temptation or fear of evil, but rather a divine message of encouragement, warning, or comfort (1 Corinthians 14:3), then do what it says in Habakkuk 2:2: “Write the vision and make it plain on tablets.” Get into the habit of journaling your dreams and writing what you believe to be their interpretations in a collection of composition notebooks. You could, like me, end up gathering a collection of these notebooks that spans over several years. It may be that the very words of God to you personally are contained in these notebooks! An astounding responsibility! More importantly, though, even if some tragedy occurred, and these notebooks were to be destroyed, you still carry the dreams and what you understand about them in your heart, so you could always re-write them again. These notebooks are not on the same level of authority as Scripture: a sensitive point for Reformed Christians. The first chapter of the Westminster Confession was designed against this very practice, with the notion that all divine revelation has been committed “wholly unto writing” in the Bible, and to protect men from the “malice of Satan,” it suggests that the Holy Spirit no longer provides revelation through dreams. Personally, I don’t accept this view, because of Acts 2:17: “It shall come to pass in the last days, says God, that I will pour out of My Spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your young men shall see visions, your old men shall dream dreams.” Correct me if you think I’m wrong, but are not the “last days” in this text referring to the entire church age? And if not, are they not at least applying to the end-times just before Jesus returns to destroy the Antichrist? Either scenarios are reasonable interpretations of the text; and in either of these two scenarios, prophetic dreams and visions are said to be experienced by Christians–which would mean that the first chapter of the Westminster Confession is incorrect on this point, about God supposedly committing all divine revelation “wholly unto writing” in the Scriptures: there must remain room for a level of dream interpretation.

Commenting on the Acts 2:17 passage and its context, Matthew Henry said, “It is observable that though Peter was filled with the Holy Ghost, and spoke with tongues as the Spirit gave him utterance, yet he did not set aside the Scriptures, nor think himself above them; nay, much of his discourse is quotation out of the Old Testament, to which he appeals, and with which he proves what he says. Christ’s scholars never learn above their Bible; and the Spirit is given not to supersede the Scriptures, but to enable us to understand and improve the Scriptures…It refers to the last days, the times of the Gospel, which are called the last days because the dispensation of God’s kingdom among men, which the Gospel sets up, is the last dispensation of divine grace, and we are to look for no other than the continuation of this to the end of time. Or, in the last days, that is, a great while after the ceasing of prophecy in the Old-Testament church. Or, in the days immediately preceding the destruction of the Jewish nation, in the last days of that people, just before that great and notable day of the Lord spoken of, Acts 2:20 [edit:–personally, I agree with his first interpretation of the “last days”; and that is why I believe Christian dream interpretation is for the entire church age]…and Henry concludes with a statement that certainly sounds like a charismatic continuationist view: “as our Messiah ever lives in Heaven, reigning and interceding for His church on earth, so this Spirit of grace, the Advocate, or Comforter, that was given now, according to the promise, will, according to the same promise, continue with the church on earth to the end, and will work all its works in it and for it, and every member of it, ordinary and extraordinary, by means of the Scriptures and the ministry.” Henry believed that the extraordinary gifts of the Spirit–prophetic dreams and visions–would continue with the church until the very end of time by means of the Scriptures and the ministry. That is, through Biblical dream interpretation, and prophetic ministry in church services, as described in 1 Corinthians 14.

5. Biblical Reference Tools and Dream Interpretation. There are some dictionaries and reference books that may be helpful as you try to practice Biblical dream interpretation. None of these books are any substitute for the Bible itself, but they might help you speed up the process of dream interpretation. 1. Using a website such as studylight.org can be helpful. Just search a particular word that resembles something you saw in a dream; and see if you can derive any symbolic meaning from the occurrences of that word in several Biblical passages; especially if there is a recurring meaning or theme in several passages of Scripture surrounding that word–for example the word “blood”–you may be on to something if you saw blood in your dream. As with all sound Biblical interpretation, however, you must examine the context of your dream–both while in the dream and while awake–your real life experiences in the past 48 hours and their possible influence on your dream; and also, the context of the Scripture that seems to have a correlation to the dream symbol that is in question. 2. Strong’s KJV concordance would be a helpful substitute for studylight.org. 3. Bible dictionaries and encyclopedias; for example: The Eerdmans Bible Dictionary or The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia. 4. Charismatic dream symbol dictionaries: these can be a lot more specific and can speed up the process of interpretation, but make sure to consult the Bible for anywhere they may be lacking: Ira Milligan’s Understanding the Dreams You Dream, Paula Price’s The Prophet’s Dictionary, Joe Ibojie’s Illustrated Dictionary of Dream Symbols, and Adam Thompson and Adrian Beale’s The Divinity Code. 5. Charismatic books about dreams and visions: Jim Goll’s The Seer and Dream Language, Herman Riffel’s Dream Interpretation: A Biblical Understanding, and the CDs by John Paul Jackson are helpful: Understanding Dreams and Visions and The Biblical Model of Dream Interpretation. 6. I would advise against any use of blatantly New Age, occult, non-Christian, Jungian, Freudian, or any other such books on dreams: Morton Kelsey’s books contain these elements, so I would avoid them. Dabbling with such models of dream interpretation, I believe, gives access to the devil and a spirit of divination.

THE OLD TESTAMENT

Among Biblical scholars, it is generally agreed that in the Old Testament, very little is mentioned of Hell as a place of eternal punishment in fire.[1] Isaiah 66:24: “And they will go out and look on the dead bodies of those who rebelled against Me; the worms that eat them will not die, the fire that burns them will not be quenched, and they will be loathsome to all mankind.” While this does not mean Hell did not exist in Old Testament times, it does mean, however, that a clear and full revelation of Hell did not seem to be present. We read of the Grave, the Pit (Ps. 88:1-13), a place of darkness, for the wicked dead who have no hope, and in Daniel 12:2: “everlasting contempt.” Everlasting punishment in fire is hinted at, but never forcefully nor repetitively revealed.

1 ENOCH – 300 B.C.

During the intertestamental period, there were some charismatic visionary books written, in which the revelation of Hell as eternal punishment in fire starts to get clearer.[2] 2 Baruch 59:10: “And the mouth of Gehenna, and the station of vengeance…and the likeness of future torment.” But especially so with 1 Enoch: “This accursed valley is for those who are accursed for ever: Here shall all the accursed be gathered together who utter with their lips against the Lord unseemly words and of His glory speak hard things. Here shall they be gathered together, and here shall be their place of judgment. In the last days there shall be upon them the spectacle of righteous judgment in the presence of the righteous forever: here shall the merciful bless the Lord of glory, the Eternal King” (27:2-3); “As straw in the fire so shall they burn before the face of the holy: As lead in the water shall they sink before the face of the righteous, and no trace of them shall any more be found. And on the day of their affliction there shall be rest on the earth, and before them they shall fall and not rise again: And there shall be no one to take them with his hands and raise them: For they have denied the Lord of Spirits and His Anointed” (48:9-10).

“And I looked and turned to another part of the earth, and saw there a deep valley with burning fire. And they brought the kings and the mighty, and began to cast them into this deep valley. And there mine eyes saw how they made these their instruments, iron chains of immeasurable weight. And I asked the angel of peace who went with me, saying: ‘For whom are these chains being prepared?’ And he said unto me: ‘These are being prepared for the hosts of Azazel, so that they may take them and cast them into the abyss of complete condemnation, and they shall cover their jaws with rough stones as the Lord of Spirits commanded. And Michael, and Gabriel, and Raphael, and Phanuel shall take hold of them on that great day, and cast them on that day into the burning furnace, that the Lord of Spirits may take vengeance on them for their unrighteousness in becoming subject to Satan and leading astray those who dwell on the earth'” (54:1-6); “And the judgment was held first over the stars, and they were judged and found guilty, and went to the place of condemnation, and they were cast into an abyss, full of fire and flaming, and full of pillars of fire. And those seventy shepherds were judged and found guilty, and they were cast into that fiery abyss. And I saw at that time how a like abyss was opened in the midst of the earth, full of fire, and they brought those blinded sheep, and they were all judged and found guilty and cast into this fiery abyss, and they burned…and I saw those sheep burning and their bones burning” (90:24-27); “Know ye, that their souls will be made to descend into Sheol. And they shall be wretched in their great tribulation. And into darkness and chains and a burning flame where there is grievous judgment shall your spirits enter; and the great judgment shall be for all the generations of the world. Woe to you, for ye shall have no peace” (103:7-8).

JESUS BELIEVED IN HELL

Jesus continued with this tradition and brought this clear revelation of Hell into the Bible. It should be no surprise that He would be the one to do this task, since it is He who was appointed to save mankind from its eternal torments, through His teaching and His sacrifice on the cross. Repentance and faith in the cross of Christ saves men from eternal punishment in Hell-fire; and it turns out that the Savior from Hell is also the same person who not only created it for the devil and his angels, and all men who share their rebellion against God, but also taught and believed in it more than any Biblical figure. Jesus Christ had the strongest revelation of Hell before anyone else did; and after He went up into Heaven, the apostles did: especially the apostle John, as in Revelation 14 and 20. This is because Hell is an essential revelation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Without Hell, there can be no Gospel to save men from it. This is simply because the Gospel is the message that repentance from sin and faith in the cross secure forgiveness of sins and salvation from Hell. If Hell is removed from the revelation, then all you are left with is a humanistic this-worldly gospel that implies salvation is only about deliverance from sinful habits.

JESUS’ TEACHING ON HELL

In the Bible, Jesus is the main Revealer of and sole Savior from Hell. But even Jesus launched His ministry off of John the Baptist‘s, who started preaching of “unquenchable fire” in Luke 3: “He went into all the country around the Jordan, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins…The ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire…His winnowing fork is in His hand to clear His threshing floor and to gather the wheat into His barn, but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire” (vv. 3, 9, 17). Jesus carried on John’s revelation of repentance, the forgiveness of sins, Heaven, and the unquenchable fire of Hell, and eventually completed the Gospel message in the space of about three years. John even knew that Jesus was the “lamb of God who would take away the sins of the world” (John 1:29), but it is probable he did not yet know it would involve Jesus dying on the cross nor ascending into Heaven. The ministry of Jesus would complete this Gospel revelation.

Jesus warned that murder, hateful anger, and adultery of the heart are damnable sins if unrepented of: “I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to a brother or sister, ‘Raca,’ is answerable to the court. And anyone who says, ‘You fool!’ will be in danger of the fire of Hell…You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into Hell.  And if your right hand causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into Hell.” (Matthew 5:22, 27-30). Later on Jesus clarified His view: “and be thrown into eternal fire…thrown into the fire of Hell” (18:8-9). If we were just to look at these three passages of Scripture, it becomes clear that Jesus believed in the existence of Hell, the reality of its danger, that it involves physical sensations of pain, that the wicked are thrown into the eternal fire of Hell, and suffer from the pain of burning! Dr. Robert Yarbrough said that Jesus “used the fear of Hell as a motivator”[3] for people to repent, put their faith in Him, and pursue a life of holiness and obedience to God, so as to avoid the eternal punishment to come. I agree with this line of thinking. Jesus said, “Fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear Him which is able to destroy both soul and body in Hell” (Matt. 10:28). The fear of Hell is a motivator to holy living; but I would also like to add, that the original intent is not to use Hell merely as just some type of ethical mechanism, as if it didn’t really exist as a place; it does exist, and spiritual reality and supernatural revelation attest very clearly of this horrible place, even among the visions of pagans in remote tribes and jungles; it definitely exists, but primarily because God created it as a place to spend His wrath on those souls who remained stubborn and rebellious against Him. Jesus warns us of Hell; and so preaches reconciliation and obedience to God. Hell is a place of eternal punishment for the wicked, revealed by the Holy Spirit; it is not just a literary device invented to pressure or intimidate people into becoming Christians. You have to first acknowledge why it is necessary that a place like Hell should exist, and after doing so, deal with it: become a Christian if you have any sense of self-preservation: 1. God exists. 2. Souls exist and they are immortal. 3. The eternal fire of Hell exists (Jesus said so). 4. Unrepented sin exists. 5. The cross exists. 6. And so all souls who refuse to repent and place their faith in the cross will be thrown by God into the eternal fire of Hell. Solomon Stoddard, the grandfather of Jonathan Edwards, wrote seven sermons entitled together as: “The Efficacy of the Fear of Hell, To Restrain Men from Sin,” to which I would heartily agree! Call it “theological terrorism” if you wish, but it still makes sense! And returning to my original point, Jesus would believe in this too.

JESUS, THE DAY OF JUDGMENT, AND ETERNAL PUNISHMENT IN HELL

By no means did Jesus ever teach that Hell is a temporary place of existence (as the annihilationists think). No, Hell-fire is an eternal place for damned souls; and souls are immortal and indestructible. In Matthew 5 and 18, He already warned against living wickedly so as to avoid being thrown into the eternal fire of Hell.

In Matthew 25, Jesus said: “When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him, He will sit on His glorious throne. All the nations will be gathered before Him, and He will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on His right and the goats on His left…Then He will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from Me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite Me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe Me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after Me.’ They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help You?’ He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for Me.’ Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life” (vv. 31-32, 41-46). Jesus clearly teaches in Matthew 25:31-46 that on the Day of Judgment the wicked will be put into eternal punishment in fire, not a temporary fire, not an extinguishing, nor annihilating fire that turns men into ashes; but an eternal fire for souls who exist eternally. Annihilationists, who are heretics, take passages such as Matthew 7:13, which says, “Wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it,” and then they say, “See! Hell is a place where the souls of the wicked are destroyed, and that means they burn up into ashes, and cease to exist.” This is foolishness. You can’t make a soul extinguish; then it would not be a soul. Souls are immortal. It would also make no sense for Jesus to refer Hell as a place of eternal torment or “eternal punishment” if the wicked souls in Hell, suddenly after arriving there, just ceased to exist! Words have no meaning if this is the case. No, it’s clear that the life of the soul continues to exist in Hell; and will not cease. No crazy teaching of soul-annihilation was ever taught by any Biblical figure: soul-annihilation is actually a Hindu concept—the idea that liberation from reincarnation through Eastern meditation leads to the annihilation of the soul after death (moksha).[4] But the “destruction” of damned souls in the Biblical Hell means there is a destroying fire, that eats away at their vessels of wrath (Rom. 9:22), but like the burning bush of Moses, the bush is not consumed (Exod. 3:2), the soul is not consumed. Mind you, it is a spiritual fire for wicked spiritual souls which God, who is eternal and holy, created so that justice may be eternally served in Hell upon their eternal impenitence and hatred against God.

Jesus said in the teaching on “The Rich Man and Lazarus” (Luke 16:19-31)–a passage so long and clear, and so instructive of Hell, that John Bunyan was able to write an entire expository book on it: Sighs from Hell (1658)–in this teaching Jesus said that when the wicked rich man realized he was in Hell, he said in 16:24: “I AM TORMENTED IN THIS FLAME!” 1. Souls are immortal. 2. Jesus believed in immortal souls. 3. Hell-fire is eternal. 3. Jesus believed in an eternal Hell. 4. Jesus believed that the people who are thrown into Hell will be tormented in flames, eternally, not temporarily, not to be consumed, nor extinguished, nor turned into ash–because it is to be an ETERNAL PUNISHMENT (Matt. 25:46), something that could not constitute a punishment, if those in Hell were merely executed, and ceased to exist. It is foolish to imagine that some could experience something called a punishment if they did not exist anymore to experience the punishment; and Jesus calls it “ETERNAL PUNISHMENT” (Matt. 25:46), which obviously means that the damned souls are there in Hell to experience the eternal punishment in Hell’s fires and torments, otherwise it’s an absurdity to call Hell a place of eternal punishment. If the person is not even present to experience to the punishments of Hell, then why on earth do annihilationists persist in this error? Perhaps they thinks it’s a more “compassionate” view of Hell; but it’s still a wrong view. Execution is not eternal; it’s the quick way out; it’s what the Hindus and Buddhists are aiming for: soul-annihilation, or moksha. Hell is not suicide, not execution, but an everlasting nightmare, a place of horror, and dread, and pain, and torment, for the devil, his angels, and all of the wicked!

With popular pastors like Rob Bell and his book Love Wins, or Edward Fudge and his The Fire That Consumes, pushing such heretical notions about Hell–it makes me wonder why people who don’t take the words of Jesus seriously, or at face value, persist in these errors or even bother attending churches. Perhaps it’s just for social reasons. But Hell is not a social matter; it is an eternity issue; and a divine revelation not to be tampered with as a mere literary device.

Jesus believed in Hell. Do you?

—–

[1] Daniel I. Block, “The Old Testament on Hell” in Hell Under Fire, edited by Christopher Morgan and Robert Peterson (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2004), p. 44.

[2] Allen C. Myers, ed., “Hell” in The Eerdmans Bible Dictionary (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1987), p. 479.

[3] Robert W. Yarbrough, “What Jesus Said About Hell” in Is Hell for Real or Does Everyone Go to Heaven?, edited by Christopher Morgan and Robert Peterson (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2004, 2011), p. 25.

[4] Josh McDowell, Handbook of Today’s Religions (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1983), pp. 288, 297.

Originally from here.

My purpose in this essay is to evaluate the biblical hermeneutic of the evangelical conditionalist Edward William Fudge. I have chosen Fudge, the author of The Fire That Consumes: A Biblical and Historical Study of Final Punishment, for two reasons.¹ First, his work has attracted considerable attention of late. As evidence of this fact I cite two essays in Universalism and the Doctrine of Hell, edited by Nigel Cameron.² John W. Wenham ascribes importance to Fudge’s book when he includes it with three others that, in his estimation, have not been answered by traditionalist writers:

I have been waiting since 1973 for a reply to the massive work of Froom (2,476 pages), to Atkinson’s closely argued 112 pages, to Guillebaud’s 67 and (more important) to the one additional book which has appeared on the conditionalist side: Edward Fudge’s The Fire That Consumes3

Wenham’s remarks occur in the introduction to his essay, “The Case for Conditional Immortality.” In the essay that follows Wenham’s, Kendall S. Harmon makes “The Case Against Conditionalism: A Response to Edward William Fudge.”⁴ Notice that when Harmon seeks to interact with a contemporary annihilationist, he chooses Fudge. Harmon gives two reasons for so doing: “First, although not as prominent as John Stott or Philip Hughes, Mr. Fudge’s work is more substantial than theirs (500 pages) and is devoted exclusively to the doctrine of hell. Secondly, Mr. Fudge’s book has been praised for its tone and its thoroughness.”⁵ Plainly, the stock of The Fire That Consumes is on the rise.

My second reason for choosing to evaluate the biblical interpretation of Fudge is that in the preface to The Fire That Consumes he says that he has given attention to hermeneutics and that he invites evaluation of his work:

This book is written to be read – and argued with! I have no ax to grind and no cause to champion; I have tried to follow the ordinary methods of sound, biblical exegesis. Competent scholars and serious students are cordially invited to enter into dialogue. Check the statements made here. Weigh the evidence. Examine the arguments. Measure the work by every proper standard. All that matters is that we seek God’s truth for His glory and the salvation of sinners!6

I appreciate the openness Fudge here expresses. In this paper I take up one aspect of his challenge. I propose to evaluate his hermeneutic within the framework of his theological method.⁷ Like most writers on the doctrine of hell, Fudge does not devote a section of his book to hermeneutics.⁸ Nevertheless, he refers to principles of interpretation throughout The Fire That Consumes. By studying these stated principles and the hermeneutic implicit in his exegesis, we can discern some aspects of his hermeneutical method.

Fudge’s book totals 500 pages. Instead of trying to evaluate all of his exegesis, I have chosen to base my evaluation primarily on his treatment of three NT passages: Matthew 25:41, 46; Revelation 14:9-11; and Revelation 20:10, 15. I have chosen these passages because they have figured most prominently in the history of the doctrine of Hell. Indeed, Augustine, Aquinas, Calvin, Edwards, and Shedd, to name the stalwarts of the orthodox view of hell, all regard one or more of these passages as teaching the endless conscious torment of the wicked.⁹ I have studied Fudge’s treatment of these passages (within the context of his whole book) in order to evaluate his hermeneutical approach and method. As a result I summarize Fudge’s hermeneutic under the following headings.

USE OF THE OLD TESTAMENT

Fudge devotes a thirty page chapter of The Fire that Consumes to a study of “The End of the Wicked in the OT.”¹⁰ Contrary to the assumption of many, the OT has much to say about the fate of the wicked. Fudge points to numerous biblical examples of God’s judging the ungodly. I will cite two: the Genesis flood and the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.

At the time of the flood, “God decided ‘to wipe mankind.., from the face of the earth” (Gen 6:5). Indeed, Fudge notes, “God told Noah his plan… ‘to destroy… every creature that has the breath of life in it. Everything will perish” (v. 17). Subsequently, God fulfilled his threat and, “When the flood came, ‘Every living thing that moved on the earth perished….” (Gen 7:21). Fudge concludes, “Here there is no doubt about the meaning of ‘perish,’ ‘destroy,’ or ‘die’…. In this actual historical example of the end of the world, those terms were clearly literal. They meant being ‘wiped out,’ being ‘wiped off the face of the earth.’¹¹

The fate of Sodom and Gomorrah is another example given by Fudge of God’s judging the wicked in the OT. In this case, “The fire fell from heaven and burned the wicked to ashes, resulting in a total desolation that would never be reversed!”¹² Indeed, as Fudge amplifies in a footnote, “The final outcome of ‘fire and brimstone’ in the prototypal historical judgment of Sodom was the complete extermination of every sinner….” ¹³

It is not necessary to multiply examples. These two enable us to understand Fudge’s conception of the fate of the wicked according to the OT – annihilation. Although Fudge is not the first conditionalist to reach this conclusion, as he acknowledges,¹⁴ he has given it new visibility. Consider these words from an article he wrote in 1984:

Is the OT silent concerning the wicked’s final fate? Indeed it is not. It overwhelmingly affirms their total destruction. It never affirms or even hints at anything resembling conscious unending torment [edit:–WRONG! DANIEL 12:2: “Multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake: some to everlasting life, others to shame and everlasting contempt.”] The OT uses about 50 different Hebrew verbs to describe this fate, and about 70 figures of speech. Without exception they portray destruction, extinction or extermination. Not one of the verbs or word-pictures remotely suggests the traditional doctrine.15

How are we to evaluate Fudge’s conclusions? I must give them a mixed review on the basis of a study of the major Old Testament judgment texts.¹⁶ Such a study reveals that the punishments of God described in them are earthly and temporal, resulting in physical death. These passages do not speak of life after death or eternal destinies. This is significant in the light of Fudge’s claim that the Old Testament supports his view of the extinction of the wicked.¹⁷ Fudge correctly asserts that the judgment passages use the “vocabulary of destruction.” God punishes the ungodly in the flood, Sodom and Gomorrah, the plagues and Red Sea, and the captivities by “wiping them out, cutting them off, putting them to an end, overthrowing them.” As a result the wicked “perish, die, are consumed, shattered, destroyed.”

Fudge errs [edit:–as did the Sadducees, Mark 12:27], however, when he claims that these OT texts teach the annihilation of the wicked. If that were the case, then the judgment passages would teach too much, for the “annihilation” depicted in them does not follow the resurrection and punishment of the wicked, as does the annihilation for which Fudge argues. Instead, the “annihilation” presented by the OT would entail cessation of existence at death and this is more akin to Bertrand Russell’s view [materialism/physicalism] than to the teaching of evangelical annihilationists. Actually, however, since these passages do not speak of judgment after death, they do not teach annihilationism and pose no threat to the orthodox view of eternal punishment.¹⁸

I conclude that Fudge’s claim that the OT judgment passages teach annihilationism is false. Moreover, Fudge’s error has serious repercussions in the light of his theological method, for after concluding that the OT teaches annihilationism, Fudge reads this conclusion into the NT. This is evident, for example, in his comments on “burning sulfur” in Rev 14:10. There Fudge asserts, “In the Bible the symbol derives its meaning from the annihilation of Sodom and Gomorrah.”¹⁹

A page later Fudge argues that the images of “burning sulfur” and of “carrion birds” eating “the corpses” both “sound out a message of utter extinction.” Furthermore, “Rev 19:20, 21 has both figures and distinguishes between them, but it gives no indication of changing this basic meaning of either” (italics mine). Here we see Fudge’s theological method in action. The OT provides the “basic meaning” of the images of God’s judgment – annihilationism – and the NT “gives no indication of changing this basic meaning.”²⁰

I will elaborate below on Fudge’s habit of reading his annihilationist understanding of the OT into the NT. For now it is sufficient to have demonstrated the faulty basis for this practice. Fudge has misinterpreted the numerous OT texts that use the “vocabulary of destruction” as teaching annihilationism. This is the source of his mishandling of the NT.

APPEAL TO LINGUISTICS

Throughout The Fire That Consumes, Fudge appeals to linguistics in an effort to strengthen his case for conditionalism. Unfortunately, his work is marred by linguistic fallacies. I will cite two different types of such errors.

First, at times, he adopts a diachronic rather than a syncronic approach to the study of words. Fudge claims that the meaning of “punishment” in Matt 25:46 is disputed. He then cites among other authorities Aristotle, Plutarch, and the Septuagint. Fudge would do well to heed Moises Silva’s caution:

We must accept the obvious fact that the speakers of a language simply know next to nothing about its development; and this certainly was the case with the writers and immediate readers of Scripture two millennia ago…It follows that our real interest is the significance of Greek or Hebrew in the consciousness of the biblical writers; to put it baldly, “historical considerations are irrelevant to the investigation” of the state of the Koine at the time of Christ (italics in original).21

Second, Fudge commits a linguistic fallacy in his treatment of the Pauline pair of words “trouble” (thlipsis) and “distress” (stenochoria) in Rom 2:9. After noting a few other occurrences of this pair in Paul’s writings, Fudge remarks, “Paul is one of those who are ‘hard pressed…but not crushed,’ and he uses these same two words in participle form to say so (2 Cor 4:8).” So far, so good. But next Fudge draws an unwarranted conclusion, “This last translation is suggestive for our present verse [Rom 2:9]. Judgment day will find the wicked ‘hard pressed’ – to the point of being ‘crushed.”²²

This is an example of what D. A. Carson calls, “Unwarranted adoption of an expanded semantic field.” Carson explains:

The fallacy in this instance lies in the supposition that the meaning of a word in a specific context is much broader than the context itself allows and may bring with it the word’s entire semantic range. This step is sometimes called illegitimate totality transfer.23

Although stenochoroumenoi, used metaphorically, may be rendered “crushed” in 2 Cor 4:8 (the NIV does so), it is illegitimate to transfer this meaning to the noun stenochoria in Rom 2:9 and suggest that it implies the literal “crushing” – the annihilation – of the wicked on judgment day.

I conclude that Fudge’s appeal to linguistics sometimes has the opposite of his desired effect: it harms rather than helps his case for annihilationism.

AVOIDANCE OF TEXTS AND OPPOSING ARGUMENTS

Another feature of Fudge’s hermeneutic is his occasional avoidance of aspects of biblical passages that are difficult to reconcile with conditionalism. Sometimes this avoidance takes the form of ignoring the strongest arguments of traditionalism.

An example of the latter is his failure to correlate Matt 25:41 with Rev 20:10, in spite of the fact that he dedicates eleven pages to a study of Matt 25:41, 46.²⁴

Included in Jesus’ teaching concerning the sheep and the goats are his terrible words to the wicked, “Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels” (Matt 25:41). Traditionalists since Augustine have interpreted Scripture by Scripture and gone to Rev 20:10 for help in understanding this “eternal fire prepared for the devil.” There John describes Satan’s fate, “And the devil, who deceived them, was thrown into the lake of burning sulfur, where the beast and the false prophet had been thrown. They will be tormented day and night for ever and ever.”

Referring to Matt 25:41 and Rev 20:10, Augustine reasons, “Eternal’ in the first passage is expressed in the second by ‘for ever and ever’, and those words have only one meaning in scriptural usage: the exclusion of any temporal end.”²⁵

Many traditionalists since Augustine have regarded this as a strong argument for endless punishment. A recent example is Alan Gomes’s use of this argument in his presentation of the two sets of texts (Matt 25:41, 46; Rev 14:9-11; 20:10) that he views as “conclusively” teaching eternal conscious torment (italics mine).²⁶

What is Fudge’s hermeneutical technique for dealing with this prominent traditionalist argument? He simply does not address it. In so doing he actually weakens his case for conditionalism, by giving the impression that he avoids the traditionalist argument because he cannot answer it.

At other times Fudge avoids biblical texts that are difficult to harmonize with conditionalism. One example is Fudge’s handling of the angel’s message in Rev 14:9-11:

If anyone worships the beast and his image and receives his mark on the forehead or on the hand, he, too, will drink of the wine of God’s fury, which has been poured full strength into the cup of his wrath. He will be tormented with burning sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and of the Lamb. And the smoke of their torment rises for ever and ever. There is no rest day or night for those who worship the beast and his image, or for anyone who receives the mark of his name.

This text is one of the pillars upon which the traditional doctrine of Hell has been built. It may seem odd for me to cite Fudge’s treatment of this passage as an example of his avoiding difficult texts because he devotes more than six pages to its exposition! Nevertheless, it is a striking example of avoidance. In fact, all the more so, because of the amount of space Fudge allots to it.

After briefly setting Rev 14:9-11 in its literary context, Fudge divides it into four elements: “Wine of God’s Fury,” “Burning Sulfur,” “Rising Smoke,” and “No Rest Day or Night.” He then treats the four in turn. In so doing he mentions the OT more than twenty-five times and the NT more than fifteen times. He regards many of these texts as teaching annihilationism and insists that we interpret Rev 14:9-11 accordingly. Amazingly, however, other than an exposition of “There is no rest day or night” and a brief summary at the end of his discussion, Fudge does not explain Rev 14:9-11 at all.²⁷”

What are we to make of this? Fudge informs us of the theological method he intended to follow when he states his aim of “letting the Scripture interpret itself.”²⁸ Certainly, interpreters are to compare Scripture with Scripture, as Luther urged. Furthermore, consulting the OT background is especially important for those seeking to understand the Apocalypse, which is replete with OT allusions and symbolism. Unfortunately, however, Fudge has not allowed other Scriptures to inform his exegesis of Rev 14; instead he has substituted his comments on many other texts for the interpretation of Rev 14:9-11 itself. And this does not constitute an exegesis of this critical text. Indeed, Fudge has not explained verses 9-11 as John has put them together. Instead, he has created his own theological context for Rev 14:9-11 out of his mosaic of biblical texts. And apparently, he assumes that the interpretation of Rev 14:9-11 will be apparent to his readers – it teaches the same conditionalism that Fudge finds elsewhere in the Bible.

Granted, John’s statements in Rev 14:9-11 are very difficult for conditionalist interpreters to handle. But this is exactly what Fudge has to do in order to prove that annihilationism can stand up to the scrutiny of biblical exegesis. Instead, he has bombarded the reader with Scripture references. Although this may have the effect of impressing some readers, careful ones will notice that Fudge has never explained the verses at hand! The result once again is a weakening of his case for conditionalism.

I do not want to be misunderstood. I am not prying into Fudge’s motives or accusing him of dishonesty. Rather, I am criticizing his theological hermeneutic. At times he simply avoids texts that are difficult for his position.

Another example is his treatment of Mark 9:43-48. Although Fudge discusses seventy New Testament passages under individual headings, he does not devote a separate heading to this significant text; instead, he subsumes it under his treatment of Matt. 18:8, 9. There Fudge plays Matthew’s and Mark’s accounts against each other to avoid the difficult verses for annihilationism. For example, Fudge notes that whereas Matthew speaks of “eternal fire,” Mark speaks simply of being “thrown/going into Hell.” What conclusion are we to draw from this? Fudge urges, “Matthew’s language may add flavor and force, but it should not be naively interpreted in a way that contradicts Mark’s.”²⁹ I must ask why it is naive to seek to understand each passage on its own merits before doing theological systematization? And why should one regard unbelievers’ being thrown into Hell as incompatible with endless punishment, unless one were committed a priori to annihilationism?

Fudge diverts his readers’ attention from Jesus’ strong words about Hell in Matt 18:8, 9 and Mark 9:44, 48 by noting that Calvin in his commentary on these passages, “does not elaborate at all on final punishment.”³⁰ I fail to understand how that lessens Fudge’s responsibility to explain the verses at hand. Nevertheless, he simply skips Jesus’ words in Mark 9:44, where he speaks of “Hell, where the fire never goes out.”

Fudge does treat Jesus’ saying in Mark 9:48 that Hell is “where their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched.” But his treatment is another example of avoidance. He instructs us that the worm here “is a devouring worm, and what it eats – in Isaiah’s picture here quoted without amendment – is already dead.”³¹ Once more Fudge imposes his annihilationist reading of the OT upon the NT text. Does this sufficiently explain Jesus’s words about the worm’s not dying? Wouldn’t the worm die, when it had consumed its host? Shouldn’t a conditionalist theologian address the traditionalist arguments arising out of the biblical text? At least this traditionalist gets the impression that Fudge is reading his theology into passages that are difficult to assimilate to his position.

Moreover, my impression is only confirmed by Fudge’s explanation of Jesus’ description of Hell as a place “where the fire is not quenched” (Mark 9:48). Fudge informs us, “The devouring worm is aided by a consuming fire” (italics in original). As evidence he points us to biblical references already adduced along with passages in Homer and Eusebius.³² Is this not clear avoidance of Jesus’ words? Jesus says nothing in Mark 9:42-48 about a consuming fire; instead, he says that Hell-fire “is not quenched” (v. 48). And Fudge has not interpreted these words in the context of Jesus’ message.

In sum: Fudge’s avoidance of the strongest traditionalist arguments and of the texts used for centuries to teach the endless punishment of the wicked damages his case for conditionalism.³³

LOGICAL FALLACIES

The Logical Fallacy of Argumentum ad Hominem. In his zeal to argue for conditionalism Fudge at times commits logical fallacies. I will cite two examples. Irving M. Copi defines argumentum ad hominem (abusive) as follows: “The phrase ‘arguinentum ad hominem’ translates literally into ‘argument directed to the man…’ This fallacy…is committed when, instead of trying to disprove the truth of what is asserted, one attacks the man who made the assertion…The way in which this irrelevant argument may sometimes persuade is through the psychological process of transference. Where an attitude of disapproval toward a person can be evoked, it may possibly tend to overflow the strictly emotional field and become disagreement with what the person says” (italics in original).³⁴

Fudge argues in this manner in his treatment of Jesus’ words in Matt 25:46. There, speaking of the goats and sheep respectively, Jesus declares, “Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.“

Traditionalists have often pointed to the parallelism of the fates of the righteous and unrighteous when making their case for the endless punishment for the wicked. Augustine, for example, argued this way, “Christ, in the very same passage, included both punishment and life in one and the same sentence when he said, ‘So those people will go into eternal punishment, while the righteous will go into eternal life” (Matt. 25:46). Augustine contends:

If both are “eternal”, it follows necessarily that either both are to be taken as long-lasting but finite, or both as endless and perpetual. The phrases “eternal punishment” and “eternal life” are parallel and it would be absurd to use them in one and the same sentence to mean: “Eternal life will be infinite, while eternal punishment will have an end.” Hence, because the eternal life of the saints will be endless, the eternal punishment also, for those condemned to it, will assuredly have no end.35

How does Fudge counter this traditionalist argument? First, he contends that eternal punishment means irreversible annihilation. “When the wicked have perished, it will be forever – their destruction and punishment is unending as well as qualitatively different from anything we now know.” ³⁶

Second, Fudge responds to this traditionalist argument by employing an arguinentum ad hoininem. He writes, “We must be careful in pressing the parallel between ‘eternal’ life and ‘eternal’ punishment that we do not fall into any spirit of vindictiveness or ungodly joy at the fate of the wicked.”³⁷

The implication is that understanding Matt 25:46 as teaching endless punishment for the wicked makes one liable to vindictiveness. Copi puts the argumentum ad hominem into the category of “irrelevant arguments.” The premises of such arguments “are logically irrelevant to, and therefore incapable of establishing the truth of, their conclusions.”³⁸ This is true of Fudge’s argument here: whether traditionalists are vindictive or not has nothing to do with the meaning of Matt 25:46. In fact, the defenders of the orthodox doctrine of Hell have often demonstrated compassion for the lost. But whether they are compassionate or vengeful does not help us understand Jesus’ words.

Fudge, by arguing in this way, seeks to persuade by “the psychological process of transference,” to use Copi’s description. As was already noted, “Where an attitude of disapproval toward a person can be evoked, it may possibly tend to overflow the strictly emotional field and become disagreement with what the person says.”³⁹

Unfortunately, Fudge pursues this line of argumentation in a chapter of his book entitled, “Traditionalism’s Problem of Pain.”⁴⁰ Here he cites extreme portrayals from church history of the wicked’s “everlasting torture in agony,” and declares, “If the whole point is to scare the poor and the little children, why not give them a fright they will never forget?” He even paints crude Buddhist, Hindu, and Muslim pictures of Hell to heap ridicule on the traditionalist view.⁴¹

Fudge’s argument here is as unconvincing as that employed by defenders of endless punishment who use an argumentuin ad hoininein against annihilationism by grouping conditionalists with cultists.⁴²

The Logical Fallacy of Petitio Principii

Fudge also commits the logical fallacy of vetitio principii. Copi describes this fallacy:

In attempting to establish the truth of a proposition, one often casts about for acceptable premises from which the proposition in question can be deduced as conclusion. If one assumes as a premise for his argument the very conclusion he intends to prove, the fallacy committed is that of petitio principii, or begging the question.43

Fudge commits this fallacy in his exposition of the lake of fire in Rev 19:20. He argues that the beast and false prophet are not actual people but institutions (!), and hence incapable of suffering conscious, sensible pain. Their being cast into the lake of fire cannot, therefore, indicate endless punishment. Fudge then notes that Homer Hailey does not regard Rev 19:20 as describing Christ’s second coming.⁴⁴

Fudge next appeals to Hanns Lilje who “marvels that John gives no description here of any battle.” Lilje writes of God’s throwing the beast into the lake of fire:

The very moment when this purpose of God is fulfilled, the mighty power of the beast shrivels up like a collapsed balloon, as if it had never been. It has been unmasked, and its true character revealed: it was empty, futile presumption.45

Fudge notes that “Lilje is content to use the word ‘annihilated’ to express the meaning of the lake of fire. Fudge’s next sentence is revealing, “In the case of the beast and false prophet, therefore, the lake of fire stands for utter, absolute, irreversible annihilation.”⁴⁶ Here Fudge commits the logical fallacy of petitio principii, or begging the question. Fudge does not prove that the lake of fire signifies annihilation. He merely states that Lilje thinks it means this. On that basis (“therefore”) Fudge concludes that the lake of fire stands for obliteration. Fudge here assumes his conclusion. This aspect of his argument, therefore, lacks cogency.

Fudge commits the same fallacy in his comments on Heb 2:2, 3. There, after admitting that this passage “gives no details of that terrible and certain punishment,” he nevertheless concludes that the wicked will “perish forever in the second and final death.”⁴⁷

APPEAL TO SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY

While commenting on the “wine of God’s fury” in Rev 14:10, Fudge speaks of the cup of God’s wrath. In this context he says:

Such was the cup Jesus accepted from God’s hand in Gethsemane, and to drink it unmixed He refused even the numbing wine offered by His murderers (Matt. 26:39, 42, 44; 27:34). He suffered torment of body and soul. More than that, He drained the cup of God’s wrath, passively enduring the simultaneous draining of His own life into total death.48

Here Fudge, following the examples of Atkinson and Froom before him, teaches that Jesus was annihilated in his death. In fact, Fudge devotes six pages of his book to the thesis: “Jesus’ Death Involved Total Destruction.”⁴⁹ Here he quotes approvingly James Dunn’s statements, “Man could not be helped other than through his [Jesus’] annihilation,” and “This process of destruction is speeded up in the case of Jesus, the representative man, the hilasterion, and destroys him.”⁵⁰ Next Fudge agrees with Oscar Cullmann who wrote that:

[Jesus] can conquer death only by actually dying, by betaking Himself to the sphere of death, the destroyer of life, to the sphere of nothingness…Whoever wants to conquer death must die; he must really cease to live – not simply live on as an immortal soul; but die in body and soul, lose life itself…Furthermore, if life is to issue out of so genuine a death as this, a new divine act of creation is necessary. And this act of creation calls back to life not just a part of man, but the whole man – all that God had created and death had annihilated.51

Fudge insists that the Scriptures teach that Jesus was annihilated:

The Bible exhausts the vocabulary of dying in speaking of what happened to Jesus. He “died for our sins” (1 Cor 15:3). He laid down His “life [psyche]” (John 10:15). He was destroyed (Matt 27:20, KJV) or killed (Acts 3:15). Jesus compared his own death to the dissolution of a kernel of wheat (John 12:23-26). Jesus “poured out His life [psyche] unto death” and in so doing was “numbered with the transgressors” (Isa 53:12; italics in original).52

Fudge admits, “We naturally recoil from such a thought, that the Son of God could truly have perished – even for a moment.” Yet this is what Fudge believes happened. He faults Calvin for his refusal to believe that “Jesus’ ‘soul’ truly died.”⁵³

In his conclusion Fudge writes:

Every scriptural implication is that if Jesus had not been raised, He – like those fallen asleep in Him – would simply have perished (1 Cor 15:18). His resurrection reverses every such estimation of affairs assuring us instead of the death of Death (2 Tim 1:10; Heb 2:14; Rev 20:14).54

To be precise, Fudge concurs with Edward White who held that when Jesus died in crucifixion his humanity was annihilated, but not his divinity.⁵⁵

Fudge, therefore, seeks to strengthen his case for annihilationism by arguing that Jesus bore the pains of Hell in his death, that is, he was annihilated. What are the systematic implications of such a view? Do they strengthen or weaken Fudge’s case for conditionalism?

The systematic implications of holding that Jesus was annihilated when he died are enormous. Nothing less than orthodox Christology is at stake. The definitive statement concerning the Person of Christ was made by the Council of Chalcedon in 451. Included in the Definition of the Council of Chalcedon is the following formal confession of faith:

In agreement, therefore, with the holy fathers, we all unanimously teach that we should confess that our Lord Jesus Christ is one and the same Son, the same perfect in Godhead and the same perfect in manhood, truly God and truly man, the same of a rational soul and body, consubstantial with the Father in Godhead, and the same consubstantial with us in manhood, like us in all things except sin; begotten from the Father before the ages as regards His Godhead, and in these last days, the same, because of us and because of our salvation begotten from the Virgin Mary, the Theotokos, as regards His manhood; one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, only-begotten, made known in two natures without confusion, without change, without division, without separation, the difference of the natures being by no means removed because of the union, but the property of each nature being preserved and coalescing in one prosopan and one hupostasis – not parted or divided into two prosopa, but one and the same Son, only-begotten, divine Word, the Lord Jesus Christ, as the prophets of old and Jesus Christ Himself taught us about Him and the creed of our fathers has handed down.56

John Cooper encapsulates the teaching of Chalcedon:

Since the Council of Chalcedon the church has officially recognized what is taught in the New Testament and held by the early church: that because of the incarnation Jesus Christ is both truly God and truly human; that he is one person with two natures, one divine and one human; and that these natures are neither mixed together nor are they separable.57

Next, Cooper highlights the disastrous implications of holding that Jesus was annihilated in his death:

Now if the extinction – re-creation account of Jesus’ resurrection is true, then the teaching of Chalcedon is false. The two natures of Christ are separable and were in fact separated between Good Friday and Easter Sunday. The human being Jesus completely ceased to exist…So the divine-human person Jesus Christ did not exist for the interim. Only the nonincarnate Word, the wholly divine Son, the Second Person of the Trinity, existed during that time.58

Furthermore, if Jesus were annihilated on Calvary, and his natures separated because his humanity ceased to exist, then his resurrection constituted another incarnation. This incarnation would differ from the first in that this time the Word would take to himself resurrected flesh. Notwithstanding, it would be a second incarnation.

I conclude: instead of Fudge’s appeal to systematic theology strengthening his case for conditionalism, it weakens it considerably. Indeed, to hold that Jesus’ humanity was annihilated on the cross, brings one into conflict with Chalcedonian Christology. Such a prospect ought to cause conditionalists to re-examine their views, for the Bible teaches that Christ did suffer the pains of Hell, but not as they are conceived by annihilationists.⁵⁹

CONCLUSION

Space prevents me from considering other aspects of Fudge’s theological hermeneutic. I omitted one important aspect because it has been treated adequately by Kendall S. Harmon. That is Fudge’s tendency to read into Scripture a period of penal suffering for the ungodly prior to their annihilation. To quote Harmon, “He [Fudge] often introduces a chronological lapse of time in New Testament passages which is not there in the texts themselves.“⁶⁰

I have evaluated Fudge’s use of the OT, appeal to linguistics, avoidance of texts and of opposing arguments, logical fallacies, and appeal to systematic theology. I have pointed out deficiencies in his methodological approach in these five areas. As a result, I conclude that Fudge’s case for conditionalism is not as strong as he and others have thought. In fact, evaluated in terms of hermeneutics and theological method, his case appears to be weak.

—–

Robert Peterson holds a Ph.D. from Drew University and is Professor of Systematic Theology at Covenant Theological Seminary. A version of the present essay is forthcoming in a collected volume tentatively entitled Hermeneutics: Select Essays from the 1994 Evangelical Theological Society and is published here by permission. Prof. Peterson’s new book, Hell On Trial: The Case for Eternal Punishment (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1995), should be out in June.

—–

1 Edward Fudge, The Fire That Consumes: A Biblical and Historical Study of Final Punishment (Houston: Providential Press, 1982). I thank Mr. Fudge for reading this paper and offering comments. I note that Fudge affirms the resurrection of the saved and the lost and rejects the teaching of Jehovah’s Witnesses that hell is only the physical grave.

2 Nigel M. de S. Cameron, ed., Universalism and the Doctrine of Hell (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1992).

3 John W. Wenham, “The Case for Conditional Immortality,” Universalism and the Doctrine of Hell, 164. My first footnote gives the bibliographical information for Fudge’s book. The other three books are: Harold E. Guillebaud, The Righteous Judge (n.p., 1941); Basil Atkinson, Life and Immortality (n.p., n.d.); LeRoy Edwin Froom, The Conditionalist Faith of Our Fathers (Washington, D.C.: Review and Herald, 1965-66). Guillebaud’s and Atkinson’s books were published privately and are obtainable from the Reverend B. L. Bateson, 26 Summershard, S. Petherton, Somerset, U.K. TAI3 5DP.

4 In Cameron, ed., Universalism and the Doctrine of Hell, 193-224.

5 Ibid., 195-96.

6 Fudge, The Fire That Consumes, xv.

7 Dan McCartney and Charles Clayton (Let the Reader Understand. A Guide to Interpreting and Applying the Bible [Wheaton, IL: BridgePoint, 1994], 65-67) helpfully discuss the relation between systematic theology and hermeneutical method.

8 One exception is Robert A. Morey, Death and the Afterlife (Minneapolis, MN: Bethany House, 1984), 19-33.

9 David Knowles, ed., The City of God (London: Penguin Books, 1972), XXI. 23 (pp. 1001, 1004, 1005); Vernon J. Bourke, trans., On the Truth of the Catholic Faith. Summa contra Gentiles. Book Three, Providence, Part II, (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1956), 144.8 (p. 216), 145.5 (p. 219); D. W. Torrance and T. F. Torrance, eds., Calvin’s New Testament Commentaries. A Harmony of the Gospels, vol. Ill (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1972), 117-118; John H. Gerstner, Jonathan Edwards on Heaven and Hell (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1980), 75; W. G. T. Shedd, The Doctrine of Endless Punishment (Edinburgh: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1986; first published 1885; second edition, 1887), 89.

10 Fudge, The Fire That Consumes. 87-117.

11 Ibid., 98.

12 Ibid., 100.

13 Ibid., 100, n.10.

14 Fudge approvingly cites Froom, Petavel, and Constable in the notes of his chapter on the OT in The Fire That Consumes. He could have added Atkinson’s name as well.

15 Edward Fudge, “The Final End of the Wicked,” JETS 27.3 (1984): 326.

16 See chapter two of my Hell on Trial: The Case for Eternal Punishment (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1995) for the details of this study.

17 Fudge is not the only one to make this claim. For another example, see Clark H. Pinnock, “The Destruction of the Finally Impenitent,” Criswell Theological Review 4.2 (1990): 250-52

18 At least two OT texts, Dan 12:2 and Isaiah 66:24, do speak of the fate of the wicked after death. Fudge agrees, but then errs when he interprets these as teaching the annihilation of the wicked after resurrection (see The Fire That Consumes, 110-115). To the contrary, both texts suggest the endless conscious torment of the wicked. See chapter two of my Hell on Trial for a theological exegesis of these passages.

19 Fudge, The Fire That Consumes, 296.

20 Ibid., 297.

21 Moises Silva, Biblical Words and their Meaning. An Introduction to Lexical Semantics (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1983), 38.

22 Fudge, The Fire That Consumes, 262.

23 D. A. Carson, Exegetical Fallacies (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1984), 62.

24 Fudge, The Fire That Consumes, 192-202.

25 Knowles, ed., The City of God, XXI. 23 (p. 1001).

26 Alan W. Gomes, “Evangelicals and the Annihilation of Hell, Part One,” Christian Research Journal 13.4 (1991): 17-18. See also Larry Dixon, The Other Side of the Good News (Wheaton, IL: BridgePoint, 1992), 89.

27 Fudge, The Fire That Consumes, 295-301.

28 Ibid., 299.

29 Ibid., 184

30 lbid.

31 Ibid., 185

32 Ibid.

33 How does Fudge attempt to reconcile annihilationism with Rev 20:10, where John asserts that the devil “will be tormented for ever and ever” in the lake of fire? He admits, “There is no easy solution.” He concludes, however, “Whatever the case with Satan, the final punishment of the wicked is a different subject,” ibid., 304, 307. Fudge here tries to avoid the plain sense of Rev 20:10 and the fact that four verses later wicked humans too are cast into the same lake of fire.

34 Irving M. Copi, Introduction to Logic. 2nd ed. (New York: Macmillan, 1961), 54-55.

35 Knowles, ed., The City of God, XXI. 23 (pp. 1001-1002).

36 Fudge, The Fire That Consumes, 195.

37 Ibid.

38 Copi, Introduction to Logic, 53

39 Ibid., 55.

40 Fudge, The Fire That Consumes, 411-422.

41 Ibid., 419-420.

42 See John H. Gerstner, Repent or Perish (Ligonier, PA: Soli Den Gloria, 1990), 30; and Morey, Death and the Afterlife, 202-03.

43 Copi, Introduction to Logic, 65.

44 Fudge, The Fire That Consumes, 303.

45 Ibid., 303-304.

46 Ibid., 304.

47 Ibid., 272-273.

48 Ibid., 296.

49 Ibid., 228-234.

50 Ibid., 229.

51 Ibid., 230.

52 Ibid

53 Ibid., 231.

54 Ibid., 233-234.

55 Ibid., 230-231.

56 J. N. D. Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines (2nd ed. New York: NY: Har-Row, 1960), 339-340.

57 John Cooper, Body, Soul, & Life Everlasting. Biblical Anthropology and the Monism-Dualism Debate (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1989), 144.

58 Ibid., 144-145.

59 I thank my student Jimmy Agan for helping me to understand better the connection between the doctrine of hell and Christ’s atonement.

60 Harmon, “The Case Against Conditionalism,” 210-12. For two more examples of this error in The Fire That Consumes, see 47, 48.

Used by permission. “The Hermeneutics of Annihilationism: The Theological Method of Edward Fudge,” Robert A. Peterson. Presbyterion: Covenant Seminary Review, XXI, No. 1, Spring 1995.

If a cessationist were to ask me, “If the spiritual gifts of 1 Corinthians 12-14 have continued after Biblical times, throughout church history, and into the modern day–then through whom did they continue?”

My answer would be: “This is an essential question that Pentecostals and Charismatics need to be grounded in. And I pray that more are. In my judgment, after Biblical times, the spiritual gifts passed on after the apostles to the apostolic fathers, the Desert Fathers, and multitudes of Catholic saints: such as St. Patrick, St. Benedict, St. Columba, Hildegard of Bingen, St. Francis of Assisi, St. Dominic, St. Vincent Ferrer, St. Ignatius of Loyola, St. Teresa of Avila, and St. John of the Cross.

After this period, the Protestant Reformation through Martin Luther was clearly a move of God, for obvious reasons, and was even prophesied about by Hildegard of Bingen and Jan Hus (see Thomas Boys’ The Suppressed Evidence); Luther was not necessarily a man of spiritual gifts–more of a theologian–but if you dig, you will find that he had a number of mystical experiences, probably due to his background as an Augustinian monk.

Among Protestant saints, the spiritual gifts seem to continue in this fashion: John Knox and the Covenanters; George Fox and the Quakers; John Wesley and the Methodists; Charles Finney and evangelical revivalism; William J. Seymour, Smith Wigglesworth, and Pentecostals; John Wimber and the Vineyard churches; Derek Prince and independent charismatic ministries. Various books by Gospel Publishing House, the arm of the Assemblies of God, have become standards for Pentecostals on the subject of spiritual gifts: Donald Gee’s Concerning Spiritual Gifts, Harold Horton’s The Gifts of the Spirit, and Howard Carter’s Spiritual Gifts and Their Operation; so also has Stanley Frodsham’s Smith Wigglesworth: Apostle of Faith.

John Wimber’s Power Healing stands alone as a unique work, on putting prayer for healing into practice, with the experiential use of spiritual gifts.

I am aware of B. B. Warfield’s Counterfeit Miracles, John MacArthur’s Charismatic Chaos and Strange Fire, and Hank Hanegraaff’s Counterfeit Revival. And many of the concerns they raise about charlatans are valid; however, I believe they often overlook the good saints in the process, and still have no valid reason to believe why the spiritual gifts cannot be experienced today. Plus their arguments have been sufficiently answered by Jack Deere’s Surprised by the Power of the Spirit, Jon Ruthven’s On the Cessation of the Charismata, and Gary Greig’s The Kingdom and the Power.”

Originally from here.

THE PRIDE OF THE PHARISEES

1 Then spake Jesus to the multitude, and to his disciples, 2 Saying, The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat: 3 All therefore whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do; but do not ye after their works: for they say, and do not. 4 For they bind heavy burdens and grievous to be borne, and lay them on men’s shoulders; but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers. 5 But all their works they do for to be seen of men: they make broad their phylacteries, and enlarge the borders of their garments, 6 And love the uppermost rooms at feasts, and the chief seats in the synagogues, 7 And greetings in the markets, and to be called of men, Rabbi, Rabbi. 8 But be not ye called Rabbi: for one is your Master, even Christ; and all ye are brethren. 9 And call no man your father upon the earth: for one is your Father, which is in heaven. 10 Neither be ye called masters: for one is your Master, even Christ. 11 But he that is greatest among you shall be your servant. 12 And whosoever shall exalt himself shall be abased; and he that shall humble himself shall be exalted.

We find not Christ, in all his preaching, so severe upon any sort of people as upon these scribes and Pharisees; for the truth is, nothing is more directly opposite to the spirit of the gospel than the temper and practice of that generation of men, who were made up of pride, worldliness, and tyranny, under a cloak and pretense of religion; yet these were the idols and darlings of the people, who thought, if but two men went to heaven, one would be a Pharisee. Now Christ directs his discourse here to the multitude, and to his disciples (Matthew 23:1) to rectify their mistakes concerning these scribes and Pharisees, by painting them out in their true colors, and so to take off the prejudice which some of the multitude had conceived against Christ and his doctrine, because it was opposed by those men of their church, that called themselves the people’s guides. Note, It is good to know the true characters of men, that we may not be imposed upon by great and mighty names, titles, and pretensions to power. People must be told of the wolves (Acts 20:29,30), the dogs (Philippians 3:2), the deceitful workers (2 Corinthians 11:13), that they may know here to stand upon their guard. And not only the mixed multitude, but even the disciples, need these cautions; for good men are apt to have their eyes dazzled with worldly pomp.

Now, in this discourse, Christ allows their office as expositors of the law; The scribes and Pharisees (that is, the whole Sanhedrin, who sat at the helm of church government, who were all called scribes, and were some of them Pharisees) [note:–Jesus tested church leaders; and probably received visions and dreams of discernment regarding them; He did not leave it open for Christians to take a passive, yielding approach, but to only submit to pastors after testing them to be in fact true prophets, Matthew 7], they sit in Moses’ seat (Matthew 23:2), as public teachers and interpreters of the law; and, the law of Moses being the municipal law of their state, they were as judges, or a bench of justices; teaching and judging seem to be equivalent, comparing 2 Chronicles 17:7,9,19:5,6,8. They were not the itinerant judges that rode the circuit, but the standing bench, that determined on appeals, special verdicts, or writs of error by the law; they sat in Moses’s seat, not as he was Mediator between God and Israel, but only as he was chief justice, Exodus 18:26. Or, we may apply it, not to the Sanhedrin, but to the other Pharisees and scribes, that expounded the law, and taught the people how to apply it to particular cases. The pulpit of wood, such as was made for Ezra, that ready scribe in the law of God (Nehemiah 8:4), is here called Moses’s seat, because Moses had those in every city (so the expression is, Acts 15:21), who in those pulpits preached him; this was their office, and it was just and honorable; it was requisite that there should be some at whose mouth the people might enquire the law, Malachi 2:7. Note, 1. Many a good place is filled with bad men; it is no new thing for the vilest men to be exalted even to Moses’s seat (Psalms 12:8); and, when it is so, the men are not so much honored by the seat as the seat is dishonored by the men. Now they that sat in Moses’s seat were so wretchedly degenerated, that it was time for the great Prophet to arise, like unto Moses, to erect another seat. 2. Good and useful offices and powers are not therefore to be condemned and abolished, because they fall sometimes into the hands of bad men, who abuse them. We must not therefore pull down Moses’s seat, because scribes and Pharisees have got possession of it; rather than so, let both grow together until the harvest, Matthew 13:30. [note:–standard Reformed hermeneutics says that the wheat and tares, or the true Christians and hypocrites are to co-exist in the church. But that disagrees with New Testament directions on excommunication (Matthew 18:15-17; 1 Corinthians 5:1-8, 11; Romans 16:17; 2 John 1:10-11). The Anabaptists were right when they said that the parable of the wheat and tares is about the wicked and the righteous in the world; as Jesus said, “the field is the world” (Matt. 13:38), not the church (Leonard Verduin, The Reformers and Their Stepchildren, pp. 116-117, note).

Hence he infers (Matthew 23:3), “Whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do As far as they sit in Moses’s seat, that is, read and preach the law that was given by Moses” (which, as yet, continued in full force, power, and virtue), “and judge according to that law, so far you must hearken to them, as remembrances to you of the written word.” The scribes and Pharisees made it their business to study the Scripture, and were well acquainted with the language, history, and customs of it, and its style and phraseology. Now Christ would have the people to make use of the helps they gave them for the understanding of the Scripture, and do accordingly. As long as their comments did illustrate the text and not pervert it; did make plain, and not make void, the commandment of God; so far they must be observed and obeyed, but with caution and a judgment of discretion. Note, We must not think the worse of good truths for their being preached by bad ministers; nor of good laws for their being executed by bad magistrates. Though it is most desirable to have our food brought by angels, yet, if God send it to us by ravens, if it be good and wholesome, we must take it, and thank God for it. Our Lord Jesus promises this, to prevent the cavil which some would be apt to make at this following discourse; as if, by condemning the scribes and Pharisees, he designed to bring the law of Moses into contempt, and to draw people off from it; whereas he came not to destroy, but to fulfil. Note, It is wisdom to obviate the exceptions which may be taken at just reproofs, especially when there is occasion to distinguish between officers and their offices, that the ministry be not blamed when the ministers are.

He condemns the men. He had ordered the multitude to do as they taught; but here he annexes a caution not to do as they did, to beware of their leaven; Do not ye after their works. Their traditions were their works, were their idols, the works of their fancy [human invention]. Or, “Do not according to their example.” Doctrines and practices are spirits that must be tried, and where there is occasion, must be carefully separated and distinguished; and as we must not swallow corrupt doctrines for the sake of any laudable practices of those that teach them, so we must not imitate any bad examples for the sake of the plausible doctrines of those that set them. The scribes and Pharisees boasted as much of the goodness of their works as of the orthodoxy of their teaching, and hoped to be justified by them; it was the plea they put in (Luke 18:11,12); and yet these things, which they valued themselves so much upon, were an abomination in the sight of God.

Our Savior Matthew 23:3-32, specifies divers particulars of their works, wherein we must not imitate them. In general, they are charged with hypocrisy, dissimulation, or double-dealing in religion; a crime which cannot be enquired of at men’s bar, because we can only judge according to outward appearance; but God, who searches the heart, can convict of hypocrisy; and nothing is more displeasing to him, for he desires truth.

Four things are in Matthew 23:4-7 charged upon them.

1. Their saying and doing were two things. Their practice was no way agreeable either to their preaching or to their profession; for they say, and do not [note:–as it is with all Christians who take to an easy-believism, “Romans Road to Salvation,” with no-repentance, and no-lordship views mixed in, cheap grace, dead faith without good works, lawless antinomianism, perverted ways of reading and applying the Bible, or should we say, dismissing or explaining away the Scriptures from any moral responsibilities that would be laid upon their lives]; they teach out of the law that which is good, but their conversation gives them the lie; and they seem to have found another way to heaven for themselves than what they show to others. See this illustrated and charged home upon them, Romans 2:17-24. Those are of all sinners most inexcusable that allow themselves in the sins they condemn in others, or in worse. This doth especially touch wicked ministers, who will be sure to have their portion appointed them with hypocrites (Matthew 24:51); for what greater hypocrisy can there be, than to press that upon others, to be believed and done, which they themselves disbelieve and disobey; pulling down in their practice what they build up in their preaching; when in the pulpit, preaching so well that it is a pity they should ever come out; but, when out of the pulpit, living so ill that it is a pity they should ever come in; like bells, that call others to church, but hang out of it themselves; or Mercurial posts, that point the way to others, but stand still themselves? Such will be judged out of their own mouths. It is applicable to all others that say, and do not; that make a plausible profession of religion, but do not live up to that profession; that make fair promises, but do not perform their promises; are full of good discourse, and can lay down the law to all about them, but are empty of good works; great talkers, but little doers; the voice is Jacob’s voice, but the hands are the hands of Esau. Vox et præterea nihil–mere sound. They speak fair, I go, sir; but there is no trusting them, for there are seven abominations in their heart. [Proverbs 6:16-19: “There are six things the Lord hates, seven that are detestable to him: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked schemes, feet that are quick to rush into evil, a false witness who pours out lies and a person who stirs up conflict in the community.”]
   

2. They were very severe in imposing upon others those things which they were not themselves willing to submit to the burden of (Matthew 23:4); They bind heavy burdens, and grievous to be borne; not only insisting upon the minute circumstances of the law, which is called a yoke (Acts 15:10), and pressing the observation of them with more strictness and severity than God himself did (whereas the maxim of the lawyers, is Apices juris son sunt jura–Mere points of law are not law), but by adding to his words, and imposing their own inventions and traditions, under the highest penalties. They loved to show their authority and to exercise their domineering faculty, lording it over God’s heritage, and saying to men’s souls, Bow down, that we may go over; witness their many additions to the law of the fourth commandment, by which they made the Sabbath a burden on men’s shoulders, which was designed to be the joy of their hearts. Thus with force and cruelty did those shepherds rule the flock, as of old, Ezekiel 34:4.
   
   But see their hypocrisy; They themselves will not move them with one of their fingers. (1.) They would not exercise themselves in those things which they imposed upon others; they pressed upon the people a strictness in religion which they themselves would not be bound by; but secretly transgressed their own traditions, which they publicly enforced. They indulged their pride in giving law to others; but consulted their ease in their own practice. Thus it has been said, to the reproach of the Catholic priests, that they fast with wine and sweetmeats, while they force the people to fast with bread and water; and decline the penances they enjoin the laity. (2.) They would not ease the people in these things, nor put a finger to lighten their burden, when they saw it pinched them. They could find out loose constructions to put upon God’s law, and could dispense with that, but would not bate an ace of their own impositions, nor dispense with a failure in the least punctilio of them. They allowed no chancery to relieve the extremity of their common law. How contrary to this was the practice of Christ’s apostles, who would allow to others that use of Christian liberty which, for the peace and edification of the church, they would deny themselves in! They would lay no other burden than necessary things, and those easy, Acts 15:28. How carefully doth Paul spare those to whom he writes! 1 Corinthians 7:28; 9:12.

3. They were all for show, and nothing for substance, in religion (Matthew 23:5); All their works they do, to be seen of men. We must do such good works, that they who see them may glorify God; but we must not proclaim our good works, with design that others may see them, and glorify us; which our Savior here charges upon the Pharisees in general, as he had done before in the particular instances of prayer and giving of alms. All their end was to be praised of men, and therefore all their endeavor was to be seen of men, to make a fair show in the flesh. In those duties of religion which fall under the eye of men, none err so constant and abundant as they; but in what lies between God and their souls, in the retirement of their closets, and the recesses of their hearts, they desire to be excused. The form of godliness will get them a name to live, which is all they aim at, and therefore they trouble not themselves with the power of it, which is essential to a life indeed. He that does all to be seen does nothing to the purpose.
   
   He specifies two things which they did to be seen of men.
   
   (1.) They made broad their phylacteries. Those were little scrolls of paper or parchment, wherein were written, with great niceness, these four paragraphs of the law, Deut. vi. 4-9; xi. 13-21. These were sewn up in leather, and worn upon their foreheads and left arms. It was a tradition of the elders, which had reference to Exodus 13:9, and Proverbs 7:3, where the expressions seem to be figurative, intimating no more than that we should bear the things of God in our minds as carefully as if we had them bound between our eyes. Now the Pharisees made broad these phylacteries, that they might be thought more holy, and strict, and zealous for the law, than others. It is a gracious ambition to covet to be really more holy than others, but it is a proud ambition to covet to appear so. It is good to excel in real piety, but not to exceed in outward shows; for overdoing is justly suspected of design, Proverbs 27:14. It is the guise of hypocrisy to make more ado than needs in external service, more than is needful either to prove, or to improve, the good affections and dispositions of the soul.

      (2.) They enlarged the borders of their garments. God appointed the Jews to make borders or fringes upon their garments (Numbers 15:38), to distinguish them from other nations, and to be a memorandum to them of their being a peculiar people; but the Pharisees were not content to have these borders like other people’s, which might serve God’s design in appointing them; but they must be larger than ordinary, to answer their design of making themselves to be taken notice of; as if they were more religious than others. But those who thus enlarge their phylacteries, and the borders of their garments, while their hearts are straitened, and destitute of the love of God and their neighbour, though they may now deceive others, will in the end deceive themselves.

4. They much affected pre-eminence and superiority, and prided themselves extremely in it. Pride was the darling reigning sin of the Pharisees, the sin that did most easily beset them and which our Lord Jesus takes all occasions to witness against.

      (1.) He describes their pride, Matthew 23:6,7. They courted, and coveted,

      [1.] Places of honour and respect. In all public appearances, as at feasts, and in the synagogues, they expected, and had, to their hearts’ delight, the uppermost rooms, and the chief seats. They took place of all others, and precedency was adjudged to them, as persons of the greatest note and merit; and it is easy to imagine what a complacency they took in it; they loved to have the preeminence, 3 John 1:9. It is not possessing the uppermost rooms, nor sitting in the chief seats, that is condemned (somebody must sit uppermost), but loving them; for men to value such a little piece of ceremony as sitting highest, going first, taking the wall, or the better hand, and to value themselves upon it, to seek it, and to feel resentment if they have it not; what is that but making an idol of ourselves, and then falling down and worshipping it–the worst kind of idolatry! It is bad any where, but especially in the synagogues. There to seek honour to ourselves, where we appear in order to give glory to God, and to humble ourselves before him, is indeed to mock God instead of serving him. David would willingly lie at the threshold in God’s house; so far was he from coveting the chief seat there, Psalms 84:10. It savours much of pride and hypocrisy, when people do not care for going to church, unless they can look fine and make a figure there.

      [2.] Titles of honour and respect. They loved greetings in the markets, loved to have people put off their hats to them, and show them respect when they met them in the streets. O how it pleased them, and fed their vain humour, digito monstrari et dicier, Hic est–to be pointed out, and to have it said, This be he, to have way made for them in the crowd of market people; “Stand off, here is a Pharisee coming!” and to be complimented with the high and pompous title of Rabbi, Rabbi! This was meat and drink and dainties to them; and they took as great a satisfaction in it as Nebuchadnezzar did in his palace, when he said, Is not this great Babylon that I have built? The greetings would not have done them half so much good, if they had not been in the markets, where every body might see how much they were respected, and how high they stood in the opinion of the people. It was but a little before Christ’s time, that the Jewish teachers, the masters of Israel, had assumed the title of Rabbi, Rab, or Rabban, which signifies great or much; and was construed as Doctor, or My lord. And they laid such a stress upon it, that they gave it for a maxim that “he who salutes his teacher, and does not call him Rabbi, provokes the divine Majesty to depart from Israel;” so much religion did they place in that which was but a piece of good manners! For him that is taught in the word to give respect to him that teaches is commendable enough in him that gives it; but for him that teaches to love it, and demand it, and affect it, to be puffed up with it, and to be displeased if it be omitted, is sinful and abominable; and, instead of teaching, he has need to learn the first lesson in the school of Christ, which is humility.

      (2.) He cautions his disciples against being herein like them; herein they must not do after their works; “But be not ye called so, for ye shall not be of such a spirit,” Matthew 23:8, &c.

      Here is, [1.] A prohibition of pride. They are here forbidden,

      First, To challenge titles of honour and dominion to themselves, Matthew 23:8-10. It is repeated twice; Be not called Rabbi, neither be ye called Master or Guide: not that it is unlawful to give civil respect to those that are over us in the Lord, nay, it is an instance of the honour and esteem which it is our duty to show them; but, 1. Christ’s ministers must not affect the name of Rabbi or Master, by way of distinction from other people; it is not agreeable to the simplicity of the gospel, for them to covet or accept the honour which they have that are in kings’ palaces. 2. They must not assume the authority and dominion implied in those names; they must not be magisterial, nor domineer over their brethren, or over God’s heritage, as if they had dominion over the faith of Christians: what they received of the Lord, all must receive from them; but in other things they must not make their opinions and wills a rule and standard to all other people, to be admitted with an implicit obedience. The reasons for this prohibition are,

      (1.) One is your Master, even Christ, Matthew 23:8,10. Note, [1.] Christ is our Master, our Teacher, our Guide. Mr. George Herbert, when he named the name of Christ, usually added, My Master. [2.] Christ only is our Master, ministers are but ushers in the school. Christ only is the Master, the great Prophet, whom we must hear, and be ruled and overruled by; whose word must be an oracle and a law to us; Verily I say unto you, must be enough to us. And if he only be our Master, then for his ministers to set up for dictators, and to pretend to a supremacy and an infallibility, is a daring usurpation of that honour of Christ which he will not give to another.

      (2.) All ye are brethren. Ministers are brethren not only to one another, but to the people; and therefore it ill becomes them to be masters, when there are none for them to master it over but their brethren; yea, and we are all younger brethren, otherwise the eldest might claim an excellency of dignity and power, Genesis 49:3. But, to preclude that, Christ himself is the first-born among many brethren, Romans 8:29. Ye are brethren, as ye are all disciples of the same Master. School-fellows are brethren, and, as such, should help one another in getting their lesson; but it will by no means be allowed that one of the scholars step into the master’s seat, and give law to the school. If we are all brethren, we must not be many masters. James 3:1.

      Secondly, They are forbidden to ascribe such titles to others (Matthew 23:9); “Call no man your father upon the earth; constitute no man the father of your religion, that is, the founder, author, director, and governor, of it.” The fathers of our flesh must be called fathers, and as such we must give them reverence; but God only must be allowed as the Father of our spirits, Hebrews 12:9. Our religion must not be derived from, or made to depend upon, any man. We are born again to the spiritual and divine life, not of corruptible seed, but by the word of God; not of the will of the flesh, or the will of man, but of God. Now the will of man, not being the rise of our religion, must not be the rule of it. We must not jurare in verba magistri–swear to the dictates of any creature, not the wisest or best, nor pin our faith on any man’s sleeve, because we know not whither he will carry it. St. Paul calls himself a Father to those whose conversion he had been an instrument of (1 Corinthians 4:15,Philem+1:10); but he pretends to no dominion over them, and uses that title to denote, not authority, but affection: therefore he calls them not his obliged, but his beloved, sons, 1 Corinthians 4:14.

      The reason given is, One is your Father, who is in heaven. God is our Father, and is All in all in our religion. He is the Fountain of it, and its Founder; the Life of it, and its Lord; from whom alone, as the Original, our spiritual life is derived, and on whom it depends. He is the Father of all lights (James 1:17), that one Father, from whom are all things, and we in him, Ephesians 4:6. Christ having taught us to say, Our Father, who art in heaven; let us call no man Father upon earth; no man, because man is a worm, and the son of man is a worm, hewn out of the same rock with us; especially not upon earth, for man upon earth is a sinful worm; there is not a just man upon earth, that doeth good, and sinneth not, and therefore no one is fit to be called Father.

      [2.] Here is a precept of humility and mutual subjection (Matthew 23:11); He that is greatest among you shall be your servant; not only call himself so (we know of one who styles himself Servus servorum Dei–Servant of the servants of God, but acts as Rabbi, and father, and master, and Dominus Deus noster–The Lord our God, and what not), but he shall be so. Take it as a promise; “He shall be accounted greatest, and stand highest in the favour of God, that is most submissive and serviceable;” or as a precept; “He that is advanced to any place of dignity, trust, and honour, in the church, let him be your servant” (some copies read esto for estai), “let him not think that his patent of honour is a writ of ease; no; he that is greatest is not a lord, but a minister.” St. Paul, who knew his privilege as well as duty, though free from all, yet made himself servant unto all (1 Corinthians 9:19); and our Master frequently pressed it upon his disciples to be humble and self-denying, mild and condescending, and to abound in all offices of Christian love, though mean, and to the meanest; and of this he hath set us an example.

      [3.] Here is a good reason for all this, Matthew 23:12. Consider,

      First, The punishment intended for the proud; Whosoever shall exalt himself shall be abased. If God give them repentance, they will be abased in their own eyes, and will abhor themselves for it; if they repent not, sooner or later they will be abased before the world. Nebuchadnezzar, in the height of his pride, was turned to be a fellow-commoner with the beasts; Herod, to be a feast for the worms; and Babylon, that sat as a queen, to be the scorn of nations. God made the proud and aspiring priests contemptible and base (Malachi 2:9), and the lying prophet to be the tail, Isaiah 9:15. But if proud men have not marks of humiliation set upon them in this world, there is a day coming, when they shall rise to everlasting shame and contempt (Daniel 12:2); so plentifully will he reward the proud doer! Psalms 31:23.

      Secondly, The preferment intended for the humble; He that shall humble himself shall be exalted. Humility is that ornament which is in the sight of God of great price. In this world the humble have the honour of being accepted with the holy God, and respected by all wise and good men; of being qualified for, and often called out to, the most honourable services; for honour is like the shadow, which flees from those that pursue it, and grasp at it, but follows those that flee from it. However, in the other world, they that have humbled themselves in contrition for their sin, in compliance with their God, and in condescension to their brethren, shall be exalted to inherit the throne of glory; shall be not only owned, but crowned, before angels and men.

THE CRIMES OF THE PHARISEES

13 But woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men: for ye neither go in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in.   14 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye devour widows’ houses, and for a pretence make long prayer: therefore ye shall receive the greater damnation.   15 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, ye make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves.   16 Woe unto you, ye blind guides, which say, Whosoever shall swear by the temple, it is nothing; but whosoever shall swear by the gold of the temple, he is a debtor!   17 Ye fools and blind: for whether is greater, the gold, or the temple that sanctifieth the gold?   18 And, Whosoever shall swear by the altar, it is nothing; but whosoever sweareth by the gift that is upon it, he is guilty.   19 Ye fools and blind: for whether is greater, the gift, or the altar that sanctifieth the gift?   20 Whoso therefore shall swear by the altar, sweareth by it, and by all things thereon.   21 And whoso shall swear by the temple, sweareth by it, and by him that dwelleth therein.   22 And he that shall swear by heaven, sweareth by the throne of God, and by him that sitteth thereon.   23 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone.   24 Ye blind guides, which strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel.   25 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye make clean the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within they are full of extortion and excess.   26 Thou blind Pharisee, cleanse first that which is within the cup and platter, that the outside of them may be clean also.   27 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! 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.   28 Even so ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity.   29 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because ye build the tombs of the prophets, and garnish the sepulchres of the righteous,   30 And say, If we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets.   31 Wherefore ye be witnesses unto yourselves, that ye are the children of them which killed the prophets.   32 Fill ye up then the measure of your fathers.   33 Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?

      In these verses we have eight woes levelled directly against the scribes and Pharisees by our Lord Jesus Christ, like so many claps of thunder, or flashes of lightning, from mount Sinai. Three woes are made to look very dreadful (Revelation 8:13,9:12); but here are eight woes, in opposition to the eight beatitudes, Matthew 5:3. The gospel has its woes as well as the law, and gospel curses are of all curses the heaviest. These woes are the more remarkable, not only because of the authority, but because of the meekness and gentleness, of him that denounced them. He came to bless, and loved to bless; but, if his wrath be kindled, there is surely cause for it: and who shall entreat for him that the great Intercessor pleads against? A woe from Christ is a remediless woe.

      This is here the burthen of the song, and it is a heavy burthen; Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites. Note, 1. The scribes and Pharisees were hypocrites; that is it in which all the rest of their bad characters are summed up; it was the leaven which gave the relish to all they said and did. A hypocrite is a stage-player in religion (that is the primary signification of the word); he personates or acts the part of one that he neither is nor may be, or perhaps the he neither is nor would be. 2. That hypocrites are in a woeful state and condition. Woe to hypocrites; so he said whose saying that their case is miserable makes it so: while they live, their religion is vain; when they die, their ruin is great.

      Now each of these woes against the scribes and Pharisees has a reason annexed to it containing a separate crime charged upon them, proving their hypocrisy, and justifying the judgment of Christ upon them; for his woes, his curses, are never causeless.

1. They were sworn enemies to the gospel of Christ, and consequently to the salvation of the souls of men (Matthew 23:13); They shut up the kingdom of heaven against men, that is, they did all they could to keep people from believing in Christ, and so entering into his kingdom. Christ came to open the kingdom of heaven, that is, to lay open for us a new and living way into it, to bring men to be subjects of that kingdom. Now the scribes and Pharisees, who sat in Moses’s seat, and pretended to the key of knowledge, ought to have contributed their assistance herein, by opening those scriptures of the Old Testament which pointed at the Messiah and his kingdom, in their true and proper sense; they that undertook to expound Moses and the prophets should have showed the people how they testified of Christ; that Daniel’s weeks were expiring, the sceptre was departed from Judah, and therefore now was the time for the Messiah’s appearing. Thus they might have facilitated that great work, and have helped thousands to heaven; but, instead of this, they shut up the kingdom of heaven; they made it their business to press the ceremonial law, which was now in the vanishing, to suppress the prophecies, which were now in the accomplishing, and to beget and nourish up in the minds of the people prejudices against Christ and his doctrine.
2. They would not go in themselves; Have any of the rulers, or of the Pharisees, believed on him? John 7:48. No; they were to proud to stoop to his meanness, too formal to be reconciled to his plainness; they did not like a religion which insisted so much on humility, self-denial, contempt of the world, and spiritual worship. Repentance was the door of admission into this kingdom, and nothing could be more disagreeable to the Pharisees, who justified and admired themselves, than to repent, that is, to accuse and abase and abhor themselves; therefore they went not in themselves; but that was not all.
3. They would not suffer them that were entering to go in. It is bad to keep away from Christ ourselves, but it is worse to keep others from him; yet that is commonly the way of hypocrites; they do not love that any should go beyond them in religion, or be better than they. Their not going in themselves was a hindrance to many; for, they having so great an interest in the people, multitudes rejected the gospel only because their leaders did; but, besides that, they opposed both Christ’s entertaining of sinners (Luke 7:39), and sinners’ entertaining of Christ; they perverted his doctrine, confronted his miracles, quarrelled with his disciples, and represented him, and his institutes and economy, to the people in the most disingenuous, disadvantageous manner imaginable; they thundered out their excommunications against those that confessed him, and used all their wit and power to serve their malice against him; and thus they shut up the kingdom of heaven, so that they who would enter into it must suffer violence (Matthew 11:12), and press into it (Luke 16:16), through a crowd of scribes and Pharisees, and all the obstructions and difficulties they could contrive to lay in their way. How well is it for us that our salvation is not entrusted in the hands of any man or company of men in the world! If it were, we should be undone. They that shut out of the church would shut out of heaven if they could; but the malice of men cannot make the promise of God to his chosen of no effect; blessed be God, it cannot.
4. They made religion and the form of godliness a cloak and stalking-horse to their covetous practices and desires, Matthew 23:14. Observe here,
5. What their wicked practices were; they devoured widows’ houses, either by quartering themselves and their attendants upon them for entertainment, which must be of the best for men of their figure; or by insinuating themselves into their affections, and so getting to be the trustees of their estates, which they could make an easy prey of; for who could presume to call such as they were to an account? The thing they aimed at was to enrich themselves; and, this being their chief and highest end, all considerations of justice and equity were laid aside, and even widows’ houses were sacrificed to this. Widows are of the weaker sex in its weakest state, easily imposed upon; and therefore they fastened on them, to make a prey of. They devoured those whom, by the law of God, they were particularly obliged to protect, patronise, and relieve. There is a woe in the Old Testament to those that made widows their prey (Isaiah 10:1,2); and Christ here seconded it with his woe. God is the judge of the widows; they are his peculiar care, he establisheth their border (Proverbs 15:25), and espouseth their cause (Exodus 22:22,23); yet these were they whose houses the Pharisees devoured by wholesale; so greedy were they to get their bellies filled with the treasures of wickedness! Their devouring denotes not only covetousness, but cruelty in their oppression, described Micah 3:3, They eat the flesh, and flay off the skin. And doubtless they did all this under colour of law; for they did it so artfully that it passed uncensured, and did not at all lessen the people’s veneration for them.
6. What was the cloak with which they covered this wicked practice; For a pretence they made long prayers; very long indeed, if it be true which some of the Jewish writers tell us, that they spent three hours at a time in the formalities of meditation and prayer, and did it thrice every day, which is more than an upright soul, that makes a conscience of being inward with God in the duty, dares pretend ordinarily to do; but to the Pharisees it was easy enough, who never made a business of the duty, and always made a trade of the outside of it. By this craft they got their wealth, and maintained their grandeur. It is not probable that these long prayers were extemporary, for then (as Mr. Baxter observes) the Pharisees had much more the gift of prayer than Christ’s disciples had; but rather that they were stated forms of words in use among them, which they said over by tale, as the papists drop their beads. Christ doth not here condemn long prayers, as in themselves hypocritical; nay if there were not a great appearance of good in them, they would not have been used for a pretence; and the cloak must be very thick which was used to cover such wicked practices. Christ himself continued all night in prayer to God, and we are commanded to pray without ceasing too soon; where there are many sins to be confessed, and many wants to pray for the supply of, and many mercies to give thanks for, there is occasion for long prayers. But the Pharisees’ long prayers were made up of vain repetitions, and (which was the end of them) they were for a pretence; by them they got the reputation of pious devout men, that loved prayer, and were the favourites of Heaven; and by this means people were made to believe it was not possible that such men as they should cheat them;, and, therefore, happy the widow that could get a Pharisee for her trustee, and guardian to her children! Thus, while they seemed to soar heaven-ward, upon the wings of prayer, their eye, like the kite’s, was all the while upon their prey on the earth, some widow’s house or other that lay convenient for them. Thus circumcision was the cloak of the Shechemites’ covetousness (Genesis 34:22,23), the payment of a vow in Hebron the cover of Absalom’s rebellion (2 Samuel 15:7), a fast in Jezreel must patronise Naboth’s murder, and the extirpation of Baal is the footstool of Jehu’s ambition. Popish priests, under pretence of long prayers for the dead, masses and dirges, and I know not what, enrich themselves by devouring the house of the widows and fatherless. Note, It is no new thing for the show and form of godliness to be made a cloak to the greatest enormities. But dissembled piety, however it passeth now, will be reckoned for as double iniquity, in the day when God shall judge the secrets of men.
7. The doom passed upon them for this; Therefore ye shall receive the greater damnation. Note, (1.) There are degrees of damnation; there are some whose sin is more inexcusable, and whose ruin will therefore be more intolerable. (2.) The pretences of religion, with which hypocrites disguise or excuse their sin now, will aggravate their condemnation shortly. Such is the deceitfulness of sin, that the very thing by which sinners hope to expiate and atone for their sins will come against them, and make their sins more exceedingly sinful. But it is sad for the criminal, when his defence proves his offence, and his pleas (We have prophesied in thy name, and in thy name made long prayers) heightens the charge against him.

      III. While they were such enemies to the conversion of souls to Christianity, they were very industrious in the perversion of them to their faction. They shut up the kingdom of heaven against those that would turn to Christ, but at the same time compassed sea and land to make proselytes to themselves, Matthew 23:15. Observe here,

1. Their commendable industry in making proselytes to the Jewish religion, not only proselytes of the gate, who obliged themselves to no more than the observance of the seven precepts of the sons of Noah, but proselytes of righteousness, who addicted themselves wholly to all the rites of the Jewish religion, for that was the game they flew at; for this, for one such, though but one, they compass sea and land, had many a cunning reach, and laid many a plot, rode and run, and sent and wrote, and laboured unweariedly. And what did they aim at? Not the glory of God, and the good of souls; but that they might have the credit of making them proselytes, and the advantage of making a prey of them when they were made. Note, (1.) The making of proselytes, if it be to the truth and serious godliness, and be done with a good design, is a good work, well worthy of the utmost care and pains. Such is the value of souls, that nothing must be thought too much to do, to save a soul from death. The industry of the Pharisees herein may show the negligence of many who would be thought to act from better principles, but will be at no pains or cost to propagate the gospel. (2.) To make a proselyte, sea and land must be compassed; all ways and means must be tried; first one way, and then another, must be tried, all little enough; but all well paid, if the point be gained. (3.) Carnal hearts seldom shrink from the pains necessary to carry on their carnal purposes; when a proselyte is to be made to serve a turn for themselves, they will compass sea and land to make him, rather than be disappointed.
2. Their cursed impiety in abusing their proselytes when they were made; “Ye make him the disciple of a Pharisee presently, and he sucks in all a Pharisee’s notions; and so ye make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves.” Note, (1.) Hypocrites, while they fancy themselves heirs of heaven, are, in the judgment of Christ, the children of hell. The rise of their hypocrisy is from hell, for the devil is the father of lies; and the tendency of their hypocrisy is toward hell, that is the country they belong to, the inheritance they are heirs to; they are called children of hell, because of their rooted enmity to the kingdom of heaven, which was the principle and genius of Pharisaism. (2.) Though all that maliciously oppose the gospel are children of hell, yet some are twofold more so than others, more furious and bigoted and malignant. (3.) Perverted proselytes are commonly the greatest bigots; the scholars outdid their masters, [1.] In fondness of ceremony; the Pharisees themselves saw the folly of their own impositions, and in their hearts smiled at the obsequiousness of those that conformed to them; but their proselytes were eager for them. Note, Weak heads commonly admire those shows and ceremonies which wise men (however for public ends they countenance them) cannot but think meanly of. [2.] In fury against Christianity; the proselytes readily imbibed the principles which their crafty leaders were not wanting to possess them with, and so became extremely hot against the truth. The most bitter enemies the apostles met with in all places were the Hellenist Jews, who were mostly proselytes, xiv. 2-19; xvii. 5; xviii. 6. Paul, a disciple of the Pharisees, was exceedingly mad against the Christians (Acts 26:11), when his master, Gamaliel, seems to have been more moderate.
3. Their seeking their own worldly gain and honour more than God’s glory put them upon coining false and unwarrantable distinction, with which they led the people into dangerous mistakes, particularly in the matter of oaths; which, as an evidence of a universal sense of religion, have been by all nations accounted sacred (Matthew 23:16); Ye blind guides. Note, 1. It is sad to think how many are under the guidance of such as are themselves blind, who undertake to show others that way which they are themselves willingly ignorant of. His watchmen are blind (Isaiah 56:10); and too often the people love to have it so, and say to the seers, See not. But the case is bad, when the leaders of the people cause them to err, Isaiah 9:16. 2. Though the condition of those whose guides are blind is very sad, yet that of the blind guides themselves is yet more woeful. Christ denounces a woe to the blind guides that have the blood of so many souls to answer for.

      Now, to prove their blindness, he specifies the matter of swearing, and shows what corrupt casuists they were.

      (1.) He lays down the doctrine they taught.

      [1.] They allowed swearing by creatures, provided they were consecrated to the service of God, and stood in any special relation to him. They allowed swearing by the temple and the altar, though they were the work of men’s hands, intended to be the servants of God’s honour, not sharers in it. An oath is an appeal to God, to his omniscience and justice; and to make this appeal to any creature is to put that creature in the place of God. See Deuteronomy 6:13.

      [2.] They distinguished between an oath by the temple and an oath by the gold of the temple; an oath by the altar and an oath by the gift upon the altar; making the latter binding, but not the former. Here was a double wickedness; First, That there were some oaths which they dispensed with, and made light of, and reckoned a man was not bound by to assert the truth, or perform a promise. They ought not to have sworn by the temple or the altar; but, when they had so sworn, they were taken in the words of their mouth. That doctrine cannot be of the God of truth which gives countenance to the breach of faith in any case whatsoever. Oaths are edge-tools and are not to be jested with. Secondly, That they preferred the gold before the temple, and the gift before the altar, to encourage people to bring gifts to the altar, and gold to the treasures of the temple, which they hoped to be gainers by. Those who had made gold their hope, and whose eyes were blinded by gifts in secret, were great friends to the Corban; and, gain being their godliness, by a thousand artifices they made religion truckle to their worldly interests. Corrupt church-guides make things to be sin or not sin as it serves their purposes, and lay a much greater stress on that which concerns their own gain than on that which is for God’s glory and the good of souls.

      (2.) He shows the folly and absurdity of this distinction (Matthew 23:17-19); Ye fools, and blind. It was in the way of a necessary reproof, not an angry reproach, that Christ called them fools. Let it suffice us from the word of wisdom to show the folly of sinful opinions and practices: but, for the fastening of the character upon particular persons, leave that to Christ, who knows what is in man, and has forbidden us to say, Thou fool.

      To convict them of folly, he appeals to themselves, Whether is greater, the gold (the golden vessels and ornaments, or the gold in the treasury) or the temple that sanctifies the gold; the gift, or the altar that sanctifies the gift? Any one will own, Propter quod aliquid est tale, id est magis tale–That, on account of which any thing is qualified in a particular way, must itself be much more qualified in the same way. They that sware by the gold of the temple had an eye to it as holy; but what was it that made it holy but the holiness of the temple, to the service of which it was appropriated? And therefore the temple cannot be less holy than the gold, but must be more so; for the less is blessed and sanctified of the better, Hebrews 7:7. The temple and altar were dedicated to God fixedly, the gold and gift but secondarily. Christ is our altar (Hebrews 13:10), our temple (John 2:21); for it is he that sanctifies all our gifts, and puts an acceptableness in them, 1 Peter 2:5. Those that put their own works into the place of Christ’s righteousness in justification are guilty of the Pharisees’ absurdity, who preferred the gift before the altar. Every true Christian is a living temple; and by virtue thereof common things are sanctified to him; unto the pure all things are pure (Titus 1:15), and the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the believing wife, 1 Corinthians 7:14.

      (3.) He rectifies the mistake (Matthew 23:20-22), by reducing all the oaths they had invented to the true intent of an oath, which is, By the name of the Lord: so that though an oath by the temple, or the altar, or heaven, be formally bad, yet it is binding. Quod fieri non debuit, factum valet–Engagements which ought not to have been made, are yet, when made, binding. A man shall never take advantage of his own fault.

      [1.] He that swears by the altar, let him not think to shake off the obligation of it by saying, “The altar is but wood, and stone, and brass;” for his oath shall be construed most strongly against himself; because he was culpable, and so as that the obligation of it may be preserved, ut res potius valeat quam pereat–the obligation being hereby strengthened rather than destroyed. And therefore an oath by the altar shall be interpreted by it and by all things thereon; for the appurtenances pass with the principal. And, the things thereon being offered up to God, to swear by it and them was, in effect, to call God himself to witness: for it was the altar of God; and he that went to that, went to God, Psalms 43:4,Ps+26:6.

      [2.] He that swears by the temple, if he understand what he does, cannot but apprehend that the ground of such a respect to it, is, not because it is a fine house, but because it is the house of God, dedicated to his service, the place which he has chosen to put his name there; and therefore he swears by it, and by him that dwells therein; there he was pleased in a peculiar manner to manifest himself, and give tokens of his presence; so that whoso swears by it, swears by him who had said, This is my rest, here will I dwell. Good Christians are God’s temples, and the Spirit of God dwells in them (1 Corinthians 3:16,6:19), and God takes what is done to them as done to himself; he that grieves a gracious soul, grieves it and the Spirit that dwells in it. Ephesians 4:30.

      [3.] If a man swears by heaven, he sins (Matthew 5:34); yet he shall not therefore be discharged from the obligation of his oath; no, God will make him know that the heaven he swears by, is his throne (Isaiah 66:1); and he that swears by the throne, appeals to him that sits upon it; who, as he resents the affront done to him in the form of the oath, so he will certainly revenge the greater affront done to him by the violation of it. Christ will not countenance the evasion of a solemn oath, though ever so plausible.

24. They were very strict and precise in the smaller matters of the law, but as careless and loose in the weightier matters, Matthew 23:23,24. They were partial in the law (Malachi 2:9), would pick and choose their duty, according as they were interested or stood affected. Sincere obedience is universal, and he that from a right principle obeys any of God’s precepts, will have respect to them all, Psalms 119:6. But hypocrites, who act in religion for themselves, and not for God, will do no more in religion than they can serve a turn by for themselves. The partiality of the scribes and Pharisees appears here, in two instances.
25. They observed smaller duties, but omitted greater; they were very exact in paying tithes, till it came to mint, anise, and cummin, their exactness in tithing of which would not cost them much, but would be cried up, and they should buy reputation cheap. The Pharisee boasted of this, I give tithes of all that I possess, Luke 18:12. But it is probable that they had ends of their own to serve, and would find their own account in it; for the priests and Levites, to whom the tithes were paid, were in their interests, and knew how to return their kindness. Paying tithes was their duty, and what the law required; Christ tells them they ought not to leave it undone. Note, All ought in their places to contribute to the support and maintenance of a standing ministry: withholding tithes is called robbing God, Malachi 2:8-10. They that are taught in the word, and do not communicate to them that teach them that love a cheap gospel, come short of the Pharisee.

      But that which Christ here condemns them for, is, that they omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith; and their niceness in paying tithes, was, if not to atone before God, yet at least to excuse end palliate to men the omission of those. All the things of God’s law are weighty, but those are most weighty, which are most expressive of inward holiness in the heart; the instances of self-denial, contempt of the world, and resignation to God, in which lies the life of religion. Judgment and mercy toward men, and faith toward God, are the weightier matters of the law, the good things which the Lord our God requires (Micah 6:8); to do justly, and love mercy, and humble ourselves by faith to walk with God. This is the obedience which is better than sacrifice or tithe; judgment is preferred before sacrifice, Isaiah 1:11. To be just to the priests in their tithe, and yet to cheat and defraud every body else, is but to mock God, and deceive ourselves. Mercy also is preferred before sacrifice, Hosea 6:6. To feed those who made themselves fat with the offering of the Lord, and at the same time to shut up the bowels of compassion from a brother or a sister that is naked, and destitute of daily food, to pay tithe-mint to the priest, and to deny a crumb to Lazarus, is to lie open to that judgment without mercy, which is awarded to those who pretended to judgment, and showed no mercy; nor will judgment and mercy serve without faith in divine revelation; for God will be honoured in his truths as well as in his laws.

2. They avoided lesser sins, but committed greater (Matthew 23:24); Ye blind guides; so he had called them before (Matthew 23:16), for their corrupt teaching; here he calls them so for their corrupt living, for their example was leading as well as their doctrine; and in this also they were blind and partial; they strained at a gnat, and swallowed a camel. In their doctrine they strained at gnats, warned people against every the least violation of the tradition of the elders. In their practice they strained at gnats, heaved at them, with a seeming dread, as if they had a great abhorrence of sin, and were afraid of it in the least instance; but they made no difficulty of those sins which, in comparison with them, were as a camel to a gnat; when they devoured widows’ houses, they did indeed swallow a camel; when they gave Judas the price of innocent blood, and yet scrupled to put the returned money into the treasury (Matthew 27:6); when they would not go into the judgment-hall, for fear of being defiled, and yet would stand at the door, and cry out against the holy Jesus (John 18:28); when they quarrelled with the disciples for eating with unwashen hands, and yet, for the filling of the Corban, taught people to break the fifth commandment, they strained at gnats, or lesser things, and yet swallowed camels. It is not the scrupling of a little sin that Christ here reproves; if it be a sin, though but a gnat, it must be strained at, but the doing of that, and then swallowing a camel. In the smaller matters of the law to be superstitious, and to be profane in the greater, is the hypocrisy here condemned.
3. They were all for the outside, and not at all for the inside, of religion. They were more desirous and solicitous to appear pious to men than to approve themselves so toward God. This is illustrated by two similitudes.
4. They are compared to a vessel that is clean washed on the outside, but all dirt within, Matthew 23:25,26. The Pharisees placed religion in that which at best was but a point of decency–the washing of cups, Mark 7:4. They were in care to eat their meat in clean cups and platters, but made no conscience of getting their meat by extortion, and using it to excess. Now what a foolish thing would it be for a man to wash only the outside of a cup, which is to be looked at, and to leave the inside dirty, which is to be used; so they do who only avoid scandalous sins, that would spoil their reputation with men, but allow themselves in heart-wickedness, which renders them odious to the pure and holy God. In reference to his, observe,

      (1.) The practice of the Pharisees; they made clean the outside. In those things which fell under the observation of their neighbours, they seemed very exact, and carried on their wicked intrigues with so much artifice, that their wickedness was not suspected; people generally took them for very good men. But within, in the recesses of their hearts and the close retirements of their lives, they were full of extortion and excess; of violence and incontinence (so Dr. Hammond); that is, of injustice and intemperance. While they would seem to be godly, they were neither sober nor righteous. Their inward part was very wickedness (Psalms 5:9); and that we are really, which we are inwardly.

      (2.) The rule Christ gives, in opposition to this practice, Matthew 23:26. It is addressed to the blind Pharisees. They thought themselves the seers of the land, but (John 9:39) Christ calls them blind. Note, those are blind, in Christ’s account who (how quick-sighted soever they are in other things) are strangers, and no enemies, to the wickedness of their own hearts; who see not, and hate not, the secret sin that lodgeth there. Self-ignorance is the most shameful and hurtful ignorance, Revelation 3:17. The rule is, Cleanse first that which is within. Note, the principal care of every one of us should be to wash our hearts from wickedness, Jeremiah 4:14. The main business of a Christian lies within, to get cleansed from the filthiness of the spirit. Corrupt affections and inclinations, the secret lusts that lurk in the soul, unseen and unobserved, these must first be mortified and subdued. Those sins must be conscientiously abstained from, which the eye of God only is a witness to, who searcheth the heart.

      Observe the method prescribed; Cleanse first that which is within not that only, but that first; because, if due care be taken concerning that, the outside will be clean also. External motives and inducements may keep the outside clean, while the inside is filthy; but if renewing, sanctifying grace make clean the inside, that will have an influence upon the outside, for the commanding principle is within. If the heart be well kept, all is well, for out of it are the issues of life; the eruptions will vanish of course. If the heart and spirit be made new, there will be a newness of life; here therefore we must begin with ourselves; first cleanse that which is within; we then make sure work, when this is our first work.

2. They are compared to whited sepulchres, Matthew 23:27,28.

      (1.) They were fair without, like sepulchres, which appear beautiful outward. Some make it to refer to the custom of the Jews to whiten graves, only for the notifying of them, especially if they were in unusual places, that people might avoid them, because of the ceremonial pollution contracted by the touch of a grave, Numbers 19:16. And it was part of the charge of the overseers of the highways, to repair that whitening when it was decayed. Sepulchres were thus made remarkable, 2 Kings 23:16,17. The formality of hypocrites, by which they study to recommend themselves to the world, doth but make all wise and good men the more careful to avoid them, for fear of being defiled by them. Beware of the scribes, Luke 20:46. It rather alludes to the custom of whitening the sepulchres of eminent persons, for the beautifying of them. It is said here (Matthew 23:29), that they garnished the sepulchres of the righteous; as it is usual with us to erect monuments upon the graves of great persons, and to strew flowers on the graves of dear friends. Now the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees was like the ornaments of a grave, or the dressing up of a dead body, only for show. The top of their ambition was to appear righteous before men, and to be applauded and had in admiration by them. But,

      (2.) They were foul within, like sepulchres, full of dead men’s bones, and all uncleanness: so vile are our bodies, when the soul has deserted them! Thus were they full of hypocrisy and iniquity. Hypocrisy is the worst iniquity of all other. Note, It is possible for those that have their hearts full of sin, to have their lives free from blame, and to appear very good. But what will it avail us, to have the good word of our fellow-servants, if our Master doth not say, Well done? When all other graves are opened, these whited sepulchres will be looked into, and the dead men’s bones, and all the uncleanness, shall be brought out, and be spread before all the host of heaven, Jeremiah 8:1,2. For it is the day when God shall judge, not the shows, but the secrets, of men. And it will then be small comfort to them who shall have their portion with hypocrites, to remember how creditably and plausibly they went to hell, applauded by all their neighbours.

      VII. They pretended a deal of kindness for the memory of the prophets that were dead and gone, while they hated and persecuted those that were present with them. This is put last, because it was the blackest part of their character. God is jealous for his honour in his laws and ordinances, and resents it if they be profaned and abused; but he has often expressed an equal jealousy for his honour in his prophets and ministers, and resents it worse if they be wronged and persecuted: and therefore, when our Lord Jesus comes to this head, he speaks more fully than upon any of the other (Matthew 23:29-37); for that toucheth his ministers, toucheth his Anointed, and toucheth the apple of his eye. Observe here,

1. The respect which the scribes and Pharisees pretend for the prophets that were gone, Matthew 23:29,30. This was the varnish, and that in which they outwardly appeared righteous.

      (1.) They honoured the relics of the prophets, they built their tombs, and garnished their sepulchres. It seems, the places of their burial were known, David’s sepulchre was with them, Acts 2:29. There was a title upon the sepulchre of the man of God (2 Kings 23:17), and Josiah thought it respect enough not to move his bones, Matthew 23:18. But they would do more, rebuild and beautify them. Now consider this, [1.] As an instance of honour done to deceased prophets, who, while they lived, were counted as the off-scouring of all things, and had all manner of evil spoken against them falsely. Note, God can extort, even from bad men, an acknowledgment of the honour of piety and holiness. Them that honour God he will honour, and sometimes with those from whom contempt is expected, 2 Samuel 6:22. The memory of the just is blessed, when the names of those that hated and persecuted them shall be covered with shame. The honour of constancy and resolution in the way of duty will be a lasting honour; and those that are manifest to God, will be manifest in the consciences of those about them. [2.] As an instance of the hypocrisy of the scribes and Pharisees, who paid their respect to them. Note, Carnal people can easily honour the memories of faithful ministers that are dead and gone, because they do not reprove them, nor disturb them, in their sins. Dead prophets are seers that see not, and those they can bear well enough; they do not torment them, as the living witnesses do, that bear their testimony viva voce–with a living voice, Revelation 11:10. They can pay respect to the writings of the dead prophets, which tell them what they should be; but not the reproofs of the living prophets, which tell them what they are. Sit divus, modo non sit vivus–Let there be saints; but let them not be living here. The extravagant respect which the church of Rome pays to the memory of saints departed, especially the martyrs, dedicating days and places to their names, enshrining their relics, praying to them, and offering to their images, while they make themselves drunk with the blood of the saints of their own day, is a manifest proof that they not only succeed, but exceed, the scribes and Pharisees in a counterfeit hypocritical religion, which builds the prophets’ tombs, but hates the prophets’ doctrine.

      (2.) They protested against the murder of them (Matthew 23:30); If we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them. They would never have consented to the silencing of Amos, and the imprisonment of Micaiah, to the putting of Hanani in the stocks, and Jeremiah in the dungeon, to the stoning of Zechariah, the mocking of all the messengers of the Lord, and the abuses put upon his prophets; no, not they, they would sooner have lost their right hands than have done any such thing. What, is thy servant a dog? And yet they were at this time plotting to murder Christ, to whom all the prophets bore witness. They think, if they had lived in the days of the prophets, they would have heard them gladly and obeyed; and yet they rebelled against the light that Christ brought into the world. But it is certain, a Herod and an Herodias to John the Baptist, would have been an Ahab and a Jezebel to Elijah. Note, The deceitfulness of sinners’ hearts appears very much in this, that, while they go down the stream of the sins of their own day, they fancy they should have swum against the stream of the sins of the former days; that, if they had had other people’s opportunities, they should have improved them more faithfully; if they had been in other people’s temptations, they should have resisted them more vigorously; when yet they improve not the opportunities they have, nor resist the temptations they are in. We are sometimes thinking, if we had lived when Christ was upon earth, how constantly we would have followed him; we would not have despised and rejected him, as they then did; and yet Christ in his Spirit, in his word, in his ministers, is still no better treated.

2. Their enmity and opposition to Christ and his gospel, notwithstanding, and the ruin they were bringing upon themselves and upon that generation thereby, Matthew 23:31-33. Observe here,

      (1.) The indictment proved; Ye are witnesses against yourselves. Note, Sinners cannot hope to escape the judgment of Christ for want of proof against them, when it is easy to find them witnesses against themselves; and their very pleas will not only be overruled, but turned to their conviction, and their own tongues shall be made to fall upon them, Psalms 64:8.

      [1.] By their own confession, it was the great wickedness of their forefathers, to kill the prophets; so that they knew the fault of it, and yet were themselves guilty of the same fact. Note, They who condemn sin in others, and yet allow the same or worse in themselves, are of all others most inexcusable, Romans 1:32-2:1. They knew they ought not to have been partakers with persecutors, and yet were the followers of them. Such self-contradictions now will amount to self-condemnations in the great day. Christ puts another construction upon their building of the tombs of the prophets than what they intended; as if by beautifying their graves they justified their murderers (Luke 11:48), for they persisted in the sin.

      [2.] By their own confession, these notorious persecutors were their ancestors; Ye are the children of them. They meant no more than that they were their children by blood and nature; but Christ turns it upon them;, that they were so by spirit and disposition; You are of those fathers, and their lusts you will do. They are, as you say, your fathers, and you patrizare–take after your fathers; it is the sin that runs in the blood among you. As your fathers did, so do ye, Acts 7:51. They came of a persecuting race, were a seed of evil doers (Isaiah 1:4), risen up in their fathers’ stead, Numbers 32:14. Malice, envy, and cruelty, were bred in the bone with them, and they had formerly espoused it for a principle, to do as their fathers did, Jeremiah 44:17. And it is observable here (Matthew 23:30) how careful they are to mention the relation; “They were our fathers, that killed the prophets, and they were men in honour and power, whose sons and successors we are.” If they had detested the wickedness of their ancestors, as they ought to have done, they would not have been so fond to call them their fathers; for it is no credit to be akin to persecutors, though they have ever so much dignity and dominion.

      (2.) The sentence passed upon them. Christ here proceeds,

      [1.] To give them up to sin as irreclaimable (Matthew 23:32); Fill ye up then the measure of your fathers. If Ephraim be joined to idols, and hate to be reformed, let him alone. He that is filthy, let him be filthy still. Christ knew they were now contriving his death, and in a few days would accomplish it; “Well,” saith he, “go on with your plot, take your curse, walk in the way of your heart and in the sight of your eyes, and see what will come of it. What thou doest, do quickly. You will but fill up the measure of guilt, which will then overflow in a deluge of wrath.” Note, First, There is a measure of sin to be filled up, before utter ruin comes upon persons and families, churches and nations. God will bear long, but the time will come when he can no longer forbear, Jeremiah 44:22. We read of the measure of the Amorites that was to be filled (Genesis 15:16), of the harvest of the earth being ripe for the sickle (Revelation 14:15-19), and of sinners making an end to deal treacherously, arriving at a full stature in treachery, Isaiah 33:1. Secondly, Children fill up the measure of their fathers’ sins whey they are gone, if they persist in the same or the like. That national guilt which brings national ruin is made up of the sin of many in several ages, and in the successions of societies there is a score going on; for God justly visits the iniquity of the fathers upon the children that tread in the steps of it. Thirdly, Persecuting Christ, and his people and ministers, is a sin that fills the measure of a nation’s guilt sooner than any other. This was it that brought wrath without remedy upon the fathers (2 Chronicles 36:16), and wrath to the utmost upon the children too, 1 Thessalonians 2:16. This was that fourth transgression, of which, when added to the other three, the Lord would not turn away the punishment, Amos 1:3,6,9,11,13. Fourthly, It is just with God to give those up to their own heart’s lusts, who obstinately persist in the gratification of them. Those who will run headlong to ruin, let the reins be laid on their neck, and it is the saddest condition a man can be in on this side hell.

      [2.] He proceeds to give them up to ruin as irrecoverable, to a personal ruin in the other world (Matthew 23:33); Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell? These are strange words to come from the mouth of Christ, into whose lips grace was poured. But he can and will speak terror, and in these words he explains and sums up the eight woes he had denounced against the scribes and Pharisees.

      Here is, First, Their description; Ye serpents. Doth Christ call names? Yes, but this doth not warrant us to do so. He infallibly knew what was in man, and knew them to be subtle as serpents, cleaving to the earth, feeding on dust; they had a specious outside, but were within malignant, had poison under their tongues, the seed of the old serpent. They were a generation of vipers; they and those that went before them, they and those that joined with them, were a generation of envenomed, enraged, spiteful adversaries to Christ and his gospel. They loved to be called of men, Rabbi, rabbi, but Christ calls them serpents and vipers; for he gives men their true characters, and delights to put contempt upon the proud.

      Secondly, Their doom. He represents their condition as very sad, and in a manner desperate; How can ye escape the damnation of hell? Christ himself preached hell and damnation, for which his ministers have often been reproached by those that care not to hear of it. Note, 1. The damnation of hell will be the fearful end of all impenitent sinners. This doom coming from Christ, was more terrible than coming from all the prophets and ministers that ever were, for he is the Judge, into whose hands the keys of hell and death are put, and his saying they were damned, made them so. 2. There is a way of escaping this damnation, this is implied here; some are delivered from the wrath to come. 3. Of all sinners, those who are of the spirit of the scribes and Pharisees, are least likely to escape this damnation; for repentance and faith are necessary to that escape; and how will they be brought to these, who are so conceited of themselves, and so prejudiced against Christ and his gospel, as they were? How could they be healed and saved, who could not bear to have their wound searched, nor the balm of Gilead applied to it? Publicans and harlots, who were sensible of their disease and applied themselves to the Physician, were more likely to escape the damnation of hell than those who, though they were in the high road to it, were confident they were in the way to heaven.

THE DOOM OF THE PHARISEES

34 Wherefore, behold, I send unto you prophets, and wise men, and scribes: and some of them ye shall kill and crucify; and some of them shall ye scourge in your synagogues, and persecute them from city to city:   35 That upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias son of Barachias, whom ye slew between the temple and the altar.   36 Verily I say unto you, All these things shall come upon this generation.   37 O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!   38 Behold, your house is left unto you desolate.   39 For I say unto you, Ye shall not see me henceforth, till ye shall say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord.

      We have left the blind leaders fallen into the ditch, under Christ’s sentence, into the damnation of hell; let us see what will become of the blind followers, of the body of the Jewish church, and particularly Jerusalem.

1. Jesus Christ designs yet to try them with the means of grace; I send unto you prophets, and wise men, and scribes. The connection is strange; “You are a generation of vipers, not likely to escape the damnation of hell;” one would think it should follow, “Therefore you shall never have a prophet sent to you any more;” but no, “Therefore I will send unto you prophets, to see if you will yet at length be wrought upon, or else to leave you inexcusable, and to justify God in your ruin.” It is therefore ushered in with a note of admiration, behold! Observe,
2. It is Christ that sends them; I send. By this he avows himself to be God, having power to gift and commission prophets. It is an act of kingly office; he sends them as ambassadors to treat with us about the concerns of our souls. After his resurrection, he made this word good, when he said, So send I you, John 20:21. Though now he appeared mean, yet he was entrusted with this great authority.
3. He sends them to the Jews first; “I send them to you.” They began at Jerusalem; and, wherever they went, they observed this rule, to make the first tender of gospel grace to the Jews, Acts 13:46.
4. Those he sends are called prophets, wise men, and scribes, Old-Testament names for New-Testament officers; to show that the ministers sent to them now should not be inferior to the prophets of the Old Testament, to Solomon the wise, or Ezra the scribe. The extraordinary ministers, who in the first ages were divinely inspired, were as the prophets commissioned immediately from heaven; the ordinary settled ministers, who were then, and continue in the church still, and will do to the end of time, are as the wise men and scribes, to guide and instruct the people in the things of God. Or, we may take the apostles and evangelists for the prophets and wise men, and the pastors and teachers for the scribes, instructed to the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 13:52); for the office of a scribe was honourable till the men dishonoured it.
5. He foresees and foretels the ill usage that his messengers would meet with among them; “Some of them ye shall kill and crucify, and yet I will send them.” Christ knows beforehand how ill his servants will be treated, and yet sends them, and appoints them their measure of sufferings; yet he loves them never the less for his thus exposing them, for he designs to glorify himself by their sufferings, and them after them; he will counter-balance them, though not prevent them. Observe,
6. The cruelty of these persecutors; Ye shall kill and crucify them. It is no less than the blood, the life-blood, that they thirst after; their lust is not satisfied with any thing short of their destruction, Exodus 15:9. They killed the two James’s, crucified Simon the son of Cleophas, and scourged Peter and John; thus did the members partake of the sufferings of the Head, he was killed and crucified, and so were they. Christians must expect to resist unto blood.
7. Their unwearied industry; Ye shall persecute them from city to city. As the apostles went from city to city, to preach the gospel, the Jews dodged them, and haunted them, and stirred up persecution against them, Acts 14:19,17:13. They that did not believe in Judea were more bitter enemies to the gospel than any other unbelievers, Romans 15:31.
8. The pretence of religion in this; they scourged them in their synagogues, their place of worship, where they kept their ecclesiastical courts; so that they did it as a piece of service to the church; cast them out, and said, Let the Lord be glorified, Isaiah 66:5,Joh+16:2.

      III. He imputes the sin of their fathers to them, because they imitated it; That upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, Matthew 23:35,36. Though God bear long with a persecuting generation, he will not bear always; and patience abused, turns into the greatest wrath. The longer sinners have been heaping up treasures of wickedness, the deeper and fuller will the treasures of wrath be; and the breaking of them up will be like breaking up the fountains of the great deep.

      Observe, 1. The extent of this imputation; it takes in all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, that is, the blood shed for righteousness’ sake, which has all been laid up in God’s treasury, and not a drop of it lost, for it is precious. Psalms 72:14. He dates the account from the blood of righteous Abel, thence this æra martyrum–age of martyrs–commences; he is called righteous Abel, for he obtained witness from heaven, that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts. How early did martyrdom come into the world! The first that died, died for his religion, and, being dead, he yet speaketh. His blood not only cried against Cain, but continues to cry against all that walk in the way of Cain, and hate and persecute their brother, because their works are righteous. He extends it to the blood of Zacharias, the son of Barachias (Matthew 23:36), not Zecharias the prophet (as some would have it), though he was the son of Barachias (Zechariah 1:1) nor Zecharias the father of John Baptist, as others say; but, as is most probable, Zechariah the son of Jehoiada, who was slain in the court of the Lord’s house, 2 Chronicles 24:20,21. His father is called Barachias, which signifies much the same with Jehoiada; and it was usual among the Jews for the same person to have two names; whom ye slew, ye of this nation, though not of this generation. This is specified, because the requiring of that is particularly spoken of (2 Chronicles 24:22), as that of Abel’s is. The Jews imagined that the captivity had sufficiently atoned for the guilt; but Christ lets them know that it was not yet fully accounted for, but remained upon the score. And some think that this is mentioned with a prophetical hint, for there was one Zecharias, the son of Baruch, whom Josephus speaks of (War 4. 335), who was a just and good man, who was killed in the temple a little before it was destroyed by the Romans. Archbishop Tillotson thinks that Christ both alludes to the history of the former Zecharias in Chronicles, and foretels the death of this latter in Josephus. Though the latter was not yet slain, yet, before this destruction comes, it would be true that they had slain him; so that all shall be put together from first to last.

2. The effect of it; All these things shall come; all the guilt of this blood, all the punishment of it, it shall all come upon this generation. The misery and ruin that are coming upon them, shall be so very great, that, though, considering the evil of their own sins, it was less that even those deserved; yet, comparing it with other judgments, it will seem to be a general reckoning for all the wickedness of their ancestors, especially their persecutions, to all which God declared this ruin to have special reference and relation. The destruction shall be so dreadful, as if God had once for all arraigned them for all the righteous blood shed in the world. It shall come upon this generation; which intimates, that it shall come quickly; some here shall live to see it. Note, The sorer and nearer the punishment of sin is, the louder is the call to repentance and reformation.
3. He laments the wickedness of Jerusalem, and justly upbraids them with the many kind offers he had made them, Matthew 23:37. See with what concern he speaks of that city; O Jerusalem, Jerusalem! The repetition is emphatical, and bespeaks abundance of commiseration. A day or two before Christ had wept over Jerusalem, now he sighed and groaned over it. Jerusalem, the vision of peace (so it signifies), must now be the seat of war and confusion. Jerusalem, that had been the joy of the whole earth, must now be a hissing, and an astonishment, and a by-word; Jerusalem, that has been a city compact together, shall now be shattered and ruined by its own intestine broils. Jerusalem, the place that God has chosen to put his name there, shall now be abandoned to the spoil and the robbers, Lamentations 1:1,4:1. But wherefore will the Lord do all this to Jerusalem? Why? Jerusalem hath grievously sinned, Lamentations 1:8.
4. She persecuted God’s messengers; Thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them that are sent unto thee. This sin is especially charged upon Jerusalem; because there the Sanhedrim, or great council, sat, who took cognizance of church matters, and therefore a prophet could not perish but in Jerusalem, Luke 13:33. It is true, they had not now a power to put any man to death, but they killed the prophets in popular tumults, mobbed them, as Stephen, and put the Roman powers on to kill them. At Jerusalem, where the gospel was first preached, it was first persecuted (Acts 8:1), and that place was the head-quarters of the persecutors; thence warrants were issued out to other cities, and thither the saints were brought bound, Acts 9:2. Thou stonest them: that was a capital punishment, in use only among the Jews. By the law, false prophets and seducers were to be stoned (Deuteronomy 13:10), under colour of which law, they put the true prophets to death. Note, It has often been the artifice of Satan, to turn that artillery against the church, which was originally planted in the defence of it. Brand the true prophets as seducers, and the true professors of religion as heretics and schismatics, and then it will be easy to persecute them. There was abundance of other wickedness in Jerusalem; but this was the sin that made the loudest cry, and which God had an eye to more than any other, in bringing that ruin upon them, as 2 Kings 24:4,2Ch+36:16. Observe, Christ speaks in the present tense; Thou killest, and stonest; for all they had done, and all they would do, was present to Christ’s notice.
5. She refused and rejected Christ, and gospel offers. The former was a sin without remedy, this against the remedy. Here is, (1.) The wonderful grace and favour of Jesus Christ toward them; How often would I have gathered thy children together, as a hen gathers her chickens under her wings! Thus kind and condescending are the offers of gospel grace, even to Jerusalem’s children, bad as she is, the inhabitants, the little ones not excepted. [1.] The favour proposed was the gathering of them. Christ’s design is to gather poor souls, gather them in from their wanderings, gather them home to himself, as the Centre of unity; for to him must the gathering of the people be. He would have taken the whole body of the Jewish nation into the church, and so gathered them all (as the Jews used to speak of proselytes) under the wings of the Divine Majesty. It is here illustrated by a humble similitude; as a hen clucks her chickens together. Christ would have gathered them, First, With such a tenderness of affection as the hen does, which has, by instinct, a peculiar concern for her young ones. Christ’s gathering of souls, comes from his love, Jeremiah 31:3. Secondly, For the same end. The hen gathered her chickens under her wings, for protection and safety, and for warmth and comfort; poor souls have in Christ both refuge and refreshment. The chickens naturally run to the hen for shelter, when they are threatened by the birds of prey; perhaps Christ refers to that promise (Psalms 91:4), He shall cover thee with his feathers. There is healing under Christ’s wings (Malachi 4:2); that is more than the hen has for her chickens.

      [2.] The forwardness of Christ to confer this favour. His offers are, First, Very free; I would have done it. Jesus Christ is truly willing to receive and save poor souls that come to him. He desires not their ruin, he delights in their repentance. Secondly, Very frequent; How often! Christ often came up to Jerusalem, preached, and wrought miracles there; and the meaning of all this, was, he would have gathered them. He keeps account how often his calls have been repeated. As often as we have heard the sound of the gospel, as often as we have felt the strivings of the Spirit, so often Christ would have gathered us.

      [3.] Their wilful refusal of this grace and favour; Ye would not. How emphatically is their obstinacy opposed to Christ’s mercy! I would, and ye would not. He was willing to save them, but they were not willing to be saved by him. Note, It is wholly owing to the wicked wills of sinners, that they are not gathered under the wings of the Lord Jesus. They did not like the terms upon which Christ proposed to gather them; they loved their sins, and yet trusted to their righteousness; they would not submit either to the grace of Christ or to his government, and so the bargain broke off.

12. He reads Jerusalem’s doom (Matthew 23:38,39); Therefore behold your house is left unto you desolate. Both the city and the temple, God’s house and their own, all shall be laid waste. But it is especially meant of the temple, which they boasted of, and trusted to; that holy mountain because of which they were so haughty. Note, they that will not be gathered by the love and grace of Christ shall be consumed and scattered by his wrath; I would, and you would not. Israel would none of me, so I gave them up, Psalms 81:11,12.
13. Their house shall be deserted; It is left unto you. Christ was now departing from the temple, and never came into it again, but by this word abandoned it to ruin. They doated on it, would have it to themselves; Christ must have no room or interest there. “Well,” saith Christ, “it is left to you; take it, and make your best of it; I will never have any thing more to do with it.” They had made it a house of merchandise, and a den of thieves, and so it is left to them. Not long after this, the voice was heard in the temple, “Let us depart hence.” When Christ went, Ichabod, the glory departed. Their city also was left to them, destitute of God’s presence and grace; he was no longer a wall of fire about them, nor the glory in the midst of them.
14. It shall be desolate; It is left unto you desolate; it is left eremos—a wilderness. (1.) It was immediately, when Christ left it, in the eyes of all that understood themselves, a very dismal melancholy place. Christ’s departure makes the best furnished, best replenished place a wilderness, though it be the temple, the chief place of concourse; for what comfort can there be where Christ is not? Though there may be a crowd of other contentments, yet, if Christ’s special spiritual presence be withdrawn, that soul, that place, is become a wilderness, a land of darkness, as darkness itself. This comes of men’s rejecting Christ, and driving him away from them. (2.) It was, not long after, destroyed and ruined, and not one stone left upon another. The lot of Jerusalem’s enemies will now become Jerusalem’s lot, to be made of a city a heap, of a defenced city a ruin (Isaiah 25:2), a lofty city laid low, even to the ground, Isaiah 26:5. The temple, that holy and beautiful house, became desolate. When God goes out, all enemies break in.

      Lastly, Here is the final farewell that Christ took of them and their temple; Ye shall not see me henceforth, till ye shall say, Blessed is he that cometh. This bespeaks,

1. His departure from them. The time was at hand, when he should leave the world, to go to his Father, and be seen no more. After his resurrection, he was seen only by a few chosen witnesses, and they saw him not long, but he soon removed to the invisible world, and there will be till the time of the restitution of all things, when his welcome at his first coming will be repeated with loud acclamations; Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord. Christ will not be seen again till he come in the clouds, and every eye shall see him (Revelation 1:7); and then, even they, who, when time was, rejected and pierced him, will be glad to come in among his adorers; then every knee shall bow to him, even those that had bowed to Baal; and even the workers of iniquity will then cry, Lord, Lord, and will own, when his wrath is kindled, that blessed are all they that put their trust in him. Would we have our lot in that day with those that say, Blessed is he that cometh? let us be with them now, with them that truly worship, and truly welcome, Jesus Christ.
2. Their continued blindness and obstinacy; Ye shall not see me, that is, not see me to be the Messiah (for otherwise they did see him upon the cross), not see the light of the truth concerning me, nor the things that belong to your peace, till ye shall say, Blessed is he that cometh. They will never be convinced, till Christ’s second coming convince them, when it will be too late to make an interest in him, and nothing will remain but a fearful looking for of judgment. Note, (1.) Wilful blindness is often punished with judicial blindness. If they will not see, they shall not see. With this word he concludes his public preaching. After his resurrection, which was the sign of the prophet Jonas, they should have no other sign given them, till they should see the sign of the Son of man, Matthew 24:30. (2.) When the Lord comes with ten thousand of his saints, he will convince all, and will force acknowledgments from the proudest of his enemies, of his being the Messiah, and even they shall be found liars to him. They that would not now come at his call, shall then be forced to depart with his curse. The chief priests and scribes were displeased with the children for crying hosanna to Christ; but the day is coming, when proud persecutors would gladly be found in the condition of the meanest and poorest they now trample upon. They who now reproach and ridicule the hosannas of the saints will be of another mind shortly; it were therefore better to be of that mind now. Some make this to refer to the conversion of the Jews to the faith of Christ; then they shall see him, and own him, and say, Blessed is he that cometh; but it seems rather to look further, for the complete manifestation of Christ, and conviction of sinners, are reserved to be the glory of the last day.

A few compelling reasons why homeschooling exists.

Come, Holy Ghost, Creator blest,
And in our hearts take up Thy rest;
Come with Thy grace and heav’nly aid,
To fill the hearts which Thou hast made.

O Comforter, to Thee we cry,
Thou heav’nly gift of God Most High,
Thou Fount of Life, and Fire of Love,
And sweet anointing from above.

O Finger of the hand divine,
The sevenfold gifts of grace are thine;
True promise of the Father thou,
Who dost the tongue with power endow.

Thy light to every sense impart,
And shed Thy love in every heart;
Thine own unfailing might supply
To strengthen our infirmity.

Drive far away our ghostly foe,
And thine abiding peace bestow;
If thou be our preventing Guide,
No evil can our steps betide.

Praise we the Father and the Son
And Holy Spirit with them One;
And may the Son on us bestow
The gifts that from the Spirit flow.