Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples:
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites.
You lock the Kingdom of heaven before men.
You do not enter yourselves,
nor do you allow entrance to those trying to enter.
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites.
You traverse sea and land to make one convert,
and when that happens you make him a child of Gehenna
twice as much as yourselves.
“Woe to you, blind guides, who say,
‘If one swears by the temple, it means nothing,
but if one swears by the gold of the temple, one is obligated.’
Blind fools, which is greater, the gold,
or the temple that made the gold sacred?
And you say, ‘If one swears by the altar, it means nothing,
but if one swears by the gift on the altar, one is obligated.’
You blind ones, which is greater, the gift,
or the altar that makes the gift sacred?
One who swears by the altar swears by it and all that is upon it;
one who swears by the temple swears by it
and by him who dwells in it;
one who swears by heaven swears by the throne of God
and by him who is seated on it.”
With regard to God’s Law the Jewish leaders probably started with good intentions, and probably sincerely wanted to prevent themselves and others from transgressing the Law. But by the time of Jesus, their system of rules had grown to be so large and burdensome, that it became very difficult to nagivigate. This difficulty lead to the pharisees and scribes to exploit their knowledge of the law, and all of its loopholes, to make life easier for themselves, and difficult for other. This knowledge then lead to corruption, and that corruption lead to this confrontation between Jesus and these “blind guides.”
The law that was given to moses, in the ten commandments, was fairly simple and clear. But God chose in His wisdom to explain their full meaning further, this full explanation of the law is what was later recorded in the 613 laws of the torah. After that, for centuries, prophets and sages pontificated, debated, and ultimately expanded upon the law, and those teachings were ultimately recorded in the talmud. This expanding of the law by many people over the centuries between Moses and Jesus is what the Lord Jesus is what He is chastising them for.
To better understand what had happened, lets consider an example: The lord made rules like “make the lords day holy.” This is a simple law, that is easy to understand. He wants us to understand that we should not work on the sabbath, and we should instead rest and spend time with the Lord. This is pretty clear and straightforward, but the jews rhuminated on this law, and asked themselves what it means to rest, and what it means to work, and consequently created hundreds of laws to prevent anyone from ever getting close to even slightly infringing on God’s Law. And as a result the laws got so intricate and so burdemsome that if a person fell down in front of you, the jews considered it a sin to help them up.
This is clearly not what God intended by His law. And so when Jesus says that they have locked the kingdom of heaven before men, He is saying that your system of laws has made it impossible for my people to not sin, and thus impossible to make it into heaven. One of the many reasons that Jesus came into this world, was to loosen these burdens that the jewish leaders had placed upon His people. And this is why He uses the word “woe,” because the jewish leaders have much to account for.
Today we must continue to discern the path that God has made for us, and we must try to understand what plan God has for our lives. The answer is written on your heart, and we should strive to do the thing that God wants for us, and pay less attention to the rules that the world is trying to make us follow. Because, at the end, you will stand before your judgement alone, and those leaders that tried to lead you astray will not be there to point the finger at. We must all account for our own lives, before God, and the choices we make in our own lives, so choose wisely.
