Daily Devotions
Luke
Luke 11:37-54 "TEACHER, SAYING THESE THINGS YOU REPROACH US ALSO..." Luke 11:45"
Day 155 – Luke 11
Text: Luke 11:37-54
“TEACHER, SAYING THESE THINGS YOU REPROACH US ALSO…” Luke 11:45
The whole atmosphere must have been very tense as Jesus rebuked the Pharisees and Scribes. Publicly, the Lord Jesus reproved them for their hypocritical behaviour. They only pretended to be good and religious. In their hearts, they did not have a love for God or men. Their religious practices were only a false front! They were as dead tombs spiritually!
As the words of Jesus sank in, the two groups of people who were mentioned kept silent! They had heard the voice of truth. This voice sounded like their conscience that had long died in them.
They could not protest against what Jesus had said about them. They knew only too well that He was right. They had pretended all along that they believed in God. They had gotten away with a lot of things, because nobody had the courage to speak up against them, until Jesus came along!
The lawyers (these were experts in the Law of Moses) decided that they would ask Jesus to tone down on His rebuke. If Jesus had spoken against the Pharisees and Scribes, would that not have been too sweeping a statement.
What about others who were not guilty of the sins Jesus outlined… like the lawyers! If Jesus did not want to tone down His words, then at least He could make exceptions! He could say that the lawyers were the exception to the rule. They were not like the Pharisees and Scribes. They obviously thought quite highly of themselves!
“WOE TO YOU ALSO, LAWYERS…” Luke 11:46
Jesus turned on the Lawyers and delivered words that were just as scathing, but true nonetheless!
“Woe to you also, lawyers!
For you load men with burdens hard to bear,
And you yourselves do not touch the burdens
With one of your fingers.”
Luke 11:46
Did the lawyers really feel that they were free from guilt, because they could find loopholes in the law of God? Whenever they came across a law of God that was difficult to bear, the lawyers would interpret that law in such a way that the law may well be compared to “burdens hard to bear”.
If and when they were caught in a similar situation, they would re-interpret that same law in such a way that they appeared to have fulfilled the law! They knew the law so well, that they were always manipulating the law. They felt that as long as they could manipulate the law, then they could not be pinned down and be held responsible!
Were they guiltless? Far from it! Thus the Lord Jesus faced them down and pronounced a “woe” against the Lawyers! Their handling of the Law of God showed that they had scant regard for God! They were just as bad as the Pharisees and the Scribes, if not worse!
“YOU BUILD THE TOMBS OF THE PROPHETS, AND YOUR FATHERS KILLED THEM…” Luke 11:47
What did Jesus mean by these words? What was He saying when He uttered these words to the Lawyers? Let’s take a careful look at these words of rebuke…
“Woe to you! For you build the tombs of the prophets,
and your fathers killed them!
In fact, you bear witness that you approve the deeds
Of your fathers;
For they indeed killed them,
And you build their tombs.”
Luke 11:47-48
It is important to note the way Jesus understood and applied the Scriptures. Though the prophets that Jesus mentioned had lived in a bygone era (the last prophet was Malachi and he lived a good four hundred years ago), He regarded them as part of the living history of Israel. He saw the present as the continuing saga of the nation of Israel.
“Your fathers” is a reference to the ancestors who lived in the days of the prophets. Though they too lived hundreds of years ago, nevertheless Jesus spoke of them as if they were people essentially connected to the present living descendants!
It was a fact that Israel had killed many of the prophets of God! These men should have been denounced as wicked reprobates! Instead, the lawyers reinterpreted history and exonerated them!
The prophets were recognized and “honoured”. They were given tombs! They were awarded honours posthumously! However, those who murdered them were not spoken of as people who were guilty of a grave crime.
By doing this, the lawyers “approved of the deeds of their fathers”. Their building of tombs was a weak and inadequate way of interpreting the true facts! The lawyers manipulated the law of God and turned the Scriptures around to justify the actions of those who murdered the prophets of old! This was reprehensible!
A PROPHETIC WORD OF WARNING
Jesus rejected the way in which the lawyers handled God’s Word! They could not handle the Law of God in such a cavalier manner! They were guilty of mishandling the sacred Scriptures!
The mishandling of the Scriptures revealed the hearts of the Lawyers. They had the same kind of murderous hearts their forefathers had. They would kill, and then justify their actions through the manipulation of the Scriptures. After their dastardly acts, they would then whitewash their works by building tombs for those they killed, as if by saying “nice words” about them after they died would expiate their wicked deeds!
Whether they were Pharisees, Scribes or Lawyers… they shared the same spiritual problem! They were hypocrites that played at religion!