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31 Therefore you are witnesses against yourselves that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets. 32 Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers’ guilt. 33 Serpents, brood of vipers! How can you escape the condemnation of hell? 34 Therefore, indeed, I send you prophets, wise men, and scribes: some of them you will kill and crucify, and some of them you will scourge in your synagogues and persecute from city to city, 35 that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah, son of Berechiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar. 36 Assuredly, I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation. ~ Matthew 23:31-36
Today, we continue our study of Matthew 23 where the Lord Jesus has just pronounced 7 judgements on the religious leaders of Israel. In today's study we will consider why the religious leaders of first century Israel were so numb to their long-promised Messiah. It was Wednesday, just two days before His crucifixion. The mounting hostility toward the Lord Jesus was growing, thanks to the religious leaders of Israel. They hated Him because they had been convinced that He was an imposter of their long-awaited Messiah. Since He intimidated them, they wanted to eliminate Him.
In v.31-33 of today's passage we read, "31 Therefore you are witnesses against yourselves that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets. 32 Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers’ guilt. 33 Serpents, brood of vipers! How can you escape the condemnation of hell?"
Since their rejection of the Lord Jesus was now complete, the Lord Jesus continued to reveal His perfect understanding of the nature of the religious leaders of Israel. He identified them as sons of murderers and a brood of vipers. Sadly, these self-righteous, legalistic, haters of the truth thirsted not for holiness but for the blood of the righteous. Due to the fact that their sins had not been atoned for, the religious leaders were guaranteed an eternity in hell.
"Gehenna" is the word that was here translated "hell." Gehenna was the burning trash dump just outside the city of Jerusalem. In the teachings of the Lord Jesus, Gehenna had become an illustration for eternal hell. These religious leaders were so distracted from the truth that they missed Him when He came. They were so determined to remain in their unbelief of the Lord Jesus as their Savior that they did not realize they were destined for hell. And, even though the Lord Jesus offered them so many opportunities to believe in Him, they resisted His wooings til the end.
God is a God of love and wrath. In fact, this is why God sends His messengers, to offer His free gift of forgiveness and to warn of His judgment to come. The message of the Gospel is a message that is meant to lead us to salvation. In most cases, sadly, it is a message when rejected leads to judgment. And, the more we hear the Gospel, the more it comes to us as a message of grace. On the other hand, the more we reject it, the more it piles upon us as a message leading us to judgment.
I have always struggled with the wrath of God. My finite mind has a hard time harmonizing the love and the wrath of God. T.F. Torrance, a 20th century Scottish theologian, once said, "God loves us that God's wrath was poured out against sin, destroying and overcoming it in Christ's death... God's wrath is purposeful. It is a wrath included in God's love for us. God's wrath, in this sense, is the wrath of love in a similar way that a loving parent might react quite fiercely against an attacker who seeks to harm his children. God's love is for us, and therefore, God's wrath is also a wrath for us and not against us."
In v.34-35 of today's passage we read, "34 Therefore, indeed, I send you prophets, wise men, and scribes: some of them you will kill and crucify, and some of them you will scourge in your synagogues and persecute from city to city, 35 that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah, son of Berechiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar."
The faithfulness of God pursued these first century religious leaders of Israel through the prophets, the wise men and other faithful experts in the Law of Moses, but they resisted the truth. As a result, their condemnation was sure and imminent. These first century religious leaders of Israel had greater guilt than anyone that ever lived before them due to the amount of truth they were given by God. Their accumulative guilt surpassed that of any generation before them.
One generation duplicates the sins of past generations upon the next. At some point the religious leaders of Israel rejected the revelation of God. This is what religion does to us. Most believe religion is a good thing but it is not because it always places the most emphasis on fallen man as he tries to earn God's favor through his so-called good behavior. So, for the religious, God's judgment accumulates. They could have stopped it had they embraced poverty of spirit, had they been honest with the truth, had they been broken before God due to their sin. This is why we read, "on you may come all the righteous blood shed on the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah, son of Berechiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar." From A to Z, from the beginning of the Old Testament, the first murder of a righteous man, to the shedding of Berechiah's son's blood. The people stoned Zechariah, around 800 B.C. because he spoke against their idolatry. The king didn’t like it, so he told the people to stone him to death at the temple altar.
In v.36 of today's passage we read, "Assuredly, I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation."
The first century religious leaders of Israel accumulated God's wrath because they followed in the sins of their fathers. They never learned the valuable lessons of their fathers' sin. They rejected the full revelation of God and embraced the darkest lie. They had been fully exposed to the gospel, yet, they rejected the long-promised Messiah. It was their love for the darkness that damned them in the end. Unbelief in the God of the Bible is in essence a run away affair which leaves the run away languishing and in serious pain. Sadly, the first century religious leaders of Israel never got to the place where they understood that genuine faith begins by admitting we will never have our act completely together apart from the magical embrace of the God who loves us still.
