The Jewish Religious Leaders reject the Jewish Messiah

Matthew Chapter 12A

The Jewish Religious Leaders reject the Jewish Messiah

Specific instances of Israel’s Rejection of Jesus 

Mathew shows that opposition to Jesus comes from 2 main sources:

1. The animosity of the religious leaders.

2. The indifference of the common Israelites.

This chapter plays an important turning point in this Gospel. It brings before us the full rejection of the Kingdom. After this chapter we do not hear the Kingdom being preached to Israel. 

Let us investigate who were the religious leaders. 

Who were the Jewish Groups at the Time of the New Testament?

When Jesus began to proclaim the gospel, the Sadducees, Essenes, and Pharisees were also laying claim to Israel's heritage.

Josephus mentions the groups for the first time during the high priesthood of Jonathan (152-143 BC) after the demise of the Zadokite priesthood, which had dominated the religious life of Judea for centuries. 

The Essenes eventually dropped out of public life and became a network of close-knit communities. It is probably for this reason the NT does not mention them. 

The Sadducees and Pharisees continued to compete for control of the temple and Sanhedrin. By the first century, the Sadducees were dominant (Acts 5:17). However, the Pharisees remained an influential minority in Jerusalem, and had mounted a successful campaign to win the hearts of the people.

The Sadducees

The Sadducees, including the high priest Caiaphas (18-36 AD), were primarily of wealthy, priestly families in Jerusalem. Josephus claims they were unfriendly – even to one another – and were unpopular (Jewish War 2.166; Jewish Antiquities 13.298). They could be cruel judges (Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 20.199; Mishnah, Sanhedrin 7.2; Makkot 1.6). When Jesus disrupted their financial interests in the temple, he was arrested and condemned (Mark 11:15-19; 14:53-65). 

Mark 11:15 And they came to Jerusalem. And he entered the temple and began to drive out those who sold and those who bought in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the moneychangers and the seats of those who sold pigeons. 

Mark 11:16 And he would not allow anyone to carry anything through the temple. 

Mark 11:17 And he was teaching them and saying to them, “Is it not written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations’? But you have made it a den of robbers.” 

Mark 11:18 And the chief priests and the scribes heard it and were seeking a way to destroy him, for they feared him, because all the crowd was astonished at his teaching. 

Mark 11:19 And when evening came they went out of the city.

Mark 14:53 And they led Jesus to the high priest. And all the chief priests and the elders and the scribes came together. 

Mark 14:54 And Peter had followed him at a distance, right into the courtyard of the high priest. And he was sitting with the guards and warming himself at the fire. 

Mark 14:55 Now the chief priests and the whole council were seeking testimony against Jesus to put him to death, but they found none. 

Mark 14:56 For many bore false witness against him, but their testimony did not agree. 

Mark 14:57 And some stood up and bore false witness against him, saying, 

Mark 14:58 “We heard him say, ‘I will destroy this temple that is made with hands, and in three days I will build another, not made with hands.’” 

Mark 14:59 Yet even about this their testimony did not agree. 

Mark 14:60 And the high priest stood up in the midst and asked Jesus, “Have you no answer to make? What is it that these men testify against you?”

Mark 14:61 But he remained silent and made no answer. Again, the high priest asked him, “Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?” 

Mark 14:62 And Jesus said, “I am, and you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power and coming with the clouds of heaven.” 

Mark 14:63 And the high priest tore his garments and said, “What further witnesses do we need? 

Mark 14:64 You have heard his blasphemy. What is your decision?” And they all condemned him as deserving death. 

Mark 14:65 And some began to spit on him and to cover his face and to strike him, saying to him, “Prophesy!” And the guards received him with blows.

James, the brother of the LORD, was later killed by a Sadducean high priest (Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 20.200). 

The Sadducees rejected the extrabiblical traditions of the Pharisees, perhaps embracing only the Pentateuch as canonical (Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 13.297; 18.16). Their narrow canon may explain why they did not believe in the general resurrection of the dead (Mark 12:18; Acts 4:1-2; 23:6-8), since it is not explicitly mentioned in the Pentateuch. Jesus, when arguing for the resurrection (Mark 12:18-27), meets the Sadducees on their own ground by showing the implications of Exodus 3:6 (God is the God of the patriarchs; Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob) instead of appealing to a more straightforward passage (Dan. 12:2 – “those who sleep in the dust shall awake …).

The Essenes

The Essenes lived communally in villages and cities throughout Palestine and Syria.  They shared all things in common, including food and clothing. Wages were given to a steward, who would purchase and distribute goods to those in need, they cared for their elderly and sick (Josephus, Jewish War 2.122-124). The Jerusalem church adopted a similar way of life (Acts 2:44-45; 4:34-35; James 1:27), except that giving was voluntary (Acts 5:4). 

Acts 4:34-35 There was not a needy person among them, for as many as were owners of lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold and laid it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to each as any had need. 

The Essenes believed God was the cause of all things (Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 13.172; 18.18; Philo, Good Person 84). Consequently, they viewed all government as divinely ordained (Josephus, Jewish War 2.140). However, the Dead Sea Scrolls assume belief in two spirits – that will be in conflict until the end of age (Col. 3:17-19; Col. 4:16-17). Paul similarly ties spiritual warfare with God’s ultimate sovereignty over all things, including government (Rom. 13:1-7);(Eph. 2:1-3).

The Essenes were especially scrupulous about maintaining purity. They dressed only in white linen (Josephus, Jewish War 2.123). They no longer participated in the sacrifices of the temple, because in their view, the priests were defiling the sanctuary and Josephus claims they offered their own sacrifices (Jewish War 18.19), while Philo assumes they abstained from animal sacrifice altogether (Good Person 75). The Dead Sea Scrolls claim prayer is an acceptable sacrifice (Dead Sea Scrolls, Damascus Document 11.21). They also strictly observed the Sabbath. Whereas Jesus assumes most Jews would pull an ox out of a well on the Sabbath (Luke 14:5), the Dead Sea Scrolls forbid it (Damascus Document 11.13). 

The Pharisees

The Pharisees resided primarily in Jerusalem (Luke 5:17 – they came from every village of Galilee and Judea and from Jerusalem) and were divided into at least three schools: the disciples of Shammai, Hillel, and Gamaliel. These schools were especially concerned about the proper administration of the temple. 

The disciples of Shammai, who represented the more conservative wing of the group, were dominant before the destruction of the temple in AD.70 (Mishnah, Shabbat 1.4). But Hillel, representing a more liberal interpretation of the Jewish Scriptures, had moved from Babylon to Jerusalem about a generation before Jesus, and gained wide influence as well.

Gamaliel, the son (or grandson) of Hillel, was a renowned teacher of the law in Jerusalem. The apostle Paul had been a disciple of Gamaliel (Acts 22:3). Gamaliel is remembered for his wisdom (Acts 5:34 “…was held in honour by all the people”) and careful management of the Jewish calendar. Most Jews followed a lunisolar calendar, which consisted of 12 lunar months, totalling 354 days. Every three years or so a thirteenth month had to be added, in order to bring the average total days of the year up to the 365.25 days of the solar year. Otherwise, the seasons would not have matched the festivals and sacrifices in the temple. Gamaliel determined when to add the thirteenth month (Mishnah, Rosh Hash Shanah 2:8; Sanhedrin 2.6). Ironically, if the Galatian Christians had adopted the calendar of Jewish religious holidays advocated by Paul’s opponents (Gal. 4:10 “you observe days and months and seasons and years!”), they would have found themselves under the authority of his old teacher!

These three schools attempted to shape the religious life of the ordinary Jew through the dissemination of their traditions (Matt. 23:15); Mark 7:1-13); Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 13.297). Galilee was also a part of their mission. 

Matt. 23:15 Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel across sea and land to make a single proselyte, and when he becomes a proselyte, you make him twice as much a child of hell as yourselves. 

The Pharisees also had considerable influence over local scribes, who would preach over local scribes, who would preach in the synagogue according to their interpretations (Matt 23:1-3 “…for they preach, but do not practice”). When the Pharisees in Jerusalem were alerted by some scribes that Jesus was preaching a new teaching with authority (Matt. 7:29 “for he was teaching them as one who had authority, and not as their scribes”), they sent a delegation, which, after observing some alarming behaviours, attributed his miraculous power to Beelzebul (Matt. 12:22-32). Since the Pharisees were highly respected by the people, the accusation may have had devastating consequences for Jesus’ mission (Matt. 11:20-24 – Capernaum, the headquarter of Jesus in Capernaum was influenced by the Pharisees and Jesus said woes to them). 

The Pharisees were scrupulous to maintain a righteous status before God. Many were probably like Paul, who claimed that as a Pharisee he was “blameless” as to the Law of Moses (Phil. 3:6). While many Jews tithed, Pharisees even titled their garden herbs:

Matt. 23:23 Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cumin and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness. These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others. 

While others fasted periodically, they fasted twice a week (Mark 2:18; Luke 18:12). They also maintained purity at their meals to the point of “straining out a gnat” from a cup (Matt. 23:24) and they avoided sharing a table with “sinners”, those like tax collectors who habitually broke the law (Mark 2:16; Luke 7:39).

All three expressions of piety come together in the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector (Luke 18:9-14). Jesus depicts the Pharisee as distinguishing himself from the tax collector because he fasted and tithed in order to retain a righteous status before God. Elsewhere, Jesus affirms tithing but claims the Pharisees “neglect the weightier matters of the law: justice, mercy, and faithfulness” (Matt. 23:23). 

The Pharisees took their personal relationship with God seriously, in part because they believed that the resurrection of the dead was a reward for living a righteous life (Josephus, Jewish War 2.163; Jewish Antiquities 18:14; Acts 23:8). But Jesus said:

Matt. 5:20 For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven”. 

On another occasion he tells the Pharisaic teacher Nicodemus that he needs to be “born again” or “born from above” (another, John 3:3). Despite the blameless way of life many Pharisees pursued, such effort, in Jesus’ view, was not enough: like all people, they needed to repent and believe in the gospel. From this perspective, Paul could anticipate being found by God, at the resurrection, “not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ” (Phil. 3:9)

Let us go back to our text in the Gospel of Matthew. Opposition to the Messiah emerges. Resistance to Jesus’ ministry has appeared occasionally (9:3-4) but now begins to build significantly, occasioned first by the innocuous questions of John the Baptist (11:2-19), then through the overt hostility of the Jewish religious leaders (12:1-45).

Confrontation with the Pharisees …

1-14 - Pharisees accuse Jesus of violating the Sabbath.

11-37 - Pharisees suggest Jesus is in collusion with Satan.

38-42 - Pharisees demand a cosmic sign.

Jesus says …

V.8 - Jesus Declares Himself Lord of the Sabbath 

V.18 - Jesus confirms that He is the servant, chosen by God, to proclaim justice to the nations 

V.28 - Jesus defends his divinity because He has the Spirit of God in him 

V.30-45 – Jesus draws the line; judgment will come on blasphemers with hard hearts 

V.46-50 - Jesus advocates that those who follow him are his true family