Zeal without godliness ............. Parables 733

October 23, 2001

A few weeks ago, we watched the film “Hawaii” on television. It was based on James Mitchner’s novel of the same name, a story I recalled as spanning several generations.

The movie highlighted only one character, a ‘hell fire and brimstone’ preacher who intended to “convert” Hawaiian natives to Christianity. He began telling them about God but obviously cared more about “winning souls” than he cared about the people themselves.

Unloving, in-your-face people are not popular. In their zeal, they fail to combine compassion with even the most worthwhile goals. They reach the top of their ladder by stepping on the rungs of all who challenge them. When a preacher does it, he is acting like many of the Pharisees behaved during Jesus’ time. These men were also zealous. They believed that God spoke to the Jews (which He did) and that they were sole guardians of His message. In their zeal, they felt they must guard the Law of God by writing many other laws that would “interpret” how His Law should be obeyed and put a protective ‘fence’ around it.

Jesus was not impressed. Over and over, He rebuked them for their spiritual pride and for missing the whole point of God’s Law. He told them they were “white-washed sepulchers: clean on the outside but full of dead men’s bones.” He pointed out that they offered money, prayed, and did their acts of worship “to be seen of men.” For this, Jesus strongly condemned them.

Today, the Christian church also labels certain people as having a pharisaical attitude. The most common relates to how the ancient Pharisees said one thing and did another. Jesus said they “built tombs for the prophets and decorated the graves of the righteous” yet belonged to a long line of religious leaders who murdered God’s prophets. They also murdered Jesus.

Modern pharisees may not murder people but they also say one thing and do another, earning the label “hypocrite.” They tell others how to walk with God but do not do it themselves. If Jesus were here, He would also strongly condemn such hypocrisy.

However, it is possible to misapply the label. Christians should not be called hypocrites because they sin, as if a Christian must never sin. God does not promise us freedom from sin while we live in this world. For us, it is a constant battle, one that we sometimes lose. Instead, hypocrisy is claiming to be perfect rather than telling the truth about our battles.

Another modern take on the New Testament Pharisee is legalism. This means not only living under rules (instead of under grace) but pushing those rules on others. It means saying a person cannot belong to God unless they do everything a certain way. Legalism claims the observance of God’s Law but holds a superficial interpretation of that Law — then adds its own rules and regulations on top of it. The emphasis is on personal or church traditions rather than on the teaching of Christ.

Today’s pharisees miss the point of Old Testament law and New Testament directions for living. They also miss the point of their denominational traditions. All of these are intended to humble us and draw us closer to Christ. As the Bible says, God’s Law is like a school-teacher “put in charge to lead us to Christ that we might be justified by faith.”

Once we have faith in Jesus, that Law goes on reminding us that we still need Him. We have nothing to be smug about. We cannot obey perfectly even one of His laws, never mind all of them. We fall short. We can live as we should only by continual reliance on His grace and power.

Pharisee or not, everyone has is a sinful heart but we also have the freely-offered forgiveness of God and the enablement of the Holy Spirit. We can live as He wants us to live, at least much of the time, by faith. But without Him, not only are hellfire preachers hard to put up with — the Law of God is also a burden too great for anyone to bear.