Matthew-093

 

Today, we continue our exposition of the Lord Jesus’ teaching in Matthew 23:29-39. Here, the Lord Jesus addresses the religious leaders of the day, the scribes and Pharisees:

 

“Sons of the devil” is addressed to the religious leaders, not unbelievers

Remember what we studied last time in this passage. In verse 33, it speaks of a brood of vipers. These religious leaders, far from being the kind of righteous persons they should have been, had become a brood of vipers. In contrast to this in verse 37, we have the brood of chicks that would gather under the wings of the hen, in this case, the Lord Jesus. The sons of God are represented by this brood of little chicks, and the sons of the devil are represented by this brood of vipers. And we saw the distinct difference between the sons of the devil, the brood of vipers, who would not come to gather under the wings of a hen; only the sons of God, this brood of chicks would come under the wings of the hen in every situation.

Here Christ manifests Yahweh God’s protective and faithful love of both father and mother as seen in Psalm 91:4, “And under his wings you may seek refuge; his faithfulness is a shield and bulwark.” There are many such examples in the Psalms (cf. Ps. 17:8, 36:7, 61:4, 63:7).

I remind you that these words, “You serpents, you brood of vipers” are addressed to the religious leaders. It’s not that all unbelievers are sons of the devil. Not at all!

 

Biblical sonship is transformation in thinking and conduct: Be like God

We now need to consider the nature of sonship in the Word of God. It is very important to understand in the New Testament that sonship is not merely a matter of status. Our thinking is conditioned by the fact that sonship is status. Sonship in the Bible is a matter that finds expression in conduct, in what we are and how we behave. I will show you this from Scripture in a moment.

If I may illustrate it in this way, you could say my father, who was in government service, was a very tough boss in his office. Why? It’s because he expected every person in his office and in his department to do their best. What inspired him was his love for the country. He felt that every Chinese will do his best for his country. He gave his best and he expected the same of everyone in his office, in his depart­ment. Therefore he would arrive half an hour before everyone else, and he would leave half an hour after everyone else. He would work with such intensity and such devotion for his country, and because of this, he could not tolerate any corruption in his department. Any­one charged with corruption would be immediately dismissed in any part of his administration. There was so much corruption under a Nationalist administration in those days, but he, in his administra­tion, did not tolerate any kind of corruption. His commitment to a faithful service for the country was so rare that he came to be feared.

I remember once, an official, one of his staff said to me, “It must be very hard for you to live with a father like that.” His impression of my father was very different of my impression of my father. His impression of my father was of a fair but strict boss who was very determined, very hardworking, who never seemed to have time to smile, never seemed to have any time for play, it was work all the time. So this official wondered how I could live with a father like that and still remain sane.

My impression of my father was quite different from his. I knew that my father was strict; I also knew that my father was fair. Of course at home, he was not the same as at work. I often played chess games with him, and boxed with him because he taught me to box, so I even had a good chance to punch him from time to time. Although the truth of the matter was that I usually got the worse of the exchange. I knew him as a friend; I knew him in a very relaxed atmosphere. I talked, debated, and argued with him. In fact, my way of thinking and character were quite different from his. The way I did things was very different from his. We were quite different personalities. In spite of our differences, and sometimes pretty strong disagree­ments, which are very common in families, I had access to him at any time because I was a son. I could walk into his office no matter how busy he was, and I could see him. No one could stop me from enter­ing his office because of my status as a son. The status is the impor­tant thing that gave me access.

This is precisely what we must not conclude when we study in the Scripture. And this is why there is so much false exegesis when it comes to the notion that I can do what I like, I can even sin if I like, because of my status of son. You cannot transpose this mistaken notion into the Scriptures because if you do, you will be entirely off the track. Let me remind you, sonship in Scripture is not merely a matter of status. It is tied inseparably to inner transformation: what you are. In other words, if your thinking and conduct don’t correspond to the character of God, you are not a son in the Biblical sense.

If we fail to understand this important distinction, we are going to have all kinds of wrong conclusions. For example, I am told by some people: “I’m a Christian therefore I have a status as a son of God. And because I am a son, I am always a son. I can sin if I like, and I will still be a son. That will not affect my salvation.” To think like this is to prove that you don’t understand sonship in the New Testament; you don’t understand sonship in the Word of God. Oh no! Sonship, by the very definition in the Bible, means likeness of character, therefore likeness of thinking, likeness of conduct. It’s exactly much in line with the statement, “Like father like son.”

 

The Scriptural teaching is: Holiness is inseparable from sonship

Having said this, I would need to present you the evidence of this statement from the Word of God, and there is a great deal of evidence that I wouldn’t have time to cover. Let me begin at Matthew Chapter 5 and give you a few examples.

First, let me read from Matthew 5:44-45:

Notice very carefully, “I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons.” You may prove to be a son of God because your conduct corresponds to that of your God and Father’s. Otherwise you will be a son perhaps in name because you claim to be a son.

Everyone can stand up and say, “I am a son of God,” but where is the evidence? The evidence is precisely in the likeness of conduct; it is in the likeness in the way we think and behave. If you think you are a Christian, if you think you are a son of God, there is nothing to stop you from thinking so. But it is up to God to determine whether or not he accepts you as a son on that Day. Will he accept you? There is nothing to stop me from saying that I am anyone’s son, but when I come to that person, he may say, “I don’t know who you are. You say you are my son but I don’t recognize you at all.” Everyone can say, “I’m a son of God.” The ones that God will recognize as sons are the people who have his likeness and his image. That is why Paul strove to build up every Christian, that they may grow into the fullness of the stature of Christ, who is in the image of his God and Father, Yahweh.

Apparently, the church today too often regards that as optional. It’s very good to grow into the stature of Christ, but it has nothing to do with my salvation. Hasn’t it indeed! It has nothing to do with your salvation if you don’t understand the Scriptural teaching on sonship. A son must bear the likeness of his Father. You must understand that you cannot claim to be a son of God when you don’t have his likeness.

He goes on therefore on the same point to Matthew 5:48,

You must be committed to bear his image. As he is perfect, it’s essential that you bear that completeness of love in your life. It’s very important to understand that all this is tied up with this whole matter of sonship.

Let us take another discussion in John Chapter 8 along the same lines that you may see this point very clearly in the Scriptural teaching, that no one imagines himself to be a son of God when he is not. The Pharisees certainly imagined themselves to be sons as you will see in this very passage. They also thought they were sons of God, and the Lord Jesus denies that they are. On what reason does he deny it? Look carefully at this passage. Let us begin at John 8:37-38:

The Lord Jesus is saying, “You are physically descendants of Abraham, therefore physically, you are within the covenant. Notice the words, “you seek to kill me.” The entire passage that we are studying in Matthew 23 has to do with killing the righteous, the prophets. Notice “my Father” and “your father.” What is the differ­ence? That is what they want to find out.

So in verse 39:

Notice carefully these words: “If you were Abraham’s children, you would be doing the works Abraham did.” Notice the fundamental principle in the likeness of action.

Jesus goes on in verses 40-41:

They just said that Abraham was their father, and Jesus said they are not doing what their father did. Then they want to maintain: “God is our Father and we are sons of God.” But notice carefully what Jesus means by their “father,” whom he specifies in verse 44.

Verses 42-44:

Notice carefully, the nature and the principle of sonship is this: They want to kill the prophets; they want to kill Jesus, so the way they conduct themselves proves that they are of the same nature as the devil, Satan who is a murderer and a liar from the beginning. Sonship is based on likeness of action. If you are a liar and a murderer, then you are a son of the devil.

Now this is exactly the point that I mean. It is not a question of status. It is a question of your attitude and conduct which shows to whom you belong. Scripture constantly teaches that sonship is not a status. I have heard so many preachers making a mistake on this, as though sonship is some kind of status that you can hold irrespective of your actions. That is not so at all in Scripture!

I can go on with evidence. Romans 8:14,

So, what is a son of God? It is not a status. Sons of God follow the leading of the Holy Spirit of God.

Let us look at one last passage in 1 John 3:8-9, that we may conclude this important point that goes right through Scripture:

In the RSV, the structure of the verb “commit” in “he who commits sin,” is the present continuous tense in the Greek, so it means he who is constantly sinning. In the ESV, whoever “makes a practice of sinning” or habitually sins, is of the devil. Again, likeness of deed, likeness of thinking constitutes sonship. It does not mean that no Christian ever sins; a Christian may also sin, but he does not habitually sin as verse 9 states:

Ask yourself very carefully this question: How do you live your daily life? Do you live in truth or do you live in lies, in falsehood, in dishonesty? Do you live in sin in one form or another? It tells us here, whoever lives in sin is of the devil; you are a son or a daughter of the devil. Likeness of conduct identifies you. It is not a question of status.

In John 8:41, the Pharisees said, “We have God as our Father.” Every Christian here would say, “God is my Father,” and I say to you, “Don’t deceive yourself.” I also say to myself, “Don’t deceive yourself” because what will determine whether I am a child of God, whether you are a child of God does not lie in the fact that we claim to have made some kind of commitment to God, so we have been baptized, although that is indeed very important, but much more importantly, it must be seen in the way we conduct ourselves, think, and do things.

That is why I have said all along, the Scriptural teaching is that holiness is inseparable from sonship. It is not a secondary stage in which first, we are saved, and later we become holy, as is the illusion. Paul says we have been called to sanctification (1 Thess. 4:7). Holiness is the very thing we have been called to. Our lives as Christians must correspond to God’s likeness in Christ. Let me repeat, no Christian is sinless. None of us are perfect in the sense that we never think a wrong thought, we never do a wrong thing, but that we do not do these things habitually nor do we desire to do these things. We slip, we fall, but that is not the direction of our life. We take no pleasure in any of these things. This is what we mean by the nature of sonship.

 

Never dare to say, “Because I am a son, it doesn’t matter that I sin.”

This point in itself is most important for us to grasp, and once we have established this point, we are ready to go back to our passage in Matthew 23 to understand how it applies to this passage. Remember again that these Pharisees and these scribes, these Jews all claim to be sons of God. And there are a lot of people in the world today who claim to be sons of God. There are all kinds of sects and religions, but how do we know one from the other? The Lord Jesus says, “By their fruit you will know them.” Just look at the way they live. And let no man dare to say again in the light of Scripture, “I am a son and because I am a son, I can do what I like.”

In China, those of us who were sons of government officials were a law unto ourselves. We could do what we liked and no one could deal with us. It was a fearful thing to think of! I could literally have committed murder and got away with it because there was no court in the land which would have dared to pronounce a sentence on me. I already had a gun very early on, and I would be free to use my gun if I felt it necessary. I could go into a restaurant to eat any meal I like, get up and walk out, and no one would dare to challenge me. Why? Because my status as son guaranteed that no one would touch me. Such was the state of affairs! That is why that government had to be overthrown; it was simply too corrupt. From what I have told you of my father, he simply disapproved of that situation.

But I want to say this: As a Christian, you cannot do that. I am sick to hear that such a teaching even came into the church, that says it doesn’t matter even though you sin and behave badly, because you have the status of a son. Indeed, I even said to some people at the Banff conference, “If you believe ‘once a son always a son, once saved always saved,’ then let me ask you one question: If a person commits murder and does not repent, will he be saved?” The answer was yes! And I said, “That is unbelievable! I don’t know which Bible you are reading, but I don’t see that in my Bible.”

He who commits murder is of the devil, and do you say he is a son of God? What kind of teaching are you imparting? I don’t wish to have any part of this kind of teaching! I could commit murder and still be in honor because I was a son of a high official in those days in China, but you cannot do this in the Scripture! Let no man say to a Christian he can commit sin, even murder if necessary, and still be a son of God. What kind of teaching is this that this status can never be changed?

 

Lost sons and fallen angels— though sons— were condemned

The angels were sons of God too, yet they were condemned when they fell. Israel was son and they were also condemned, and were sent into exile. I am disturbed by this! That is why I stressed this fact that in Scripture, if we are sons, we must show it by our fruit, other­wise we delude ourselves. And that is exactly the point in Matthew 23. These Pharisees deluded themselves into thinking that they were sons of God. I am asking, am I deluding myself, are you deluding yourself into thinking that you are sons of God? We have the answer; we don’t have to guess. Just look at the way you live, the way you think, the way you behave at home, or in the office, or at school, or with your roommates. Look at that and decide if you are a son of God.

If not, it’s time to repent! It is time to return to God because it is this kind of “Christian” that has given the Christians a bad name. It is this kind of “Christian” that has disgraced the church of God in this world to every corner of the earth. The church is not a praise to God. For the most part, it is a disgrace and we must put an end to this. Hence also you can see why we demand the highest possible standard in the Training Team. We will not compromise on standard, on quality, because God has called us to the highest excellence. We must strive to be perfect even if we are not perfect. “Be perfect even as your Father in heaven is perfect.” Regardless of whether people criticize it as “perfectionism” or “fanaticism,” we will make it our goal to glorify our Yahweh God, to learn to think as he thinks, love as he loves, give as he gives, and be conformed to his image in every way, as he is revealed in Christ Jesus.

 

Why do people do the very thing that they don’t think they would do?

Look at this passage, Matthew 23:29-39, and I would like to leave you to wrestle with a question that I have wrestled with: Why do people do the very thing that they don’t think they would do? In verses 29-30, it says,

The scribes and Pharisees said, “We would never have killed the prophets as our fathers did.” Well, they did, just as their fathers did, as the Lord Jesus says in verse 37a,

This whole passage has to do with murder and killing the servants of God, the prophets. They are always on the casualty list. Why do they do the very thing that they say they would not do? Are they dishonest? Or are they just genuinely misguided and blind? Or is it a combination of both? What is the situation?

 

Only God’s power enables us to 1) distinguish what is right and 2) do it

But as we come to ponder it, it’s not that strange, is it? How many times you have said, I wouldn’t do that” and then you did it? This is why I said, the Christian life is simply not possible for us to live in our own strength. The Christian life is totally dependent upon grace! Foolish is the man who thinks, “I can be holy in my own strength.”

When you don’t need holiness, you don’t need grace, do you? What do you need grace for? Grace is absolutely essential for holiness. It is precisely because I seek to live as God would have me live that I need his enabling, his grace. If I accept the kind of teaching that says that on the status of a son, I can live any kind of Christian life I like, I can tell lies, I can do all kinds of nasty things and I will still get to heaven, what do I need grace for? Grace is unnecessary in that situation.

Man is therefore caught in a certain bondage that I spoke about last time. I don’t suppose that the Pharisees are really that untruthful when they say, “We don’t really want to kill the prophets” and then they go ahead and do exactly that. They must have thought that these were not prophets of God when they killed those prophets. Apparently, they were incapable of distinguishing the one from the other.

 

Why can’t people distinguish true from false?

This takes me to the second point. Why are people unable to distinguish true from false? One point has to do with the inability to do what is right. The other is inability to distinguish what is right. Why do we come to a state that we really can’t tell what is true from what is false, when we do what is wrong, and actually think that we are doing right? That is the most pitiful situation that any man can get into! That is what the Pharisees are doing here. Can it come to the day when you actually put the servants of God to death and say, “They are false prophets, and I am serving God this way”? That is what the Lord Jesus said. “They will one day put you to death and think that they are serving God by putting you to death.” (Jo. 16:2). They can no longer tell right from wrong!

 

The root of self-justification and its dangers

1. The sinner tends to self-justify

I want to narrow down to one practical point here, to find the root of this most pitiful situation, and conclude with it. I find it in this strange “psychology of the sinner,” if I can put it like this. “The psychology of the sinner” is the tendency to justify oneself, and this is one of the most terrifying things that we could ever do. I have discovered that there is no person I know yet, who doesn’t have the tendency to justify himself or herself when you point out something wrong.

“Why did you do this?”

“Well, I had to do it in this way because I was compelled by the circumstances.”

“Why did you burn the dinner today?”

Oh, any person would have a lot of reasons for that too. He would never say, “I’m sorry I burnt the food.” Rather, it’s because the stove is not functioning properly; the pot is too thin; or a friend called. There are 1001 reasons he can find why he was not wrong.

“Why did you steal?”

“Well, I admit it’s not always good to steal but under my very special circumstances, it is justifiable to steal.” Of course, your circum­stances are always special, therefore you can steal. This is self-justification.

When Adam sinned, did he say immediately, “Lord, I’m sorry I sinned. You did say do not to eat it and I ate it.” Why didn’t Adam just say, “Lord, I’m sorry. I’m a fool! I ate this fruit that you told me not to eat”? No, he doesn’t say that. “It’s my wife. If you didn’t give me a wife, I wouldn’t have eaten of this fruit. No, I wouldn’t! You gave me a wife and look at what she did to me! She’s the one who brought me the fruit and I ate it. I didn’t want to displease her.”

When God asked Eve, “Eve, what did you do?”

“Not me! No, no! It’s the serpent!” Why couldn’t Eve just say, “God, I am sorry.” Why not make it simple? No, it’s self-justification again. “The serpent is the one to blame. He told me it was all right to eat it. The serpent is very wise, therefore I accepted its counsel.”

There we go! When something wrong is pointed out, if only the wrongdoer would say, “Yes, I am wrong.”

If you ask a child, “Why did you do that?” “Well, because it’s this and because it’s that,” and it goes on and on and on. Would they say, “I am wrong”? No. This reminds me of a story so typical of children. This little boy, Johnny always loved to pull the cat’s tail. And children love to pull the cat’s tail and see how it screeches. It’s so interesting to see the cat’s reaction. One day, when the mother heard Johnny in the next room and the cat was screeching away, she said, “Johnny, stop pulling the cat’s tail.” “Oh Mommy, I’m not pulling the cat’s tail, the cat is pulling its own tail. You see Mommy, I’m only standing on the cat’s tail.”

For those of us who have children, you try speaking to the child and that child never has a lack of reasons to justify its wrong action. They are doing that all the time, and the grown-ups do the same thing. When you point out something wrong, the person would say, “Oh no, you are being unfair to me. You are being too harsh on me. There are other 101 reasons that you didn’t take into consideration, which if you took into consideration, you would see that my action is actually not as bad as it seems.” That is self-justification.

 

2. Self-justification leads to self-deception

If we keep doing this kind of thing, its end is terrible! Soon, we will not be able to tell right from wrong because we have so accustomed our mind to justifying ourselves, to explaining the wrong as being right. I see many people who have really convinced themselves that their wrong is right.

Take a recent example. You have all heard of the “Yorkshire Ripper.” He murdered 13 women and did you hear his incredible statement at the trial? He claimed that he heard God’s voice to go and kill those women. “So you see, it was not my fault. It was God’s fault.” Eve passed the buck to Satan, and this fellow is going to pass the buck to God! I don’t know who his “God” is, but he said, “I heard the voice of God that I should go and kill those prostitutes.”

There were some mistakes in there because a few of the women that he killed were not prostitutes. And there were at least six others he attempted to murder. As far as we can see, this man is not entirely insane but it would seem to me that either he is outright lying, in which case he’s the son of the devil, or else he has really so deceived himself. There are people who have so deceived themselves that they really cannot tell truth from falsehood or falsehood from truth.

 

3. Self-justification closes the door to repentance, to God’s kingdom

In the book of Isaiah, there are 6 “woes” in chapter 5, rather like this chapter, Matthew 23. Let me read to you Isaiah 5:20.

They have changed everything around: light is darkness, darkness is light; sweet is bitter, bitter is sweet. Everything is topsy-turvy in their world. How do you come to such a state? I would like to warn you today, the danger of self-justification. Self-justification closes the door to repentance, to God’s kingdom. That is exactly what the Lord Jesus said in Matthew 23:13,

When you learn this deceptive art of self-justification, you are incapable of repentance, and if you are incapable of repentance, you are incapable of being saved, of receiving the mercy of God. Human beings always like to justify their own actions with something which they think is convincing to themselves.

 

Put away all self-justification in order to become a true Christian

I would like to extend this searching process into our own hearts. Have we become Christians by a process of self-justification and self-deception? I need God, I need some kind of heavenly Being, therefore I will invent one in whom I can trust. If you are a Christian for that kind of reason, alas! That is called “religion” and we don’t need any of that. Man has always been famous for inventing God. We don’t need to invent any more “gods.” This is a very dangerous process.

I have said before and I say again: we will believe in God only if he is real; only if he is true. If he is false, don’t believe in him. We don’t want any self-justification. “I am a Christian because this and that.” Would those reasons for you being a Christian be able to stand up to examination? Put down your reasons for being a Christian. Look at them carefully because we can do the right thing for the wrong reason, and we end up in the wrong way. Many Christians collapse because they are Christians for the wrong reason, and sooner or later, the reason for their being a Christian will be put to the test and it will not stand.

Also, there are many people who serve God for the wrong reason. The intention is good but the reason is wrong. What is the reason that you want to serve God? Examine your motives very carefully to see if they are right because one day, the pressures will build up and your motives cannot hold up, and they will collapse under the weight. We justify ourselves all the time. It’s human nature to do that. As we have seen, what is called “hypocrisy” in this chapter is really nothing more or less than human nature. It is human nature to be like that. Therefore we must be very careful. We must examine everything in the light of truth, of honesty.

 

Some non-Christians self-justify for their unbelief

There are people who are non-Christians, and think that they have good reasons for being non-Christians. Take the case of this French astronomer. The French astronomer declared, “I have swept the universe with my telescope and I find no God.” This is his justifica­tion for not believing in God at all.

It is like the Russian astronaut who said, “I was shot up to outer space, and I didn’t see God when I looked out of the window. Now I’m justified for not believing in God.”

The English author, J. W. Hawley responded to this French astrono­mer and said, “Your reasoning is as unreasonable as for me to say, ‘I have taken my violin apart. I have examined each piece with my microscope and I don’t find any music there.’”

Where is the difference in the reasoning? Is God a piece of the universe that somehow, by examining a piece of the moon rock you can find God in there? It is just about as sensible as saying that there is a piece of music in your violin. Just examine the wood of the violin under the microscope and you can see music there. The reasoning is nonsensical. But we are often very convinced by our own reasoning. This is what I am scared of, that our reasoning is so good that we have convinced ourselves. We must examine ourselves very care­fully.

There is also the well-known criminal lawyer called Terence Darrell who also convinced himself that there was likely to be no God by this reasoning. “They tell me there is a God,” he said at a debate, “but I have never seen him nor have I even touched him. I have no personal acquaintance with him.” To this his colleague called Roy L. Smith replied, “It is credibly reported that Mr. Darrell has a mind, but I have never seen it or touched it. In fact, I have no proof of its existence at all!” He was asking for trouble to have this kind of logic returned on him.

Here we can see that we simply convince ourselves one way or the other by certain false reasonings. And I would like to say again, our reasons for being Christians are often not that solid. Maybe we simply want to get ourselves a little comfort. It is something to start with but not a very strong reason. Being a Christian, as this passage in Matthew 23 tells us, is going to be a costly path because the sons of the devil will always be persecuting the sons of God. That is a principle of spiritual life. If you don’t like to be persecuted, if you don’t like to be under pressure, you should not be a Christian. You are going to be under pressure and be given a hard time all the time because people don’t understand you, and they don’t like the way you do things.

Therefore let us put away any self-justification in order to become a Christian. So long as you keep justifying yourself, you will never know how to be a true Christian. We must learn to simply flee to his wings. The Lord Jesus says, “How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not!” (Mt. 23:37b)

 

A true Christian does not justify himself; he learns to repent

In conclusion, notice that the Lord Jesus always compares Christians to animals that have no self-defense. They have no teeth. The Lord Jesus says in Matthew 10:16 that his disciples are “sheep in the midst of wolves.” Here in Matthew 23:33, “the sons of the devil” are com­pared to “vipers” which have poisonous and sharp teeth, very able to defend themselves. But “chicks” are defenseless creatures; they could not hurt anyone. The Lord Jesus deliberately brings out this fact that a true Christian simply does not defend himself. He does not justify himself.

If you are right and I am wrong, I don’t need to defend myself if I seek to accept what is right. If you are wrong and I am right, I also don’t need to defend myself because the shepherd is the defender of the sheep. The hen defends the chicks. God defends his people. That is why the Lord Jesus, being mindful of God’s character commands us, “Turn the other cheek” (cf. Mt. 5:39), because Yahweh God says, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay.” (Deut. 332:35; Rom. 12:9; Heb. 10:30) Therefore we don’t need to justify ourselves. We don’t need to defend ourselves.

All we need to learn is to repent. Then, we will know what it is to have eternal life, to become a child of God.