Who are the Pharisees, and what do they love?

Last updated on: January 24, 2017 at 2:08 pm by S.J. Masson

Who are the Pharisees, and what do they love? 2017-01-24T14:08:26-05:00 S.J. Masson

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Conservative and progressive Christians both understand how important love is to the Christian faith. ‘Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.’

But conservatives are often accused of being unloving and even hypocritical in refusing to accept the normativity of the LGBT worldview.

Some examination of this charge of hypocrisy is necessary.

Hypocrisy and sincerity

It is said that hypocrisy is the homage that vice pays to virtue.

Our word hypocrisy arises from the stage. A hypocritēs is an actor, a person who in the context of Classical Greek theatre is literally under (hypo) the judgment (crites) of the spectators. Greek actors wore masks. Jesus employed the word satirically to condemn the Pharisees. They feigned admiration for piety, and yet their own conduct was vicious. Jesus saw behind the mask.

Jesus judged that the Pharisees were not motivated by love so much as the desire to be praised for their love. Since God was loving, they too wanted recognition for being like God. The motive behind their actions was not a love of God, but a sinful and self-righteous rejection of his righteousness.

Jesus attacks on the Pharisees are universally popular. Even the atheist admires him for it.

Our admiration for sincerity is closely linked to our loathing of hypocrisy. We associate sincerity with unpretentious living, living in an authentic manner. Authenticity is admired by both progressive and conservative Christians. In fact, the atheist would doubtless say the same.

This universal loathing of hypocrisy and love of sincerity might, at first blush, be construed as a sign of our society’s moral health, or that both Christians and unbelievers share a common ground.

But that is far from the case.

Our admiration for authenticity does not arise because our society shares Jesus’ sensibilities.

It is because our culture so hates God’s discerning truth, which exposes sin, that it is willing to affirm everyone’s self-worth, his or her democratic right to be equally seen as gods, even if it means throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

The baby might be a hypocrite.

Judging justly

The most quoted verse in Scripture today might well be ‘judge not, lest ye be judged.’ It is thrown back at Christians whenever they use discernment. All too often, it shouts down expressions of Christian truth in the public square.

The heckler’s veto of political correctness that now rules discourse in the public square, even academia, has had a similar effect. It has made all judgment, including just judgments, appear hypocritical and hateful.

But when more measured disagreement will not be heard, social discourse doesn’t cease. We become more vulgar. It becomes virtuous to be less restrained, less polite. Charlatans and saints become indistinguishable.

We celebrate people that speak their minds, even when they cultivate a persona of gratuitous offensiveness. So long as they are on ‘our side.’ And we know that they are on ‘our side’ when they use ‘virtue signalling‘.

Virtue signalling is the most authentic form of Pharisaism today.

Jesus demands a more radical way of living, which begins by examining ourselves: ‘Do not judge by appearances, but make a right judgment.’

What is the right judgment?

Only submission to God’s word will deliver us from our trap of self-righteousness, because virtue signalling is as old as Adam and Eve.

Rather than signalling our virtue, we should heed Jesus’ words, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.’ For the righteousness of God comes by faith in the righteous one, Jesus himself.

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