Matthew 16: 6
The Leaven of the Pharisees and the Sadducees

The two parties were continually at each others' throats.  They were convinced that the truth  about everything was exactly the opposite of their opponents' view.  But it is curious that our text reveals that they were more alike than they realized.  For our Lord puts them all in one category and warns his disciples to not be like the Pharisees and the Sadducees, suggesting that  in some of their most despicable characteristics they were very much alike! 

The Lord's use of leaven, as an unseen corrupting substance -- something like our idea of putrefaction and decay -- is based on an Old Testament conception.  "The leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees" was a bold insult -- something tantamount to saying "the garbage of the theologians" in a theology conference -- and it was brilliantly descriptive of the several things that they had in common.  Now my point this morning might be seen to be unduly negative.  But remember that God himself often teaches us the positive by emphasizing the negative -- for example in 8 of the 10 commandments which are phrased in the negative.

Notice some of the characteristics that were the common property (albeit in different ways) of both the Pharisees and the Sadducees.  And in so doing, notice the common "leaven" of these characters, that continues on through the centuries following, and into our own.  It is an apt description of much of  the religious spectrum today.

I  ONE OF THEM, THAT WAS MOST PROMINENT ON THIS OCCASION, WAS THAT OF DISBELIEF IN THE WORD OF GOD.

1. Not only did they pervert the written Word of God, but, here they had before them the Incarnate Word of God -- the revelation of God himself, not in words but in flesh -- and they had seen the signs and miracles which he had done and which testified  to his Deity.  The most immediate one -- they had just seen -- was the feeding of the 4,000, recorded in  the last paragraph of chapter 15.  It was just one more sign from God as to the truth and they knew it was the truth in their heart of hearts.  And instead of saying with the man in Mark 9 --  "Lord, I believe!  Help thou my unbelief;" they masked their dreadful unbelief in a hypocritically pious request to see a sign from God.

Now this has an application not only to "miracle-mongering" on the part of religious people (which we often see).  It speaks to us in our Christian lives.  It is a warning against making demands of God for miraculous intervention in our own personal lives in ways that God has not promised to act.  "If you are there O God, let me see your hand in a miracle" -- and then we specify the miracle we have chosen for God, like having a poodle jump through a hoop.

II.  ANOTHER COMMON CHARACTERISTIC OF THE PHARISEES AND THE SADDUCEES WAS THEIR CLASSIC HYPOCRISY.

1. This was included in this particular incident and amplified through all we know about them.  The word  Greek word hupocritos means a "stage actor," from which we get our word "hypocrite," a person who is insincere and is merely putting on an act.  And these boys were the best in the business.  They were of professional quality.

This hypocrisy meant covering up their real motives -- as they were doing at this very moment -- for, as v.1 says, they were ostensibly seeking a revelation from God, but in their heart they were filled with disbelief.  "Let's see your tricks, Jesus!"

It meant saying one thing and thinking or intending just the opposite -- as when, on many occasions, they came to Jesus asking questions of him, pretending to seek information but really trying to trap him, so that they might condemn him.

It meant role-playing where the person pretends to be something that he  is not.  All these guys were just like hupocritoi -- "stage actors," acting out all the things they thought made them look religious.  You could tell a Pharisee at 50 paces just by all the religious articles he wore on his person.

"Take heed and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the Sadducees."  It leads us contrary to the way of the disciple and contrary to the way of the Kingdom of God.  It is a leaven that has the tendency of spreading its effect to everything around it and corrupting it.

III. ANOTHER LEAVEN COMMON AMONG BOTH OF THESE PARTIES WAS EXTERNALISM.

1. They both believed that the essence of religion was in its externals.  The Pharisees were the worse in this but the Sadducees ran a fairly competitive second.  And that was no wonder because the religion of the natural man is usually taken up with external ordinances and external right-behaviour.  It is seen in Islam, Judaism, and the right wing cults of Christianity.  And externalism has been a persistent disease in main-stream Christianity, also, during the times of its greatest decadence.  It is the idea that external obedience and right performance is the whole essence of religion.

2. This is not to say that there are not important externals in true Christian religion; but that the externals -- public worship, the sacraments, prayer, reading of the Word and the like, are to be matters of the heart and not just matters of outward practice. 

And it is not to say either, that there is not some value in outward obedience to God's commandments.  But our duty is not done until we have obeyed in the heart and performed from the heart what the commandment or ordinance was all about.  You recognize this over and over in the teaching of Jesus. 

IV. STILL ANOTHER COMMON CHARACTERISTIC OF THESE PARTIES WAS CHAUVINISM. 

1. The Victorians used to refer to it as a "party spirit."  That is, not a spirit of "partying," but the prejudicial loyalty to one's own party.  We would in our day call it crass chauvinism. 

Now, it is not to say that we should not believe in a system of truth and stand boldly for it.  But it is a condemnation of party loyalty.  It is the essence of opinionation.  John Wesley once wrote in his journal about a woman he had encountered that day: "As far as being convinced," he said, "She was above it."

2. We see this not only in our larger society in growing racial and ethnic pride, but also in religious circles, where there is denominational loyalty totally irrespective of anything that the denomination stands for theologically.  It turns theological concepts which were supposed to be for God's glory, into things on the level of football teams and their loyal fans.  And when it manifests itself in theology and religion, it is a leaven that does much harm and increasingly leads people astray.

"Take heed and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the Sadducees."

1. On one occasion, when the Pharisees and the Sadducees were competing in trying to trick Jesus, and the Sadducees came to him with a trick, partisan, question about the woman married to seven brothers (Matthew 22: 24ff).  They though they would surely trick him.  You can almost hear them chuckling as they asked their question.  It was based on an Old Testament Leverite law which called on a younger brother to marry his brother's widow.  The very fact that, in their story, it supposedly happened seven times that another brother died, and the next youngest brother married the widow, is so unlikely that it was almost certainly a trick question, based on manufactured history.  Since the Sadducees didn't believe in a resurrection, they wanted to know, "In the resurrection, whose wife would (the woman) be?"

Jesus' answer was more serious than their question: "You err because you know not the Scriptures nor the power of God."  In other words, he wouldn't play their game.  But think about it!  The Bible knowledge heavyweights that they were!  "You do not know the Scriptures," he was saying.  They, of course, knew details ad nausium, as the Pharisees did also.  And they had many trick gimmicks like this one.  All these boys could have beat nearly every one of us in the Bible trivia game.  But Jesus said, "You do not know the Scriptures." 

2. They did not correctly understand the Word of God.  That is, they did not exegete it correctly and they did not have an adequate theology, which would have delivered to them the truth from the Word of God upon which it was based.  There are an awful lot of people in our own time who are in their same shoes.

And this lack is a leaven that influences the whole of Christianity and corrupts whatever it touches.  We are fast progressing toward a simplistic view about things with very little input from the Word of  God, a kind of  "instant theology," that, like instant soup, one can create the final product from the box to the table in three minutes.

"Take heed and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the Sadducees."

May this characterize your and my life more and more as we advance in the Christian life.