Next the Pharisees, not the disciples, come before us. They are characterized here as covetous. It is not their forms or their legalism, but their love of money which was touched by the doctrine of the Lord to the disciples; for after they had “heard all these things,” they “derided [or sneered at] him.” The evil against which the disciples were warned was at work in the Pharisees without a check. This state was not less corrupt than haughty.
“And he said unto them, Ye are they which justify themselves before men; but God knoweth your hearts; for that which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God.” Not so those who are justified before God by faith. Such do not justify themselves before men any more than before God, unless so far as they allow nature and slip from their own ground of faith. Nevertheless they are not free from the snare of covetousness; so far as they are influenced by the thoughts of men, they are exposed. “Men will praise thee if thou doest well to thyself.” The intense selfishness of the heart naturally prefers its own care to that of God: thence is a link of worldly sympathy with the men of this age. Let us therefore beware, for “that which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God.” No evil more common in the religious world of our own day as truly as in our Lord's. Ease, honor, influence, and position are as highly valued as ever, to the infinite disparagement of the truth. Any one can see how strongly the word of God rejects all these conditions of fallen Adam, and how incongruous they are with the cross of Christ. And they are only a worse abomination where men essay to join such worldliness with heavenly truth.
The Lord next insists upon the crisis that was come. For this too adds its emphasis to His rebuke. What is morally true may become more urgently a duty, and such is the fact in the case before us. The religion of the world always takes the ground of Pharisaism; it assumes more or less the present favor of God, and that worldly rank and prosperity are to be taken as a sign of it. Faith looks away from present things since sin came into the world, and each successive step in God's ways is but a fresh confirmation of faith. “The law and the prophets were until John: since that time the kingdom of God is preached, and every man presseth into it.” It was in vain, therefore, to rest all upon the law and its rewards to faithfulness. In fact they had broken the law; and because of this indeed were given the prophets, who reproved their iniquities, laid bare the actual state of ruin, and bore witness of a wholly new condition, which would end the present by judgment and introduce a new state never to pass away. John the Baptist, as the immediate herald of the Messiah, insisted on repentance in view of the immediate advent of Christ. This sweeps away all the self-righteousness of man. It is not that the law is not good; the defect lay not there, but in those who, being sinful, felt it not, but assumed to make out a righteousness of their own under law. Since John's time, says our Lord, “the kingdom of God is preached.” It is not here as in Matt. 11:12: “the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence and the violent take it by force.” There it is a question of the true hope of Israel and the necessity of breaking through all that opposes faith. But here it is—much more ground opened to man if he believed. “The kingdom of God is preached, and every man presseth into it.” “Is he the God of the Jews only? Is he not also of the Gentiles? Yes, of the Gentiles also; seeing it is one God who shall justify the circumcision by faith, and the uncircumcision through their faith. Do we then make void law through faith? Far be it. Yea, we establish law.” Thus the great apostle. So here the Lord says, “And it is easier for heaven and earth to pass, than one tittle of the law to fail.” Neither the truth nor faith enfeebles the law; rather do they maintain its authority over all that are under it as well as its intrinsic righteousness. Certainly our Lord not only honored it to the highest degree, but gave it the weightiest sanction; for He obeyed it perfectly in His life and was made a curse according to it in His death.
But those who while under it hope to stand on that ground before God do really destroy its authority, without intending or even knowing it. For they hope to be saved under law, though they know they have broken it and that it calls for their condemnation. And even those who “being justified by faith” take the law as their rule of life at the least impair its authority and so put dishonor upon it. For what does the law denounce on those who fail to do the things that it demands? Does it not threaten death on God's part? And have they not failed to keep it? It is in vain therefore to plead that they are justified persons: the law knows no such distinction. Justified or not, if they fail, they must die. If therefore they hope to live under the law, while they must confess they have failed, do not they also enfeeble its solemn threats?
How then does the truth set forth the deliverance and maintain the holy walk of the believer? Not by the notion most erroneously taught in the common text of Rom. 7:6: “But now we are delivered from the law, that being dead wherein we were held.” For the law is not dead. If so, the words of our Lord would be falsified; and not only one tittle of the law but the whole of it would have failed long before heaven and earth pass away. But this is notoriously inexact, not only in the Authorized Version, but in the received Greek text, where one letter makes the difference between truth and error. The English margin is right. It is we that are dead to the law, not the law to any. The believer is shown to be dead with Christ, in Rom. 6, to sin, and in Rom. 7 to the law,” that we should serve in newness of spirit and not in the oldness of the letter.” “Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ; that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God.” The truth therefore is that, even had we been Jews, we are become dead to the law by the body of Christ, instead of living under it as our rule. And the very argument of the apostle is founded upon or at least illustrated by the principle that one cannot belong to two husbands at the same time without adultery. “If, while her husband liveth, she be married to another man she shall be called an adulteress;” if death come in, she is no adulteress though she belong to another man. And so it is with the Christian, for we now belong to Him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God. Deliverance from law is essential to true Christian holiness. Excellent as the law is, its rule is to curse the lawless and disobedient; it “is not made for a righteous man” which every believer is; it is a rule of death for the bad, not of life for the good. Christ only is life and the light of life for the believer.
And does it not seem most striking that in the very next verse our Lord uses the same allusion on which the apostle reasons in the beginning of Rom. 7? “Whosoever putteth away his wife, and marrieth another, committeth adultery; and whosoever marrieth her that is put away from her husband committeth adultery.” Undoubtedly both principles apply to the literal fact most truly and in the letter. But can one doubt the connection with the verse before and the context? If so connected, it is a striking instance of the one Spirit throughout scripture; if not so, it is exceedingly hard to understand why such a statement should close the Lord's words on this subject. No doubt the Jews allowed divorce for frivolous causes and marriage after such divorce; and in both encouraged adultery. I cannot but think there is more in the connection here.