WHAT do we know respecting the origin of the Pharisees?
We shall have to go back in Israel’s history to the time of Ezra and Nehemiah to obtain an answer to this question. When at the end of the seventy years of which the prophet Jeremiah spoke (Jer. 29:10, & Ezra 1:1), a few of the children of Israel (Ezra 2:64) returned to their own land from the captivity in Babylon, they found Jerusalem in ruins, and the temple of Jehovah a desolate heap. All the glory of the olden days had departed because of the sins of God’s people. But at Jehovah’s bidding, through His prophets, the temple was rebuilt (Ezra 6:14), and the walls also of Jerusalem were restored. (Neh. 4:6, & 6:15.) Thus once more Israel—or rather, a remnant of their nation―was reestablished in their own land.
When the temple was finished, “the children of Israel, which were come again out of captivity, and all such as had separated themselves unto them from the filthiness of the heathen of the land,” kept the feast of unleavened bread, which accompanied the Passover. (Ezra 6:21.) Note the words, separated themselves. The people of Israel were denounced by the princes for not having separated themselves (ch. 9:1) from the heathen; the people were bidden, separate yourselves from the people of the land (ch. 10:11), and the seed of Israel is said to have separated themselves from all strangers. (Neh. 9:2.) We say note the words, separated themselves, for the meaning of “Pharisees” is The Separate.
Separation from evil (Neh. 10:28) and separation to God (vs. 29) was then the origin of the idea of the Pharisee. But the origin and the end were as distinct from each other as are light and darkness. And as we read these words of God about the Pharisees of the last time― “These be they who separate themselves, sensual (or natural), having not the Spirit” (Jude 19), we are appalled at the ingenuity of our fallen nature, which so adroitly turns the divine principle of holiness into that most corrupt thing―self-glorification.
In the temple as rebuilt, the ark of the Lord was not (2 Chron. vs. 9), nor had this new temple the glory-cloud as Solomon’s (ch. 7:3). That visible token of the divine presence had retreated from the earth and gone to heaven, as Ezekiel, the prophet, had seen in his visions. (ch. 8, & 11:12, 23.) Moreover, the sacred Urim and Thummim on the high priest’s breastplate, from or on which in some way God communicated His mind to His people, were no more. Hence Israel had its temple, but not the true glories of the temple.
It was, then, at this time, when the absence of these tokens of God’s delight should have rendered His people heart-broken and humble, that the pretentious sect of the Pharisees rose into power. They had lost the spirit of the separation God requires, and had seized upon the letter, the word―The Separated. Instead of being separated from sin and iniquity, and to God, they were separated from the people of God by their scriptural knowledge (see John 7:48, 49) and their traditions (Mark 7:3-8), and to themselves by their own proud thoughts about themselves.
But were the Pharisees at the first what they were in the time of our Lord? No; for undoubtedly there was real zeal for God to contend against the inroads of what in the remote times we refer to was “modernized religion,” time serving, and worldliness. Against these things the earnest and faithful separated ones of about 300 years before our Lord stood nobly, and, indeed, many died for the truth. But as the years rolled by, the true became corrupted, and the false took its place; so that God describes those who separate themselves as walking after their own ungodly lusts. (Jude 18.)
What were the distinguishing doctrines of the Pharisees? Briefly, we may say their doctrines were having their traditions as well as the written word of God. Had they confined their belief to the Scriptures, their conduct would have been condemned by the Scriptures. But they laid aside the commandment of God to hold the tradition of men. Hence said our Lord to them, “Full well ye reject the commandment of God, that ye may keep your own tradition.” (Mark 7:9.) When once men depart from the written word of God, and allow ever so small an amount of human tradition a place of rule in their souls, it is like letting water through a dam―beginning as a trickling stream it grows into a rushing torrent, carrying the conscience before it.
We find the Pharisees wasting their time and pouring contempt upon God in discussing the veriest trifies, as, for example, whether an egg laid on a festival should be eaten or not; whether poultry should be eaten with milk; what kind of wick and oil candles used on the Sabbath should have! One rabbi said that boiled suet might be used for such candles, another equally wise rabbi said the contrary. These vain questions occupied their minds! It seems as if it were one of God’s judgments on self-satisfied traditionists, that they should be given over to occupation with petty trifles about which no truly earnest soul, having eternity before him, would dare to spend five minutes of his precious lifetime.