The Pharisees
As we come back to Luke this morning, we’re going to rejoin Jesus in the region of Galilee where he’s begun his public ministry of teaching and preaching and healing and casting out demons. As we catch up with him there, we’re going to meet a new cast of characters for the first time in Luke’s Gospel, the Pharisees (5:17).
Who were these guys? The Pharisees were a group of around 6,000 men, or about 1% of the population of Israel. Their name “Pharisee” means “separated” or “holy one” and they had their start 200 years earlier during the Maccabean revolt (168 BC). Their goal was to protect and preserve and pass down the faith of Israel. They staunchly opposed Hellenization, or the adoption of Greco-Roman ideals, or accommodation to secular culture. They championed the Torah and were regarded as the authorized successors of the Torah, sitting on “Moses’ seat” (Mt. 23:2).
The Pharisees were highly regarded among the common people, and had it not been for the strength of their movement, Judaism may’ve collapsed after the Jewish war with Rome in AD 66-70 because every other Jewish party except Pharisaism collapsed after the war. From the time of the Maccabees to the war with Rome, the Pharisees were the preservers of the faith of Israel.
Why Focus on the Pharisees?
This was their function in Jesus’ time. The Pharisees were a small group but had a huge influence, not only in the nation as a whole, but also in Jesus’ ministry in the Gospels. Why does such a relatively small group feature so prominently in the Gospels? In Luke, the Sadducees and Zealots are each mentioned only once. The Essenes and Herodians, not at all. But in contrast, the numerically small group of Pharisees is mentioned twenty-five times! They’re the main Jewish party Jesus interacts with.[1]
I suspect the reason is twofold. The early Christians faced extreme opposition from the Jews, so the Gospel writers wanted to tell these early believers that what they’re experiencing isn’t new and, in light of how Jesus was treated by the Jewish leaders, should even be expected.
But another reason Jesus interacts with the Pharisees so often, and the Gospel writers chose to preserve these interactions, is because the message of the Pharisees is a timeless message. The Pharisees essentially taught that keeping the law makes you acceptable to God. Their message is an intuitive one for many: if we do good, God is obligated to bless us because God loves good people. Their message was: clean up your life, keep the rules, and follow the religious rituals and God will accept you.
But because their message only addressed symptoms and not root causes, their message had no power to change anyone’s life and only left burdened people feeling more burdened.
Jesus’ message, however, was fundamentally different. Christianity, as I said last week, is a heart religion. God’s goal in the gospel is to create a new people with new hearts, not to create exhausted people obsessed with maintaining and promoting the excellence of their image.
The Pharisees were convinced that our main problem concerns the exterior of our lives, not the interior. Jesus said our heart is the problem, and the Gospels take great pains to bring out these differences because the Pharisees still live today in each of our hearts. Their spirit lives on in our guilt-driven obsession with looking good on the outside hoping that it’ll make us feel good on the inside.
As we rejoin Jesus in Luke 5, we’re going to see his first confrontation with the Pharisees. In fact, 5:17 begins a series of conflict stories, or encounters Jesus has with his opponents. The first one is when he heals a paralyzed man in their presence and teaches them (and us) that their primary problem is inside of them, not outside of them.
The main point of this text is that Jesus came to deal with our greatest problem. In Luke 5:17-26, we’ll see a contrast between five ordinary dudes who knew they needed Jesus and the religious leaders who thought Jesus needed them. We’ll see the faithful five (vv. 17-20a) and the flabbergasted Pharisees (vv. 20b-26).
The Faithful Five
First, in verses 17-20a, we see the faithful five. Verse 17 is the first time we meet the Pharisees in Luke, but it’s also the first time we meet the “teachers of the law.” Who were these guys? They’re also called “scribes” or “lawyers” in Luke. They were the ones in charge of preserving the written law of God, or the Torah.
During the exile, the Torah became the center of attention for Israel and gradually a special class of scholars and interpreters of Torah gained prestige because of their expertise in the law. They applied the law to specific situations, taught in synagogues, and adjudicated cases in Israel.
One scholar describes them like this:
“The erudition and prestige of scribes reached legendary proportions by the first century, surpassing on occasion that of the high priest…Commoners deferred to scribes as they walked through the streets. The first seats in the synagogues were reserved for the scribes, and people rose to their feet when they entered a room.”[2]
These guys are like the politicians and professors in our culture who, whether we like them or not, garner a certain amount of respect and deference. They’re the kind of guys you notice in a room and hope to shake hands with but don’t know what to say because you’re so nervous. The scribes and Pharisees were the preservers of Israel’s faith, and were honored as such.
To the Roof!
After noting the presence of these dignitaries in verse 17, Luke moves the camera away from them to some other guys scrambling around outside with a man on a stretcher, trying to find a way in (vv. 18-19). Mark tells us it was four men carrying the stretcher (2:3). They completely ignore the presence of the dignitaries. They only care about one person who’s there: Jesus.
Isn’t it interesting that they bypass the well put together, smart, powerful and prestigious religious people and make a bee line for Jesus? They know there’s no power in those guys. They know that the “power of the Lord” is with Jesus (v. 17). So they go to the one who they believe can actually help them.
Like the leper in 5:12, who had the audacity to enter a town to find Jesus (even though lepers were supposed to stay out of the cities), these friends audaciously go to the roof of the house and make a hole in it so they can let their friend down into the room where Jesus is teaching. They refuse to the let the crowds hinder their access to Jesus. They create their own door, probably without permission, so that they can get their friend to Jesus.
These friends had one goal: to lay their broken and needy friend before Jesus: “they were seeking to bring him in and lay him before Jesus” (v. 18). They knew what their friend needed most. He didn’t need a sermon from the scribes or rituals from the Pharisees. He needed to be in the presence of Jesus. They didn’t even ask Jesus to do anything, they just brought him there and trusted that Jesus would take it from there.
As we think about those in our lives who’re broken and in need, we want to help them but we often have no idea what to do. What if, like these friends, we simply brought them to Jesus? Through intercessory prayer, we bring our loved ones to the One who always knows what to do and can do things no one else can. Are you bringing people to Jesus through intercessory prayer?
The Focus of Faith
Breaking through the roof like that would’ve been noisy and messy. But when Jesus looks up, he sees their faith, not their mess. Verse 20, “And when he saw their faith.” Making a hole in someone’s roof could’ve been seen as disrespectful, but Jesus saw it as faith.
The faith of these friends, and the paralytic himself (it’s difficult to imagine the friends bringing him against his will or him not wanting to be healed), is what compelled them to do this. They were the “faith-full five.” But Luke doesn’t tell us about their beliefs, only that they took action. As one commentator says, “Faith is first and foremost not knowledge about Jesus or right feeling about him, but a determination to allow nothing, not even crowds and roofs, to impede access to Jesus.”[3] Faith leads us to see our need and to see Jesus as the only sufficient satisfier of our need. Faith says, “I don’t care what people will think, I must have Jesus above all else.”
The Flabbergasted Pharisees
Starting with the second half of verse 20 to verse 26 we see the flabbergasted Pharisees. As I said, this passage shows us that Jesus came to deal with our greatest problem. The friends knew where to take their friend, but they didn’t realize what his greatest problem was.
When Jesus sees him coming down through the ceiling, he says, “Friend, your sins are forgiven you” (v. 20b). This greatly upsets the scribes and Pharisees but notice what Jesus is doing here. He sees a physically broken man coming down before him and the first thing he does is pronounce that his sins are forgiven.
The paralytic is probably thinking, “Thank you for saying that, but what about my paralysis?” Everyone, especially the Pharisees and scribes, would’ve assumed that this man’s greatest problem was on the outside, not the inside. So Jesus starts with a massive category correction so that people will understand that this man’s greatest problem isn’t what happened to him, but where he stands with God.
Our Greatest Problem
This is counterintuitive to us because, though we know that Jesus has the power to heal our deepest wound and meet our greatest need, we tend to mis-identify what our greatest need is. We all do this in one way or another. We think our financial or family or relationship status or feelings or fears are our greatest problem. But Jesus pushes us deeper.
Jesus sees this man on a mat and, while the Pharisees and scribes watch, says that his greatest problem is much bigger than he realizes, that his greatest need isn’t mobility but forgiveness. And in that moment of grace, Jesus meets this man at the point of his greatest need and declares that his sins are forgiven.
Jesus’ X-Ray Vision
The faith of the friends and grace of Jesus is met with the unbending legalism of the scribes and Pharisees in verse 21. They’re quick to make assumptions, assuming that Jesus has committed blasphemy when indeed he hasn’t. Their legal minds keep them from believing in Jesus’ authority to forgive.
All this is going on in inside of them, but Jesus sees their hearts, he sees their spiritual paralysis (v. 22). One scholar says, “That Jesus understands what is going on within them is quite a blow to their reasoning, for they question the ability of Jesus to deal with an unknown quantity (i.e. the man’s sin). But they fail to realize that he had already seen another unknown quantity, the faith of the other men, and faith is a prerequisite for forgiveness.”[4]
With internal x-ray vision, Jesus saw the faith of the five men and pronounced forgiveness. But then he sees the unbelief of the religious leaders and calls it out, “Why do you question in your hearts?” (v. 22) He wants them to see what he sees so that they also can be healed of their spiritual paralysis.
An Unanswerable Question
Then in verse 23 Jesus asks then what appears to be an unanswerable question. He asks them whether it’s easier to pronounce forgiveness or healing. Diane Chen, in her commentary on Luke, summarizes what Jesus is doing here:
“If the paralytic walks, it confirms that God has empowered Jesus’ healing and has also forgiven the man. It the man remains paralyzed, his sins remain and Jesus is exposed as a blasphemous charlatan. One does not happen without the other.”[5]
Then in verse 24 he says that, because he wants them to know that he has the authority to forgive sins, he tells the paralytic to get up. He’s saying, “You can’t see sins being forgiven, but because you can see a lame man get up when I tell him to get up, you can know that when I say something it happens. So if I say that this man is forgiven, he’s forgiven. When I speak forgiveness, it really occurs, just as when I tell him to get up he really gets up.”
Forgiveness can’t be proved but healing can. Jesus’ authority to forgive sins is proved by his authority to heal. If he can do the one, he can do the other. These scribes and Pharisees, these guys who know the Word of God backwards and forwards, are being confronted with the living word of God. Jesus is challenging them to trust his word. Some will, many won’t.
Jesus’ question for them is, “Does my word have God’s power behind it or not?”
Outsiders and Insiders
As we close, I want us to zoom out and see how Luke sets up what happens here. In 5:1, 12, and 17, Luke uses the same Greek phrase to begin each verse (kai egeneto, “and it came to pass”). This links what happens in this section back to those two sections. Luke is showing us that there’s a connection between these sections. The main character of each section, Simon Peter, the leper, and the paralytic all have the same basic problem: they’re outsiders. They’re not part of the religious elite. They have restricted access to the holy things of God.
But then enter the Pharisees and scribes in verse 17. These guys were the exact opposite. They’re insiders. They’re well put together, smart, morally flawless, and the embodiment of a life that God approves of.
Do you see what’s happening? Jesus moves toward the outsiders and pushes back on the insiders. He pursues those who everyone assumes are far from God while distancing himself from those everyone assumes are close to God.
Why does he go after outsiders and push back on the insiders? Because the outsiders tend to understand their need and the insiders don’t. The religious leaders feel safe in the image they’ve created for themselves and have no need for outside help. But the outsiders, the Peter’s of the world, the lepers, the paralytic all deeply feel their need for Jesus and are changed when they encounter him.
Which one are you, insider or outsider? Have you encountered Jesus? Has he changed you?
[1]For more on the Pharisees, see James R. Edwards, The Gospel according to Luke, The Pillar New Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2015), 162-3.
[2]Ibid., 164.
[3]Ibid., 165.
[4]Frederick W. Danker, Jesus and the New Age: A Commentary on St. Luke’s Gospel, rev. ed. (Fortress Press, Philadelphia, 1988), 123.
[5]Diane G. Chen, Luke, New Covenant Commentary Series (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2017), 76.