Under these circumstances, after so many thousands of people had gathered together that they were stepping on one another, He began saying to His disciples first of all, “Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy. But there is nothing covered up that will not be revealed, and hidden that will not be known. Accordingly, whatever you have said in the dark will be heard in the light, and what you have whispered in the inner rooms will be proclaimed upon the housetops. I say to you, My friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body and after that have no more that they can do. But I will warn you whom to fear: fear the One who, after He has killed, has authority to cast into hell; yes, I tell you, fear Him! Are not five sparrows sold for two cents? Yet not one of them is forgotten before God. Indeed, the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Do not fear; you are more valuable than many sparrows. And I say to you, everyone who confesses Me before men, the Son of Man will confess him also before the angels of God; but he who denies Me before men will be denied before the angels of God. And everyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man, it will be forgiven him; but he who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit, it will not be forgiven him. When they bring you before the synagogues and the rulers and the authorities, do not worry about how or what you are to speak in your defense, or what you are to say; for the Holy Spirit will teach you in that very hour what you ought to say.” (12:1–12)

Since it cannot offer the true knowledge of God, man, sin, and salvation, false religion does not provide the truth that accesses the power for people to please God and receive His salvation. All false religious leaders claim to have the truth, but in reality none of them do. And since they do not know the truth themselves, empty hypocrites cannot lead others to it. Along with their devotees, they all perish.

The Greek word hupokritēs (hypocrite) was originally a secular term referring to an actor who played a role on stage. But in the New Testament it became a religious term, used exclusively in the negative sense of one who claims to speak for God but does not—a hypocrite. The original theatrical definition of hupokritēs figuratively expresses the nature of spiritual deceivers. An actor attempts to play a convincing role on the stage, pretending to be someone that he is not. So do religious deceivers. Even today most commonly the words “hypocrite,” and “hypocrisy” have religious overtones. While all hypocritical spiritual leaders cheat people out of their earthly possessions, the eternal consequences of their unconscionable deception are far more damaging. Although they pretend to speak for God, they are fraudulent liars and deceivers (1 Tim. 4:2), who cause people to forfeit to judgment their eternal souls. These hypocrites the Pharisees, Jesus said, actually made people into fellow sons of hell (Matt. 23:15).

The Bible reveals specific characteristics of hypocrites. First, by pretending to be something they are not, they focus on outward appearance and hide the truth of who they really are. Jesus applied Isaiah’s condemnation of the hypocrites of his day to the scribes and Pharisees when “He said to them, ‘Rightly did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written: “This people honors Me with their lips, but their heart is far away from Me:”’” (Mark 7:6). In a pompous, self-serving display of their supposed spirituality, the religious hypocrites of Jesus’ day sounded trumpets to call attention to their giving (Matt. 6:2), prayed on the street corners for all to see (v. 5), made it obvious that they were fasting by having a mournful expression on their faces and neglecting their appearance (v. 16), enlarged their phylacteries and the tassels on their garments (Matt. 23:5), sought out the most important seats at banquets and in the synagogue (v. 6), and craved respectful public greetings and the honored title Rabbi (v. 7).

Viewing themselves as spiritually superior to the common people (cf. Isa. 65:5), hypocrites are condescendingly quick to find fault with them. In a pointed and humorous image Jesus said of such people,

For hypocrites to presume to criticize the faults of others is as absurd as someone with a gigantic log in his eye presuming to be able to remove a tiny splinter from someone else’s eye.

Hypocrites respond with malice to those who expose them. Desperately trying to trap Jesus into making an incriminating statement, the Jewish religious leaders asked Him about the explosive issue of paying the poll tax required by the Romans. Perceiving both their malice (Matt. 22:18) and their hypocrisy (Mark 12:15), Jesus refuted their attempt to trap Him (Matt. 22:19–21).

Hypocrites also lack discernment. In Luke 12:54–57 Jesus rebuked those who were able to look at certain indicators and predict the weather (vv. 54–55), but were unable to recognize the obvious signs that the Messiah, God in human flesh, was among them (vv. 56–57).

Their disdain for those whom they regard as spiritually inferior causes hypocrites to lack compassion. Luke 13:11–13 describes Jesus’ healing of a woman who had suffered from a crippling disease for eighteen years. Indignant at this blatant violation of the rabbinical Sabbath restrictions, a synagogue leader enjoined the people to seek healing on one of the other six days. Jesus’ stern rebuke exposed the man’s unfeeling hypocrisy:

This incident was but one of many when Jesus pronounced divine judgment on hypocrites. Seven times in Matthew 23 (vv. 13, 15, 16, 23, 25, 27, 29), the Lord addressed the scribes and Pharisees using the phrase, “Woe to you,” which is an expression of divine condemnation and judgment. Jesus concluded His parable of the faithful and unfaithful slaves (Matt. 24:45–51) by declaring that the disloyal slave would be assigned to hell with the hypocrites. And in a shocking act of judgment, God took the lives of the two most notorious hypocrites in the early church, Ananias and Sapphira (Acts 5:1–11). Not only does God judge unbelievers for their hypocrisy, He also warns believers to avoid it (Rom. 12:9; cf. James 3:17; 1 Peter 2:1).

Hypocrisy plagued Israel throughout her history. God said to Ezekiel regarding the Jewish people of his day,

Micah lamented that Israel’s “leaders pronounce judgment for a bribe, her priests instruct for a price and her prophets divine for money. Yet they lean on the Lord saying, ‘Is not the Lord in our midst? Calamity will not come upon us’” (Mic. 3:11). Admonishing the survivors of Babylon’s destruction of Judah for their hypocrisy, Jeremiah said,

Psalm 78:36–37, Isaiah 29:13, and Romans 2:17–23 also describe Israel’s hypocrisy.

The New Testament also records instances of hypocrisy. In addition to Ananias and Sapphira, Luke 20:20 describes “spies [sent from the religious leaders; v. 19] who pretended to be righteous, in order that they might catch [Jesus] in some statement, so that they could deliver Him to the rule and the authority of the governor.” Paul encountered “false brethren secretly brought in, who had sneaked in to spy out our liberty which we have in Christ Jesus, in order to bring us into bondage” (Gal. 2:4; cf. 2 Cor. 11:13, 26). Even the apostle Peter temporarily fell into hypocrisy (Gal. 2:11–14).

But preeminent in the Bible’s rogues’ gallery of hypocrites were the scribes and Pharisees, the dominant force in the religious culture of first-century Israel. Over the course of His ministry, they became increasingly angry over Jesus’ relentless exposure of their hypocrisy. Their opposition reached its peak when they tried to explain His miraculous powers as coming from Satan, not God (see the exposition of Luke 11:15 in chapter 6 of this volume). In response, the Lord pronounced six curses on the scribes and Pharisees (11:42, 43, 44, 46, 47, 52).

As chapter 12 opens, the majority of the people, having been swayed to that blasphemous view, were becoming fixed in their resentment, resistance, animosity, and rejection of Jesus. Gone was the sensibility, curiosity, enthusiasm, and excitement that marked the early years of His ministry; the people had indeed become “a wicked generation” (11:29). As a result, Jesus’ ministry was largely one of warning and judgment. Those are the threatening themes of the discourse that begins in 12:1 and runs through 13:9.

The opening verse of chapter 12 sets the scene. The Greek phrase translated under these circumstances is better rendered “meanwhile,” “at that time,” or “during that period.” Jesus gave this discourse during the same general period of time as the events recorded in chapter 11. The phrase so many thousands literally means tens of thousands. An immense crowd of people had gathered together to witness the ongoing conflict between the Lord and the scribes and Pharisees (11:53–54). There were so many there that the people were stepping on one another trying to get close enough to hear the dialogue between the Lord and His opponents. The result was a kind of mob scene.

Whatever dialogue may have been going on ended and Jesus turned to address the largely hostile crowd. Before He spoke to the people about hypocrisy, however, He directed His words to warn His disciples first of all to beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy. The word translated disciples is the plural form of the noun mathētēs, which refers to a learner or student. Not all of them had believed in Jesus, but unlike the majority of the crowd who had rejected Him, they were at least still interested in Him. Jesus warned them to beware (“give heed to,” “pay attention to,” “keep on the lookout for,” “guard against”) the leaven (permeating influence; cf. Matt. 16:6, 11–12; Mark 8:15) of the Pharisees. They needed to avoid all the corrupting influence of apostate false teachers since, as Paul said, “bad company corrupts good morals” (1 Cor. 15:33).

In verses 2–12, Jesus gave three essential, non-negotiable obligations that will keep people from the eternal disaster of being a hypocrite: honor the Father, honor the Son, and honor the Spirit. It is only by focusing on the triune God that one can avoid falling under the damning influence of false religion. Simply put, those who are not Trinitarians cannot avoid hell, since it is impossible to honor the Father without honoring the Son, and impossible to honor the Son without honoring the Spirit. There is an interlocking chain of testimony: the Spirit testifies to the Son (John 15:26), the Son reveals the Father (Luke 10:22; John 1:18), and the Father glorifies and honors the Son (John 8:54).

HONOR THE FATHER

But there is nothing covered up that will not be revealed, and hidden that will not be known. Accordingly, whatever you have said in the dark will be heard in the light, and what you have whispered in the inner rooms will be proclaimed upon the housetops. I say to you, My friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body and after that have no more that they can do. But I will warn you whom to fear: fear the One who, after He has killed, has authority to cast into hell; yes, I tell you, fear Him! Are not five sparrows sold for two cents? Yet not one of them is forgotten before God. Indeed, the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Do not fear; you are more valuable than many sparrows. (12:2–7)

Jesus gave three compelling reasons for honoring the Father. First, He will uncover what is hidden. The statement there is nothing covered up that will not be revealed, and hidden that will not be known expresses a frequent theme of our Lord’s teaching (cf. 8:17; Matt. 10:26; Mark 4:22). It echoes the closing verse of Ecclesiastes, where Solomon warned that “God will bring every act to judgment, everything which is hidden, whether it is good or evil” (Eccl. 12:14). The apostle Paul wrote of the “day when, according to my gospel, God will judge the secrets of men through Christ Jesus” (Rom. 2:16), and exhorted the Corinthians, “Do not go on passing judgment before the time, but wait until the Lord comes who will both bring to light the things hidden in the darkness and disclose the motives of men’s hearts; and then each man’s praise will come to him from God” (1 Cor. 4:5).

The point is that while hypocrites may succeed in their deception for a time, no one ultimately gets away with hypocrisy. What hypocrites successfully conceal from people will eventually be uncovered. Some will be exposed in this life, as Paul told Timothy (1 Tim. 5:24–25); all will be exposed in the future, when “the Son of Man is going to come in the glory of His Father with His angels, and will then repay every man according to his deeds” (Matt. 16:27; cf. Rom. 2:5–6).

The Lord’s warning, Accordingly, whatever you have said in the dark will be heard in the light, and what you have whispered in the inner rooms will be proclaimed upon the housetops, metaphorically reinforces the truth that sins will eventually be exposed. What hypocrites try to hide in the darkness is clearly visible to God, as the oldest book in the Bible reveals: “There is no darkness or deep shadow where the workers of iniquity may hide themselves” (Job 34:22; cf. Ps. 139:12; Isa. 29:15; Jer. 23:24; Heb. 4:13). The inner rooms of which Jesus spoke were storerooms (the same Greek word is so translated in v. 24), built in the middle of houses away from the exterior walls, which were more easily dug through by thieves. Such inner rooms were used to store valuables, but could also serve as a location for private conversations, or prayer (Matt. 6:6). The point is that hypocrisy cannot be permanently hidden, as Darrell L. Bock notes:

Hypocrites will one day be seen for what they really are.

A second reason to fear God is the reality that He will punish hypocrites in hell. Hypocrites are preoccupied with what people think. But it is foolish, Jesus said, to be afraid of humans, who in the worst case scenarios can only kill the body and after that have no more that they can do. On the other hand, Jesus went on to warn people whom to fear: rather, they are to fear the One who, after He has killed, has authority to cast into hell. Gehenna (hell) refers to the valley of Hinnom, located just outside of Jerusalem. Within that valley the apostate Jews had built a place of worship, where they sacrificed their children to the abominable pagan god Molech by burning them in fire (Jer. 7:31). That shrine was defiled by godly King Josiah as part of his reforms (2 Kings 23:10), and eventually the site became Jerusalem’s city dump. Because it was a place where fires were constantly burning, gehenna came to be used figuratively to speak of eternal hell (cf. Matt. 5:22, 29, 30; 10:28; 18:9; 23:15, 33; Mark 9:43, 45, 47; James 3:6).

The one with the authority to cast into hell is not, as some imagine, Satan. Satan is neither the one who sends people to hell, nor is he the ruler of hell. On the contrary he himself will in a sure future day be cast into hell (Rev. 20:10), where he will be its most notorious prisoner for all eternity. Nowhere in Scripture is there a command to fear Satan. Believers have been completely delivered from him in the present, “because greater is He who is in [them] than he who is in the world” (1 John 4:4), and in the future he will have no influence on us because “the God of peace will [quickly] crush Satan under [our] feet” (Rom. 16:20). So instead of fearing Satan, believers are to resist him (James 4:7; 1 Peter 5:9), be wary of his schemes (Eph. 6:11), and avoid giving him an opportunity to lure them into sin (Eph. 4:27; 1 Peter 5:8). God is the one to be feared (Prov. 23:17; 24:21; 2 Cor. 7:1; Eph. 5:21; 1 Peter 2:17; cf. Job 28:28; Pss. 19:9; 34:11; 111:10; Prov. 1:7; 9:10; Acts 9:31).

Here is another strong passage in our Lord’s teaching that refutes the false idea that there is no hell. To insist that hell is a reference to the grave only destroys the contrast here and makes nonsense out of the Lord’s statement. If there is no hell, then God would be unable to do anything to a person other than what men could do. Both could kill someone, who then would merely go out of existence. Jesus’ whole point is that God is to be feared because He alone has the authority to both kill sinners and after death cast them into eternal torment.

A final reason to fear God is that nothing escapes His knowledge. Jesus used two illustrations to demonstrate God’s omniscient knowledge of even the most insignificant details. Are not five sparrows sold for two cents? He asked. Sparrows are common small birds that were often eaten by the poor. They were so inexpensive that five could be bought for only two cents (a cent was one sixteenth of a day’s pay for an average worker). Yet despite their insignificance not one of them is forgotten before God. He knows of every sparrow in the world. Not only that, He also knows the number of hairs on everyone’s head—more than 100,000 on average. Such omniscience is the source of great comfort to His children (cf. Matt. 6:25–34), who have nothing to fear, since they are more valuable than many sparrows. But while this truth is comfort to believers, it should be a cause of terror to hypocrites, whose fraudulent self-righteousness will avail them nothing in light of God’s complete and detailed knowledge of their true unregenerate condition.

HONOR THE SON

And I say to you, everyone who confesses Me before men, the Son of Man will confess him also before the angels of God; but he who denies Me before men will be denied before the angels of God. (12:8–9)

The phrase and I say to you marks a transition in the Lord’s flow of thought. The means to honor the Father is to honor the Son, because “he who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent Him” (John 5:23; 8:41–42; 14:6; Acts 4:10–12; 1 John 4:14; 2 John 7). The term everyone is all-inclusive; only the one who confesses the Son before men honors God. Confesses translates a form of the verb homologeō, which literally means, “to agree,” or “to say the same thing.” To confess Christ is to affirm what is true about His person, works, and words. It is to accept the Father’s testimony, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well-pleased” (Matt. 3:17) and “confess with [the] mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in [the] heart that God raised Him from the dead” (Rom. 10:9).

The essence of confessing Jesus as Lord is self-denial, submitting all aspects of one’s life to His sovereign control as a slave to his master (cf. Luke 7:8). In Luke 9:23–24 Jesus declared, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake, he is the one who will save it” (cf. Gal. 2:20; Col. 3:3).

A true confession of Christ will result in the complete transformation wrought by regeneration and sanctification. “By this the children of God and the children of the devil are obvious,” wrote the apostle John, “anyone who does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor the one who does not love his brother” (1 John 3:10). Those who make such a confession will inevitably manifest it openly before men both with their words and with their changed lives in willing and grateful submission to Christ.

Whether a person confesses or does not confess Christ will determine that person’s eternal destiny. On the one hand, if a person confesses Him before men, the Son of Man will confess him also before the angels of God. But on the other hand, Jesus warned that the person who denies Him before men will be denied before the angels of God. Angels are frequently associated with judgment in the New Testament (9:26; Matt. 13:39–42, 49–50; 16:27; 25:31, 41; Mark 8:38; 2 Thess. 1:7;Rev. 14:10, 14–15). Those who fail to genuinely confess Christ as Lord will one day hear Him say, “I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness” (Matt. 7:23). The sure way to miss out on heaven is to deny Christ, as the scribes and Pharisees had done. But just as sure a way to gain hell is to make an insincere, superficial confession of Christ (Matt. 7:21–22). Heaven belongs only to those who honor the Father by truly honoring the Son.

HONOR THE SPIRIT

And everyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man, it will be forgiven him; but he who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit, it will not be forgiven him. When they bring you before the synagogues and the rulers and the authorities, do not worry about how or what you are to speak in your defense, or what you are to say; for the Holy Spirit will teach you in that very hour what you ought to say. (12:10–12)

Having discussed the one to fear, the Father, and the one to confess, the Son, the Lord introduced the one to hear, the Holy Spirit. No one comes to the Father except through the Son, and no one comes to the Son except through the Spirit. Avoiding the damning judgment that comes to those caught up in hypocritical false religious systems requires belief in the person and work of each member of the Trinity. The Father must be acknowledged as sovereign judge and lawgiver, the Son as sovereign Savior and Lord, and the Spirit as sovereign revealer. The Father is the one whose holy law has been violated; the Son is the one whose death paid the penalty for that violation and satisfied God’s wrath; the Spirit is the one whose revelation about the Father’s law and the Son’s death must be received. Just as Christ perfectly revealed the Father, so also does the Holy Spirit perfectly reveal Christ, both in Scripture and the work of regeneration.

The apostle John revealed how to know when a person’s message is truly from the Spirit of God and not a human or demonic source when he wrote,

Every one claiming to have a message from God either speaks the truth about Christ from the Spirit of God, or a lie from the spirit of antichrist. Those are the only two options, and there is no middle ground. Emphasizing the significance of a true confession of Jesus Christ, John Piper observes,

The Holy Spirit’s testimony to Christ is the only way to know the truth about Him. No one will ever be able to confess Jesus as Lord except by the work of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 12:3). Saving faith comes from hearing the word concerning Christ (Rom. 10:17), and the Spirit is the author of Scripture (2 Peter 1:21). Those who confess Christ do so because they have heard and believed the truth about Him that is revealed in Scripture. The Holy Spirit produces in the elect and believing sinner the conviction of sin (John 16:8), and then does His life-giving (2 Cor. 3:6) work of regeneration (John 3:7–8) through the gospel contained in Scripture (1 Peter 1:23).

It is against that backdrop of honoring the Son that the Lord’s warning is given. Everyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man, it will be forgiven him; but he who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit, it will not be forgiven him (cf. Matt. 12:31; Mark 3:28–29). If speaking a word against the Son of Man could not be forgiven then no one could be saved. Every Christian is a converted blasphemer who broke God’s law, rebelled against His rule, and rejected the truth about His Son. By not being with Christ, they were against Him (Luke 11:23). It is only to blaspheming sinners that Jesus offered grace and salvation (Luke 5:32; 19:10).

But if a person blasphemes against the Holy Spirit, it will not be forgiven him. To blaspheme the Holy Spirit is to reject His testimony concerning the Lord Jesus Christ. The Spirit reveals the truth of salvation in Christ, and those who speak evil of that revelation, as the Pharisees had done (Luke 11:15), reject the testimony of the Holy Spirit to Christ (cf. John 15:26). Having cut themselves off from the only source of divine, saving truth, they cannot be saved.

Two passages in Hebrews illustrate the desperate plight of such people. In 6:4–6 the writer of Hebrews warned,

Those who received that warning had seen all the evidence the Holy Spirit provided. They had heard the preaching of the gospel, with its offer of grace, mercy, and forgiveness, and witnessed the miraculous signs performed by the apostles (Heb. 2:2–4) that confirmed that their message was from God. Since they rejected all that the Holy Spirit had revealed concerning the Son and Savior, they could never be saved.

There is a similar warning against rejecting the Holy Spirit’s testimony to Christ in chapter 10. Once again the writer addressed Jewish people who had been exposed to the truth of the gospel, but were in danger of rejecting it. For those who “go on sinning willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth,” the writer warned, “there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins” (v. 26). There is absolutely no provision for forgiveness of sins apart from the gospel of Christ. Those who reject it face “a terrifying expectation of judgment and the fury of a fire which will consume the adversaries” (v. 27). Eternal punishment in hell awaits those who turn their back on the truth about Jesus Christ. They face even more severe punishment than those who rejected the law of Moses (v. 28), since they have “trampled under foot the Son of God, and … regarded as unclean the blood of the covenant by which [they were] sanctified, and [have] insulted the Spirit of grace?” (v. 29). They will experience God’s vengeance and punishment for rejecting the Spirit’s testimony to the Son (vv. 30–31).

Jesus concluded this section with a promise for those who honor the Spirit by believing His testimony to the Son: When they bring you before the synagogues and the rulers and the authorities, do not worry about how or what you are to speak in your defense, or what you are to say; for the Holy Spirit will teach you in that very hour what you ought to say. Believers need not worry that severe trials will shatter their faith in Christ. The Spirit will permanently remain their comforting, strengthening teacher (cf. 1 John 2:20, 27), and will turn their trials into blessing (1 Peter 4:12–14). He is the protecting “power of God,” who keeps the believer secure through “various trials” and causes those trials to be “the proof” of his faith—which gives him confidence he is really saved. That is a gift “more precious than gold” (1 Peter 1:5–7). His indwelling presence and empowerment will permanently keep their faith alive, and they will persevere no matter how severe their trials become (Luke 21:19). Even if they are brought before the synagogues (i.e., the synagogue courts) or the rulers and the authorities (whether Jewish or Gentile), they need not worry about how or what they are to speak in their defense, or what they are to say. The Holy Spirit will teach them in that very hour what they ought to say. He will make certain that to the end of their lives, no matter what the circumstances, what they say will confirm their profession of faith in Jesus Christ. Far from shattering their faith, those trials will provide an opportunity for their greater testimony (Luke 21:12–13).

Despite the plethora of religions, philosophies, worldviews, and beliefs, humanity may be divided into two categories: those who seek honor for themselves (Matt. 6:2), and those who live to honor the triune God. The former receive their reward—honor from men—in this life (Matt. 6:2, 5, 16), and after death will receive eternal punishment. The latter, having believed the Spirit’s testimony to the Son, will receive eternal honor from the Father (John 12:26) in the glory of heaven.