The Pharisee's

[BeyondET]

I haven't read much on the topic in scripture, though from what's been posted these dudes Pharisees were a bunch of wacko's in a nut shell

 

[gotime]

I am not sure just calling them legalists is entirely accurate. While they did have a false view that the law saves them, it can not be denied that the law they kept was Given by God. They had scripture behind them. (Ignoring the Oral laws they taught for now)

The real issue was hypocrisy saying one thing and doing another. Rather acting instead of the genuine article. and not all Pharisees fell under that label, as many believed and followed Jesus after His death.

We must be careful to not just focus on one aspect and ignore the realities of the time.

 

[jaybird88]

While they did have a false view that the law saves them

what was the correct view for salvation that they should have been going by?

 

[BeyondET]

what was the correct view for salvation that they should have been going by?

I would say a in person view.

 

[DP]

So basically, the Sadducee's where like Atheists and the Pharisees were hypocrites. To put it simply.

Not quite.

The Sadducees did represent more of a secular group, materialists.

But the Pharisees held to a lot of what was written in the OT. They simply created their own religion out of it, i.e., Judaism.

After Judah's 70 years Babylon captivity, foreigners that had originally were of the old Canaanite nations that were made bondservants among Israel worked their way into temple service (Nethinims) doing some of the Levitical priest's duties. After a while they worked their way into the priesthood. Per 1 Chronicles 2:55, the Kenites of the nations of Canaan became the scribes in Israel in charge of keeping copies of God's Holy Writ. This is why our Lord Jesus had such difficulty with some of the Pharisees and scribes. He knew who they really were, i.e, foreigners that had crept in long ago, corruptors of His Word.

When someone not really 'called' by God makes of theirself like one of God's servants, they have to wing it because God didn't call them. Jesus called those a "hireling"(John 10). That's what the blind Pharisees represented, but not all of them were foreigners. It's just that even the Pharisees that were born of Israel (like Paul) were spiritually blinded by their leaven man-made doctrines and traditions they added to God's Word. To this day, that's what Judaism still represents, a religion the crept in unawares helped to create only loosely based on the OT Scriptures.

 

[garee]

Mat 16:1 The Pharisees also with the Sadducees came, and tempting desired him that he would shew them a sign from heaven.

Interesting with all of their differences the Pharisee and Sadducees came as Pharisee with Sadducees as if they were one man to represent what called the law of the fathers, as a law of men who used the oral tradition of men to try and make the scriptures the law of our Father in heaven to no effect. we are to call as a title no man father on earth .One is our Spiritual Father in heaven. Satan the author of confusion,would try and confuse how we use the word father form that standpoint he usurps the authority of our father in heaven

This is different that worshipping the God of the fathers, believing all things which are written in the law and in the prophets:

Therefore killing the Christians who they though were the completion .This show they walked by the wrong manner of spirit having the faith of Christ rather in respect to their own selves. .They walked by sight.

This shows us they blasphemed the holy name of Christ by which we are called heavenward. And what they thought was zeal for God, shows the zeal was in respect to that which is seen(sinful men the fathers) the temporal and not that which was not seen the eternal faith principle.

This is shown using Saul before his born again conversion as Paul. Saul having all of the outward signs, place of birth, best possible teachers.

I am verily a man which am a Jew, born in Tarsus, a city in Cilicia, yet brought up in this city at the feet of Gamaliel, and taught according to the perfect manner of the law of the fathers, and was zealous toward God, as ye all are this day.
And I persecuted this way unto the death, binding and delivering into prisons both men and women.As also the high priest doth bear me witness, and all the estate of the elders: from whom also I received letters unto the brethren, and went to Damascus, to bring them which were there bound unto Jerusalem, for to be punished. Act 22:5


This was Christ nemesis. He said to them that measure faith in respect to that seen rather than that not seen, a brood of vipers .Vipers representing false prophets with the wrong kind of zeal having it in respect to men.

The apostate jews were known for that. It began the day Moses came down from mount Sinai. Hoping the oral traditions of men were of equal authority of the tablets in which God gave us his commandment written with His finger to show us he is not served with human hands as if he who satisfies all needed needed something for the clay he forms Christ in.

We a simply do not measure faith in respect to men as that seen.

Fill ye up then the measure of your fathers Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell? Mat 23:33