Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which indeed appear beautiful outwardly, but inside are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness. Even so you also outwardly appear righteous to men, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.
Matthew 23:27-28
Recommended Reading: Mark 7:17-23
In the Old Testament and in Jesus’ day contact with a dead body rendered a person ceremonially unclean (Numbers 19:16). For that reason, graves and tombs were often whitewashed to keep people from accidentally coming in contact with them. Bright and white on the outside but unclean on the inside.
Jesus used this well-known custom to illustrate that what is on the outside of a person may be very different from what is on the inside. Religiously lifelike on the outside but spiritually dead on the inside. The same can be true today: Being religious on the outside is no guarantee of being spiritually alive on the inside. Jesus said that it is necessary to be born again to enter the Kingdom of God (John 3:3). We must become a “new creation” through faith in Christ (2 Corinthians 5:17).
Have you become a new person in Christ? Don’t confuse religious life with true spiritual life.
The Christian faith is ultimately not only a matter of understanding or of intellect, it is a condition of the heart.
D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones
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