Dead or Alive

 DEVOTION

THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW

DEAD OR ALIVE

Matt 23:27-28

27 "Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men's bones and everything unclean. 28 In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.

NIV

This woe isn’t much different than the last one which was about washing the outside of a cup, but the inside was dirty. The difference is between being filled with greed and self-indulgence and being nothing more than dead men’s bones and everything unclean, which Jesus defines as being full of hypocrisy and wickedness. We would find it hard to believe that within the community of faith, at least the one we are familiar with someone would appear righteous and not be a born-again believer in Jesus. That would be the difference between being alive inside or being full of dead men’s bones. However, again, it would be difficult to imagine that someone who attends church would be a hypocrite and full of wickedness. Yet, there must be the possibility that it could happen. Certainly, the teachers of the law and the Pharisees appeared, for all practical purposes, religious and pious individuals, trying to, or at least appearing to try to abide by the law. But these are the same individuals who were involved in the plotting to have Jesus killed. They had no such desire to know the truth as Nicodemus did, who was among their class. He found the truth to having life within through speaking with Jesus and being told that in order for a man to see the kingdom of God that he needed to be born again. This would be setting aside those dead bones or putting them in the grave and experiencing a rebirth of new bones within. We are told the old, those dead bones, are gone and all things are made new. We are a new creature in Christ. So then, if a person were born again, it would be impossible for them to be filled with hypocrisy and wickedness. There could be the possibility that some who attend church, who appears to be in the community of faith, are not born again, but merely religious people. Of course, that is not up to us to judge for, as Jesus says, we can only look at the outside of a person, while he looks at the heart. He is the judge whether someone has new bones, or still is filled with dead men’s bones. It was certainly that way for the people in the time of the teachers of the law and the Pharisees. The average Jew on the street or in the temple would see them as righteous and religious men, but Jesus saw their hearts and told them they were not what they appeared to be, but were filled with hypocrisy and wickedness, being dead inside because they refuse the life he offered. How grateful we have that life within, although we have not yet attained perfection, but we do strain toward the mark, the goal of our faith, the finish line, to enter the kingdom of heaven. Thank you Jesus for giving us life, and new bones, because we have been born again.