-Pharisees

In Jesus' day, the Pharisees were the most respected and influential group in Judaism. Having originated about 135 B.C., they were a committed fellowship of men, determined to follow in exact detail everything required in the Mosaic Law.

The Pharisees would be called the theological conservatives of their day. They (1) believed in the resurrection, in angels, and in Satan, (2) looked for the Messiah, and (3) rejected the idea that force should be used to win freedom. Freedom must come through God's action and in his time.

But the Pharisees made a tragic mistake. It began with their scribes (the experts in Bible interpretation) constantly interpreting and reinterpreting the Mosaic Law to show how it might apply to every aspect of contemporary life. To the Pharisee, these interpretations and additions were the oral Torah (law), which they placed beside the written Torah as having equal authority. As the oral tradition focused on behavior, prescribing in detail each acceptable and each forbidden action, the attention of the Pharisees was drawn away from the great themes of the OT. Jesus faced the opposition of these committed and orthodox men, and in many confrontations he pointed up their errors. They had fallen into hypocrisy, as Jesus accused them: "You give a tenth of your spices---mint, dill and cummin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law---justice, mercy and faithfulness" (Mt 23:23). The image is powerful. It pictures the religious leaders of Israel sitting in their gardens, squinting with great concentration so as not to miss a single tiny leaf of these common herbs but ignoring the cries of the poor outside in the street.

Jesus also attacked the Pharisee's devotion to the oral law. He pointed out how their interpretations actually nullified God's clear intent. He applied the words of Isaiah to them: "These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain; their teachings are but rules taught by men" (Mt 15:8-9).

Tragically, in attempting to establish their own righteousness, the followers of this approach to religion missed Scripture's great revelation of human need and divine forgiveness. Mistakingly thinking the Mosaic Law was a way of salvation, they wandered further and further from faith and further and further from the heart of God. There is no doubt that there were many sincere individuals among the Pharisees. But they were sincerely on the wrong path! Their spirituality and holiness were based on a total misunderstanding of what God requires; truly, they were "blind guides" (Mt 15:14; 23:16, 24; cf. 23:17, 19, 26; Lk 6:39; Jn 9:39-40). Their final state is powerfully portrayed by Jesus in his last confrontation with this group, as reported in Mt 23.

-Sadducees

The Sadducees were a religious party in NT times. Unlike the Pharisees, they rejected the idea of an oral law and accepted only the Pentateuch as authoritative. But their orientation was this-worldly. They did not believe in the resurrection, personal existence after death, or divine intervention in history. Thus, they denied the possibility of rewards or punishments after death.

Though naturally hostile to the Pharisees, with whom they differed on nearly every theological issue, they joined with them to resist Jesus and his teaching. This was in part because they were antagonistic to Jesus' supernaturalism. But a more basic reason was that they feared Jesus would upset the accommodation they had made with Rome to preserve their hold on priestly and ritual offices, from which they gained many financial advantages.