In Response to Orthodox Pharisees

First Century Jewish Pharisees and Contemporary Eastern Orthodox Monks

By Bp. Joseph (Ancient Church of the West) 

We commonly encounter people who believe that a more ancient form of Christianity is "Pharisaism" and that low, Evangelical or Charismatic denominations live in "Grace" up and against the "Law." I recently heard a story about one of our clergy who met a little girl who told him that her parents had shown her pictures of Pharisees and Greek Orthodox monks, telling her that they were one and the same thing, and that Jesus had taught people to reject the "Error of the Pharisees." This clergyman asked me how we would respond to this way of thinking, and it struck me that these parents were very creative and forthright in their approach to inoculating their child against liturgical forms of Christianity. I was raised as a Baptist, and although my own parents never directly did the same thing, it was obviously the cultural assumption that I grew up with and internalized subconsciously. While I understand and respect the desire to teach children to love and follow God in the best way that parents know how, in my own life, this convolution of Pharisaism with Ancient Christianity led to a dead end that I had to eventually abandon in order to preserve my Christian faith and not sink into antinomianism or a resigned, cultural agnosticism. 

The assumption that Orthodox, Catholics and Anglicans are practicing a modern version of Pharisaism creates bigger problems for understanding Christian history and doctrine than they solve, and shows a misunderstanding of two basic teaching fundamental to the truth of the Christian Message - 1) How the Bible was canonized, 2) The difference between keeping the OT law and the function and priorities of the Church to follow Christ in the "Perfect Law of Liberty". 

There was no New Testament in the Church until after the Council of Carthage in AD 397. The First Council of Nicea was held in AD 325, which stated the basic beliefs of Christianity in the form of a Creed, which was the foundational document of Christian revelation. Then the Bible was canonized officially (along with the Septuagint text of the Old Testament) 72 years later. Over 3,000 texts were known to the Christian Church at that time, and almost all of them claimed Apostolic Authority. How did the Church determine what was to be canonized? Many texts claimed Christ was not God, that the Trinity did not exist, and that further innovations or prophecies were of equal validity to the Message of Christ. These texts still exist today and form the core evidence to the unbelieving world that what Christians believe today is wrong. How did they know what was false and what was real, and weed out forged and intentionally spurious texts from the genuine work of the Apostles? 

By the Creed… 

We believe in one God,

the Father, the Almighty,

maker of heaven and earth,

of all that is, seen and unseen.

We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,

the only Son of God,

eternally begotten of the Father,

God from God, Light from Light,

true God from true God,

begotten, not made,

of one Being with the Father.

Through him all things were made.

For us and for our salvation

he came down from heaven:

by the power of the Holy Spirit

he became incarnate from the Virgin Mary,

and was made man.

For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate;

he suffered death and was buried.

On the third day he rose again

in accordance with the Scriptures;

he ascended into heaven

and is seated at the right hand of the Father.

He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead,

and his kingdom will have no end.

We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life,

Who proceeds from the Father.

With the Father and the Son he is worshiped and glorified.

He has spoken through the Prophets.

We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church.

We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.

We look for the resurrection of the dead,

and the life of the world to come. Amen.

They held the competing texts available to the Church up to the standard of what was known Gospel, defined in this Creed, passed down to them through the witness of Apostles and Bishops. Out of 3,000 they eliminated all that declared a message other than what was acknowledged in the Creed, and were left with only 27 books of undisputed Apostolic origin. 

If they were already apostate, or if the Creed was wrong, there is no hope that the Bible is correct. It is that simple. If one rejects this reality, and the enormous amount of documentation we have on how the Church gathered, discerned, and canonized the NT, then one must believe in a mystical process by which God rejected His Church immediately after the martyrdom of the Apostles, did not fill it with His Spirit as He promised, and then used apostate and willingly evil people to reveal, preserve, and propagate what we believe to be the inerrant truth. That is truly a sad way of seeing Christ as a failure in His work, which was the establishment if His Bride... based upon a biased and unreasonable rejection of the testimony of Christ's presence in the Church throughout all ages, and a dislike or an inability to deal with clear history. If this is right, then not only did those born before AD 1500, before the Reformation, not know the truth and couldn't "be saved", but contemporary Evangelicals actually know more and have more discernment than those who gave us the Bible.

Now for the issue of the "Law" that is always brought up in this context, leading to the perception that we are modern day Christian versions of the ancient Jewish Pharisees. St. Paul often condemns those who "keep the Law" in the Book of Romans, what the Pharisees outwardly kept and were condemned by Christ for doing... He says clearly that "Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin." (Rom 3:20) However, we are confusing or forgetting several terms - 

1) Christians do not keep the Law of Moses, which is what Paul is referring to in Romans. Christianity by definition believes that these rules, prefiguring and directing us towards Christ, were fulfilled by Christ. Thus the Old Covenant came to an end, and a New Covenant was established between God and man by our Lord Jesus Christ.

2) "Good Works" are not "The Keeping of the Law" (Good works being the response of the human heart to the Love of God, and is an expression of God in man, which James 2:14-26 says clearly). To mistake the necessary outworking of God's works in us for keeping the law is a tragic misunderstanding that leads Christians to believe that they prove they are not Pharisees by intentionally not aspiring to "press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus." (Philipians 3:14)

3) And have also forgotten that there is a "Law of Christ" that is referred to in Galatians 6:2, James 2:8-13, and 1 Corinthians 9:21. 

Is one to be condemned for keeping the Commandments of Christ (Matthew 5), or living as he told us to live? No! Christ came to fulfill the Law and the Prophets, and in so doing, He became our ultimate standard of Good, our "Law of Liberty", and truly our only hope! Those who live according to Christ are not living by the Works of the Flesh, by the Law of Sin and Death, but die with Christ to be raised in the Spirit through Baptism and the Life of a Holy Spirit-permeated Church. 

Search the Scriptures to see how this brings clarity to what the they command us to do! The true Pharisees within Christianity are not those who dress differently, celebrate the Lord's Supper as He Commanded, honor Mary and all other Christians who went before as examples of how we should strive to live in obedience to God, or those who confess their sins openly to one another for healing and remission of sins (John 20:23 and James 5:16) - the true Pharisees are those to whom the Gospel has become an excuse for self-contentment, superiority, outwardly good works that are motivated by the desire to look good (Matthew 6:1), and, ultimately prove that they are better than those whom they dislike and to whom they compare themselves - pride. This is a risk for all who call upon the Name of Christ, not excluding Orthodox or Baptist... One can be a Pharisee or an idolater in a suit and tie just as well as they can in a clerical robe!

In light of what we have discussed, now read Mathew 23 with fresh eyes, since it clarifies all of these things from the perspective of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ - 

"Then spake Jesus to the multitude, and to his disciples, Saying The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses' seat: All therefore whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do; but do not ye after their works: for they say, and do not. For they bind heavy burdens and grievous to be borne, and lay them on men's shoulders; but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers. But all their works they do for to be seen of men: they make broad their phylacteries, and enlarge the borders of their garments, And love the uppermost rooms at feasts, and the chief seats in the synagogues, And greetings in the markets, and to be called of men, Rabbi, Rabbi. But be not ye called Rabbi: for one is your Master, even Christ; and all ye are brethren.

"And call no man your father upon the earth: for one is your Father, which is in heaven. Neither be ye called masters: for one is your Master, even Christ. But he that is greatest among you shall be your servant. And whosoever shall exalt himself shall be abased; and he that shall humble himself shall be exalted. But woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men: for ye neither go in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye devour widows' houses, and for a pretence make long prayer: therefore ye shall receive the greater damnation. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, ye make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves. Woe unto you, ye blind guides, which say, Whosoever shall swear by the temple, it is nothing; but whosoever shall swear by the gold of the temple, he is a debtor. Ye fools and blind: for whether is greater, the gold, or the temple that sanctifieth the gold? And, Whosoever shall swear by the altar, it is nothing; but whosoever sweareth by the gift that is upon it, he is guilty. Ye fools and blind: for whether is greater, the gift, or the altar that sanctifieth the gift? Whoso therefore shall swear by the altar, sweareth by it, and by all things thereon. And whoso shall swear by the temple, sweareth by it, and by him that dwelleth therein. And he that shall swear by heaven, sweareth by the throne of God, and by him that sitteth thereon.

"Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone.

"Ye blind guides, which strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye make clean the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within they are full of extortion and excess. Thou blind Pharisee, cleanse first that which is within the cup and platter, that the outside of them may be clean also. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness. Even so ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because ye build the tombs of the prophets, and garnish the sepulchres of the righteous, And say, If we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets. Wherefore ye be witnesses unto yourselves, that ye are the children of them which killed the prophets. Fill ye up then the measure of your fathers. Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell? Wherefore, behold, I send unto you prophets, and wise men, and scribes: and some of them ye shall kill and crucify; and some of them shall ye scourge in your synagogues, and persecute them from city to city:

"That upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias son of Barachias, whom ye slew between the temple and the altar. Verily I say unto you, All these things shall come upon this generation. O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not! Behold, your house is left unto you desolate. For I say unto you, Ye shall not see me henceforth, till ye shall say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord."

As I read this passage, it shakes me to my core… not because I believe I am any more a Pharisee for leaving the Baptist faith and becoming an Apostolic Christian, but because I see how, in every situation, the desire to do good on the outside, as a mask for my own pride, has haunted me in all forms of Christianity. This is a reminder to work out my own salvation with fear and trembling (Philipians 2:12)! I need a constant reminder!