Pretending to Be Righteous When You Are Not
Pretending to Be Righteous When You Are Not
Bro Micah See | 15 March 2026 | Matthew 23:25–28
Matthew 23:25–28
"Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you cleanse the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of extortion and self-indulgence. Blind Pharisee, first cleanse the inside of the cup and dish, that the outside of them may be clean also. 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."
This lesson continues the series through Matthew 23 — the Sermon of Woes — where Jesus confronts the Scribes and Pharisees with a directness that leaves no room for misunderstanding. Jesus is calling out specific behaviours that His audience — the Jewish people and the religious leaders alike — would have recognised immediately. They knew exactly what He was describing.
The charge is not merely that the Pharisees were imperfect. It is far more serious than that. They were pretending. They were performing a version of righteousness that looked convincing from the outside but was hollow, corrupt, and self-serving within. And Jesus says: woe to you. Not as a curse, but as a cry — a warning from One who saw clearly what they could not, or would not, see in themselves.
There are three distinct pretences from these verses — three masks that the Pharisees wore, and three warnings for us to examine honestly in our own lives: the pretence of intellect, the pretence of whitewashing, and the pretence of image.
The Pretence of Intellect
To understand what Jesus meant by cleansing the outside of the cup and dish, we need to step into the world of two of the most prominent Jewish rabbis of His time: Rabbi Hillel and Rabbi Shammai. These two men led competing schools of thought, both devoted to interpreting and applying the Torah, and between them they generated a culture of endless religious debate that had become the very air that the scribes and Pharisees breathed.
They were famous for their endless debates
Could you tell a bride she was beautiful on her wedding day, even if you weren't certain? Hillel said yes; Shammai said no, because to say it at another wedding would be a lie.
If you forgot to thank God for your food — should you say a quick prayer then carry on, or return physically to the place where you ate to pray properly?
Was an unclean person who touched the outside of a cup — making the cup unclean — now rendering the contents unclean as well, or only the vessel?
They were missing the point entirely. Arguing over points of law that served no one. These were not debates that drew anyone closer to God. They were intellectual exercises in self-importance, dressed up as devotion. And the tragic consequence was not merely wasted time — it was a Word made harder to follow, a kingdom made harder to enter, and a God made harder to find.
This is the pretence of intellect — and Jesus addresses it directly in the verses that frame this passage:
Matthew 23:13, 15
"But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut up the kingdom of heaven against men; for you neither go in yourselves, nor do you allow those who are entering to go in. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel land and sea to win one proselyte, and when he is won, you make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves."
It is a warning we must take personally. It is easy to mistake unproductive intellectual debate for spirituality. It is easy to feel that because we are discussing theology, because we are arguing over interpretations, because we are engaged with the text — we are therefore being pious.
But the Pharisees were doing exactly that, and Jesus called it hypocrisy. Their discussions were purely intellectual — and they completely missed the fundamental values of the Law: justice, mercy, and faithfulness.
The things they were doing were not to glorify God but for extortion and self indulgence . Their intellectual framework had become a tool of their greed. If you failed to meet their standard, they would accuse you of sin, and the proof of your righteousness became a donation — an offering of piety that lined their pockets. The glory was not God's. It was their ego and pocket.
The Pretence of Whitewashing
The word "whitewashing" carries with it a meaning that has endured across centuries. To whitewash something is to paint over — to cover an ugly truth with a coat of clean-looking paint, without ever addressing what lies beneath. It describes the act of covering up an illegal or shameful incident with no real pursuit of justice.
One of the most chilling examples of whitewashing — the moment when Judas returned his thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests after betraying Jesus:
Matthew 27:1–10
"When morning came, all the chief priests and elders of the people plotted against Jesus to put Him to death. And when they had bound Him, they led Him away and delivered Him to Pontius Pilate the governor. Then Judas, His betrayer, seeing that He had been condemned, was remorseful and brought back the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders, saying, "I have sinned by betraying innocent blood." And they said, "What is that to us? You see to it!" Then he threw down the pieces of silver in the temple and departed, and went and hanged himself. But the chief priests took the silver pieces and said, "It is not lawful to put them into the treasury, because they are the price of blood." And they consulted together and bought with them the potter's field, to bury strangers in. Therefore that field has been called the Field of Blood to this day. Then was fulfilled what was spoken by Jeremiah the prophet, saying, "And they took the thirty pieces of silver, the value of Him who was priced, whom they of the children of Israel priced, and gave them for the potter's field, as the LORD directed me."
Look at what the chief priests and elders do — and what they do not do. They do not acknowledge the sin they committed in paying Judas to betray an innocent man. There is no remorse. There is no reflection. There is no concern whatsoever for Judas, who is in the grip of such guilt that he takes his own life. Their immediate instinct is not confession — it is calculation. How do we handle this money so that we are not implicated?
They decide the money cannot go back into the treasury because it is "the price of blood". Do you hear the blindness in that? These are the men who paid that price. These are the men who plotted to murder an innocent man. And yet they are unwilling to put the returned coins back into the treasury — not because they are convicted of their sin, but because they are managing their image. They buy the potter's field. They name it. But there is no justice. No turning back. Only the covering of tracks.
This is whitewashing in its purest, most corrupt form. And Jesus had already named it precisely:
Matthew 7:3–5
"And why do you look at the speck in your brother's eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, 'Let me remove the speck from your eye'; and look, a plank is in your own eye? Hypocrite! First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye."
The plank was squarely in their eye. They could see that the money could not go back into the treasury because it was blood money. But they could not see — or would not see — that their own hands had drawn that blood.
This is the pretence of whitewashing. It is the soul that is rotten through, that wants only to manage the appearance of righteousness rather than pursue the reality of it.
The Pretence of Image
The third pretence : the whitewashed tomb. To understand the full weight of this metaphor, we need to know its context.
In Jewish practice, because it was considered spiritually unclean to touch a tomb, the Jews would paint their tombs bright white — particularly in the weeks leading up to Passover — to mark them clearly, warning travellers and worshippers to keep their distance.
The result was deeply paradoxical. The whitest, brightest, most visually striking objects in the landscape were the very things you were supposed to avoid most. Their gleaming appearance was not a sign of honour — it was a warning. Beauty on the outside. Death and decay within. And Jesus looks at the scribes and Pharisees and says: you are those tombs.
You are the people who appear the cleanest, the most devoted, the most visibly active for God. You are the ones whose righteousness catches the eye. And you are the ones to be most wary of — because inside, you are full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness.
Nature itself offers a sobering parallel. The most brilliantly coloured animals in the natural world — the vivid frogs, the bright-coloured snakes — are so often the most poisonous. Beauty, brightness, and outward dazzle can be signals of danger, not invitations to draw close.
The Apostle James warns us explicitly against being seduced by the pretence of image in others — and in ourselves:
James 2:1–4
"My brethren, do not hold the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, with partiality. For if there comes into your assembly a man with gold rings, in fine apparel, and there also comes in a poor man in filthy clothes, and you pay attention to the one wearing the fine clothes and say to him, "You sit here in a good place," and say to the poor man, "You stand there," or, "Sit here at my footstool," have you not shown partiality among yourselves, and become judges with evil thoughts?"
It is worth remembering that Jesus, the apostles, and the earliest disciples came from humble backgrounds and modest professions. The Son of God arrived without the trappings that human beings so readily mistake for godliness.
A modern parallel: the Epstein files and the long list of prominent, globally respected figures who were ultimately implicated in it. These were men who had cultivated images of philanthropy, power, and benevolence before the world — people doing visible, celebrated good — while participating in profound evil behind closed doors. The world, they believed, could not see. And for a long time, it could not, but now they are being revealed.
This is the most serious warning of the three pretences. Those who are most consumed with the management of their outward image — who invest the most energy in how they appear to others — can, if their hearts are not right before God, be among the most deeply corrupted.
It is not that visibility is wrong. It is that visibility without integrity is the very definition of a whitewashed tomb.
The Invitation — Clean the Inside First
Jesus was not vague in Matthew 23. He named the exact behaviours. He identified the exact patterns. He called them out by name because the people listening — both the crowds and the Pharisees themselves — knew exactly what He was describing. Woe is a cry of warning from a heart that grieves what it sees.
The three pretences He identified are as alive today as they were then.
The pretence of intellect — mistaking religious debate and theological performance for genuine closeness with God, while using knowledge as a tool of control and self-advancement.
The pretence of whitewashing — covering sin with the appearance of righteousness, managing reputation instead of pursuing repentance.
The pretence of image — investing far more energy in how we appear to others than in who we actually are before God.
It is easy to cover up sin and never address its root. It is easy to perform religion. It is easy to let the outside of the cup gleam. But God is not looking at the outside of the cup.
What does God want from us?
He wants the inside clean. He wants the heart — genuinely, humbly, honestly offered. Jesus Himself said so — first cleanse the inside of the cup and dish, that the outside of them may be clean also.
The work of the Christian life is not image management. It is heart transformation. And that work begins not in what others see, but in what God already knows — and what we choose, in honesty and courage, to bring before Him.
Work on inside, the heart - until what is seen on the outside becomes the true overflow of what is within.
