Conclusion

It was a tragic denunciation that Jesus had pronounced upon the Pharisees, yet in God’s foreknowledge he planned that His Son would be rejected and die as a common criminal. This death would bring the ultimate plan of God into reality where He would offer the great salvation by the offering of His own Son as a sacrifice for all sin for all time.

In all of the Pharisaic hypocrisy and greed of the day we must not allow our view to become obscured not only from the good aspects of Pharisaism but also its true character and significance. Pharisaism was admirable in its attempt, however futile, to bring every area of life into subjection to the law.

Perhaps more important than the miserable failure of its legalism was the wellspring of piety that motivated the whole phenomenon known as Pharisaism. It was the longing for a righteous Israel and the hope of the coming Messianic kingdom that motivated these men. The piety and expectant tone of the Pharisaic Psalms of Solomon is virtually indistinguishable from that, so highly honored by Christians, which appears in the poetic utterances of Luke 1 and 2.

God was about to do a great work for His people, and in preparation it was necessary for the people to turn to the law anew. The scribes and Pharisees accordingly made the law an influence in the lives of the masses that it had never before been. Despite all of the failures, it accomplished much. Pharisaism was at heart, though tragically miscarried, a movement for righteousness. It was this concern for righteousness that drove the Pharisees to their legalism with such a passion. Convinced they had attained the righteousness they sought, the Pharisees became prey to their own self-satisfaction, and unknowingly they rejected their only hope of righteousness.

Nevertheless this basic drive for righteousness accounts for what may be regarded as attractive and Biblical both within Pharisaic and rabbinic Judaism. Later Judaism stands in continuity with Pharisaism and, as might be expected, displays some of the same vices and virtues. Not without reason did G. F. Moore write that "Judaism is the monument of the Pharisees" (II, 193) . Exactly for this reason, however, the quarrel between Jesus and the Pharisees finds its modern counterpart in that between Judaism and the Gospel.