Matthew 23:27 – 28

“Righteous On The Outside”

27 “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.

28 Even so you also outwardly appear righteous to men, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.

Jesus continues using worldly comparisons to illustrate the scribes and Pharisees who tried very hard to appear to live a very clean and righteous life while living one full of greed and exhortation.

In the previous verses he used the folly of cleaning the outside of the eating utensils and ignoring the filth and contamination on the inside of the cups and dishes.

He now compares the scribes and Pharisees lives to the outer appearances of beautiful clean tombs which were white and like marble on the outside but had dead people's bones within them.

In the areas around Jerusalem at the time of Christ the tombs were whitewashed after the spring rains and before the Passover feast. The purpose of this was because the whiteness would alert passers-by to the area which was considered to be unclean because of the corpses which were decaying in the tombs. To come in contact with the dead bodies would render a person to be unclean and unable to enter the temple or participate in the feast.

Jesus says to be a person who only wants to appear to be righteous and not actually try to live a good righteous life was like the tombs which were so beautifully white but full of dead men's bones.

Looking clean and moral on the outside but living with a corrupt heart.