Authority of the Rabbis? Part 1
Mat 23:2 The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses' seat,
Mat 23:3 so practice and observe whatever they tell you--but not what they do. For they preach, but do not practice.
There are some that teach that we must adhere to the doctrines of the Rabbis because they teach that Yeshua Himself commanded this in Mt. 23:2-3. Aside from the fact that Messiah is telling us that the Scribes and the Pharisees had usurped Moses’ authority by ‘seating themselves in the Seat of Moses,’ their interpretation of the passage is extremely faulty. Yeshua wasn’t telling us to walk out our faith in
Him by rabbinical teachings, but rather to obey the authorities of the land, which, at that time, were the Scribes, Pharisees and Rabbis in their judicial and legislative capacities.
The Seat of Moses was a judicial position from which judgments between two or more people were issued. In Yeshua’s day the Pharisees and Scribes had seated themselves in the Seat of Moses (Mt. 23:2). This understanding is brought out by both the Greek text and in some Bibles like the NASB and reveals that Yeshua wasn’t pleased with them in Moses’ Seat. In other words, God hadn’t put them there, but they had placed themselves there. This phenomenon is not unusual. It’s conceptually seen in the days of Hosea when the prophet says of Israel:
Hos 8:4 They made kings, but not through me. They set up princes, but I knew it not. With their silver and gold they made idols for their own destruction.
To ‘seat oneself’ as the Pharisees did, was to usurp God’s authority. Yeshua was saying that since the Scribes and Pharisees were there, obey them in their judicial rulings and by extension, their legislative rulings. This is what we would call civil authority today. The Seat of Moses is a term taken from the days when Moses would sit and judge the people:
Exo 18:13 The next day Moses sat to judge the people, and the people stood around Moses from morning till evening.
Exo 18:14 When Moses' father-in-law saw all that he was doing for the people, he said, What is this that you are doing for the people? Why do you sit alone, and all the people stand around you from morning till evening?
Exo 18:15 And Moses said to his father-in-law, Because the people come to me to inquire of God;
Exo 18:16 when they have a dispute, they come to me and I decide between one person and another, and I make them know the statutes of God and his laws.
Exo 18:25 Moses chose able men out of all Israel and made them heads over the people, chiefs of thousands, of hundreds, of fifties, and of tens.
Exo 18:26 And they judged the people at all times. Any hard case they brought to Moses, but any small matter they decided themselves.
Also, the Judgment Seat of Messiah (Rom. 14:10; 2nd Cor. 5:10) and the Judgment Seat of Caesar (Mt. 27:19; Jn. 19:13; Acts 18:12, 16-17; 23:3; 25:6, 10-11, 17) point to the Seat of Moses in Mt. 23:2 as a seat of judgment. Yeshua spoke of following the Rabbis, Sadducees (for they had Temple authority and were of the priestly line), Pharisees and Scribes in their judicial capacity as judges (and legislators), not as teachers of the Law.
The Scribes, Pharisees and Rabbis, etc., had authority to adjudicate or to judge legal matters in the bet din, the courts of Israel. They could also act as legislators and enact laws for the community. It’s these positions of authority that Yeshua was speaking of for His followers to obey (adjudicative and legislative), not their doctrines.
When a judge-rabbi issued a court ruling involving a believer, or a city made a legislative ruling that effected a community, the believer was to obey it. The believer was not to say that it didn’t effect him because he believed in Yeshua. He was not to say that the judges or legislators had no authority ‘to tell him what to do’, because he only recognized Yeshua as his authority. In other words, he was to keep the laws of the land, just as believers do in the United States, Bolivia, Canada, etc., today. They keep the laws of their respective countries (that do not hinder their walk with Messiah;
Act 4:19 But Peter and John answered them, Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you rather than to God, you must judge,
Act 4:20 for we cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard.
Act 5:29 But Peter and the apostles answered, We must obey God rather than men.
In this, Yeshua was following the Law of Moses which states that all Israel was
to obey the decisions of the priests (Sadducees) and judges:
Deu 17:8 If any case arises requiring decision between one kind of homicide and another, one kind of legal right and another, or one kind of assault and another, any case within your towns that is too difficult for you, then you shall arise and go up to the place that the LORD your God will choose.
Deu 17:9 And you shall come to the Levitical priests and to the judge who is in office in those days, and you shall consult them, and they shall declare to you the decision.
Deu 17:10 Then you shall do according to what they declare to you from that place that the LORD will choose. And you shall be careful to do according to all that they direct you.
Deu 17:11 According to the instructions that they give you, and according to the decision which they pronounce to you, you shall do. You shall not turn aside from the verdict that they declare to you, either to the right hand or to the left.
Deu 17:12 The man who acts presumptuously by not obeying the priest who stands to minister there before the LORD your God, or the judge, that man shall die. So you shall purge the evil from Israel.
Deu 17:13 And all the people shall hear and fear and not act presumptuously again.
With Moses and Joshua this law and punishment stood as a powerful incentive for godly obedience, but in the days of Yeshua, the position of the righteous judges had been usurped. In spite of this, Yeshua was telling His followers to obey their legal decisions. Yeshua was not saying that we should do everything that the Rabbis or Pharisees teach about Moses. This is evident from his saying not to do as they did. Yeshua was addressing two of the three ‘keys’ that were given to rabbis (and the priests who also had the key of forgiveness of sin; Lev. 4, etc.), upon ordination: the ability to teach authoritatively, to legislate and to sit as a judge. Yeshua addressed their civil authority. Paul conceptually says the same thing when he says in Rom. 13:1-2:
Rom 13:1 Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God.
Rom 13:2 Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment.
The Apostle Paul also teaches that each congregation should have its own judges to discipline their people when he rebukes the Corinthians for taking one another to court before the pagan judges:
1Co 6:3 Do you not know that we are to judge angels? How much more, then, matters pertaining to this life
1Co 6:4 So if you have such cases, why do you lay them before those who have no standing in the church?
1Co 6:5 I say this to your shame. Can it be that there is no one among you wise enough to settle a dispute between the brothers,
He says, ‘Isn’t there any among you who can judge these matters?’ He didn’t say they should go to the Rabbis in their cities for a ruling between two believers. Likewise, the Apostles in Jerusalem didn’t run to the Sanhedrin, the Pharisees, Rabbis, or the anti-Yeshua High Priest for advice and counsel when they didn’t know what to do concerning the theology of what the Gentile needed to do in order to be saved (Acts 15:1-7).
They called their own council and with the help of the Holy Spirit, they determined the will of the Lord (Acts 15:1-21). They made a decree that all their communities followed (Acts 16:4). But believers were also to obey rabbinic judges and legislation in the days of the Apostles that effected them also.
Another perspective that shows us that Yeshua didn’t mean for us to walk in the teachings of the Rabbis are the many confrontations Yeshua has with them. The Gospels and Acts are filled with accounts of clashes over the very issue of proper interpretation of Scripture between the Scribes and the Pharisees, even the Pharisees that would come to believe (Matt. 15:1-20; 23:1-39; Acts 15:5, etc.).
In Mt. 15, Yeshua sternly rebukes the Pharisees for both their teachings and their hearts:
Mat 15:3 He answered them, And why do you break the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition?
Mat 15:4 For God commanded, 'Honor your father and your mother,' and, 'Whoever reviles father or mother must surely die.'
Mat 15:5 But you say, 'If anyone tells his father or his mother, What you would have gained from me is given to God,
Mat 15:6 he need not honor his father.' So for the sake of your tradition you have made void the word of God.
Mat 15:7 You hypocrites Well did Isaiah prophesy of you, when he said:
Mat 15:8 'This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me;
Mat 15:9 in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.'
It’s not just the Commandment that Yeshua cited that should concern us for He goes on to say that their doctrines are ‘the precepts of men.’ These words of our Messiah form a powerful barrier against any believer seeking the teachings of the Rabbis. For even though this was spoken to the Pharisees, everyone knows that the Rabbis are the spiritual descendents of the Pharisees. There are other admonitions of Yeshua that follow along this same line of thinking, concerning their doctrines and their stance against Messiah, that still stand today:
Mat 16:11 How is it that you fail to understand that I did not speak about bread? Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees.
Mar 8:15 And he cautioned them, saying, Watch out; beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod.
Luk 12:1 In the meantime, when so many thousands of the people had gathered together that they were trampling one another, he began to say to his disciples first, Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy.
Mat 23:13 But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites For you shut the kingdom of heaven in people's faces. For you neither enter yourselves nor allow those who would enter to go in.
We must be very careful what we ‘take in.’ The teachings of the Rabbis can seem very sweet, as I’m sure they did back then to many people, but are the teachings of the Rabbis today any better than their spiritual Fathers? Are the Rabbis today leading their flocks into the Kingdom of Heaven any more than the Pharisees and Scribes did back then? So, how could Yeshua be commanding us to place ourselves under the Rabbis or their teachings? Some believers don’t understand Mt. 23:2-3 and say that we are to do everything that the Rabbis say, except for maybe renouncing Yeshua?
I am not coming against the Rabbis or those that follow them, and as you will see in next weeks article, I agree that there is much that can be learned from many of there traditions. But it must always be looked at as writings and teachings of men, by men, and for men. They are not authoritative in our lives. All things must be taken with a grain of salt so to speak. We should keep the source of our teachings in mind as we learn from men, and always be prayerful as to what we are learning, and how we are learning it. Remember there is but one Rabbi that we must follow and His name is Yeshua our Messiah. We must Remember that there is only one authority that is above reproach, and that is our Father in Heaven and His Holy Word.
As we go forth and test these new ideas in Scripture let us pray that our Father gives us His Spirit of wisdom, understanding, and truth. So we may see and walk as our Messiah walked, and be true disciples in the Name of Yeshua (Jesus). May we pray for eyes to see, ears to hear, and hearts to change for the glory of our God - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit
