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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
The Woes upon the Hypocrisy of the Pharisees.
The first woe:
v. 13. 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.
This passage of denunciations does not represent a mere opinion of Jesus, but it is the judgment of the Holy One of God upon people that were making all religion a mockery and a pretense. The "Woe!" signifies the eternal fire of hell; that will be their punishment, as Luther says. In their hypocrisy, their acting, they have reached a point where they are deceiving themselves as well as others. They pretend, with a great show of zeal, to be opening the doors of heaven to their fellow-men, by teaching them the way of self-righteousness, salvation by works. But in doing so, they actually shut the doors or gates of heaven in their faces. They thought that they were sure of heaven and had but to enter whenever they chose, but they only deceived themselves, and are now deceiving others and keeping them from entering.