The Pharisees’ Hardness

We see many examples in the Bible of how hard the hearts of the Pharisees and the Sadducees were. Time and again they witnessed Jesus performing miracles, and instead of understanding these as the work of God, they grew more angry at him.

³⁷ Though he had done so many signs before them, they still did not believe in him (John 12:37 ESV)

While the Pharisees refused to believe, many of the people were starting to follow Him:

 Yet many of the people believed in him. They said, “When the Christ appears, will he do more signs than this man has done?” (John 7:31 ESV)

As belief continued to spread among the people, it did nothing but add to the Pharisees’ growing anger and their hearts became more hardened every day. What should have been a time of rejoicing at the coming of the Messiah, and the fulfillment of prophecy, instead turned into a fight for the hearts of the people.

Examples of Hardness

Here are some examples of the miracles Jesus performed, along with the reactions of the Pharisees and Sadducees:

• Jesus healed a paralytic man, and the Pharisees accused Him of blasphemy for forgiving the man’s sins. (Matthew 9:2-6)
• Jesus healed a man with a withered hand on the Sabbath, and the Pharisees gathered together to seek ways to destroy him (Matthew 12:10-14)
• Jesus healed a man at the Pool of Bethesda and is persecuted by the Jewish leaders (John 5:5-16)
• Jesus was teaching the people, and when the Pharisees saw some were starting to believe in him they sought to arrest him (John 7:14-32)

However, they didn’t stop there: in their anger they accused Jesus of using Satan to cast out demons when he freed a blind and mute man from possession.

²⁴ But when the Pharisees heard it, they said, “It is only by Beelzebul, the prince of demons, that this man casts out demons.”  (Matthew 12:24 ESV)

The Pharisees were treading on dangerous ground, and Jesus warned them about the unpardonable sin and blaspheming the Holy Spirit. They were attributing the work of God to Satan, and they were letting their emotions and their ambitions drive them toward the point of no return.

With all they saw, and with all they knew about prophecy, why is it that they didn’t want to believe what they were witnessing? Why was it easier for them to believe Satan was working through Jesus, rather than God working through Jesus?

Why the Hardness?

John 11:47-48 explains their motives:

⁴⁷ So the chief priests and the Pharisees gathered the council and said, “What are we to do? For this man performs many signs. ⁴⁸ If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation.”

It all comes down to the Pharisees’ belief that Jesus was a threat to their power, position, and to the nation. They were looking at it from an earthly perspective and could not see the truth that was right in front of them.

The Ultimate Example of Hardness

But out of all the examples in the Bible that show the hardness of the Pharisees’ hearts, there is one verse that stands out above all of the others. It stands out even more than claiming Jesus was using Satan to cast out demons.

This verse is easy to overlook because it is recorded right after Jesus’ anointing at Bethany and just before the triumphal entry, but this is what John tells us in 12:9-11:

⁹ When the large crowd of the Jews learned that Jesus was there, they came, not only on account of him but also to see Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. ¹⁰ So the chief priests made plans to put Lazarus to death as well, ¹¹ because on account of him many of the Jews were going away and believing in Jesus.

I am talking about verse ten: It’s hard to wrap my head around this!

Jesus brought a dead man back to life, and large crowds were gathering to see Jesus and the resurrected man. The Pharisees also went to see Jesus and Lazarus, but with different intentions.

Instead of pausing to think about what this miracle meant, or wondering if Jesus was the Messiah after all, how did they react? They saw the attention this was getting, and they were determined to murder Lazarus.

Jesus just demonstrated he had the power over life and death, but they were so concerned about protecting their lifestyles that they didn’t see a miracle, they saw a problem. They needed to get that little “inconvenience” out of the way.

But this wasn’t the last time they would try to remove an “inconvenience” from their lives. One week later they would have another formerly dead man walking around to contend with, and this time there would be nothing they could plot to stop the risen Messiah. When Jesus was executed they thought they had removed the “Jesus problem” from their lives once and for all, but Jesus’ death was just the beginning…

How Hard Are Our Hearts?

We have seen the distractions that kept the Pharisees from believing, and this is a mistake we can still make today. Although Jesus is not physically walking among us, we are responsible for how we react when we learn about him.

If you are not a follower of Christ, how do you react when you are confronted with the possibility of following Jesus? Will you harden your heart because you are comfortable in your life and do not want to take the chance of jeopardizing anything? Or will you choose to follow Him despite knowing it could sometimes make you uncomfortable?

If you have accepted Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, your heart can still become hardened by worldly goods and possessions, or by arrogance, pride, or complacency. How often does our desire for material objects affect our relationship with Jesus Christ? Do we unintentionally put earthly belongings first in our lives?

With all of the distractions available in today’s world it is easy to lose our focus. But we must not be hardened like the Pharisees. Like them, we have a choice to make; do we see Jesus as a problem to our lifestyles or as our Savior?

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