Fatal blindness.
Our Lord continues to denounce woes against hypocrites, both for what they do and for what they are. The relation between doing and being is constant. These things are written for our learning.
I. THE HYPOCRITE IS WOEFULLY GUILTY.
1. He is guilty of heart wickedness.
"Nature, like a beauteous wall,
Doth oft close in pollution."
(Shakespeare.)
2. He is guilty of deceiving others.
(a) Unconverted men must be hypocrites to be endured. Society would be intolerable but for its veneer.
(b) The children of nature are readily deceived in a world of hypocrites. Their pride and self-conceit leads them to credit themselves with virtues; and the Pharisee deceives them.
(c) But that religious persons should "believe in human nature" only shows how successfully the hypocrite may even "deceive the very elect."
(d) The believers in human nature are liable to trust in it instead of Christ for their salvation, and perish in their delusion.
3. He is guilty of insulting God.
II. THE HYPOCRITE IS CRIMINALLY BLIND.
1. God requires truth in the heart.
(a) In the provision of the atonement.
(b) In the gift of the Holy Spirit.
(c) Through faith the righteousness of the Law may not only become "imputed to us," but also "fulfilled in us."
2. The hypocrite imposes upon himself.