Passage

Matthew 23

Verses 23–28 WEB Voices

Mid-woes: tithing herbs while neglecting justice, mercy, and faithfulness; cleaning cups and tombs while greed and lawlessness fill the inside. Jesus demands weightier obedience and inward purity, not cosmetic religion.

Matthew 23:23

23“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint, dill, and cumin, and have left undone the weightier matters of the law: justice, mercy, and faith. But you ought to have done these, and not to have left the other undone.

Arminian

Herb tithes without justice, mercy, and faithfulness. Jesus affirms both: do the weightier matters and do not neglect the lesser.

Arminians detect a call to whole-law love. Grace enables prioritizing mercy without excusing stinginess toward God; hypocrisy picks easy piety and skips costly righteousness.

Reformed

Weightier matters named: justice, mercy, faithfulness. Lesser tithes remain, but rank is restored.

God’s Law has center and circumference. Christ exposes selective obedience that keeps mint and loses Micah’s heart.

Matthew 23:24

24You blind guides, who strain out a gnat, and swallow a camel!

Arminian

Comic and devastating: gnat strained, camel swallowed. Scruple on the tiny, blindness on the massive.

Arminian pastoral wit with tears: grace reorders sight. Turn from micro-religion to the camel-sized commands of love.

Reformed

Blind guides—image of inverted discernment. The proverb seals the indictment.

False teachers turn the scale of importance upside down. Christ, the true Guide, restores scale under God’s Word.

Matthew 23:25

25“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within they are full of extortion and unrighteousness.

Arminian

Outside polished; inside full of greed and self-indulgence. Ritual cleanliness masks grasping hearts.

Arminians urge heart repentance. Grace cleans what scrubbing the rim cannot; God invites surrender of greed, not only better presentation.

Reformed

They wash the outside while plunder fills the inside. Hypocrisy is a full cup of appetite.

The heart’s corruption is the issue (cf. Matt 15). Only God regenerates what polish cannot reach.

Matthew 23:26

26You blind Pharisee, first clean the inside of the cup and of the platter, that its outside may become clean also.

Arminian

Order of cleansing: inside first, then outside. Holiness starts at the heart and shows.

God enables inward cleansing that bears outward fruit. The summons is sincere—seek purity where it begins.

Reformed

The inside must be cleaned first. Outer cleanness follows true inward work.

God cleanses the heart; visible righteousness is fruit, not the root. Christ’s imperative exposes blind method.

Matthew 23:27

27“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitened tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but inwardly are full of dead men’s bones and of all uncleanness.

Arminian

Whitewashed tombs: beautiful outside, death within. Religion as façade over uncleanness.

Wesleyan Arminians warn without caricature: appearance can deceive neighbors and self. Grace calls for honesty before God who sees the bones.

Reformed

Tombs whitewashed—Passover image of concealed defilement. Beauty as cover for death.

God is not fooled by paint. The metaphor prepares the charge of hypocrisy and lawlessness in the next verse.

Matthew 23:28

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

Arminian

Outward righteousness for others; within, hypocrisy and lawlessness. The audience is people; the Judge is God.

Stop performing. Grace offers righteousness in Christ that remakes the inside—turn while the woe still teaches.

Reformed

Appear righteous; are full of hypocrisy and anomia. Verdict stated.

Only imputed and imparted righteousness in Christ answers this charge. Human appearance-righteousness is empty before the Holy One.

Key contrast Both reject cosmetic religion. Arminians emphasize a sincere call to inward repentance grace enables; Calvinists typically highlight the heart’s corruption and God’s provision of true righteousness in Christ against mere appearance.

Historic quotes

Voices from both camps

Mercy, and faithfulness; cleaning cups and tombs while greed and lawlessness fill the inside: older Arminian and Reformed writers, each in their own words.

Arminian Notable voices

“Ye pay tithe of mint, etc. - They were remarkably scrupulous in the performance of all the rites and ceremonies of religion, but totally neglected the soul, spirit, and practice of godliness. Judgment - Acting according to justice and equity towards all mankind.”

Adam Clarke · Commentary on the New Testament (on Matt 23:23–28)

Reformed Notable voices

“This is intended to anticipate their calumny; for they might have put an unfavorable interpretation on his discourse, and charged him with setting no value on what the Law of God had enjoined. He therefore acknowledges that whatever God has enjoined ought to be performed, and that no part of it ought to be omitted, but maintains that zeal for the whole Law is no reason why we ought not to insist chiefly on the principal points.”

John Calvin · Commentary on a Harmony of the Evangelists (on Matt 23:23–28)

Quotations lightly abridged for length; wording follows standard English translations of the sources named.

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Genesis, Psalms, Isaiah, Daniel, Matthew, John, Romans, Ephesians, Colossians, 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, Titus, Hebrews, 1 John, 2 John, and 3 John are live

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