Matthew 23:22Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

The temple pertains to God’s glory, and to man’s spiritual salvation, but the gold of the temple though it pertains to the glory of God, yet does it more so to the delight of man, and the profit of the Priests. The Jews then pronounced the gold which delighted them, and the gifts which fed them, to be more holy than the temple, that they might make men more disposed to offer gifts, than to pour out prayers in the temple. Whence the Lord suitably reproves them in these words. Yet have some Christians at present an equally foolish notion. See, they say, in any suit if one swear by God, it seems nought; but if one swear by the Gospel, he seems to have done some great thing. To whom we shall say in like manner, Ye fools and blind! the Scriptures were written because of God, God is not because of the Scriptures. Greater therefore is God, than what is hallowed by Him.

The temple and altar we may also understand of Christ Himself; the gold and the gifts, of the praise and sacrifice of prayer which we offer in Him and through Him. For not He by them, but they by Him, are sanctified.

As by making broad phylacteries and fringes they sought after the reputation of sanctity, and made this again a means of gain, so now He charges them with being teachers of wickedness by their fraudulent pretence of tradition. For when in any dispute or quarrel, or ambiguous cause, one swore by the temple, and was afterwards convicted of falsehood, he was not held guilty. This is what is meant by that, Whosoever shall swear by the temple, it is nothing, that is, he owes nothing, But if he had sworn by the gold, or by the money which was offered to the Priests in the temple, he was immediately compelled to pay down that by which he had sworn.

In like manner the custom which the Jews had of swearing by the Heaven He reprobates. For they did not, as they supposed, avoid the danger of taking an oath by God, because, Whose sweareth by heaven, sweareth by the throne of God, and by him that sitteth thereon.

For since Christ is come, reliance upon the Law is vain; for not Christ by the Law, but the Law by Christ, is sanctified, in whom it rests as on a seat or throne; so are they fools and blind, who, overlooking the sanctifier, pay honour to the things sanctified.

Following these events, the Lord departed from the temple, issuing a stern rebuke aimed at the Pharisees and the temple priests who were complicit in the people's corruption, accompanied by warnings of impending divine judgment. As He completed His earthly mission, He declared that He would persist in His work among them through His messengers. However, He foretold that the Pharisees would also persecute these messengers, just as they had mistreated the earlier witnesses of the truth. In doing so, they would further fill the cup of their ancestors' transgressions, ultimately leading to the revelation of God's judgment upon the iniquity of Jerusalem.

The fourth point concerns the manipulation of the law through overly technical interpretations.

Woe to you, leaders who are spiritually blind, attempting to guide people toward the Kingdom of Heaven while failing to discern the true path from the false! In your ignorance, you instruct others that breaking oaths is permissible, as long as one is aware of which oath to select for this purpose. You believe that you can mislead others by swearing on the temple and its altar, feeling that fulfilling such oaths is merely optional; yet you insist that oaths made by those who swear on gold vessels and the offerings on the altar must be honored. Ignorant and sightless leaders! The temple is far more sacred than the gold that resides within it, for it is the temple that imparts sanctity to the gold.

He who takes an oath by the altar indicates that such an oath carries greater holiness and obligation than one taken by the offering on the altar. This is illustrated by the understanding that an oath by the altar encompasses the offerings made upon it. Furthermore, an oath by the temple holds even greater sanctity and responsibility compared to an oath by the altar, as swearing by the temple involves invoking the presence of God, who resides within. The temple serves as the abode of His unique presence among His people. In the initial temple constructed by Solomon, God’s special presence was manifested above the ark of the covenant in the Holy of Holies, which was visibly represented by a cloud (1 Kings 8:10-13, Psalm 81:1).

The fourth woe addresses spiritual blindness and the distortion of the true significance of oaths. The scribes and Pharisees, having permitted oaths by created things—such as heaven, earth, the sun, Jerusalem, and the temple—categorized these oaths into greater and lesser ones. Out of selfish motives, they ranked the treasures of the temple and sacrificial offerings among the most significant and sacred oaths. Jesus Christ had previously highlighted how these misguided interpreters of the law prioritized sacrificial vows over the unchanging commandment of God to honor one’s father and mother (Matthew 15:4-6). During this time, He strongly condemned the willful absurdity into which the blind guides of the people had fallen: Woe to you, leaders of the blind!