Pretense

 

God hates pretense.  This is evidenced in Matthew 21:19, "And as He saw one single leafy fig tree above the roadside, He went to it but He found nothing but leaves on it [seeing that in the fig tree the fruit appears at the same time as the leaves]. And He said to it, Never again shall fruit grow on you! And the fig tree withered up at once."
Because the fig tree had leaves, Jesus expected it to also have fruit.  And because it didn't, he made an example of it by cursing it. 
In Matthew 23:27, Jesus uses this example:  "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, pretenders (hypocrites)! For you are like tombs that have been whitewashed, which look beautiful on the outside but inside are full of dead men's bones and everything impure." 
Don't you find it interesting that the Amplified Bible calls the Pharisees "pretenders?"  Jesus says that they are like whitewashed tombs.  That doesn't mean anything to us but this is what I found as I studied it.  God told Israel to stay away from dead bodies or bones.  If they buried someone or accidentally touched a dead body or bones, they were ceremonially unclean for 7 days.  They had to go through the rite of purification in order to be "clean."  As people made their way to Jerusalem for Passover, they could stumble upon a grave and not even know it.  They would be unclean and miss the whole Passover experience.  So people would whitewash the graves so they would stand out and so they could be avoided.  They were also whitewashed to beautify them----much like we put flowers on a grave.
So what was Jesus saying to the Pharisees?  He took a broad brush and whitewashed them.  They may have looked good on the outside, but they were dead bones on the inside.  And by whitewashing them, he was giving instruction that they were to be avoided.
Matthew 23 has some pretty powerful language about the Pharisees.  God is serious about pretense!