The Mirror of the Word and other works by C.E. White can be purchased on her website, cewhitebooks.com or on Amazon

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which on the outside appear beautiful, but inside they are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness. So you too, outwardly appear righteous to people, but inwardly you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.”

—Matthew 23:27–28

According to the law, the Pharisees were the height of moral goodness. They never stuck a toe out of line.

But Jesus came along and told us that someone can do all the right things and act all the right ways but be completely morally bankrupt.

The Bible says God looks at the heart (1 Samuel 16:7), and Jesus says we recognize true believers by their fruit (Matthew 7:15–20).

It’s clear the scribes and Pharisees did not display the fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, or gentleness. They did seem to have self–control, but that came primarily from self–serving ego and the position of power it gave them.

Cleaning the outside without the help of the Holy Spirit will never make the inside clean. Real goodness includes outward righteousness, but the focus is on the transformation of our hearts and minds as the source of that outward righteousness (Romans 12:2). It’s not simply a list of dos and don’ts we rigorously apply to ourselves and others; it comes from the power of Jesus’s sacrifice, the Holy Spirit’s indwelling, and our total submission to God.

If we’re only concerned with the outside, we’re really only interested in how we look rather than who we are. Jesus isn’t satisfied with the outside only; he wants the whole person—heart, soul, and mind (Matthew 22:37).

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