The Pharisees Took Away the Key of Knowledge

One of the greatest dangers of religion is that it causes us to be a danger not only to ourselves but also to others. To the very religious biblical experts of His day, Jesus said: “Woe to you lawyers! For you have taken away the key of knowledge. You did not enter in yourselves, and those who were entering in you hindered. And as He said these things to them, the scribes and the Pharisees began to assail Him vehemently, and to cross-examine Him about many things, lying in wait for Him, and seeking to catch Him in something He might say, that they might accuse Him.” (Luke 11:52-54).

Here, Jesus said that religionists who were against Him had taken away from the people “the key of knowledge.” What was the key Jesus had in mind? There seemed to be a number of possibilities. The Pharisees, for instance, took away the key of knowledge from the people by (1) replacing the Word of God with tradition and trivia, (2) attempting to discredit Christ (John 14:6), and (3) distracting others from a “right attention of the heart (the window of light in Luke 11:33-35).

While the Scriptures and Christ are both keys of knowledge, I believe that Jesus was probably referring to the key of “a right attention of heart,” which if it is a right attention will be focused on the Scriptures and Christ. The section of Luke 11 that we have been looking at is preceded by verses 33-35, where Jesus said: “No one, when he has lit a lamp, puts it in a secret place or under a basket, but on a lamp stand, that those who come in may see the light. The lamp of the body is the eye. Therefore, when your eye is good, your whole body also is full of light. But when your eye is bad, your body also is full of darkness. Therefore, take heed that the light which is in you is not darkness.” In other words, if a person’s “lamp” (his eye or attention of heart) is right, then he will be filled with the knowledge of God. But if his “lamp” is obstructed, then a person will be full of darkness (empty of the light and knowledge of God).

While Jesus was teaching these truths about the lamp of the body and the key of knowledge, He was invited to a Pharisee’s house for dinner. As it turned out, Jesus completed His lesson around the dinner table. As a dinner guest of a Pharisee, Jesus pointed to the light-blocking obstacles that the Pharisees had placed over their own eyes (their attention of heart). The Teacher showed them that by their religious actions, their majoring on minors, their love for approval, their selfish coverup, their legalistic brick-giving, and their self-deception that they had not only lost the light for themselves but also for others. In this way, they had taken away the key of knowledge.

Tomorrow, the last mistake the Pharisees made…