The Pharisees refused God's instructions EG, and created their own. You won't even acknowledge this. No matter how many time you preach against this truth, you can not change it. Had the Pharisees trusted God like Zechariahs and Abraham, they would have their names included in Heb. 11, as examples of Faith.
Rom. 1:
21 Because that, when they knew God, they glorified
him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.
22 Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools,
Little children,
let no man deceive you: he that doeth righteousness is righteous, even as he is righteous.
My understanding is that they accepted the mosaic law and the 613 commandments but they then added to it, rules and instructions.
As a result we get the Midrash.
I think the purpose was to clarify the law.
A simple example of this is the Sabbath. Although the were many more.
The 4th commandment.
Keep the Sabbath Holy, not work.
So follow that commandment they created about 30 plus categories of what work meant and within those categories, sub-categories to follow.
So things like how many steps you can take and so on.
The issue that Jesus had with the Pharisees was
That they priced themselves on following not just the mosaic law but the letter of the man made rules designed to clarify the law.
That's why Jesus went at them
Matthew 23:27-28
27 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which indeed appear beautiful outwardly, but inside are full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness. 28 Even so you also outwardly appear righteous to men, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.
Matthew 12:1-8
Chapter 12
Jesus Is Lord of the Sabbath
1 At that time Jesus went through the grainfields on the Sabbath. And His disciples were hungry, and began to pluck heads of grain and to eat. 2 And when the Pharisees saw it, they said to Him, “Look, Your disciples are doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath!”
3 But He said to them, “Have you not read what David did when he was hungry, he and those who were with him: 4 how he entered the house of God and ate the showbread which was not lawful for him to eat, nor for those who were with him, but only for the priests? 5 Or have you not read in the law that on the Sabbath the priests in the temple profane the Sabbath, and are blameless? 6 Yet I say to you that in this place there is One greater than the temple. 7 But if you had known what this means, ‘I desire mercy and not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the guiltless. 8 For the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.”
We only have to look at the 7 woes in Matt 23 to see why Jesus had a beef with them.
So yes I would say that they were trying to obey God and his laws, tried to clarify it.
But in doing so all they did was to add burdens on people, burdens that they would not keep or had a get out clause for.
That's why he called them hypocrites.
Alas the church today does the same.
They add to the grace of God.
As a result it's adding works to faith which negates grace and faith for salvation.
Works will follow saving faith.
Those works prepared for us.
Ephesians 2:8-10
8 For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, 9 not of works, lest anyone should boast. 10 For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.
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