Zombies: Part 1

“‘Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean.’” (Matthew 23:27).

These guys are zombies. They look alive, but they’re nothing more than walking corpses. They’re the living dead. Notice, zombies aren’t really alive; they’re dead, really dead. They derive all their power by consuming the living. They feast on the bodies and drink the blood of the living. Those they don’t entirely consume become zombies too.

The Pharisees looked like righteous teachers. They were respected because they were able to maintain reputations for public acts of righteousness. Jesus confronted them because those reputations hid deep sin, and we know that the wages of sin is death (Rom. 6:23). They looked alive but were dead.

Here comes the worst part. In Mt. 23:15, Jesus said to the Pharisees, “Woe to you ...! You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as you are.” The Pharisees subjected their disciples to impossible requirements to attain their form of righteousness. The problem is that not even the Pharisees met their own standards!

There are only two options for their disciples.

1. The disciples could try to actually live by the standard, doing what the Pharisees themselves could never do. These disciples would be destroyed under the weight of that heavy burden, give up on attaining righteousness, and return to a life of open sin. These disciples would be dead.
   
   
2. The disciples could appear to uphold the standards of Pharisaical righteousness while hiding their lives of sin. In other words, they could just become real Pharisees; they would look alive but were dead.

Is it any wonder Jesus said these converts were “twice as much” sons of hell? Prior to conversion, they were dead in their sins. After conversion, they either return to open sin, or they live in hidden sin. Either way, they give up their desire for true righteousness and leap headlong into destruction. They end up dead in their sins a second time.

The zombie Pharisees hunt all over the world for food. When they get their hooks into people, they consume them and steal their life. Watching their disciples perish under impossible standards is how they satisfy their zombie appetite for flesh and blood. You can almost hear the Pharisees say, “Well, we can and do meet the requirements of righteousness; we are closer to God than these sinners.” The loss of disciples to sin puffs them up; it makes them feel alive. It’s a veritable zombie buffet. If the zombie Pharisees don’t eat them, the wounds they inflict are sufficient to turn their disciples into zombies. These new zombies follow suit and start chowing down to satisfy an insatiable appetite for real life.

What’s the lesson? Well there are three.

1. If you’re dead, you’re dead. No amount of outward performance on your part can bring you from death to life. Sure, James says that faith without works is dead (James 2:26), but that does not mean that good works are sufficient to guarantee the worker has faith. Rather, genuine living faith is sufficient to guarantee works performed by the faithful. If you’re doing all the good in the world, but you lack faith in Christ demonstrated by submission and obedience to his rule, then you’re a zombie. You’ll do nothing but suck the life out of all you come into contact with.
   
   
2. Look out for zombies inside the church in places of authority, and look out for their zombie followers. Jesus was condemning teachers inside the community of God. The church is the community of God. Look out for them because they want to eat you or turn you; either way, you’re dead.
   
   
3. If you see a zombie, run!