Selected Scriptures About the Pharisees:

Mt.5:20 You've got to be better than those who are think they are good, if you want to go to Heaven.

Mt.12:14 (It was the Pharisees who were responsible for Jesus' death, not the Romans, nor the publicans and sinners, prostitutes and adulterers!);

Mt.12:34 When the Pharisees accuse Jesus of casting out demons through the Devil's power, He winds up calling them a "generation of vipers, how can ye, being evil, speak good things?"

Mt.12:39 He also calls them an "evil and adulterous generation." Funny, because it was usually the Pharisees that point their fingers at adulterers (as they still do!). What is Jesus trying to tell these people? Perhaps the same thing Paul was trying to tell them in Romans 2:1, that they become guilty of the same things they judge others of? Maybe the spiritual adultery they commit with the gods of this world (materialism, power and prestige) and with the spirits of the Devil (pride, self-righteousness, etc.) are much worse in God's eyes than the mere "sins" of the flesh?

Mt.15:3 Here Jesus replies to their accusation of having broken one of the formalities of Jewish law by asking them, "Why do you break the law of God by your tradition?" What IS the law of God? In Mt.22:36-40 Jesus makes it plain that the law of God is LOVE, and all the other little laws are fulfilled in that one. In other words, the traditions of both Scribes and Pharisees of yesterday and of their self-righteous followers of today are breaking God's true law!

Mt.15:5 He goes on to say that they are making the law of God of none effect by their traditions. Why is it that you find anything but love in those churches? (John 13:35).

Mt.15:8 They're always praising God with their lips in their church services, but then treat their fellow humans with the very self-righteousness of the Devil, oblivious to the fact that they are putting God at the same distance from their heart to which they exiled that sinner they judge.

Mt.15:9 Such worship is empty and vain in God's eyes. They're replacing God's law of Love with their own man-made rules: "Thou shalt not this and thou shalt not that, and thou shalt not the other," instead of "Thou shalt love!"

Mt.15:14 They're blind guides (thinking they see - John 9:41), destined for a hard landing.

Mt.16:6 Beware of the leaven of Self-righteousness!

Mt.21:23-46 Jesus responds to their questioning His authority by a parable in which he exposes their plan to kill Him and announces that the Kingdom will be torn away from them and given to a nation that would bring forth the fruits of the Kingdom. Instead of self-righteously judging lonely people, they ought to win their souls to Christ and bring forth fruit for the Kingdom, instead of chasing them in the other direction!

Mt.23 - A whole chapter full of advice from Jesus to both His disciples and the multitudes about the Pharisees, which He probably knew were going to be around for as long as the Devil himself:

verse 3: You can listen to their sermons, but don't follow their sample! They don't practice what they preach!

Verse 4: they burden you with rules that they wouldn't even think of keeping themselves.

Verse 13: Woe unto you Pharisees! You won't allow others to go to Heaven, and you won't go there yourselves!

Verse 14-16: Woe! Woe! Woe!

Verse 23: Woe unto you: Keeping your little traditions, you have omitted the weightier things of the law: (true) judgment, mercy and faith!

Verse 25: Woe unto the hypocrites! All clean on the outside (pretence) and all filthy on the inside (in God's eyes)!

Verse 28: Appearing righteous, they're really full of hypocrisy and sin.

Verse 33: Doesn't look like they're going where we're going.

Verse 34: The Pharisees ceased to exist after the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70, only 40 years after Jesus said this. So, who is He talking to? Who are the prophets and wise men and wiriters they keep persecuting?

John 8:15-59 Probably the most remarkable conversation between Jesus and the Pharisees recorded in the Bible, during which He plainly tells them, "Ye are of your father, the Devil," which causes them to try to stone him.

John 9 - A chapter describing the pitiful dilemma with the Pharisees: no matter what good you will do, they will never recognize it unless you play the game according to their rules, the only standard they accept is their own, and the only world they see is their own. According to Jesus, they see nothing at all.

John 11:53 They kill the love, they kill God's gift of love, they kill...

Acts 7:51-58 ... and kill again. The story continues.

Nowadays they may not kill the prophets physically (they probably would, if they could, as the inquisitors and other Christian rulers have done for centuries), but they still spread death through their false doctrines of "eternal insecurity" and fear, that one might lose their Salvation, if they're not good enough.

And, of course, they can legally exterminate tens of thousands of people who dare to believe otherwise through their practical little instrument called war. Just elect a warmonger for president, and you'll have those God-darn heathen taken care of big-time.

"Here I am, an empty hallway

Broken windows, rainy nights

I am 1962 and I am ready for a fight

People crying 'Hallelujah!'

while the bullet leaves the gun

People falling, falling, falling

and I don't know where they're falling from."

(Jann Arden, "Unloved")

Scriptures on Eternal Salvation by Grace

Romans 6:23b—The gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

John 11:26a—And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die.

1 John 5:11b—God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son.

Ephesians 2:8-9— 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.

Titus 3:5a—Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us.

Galatians 2:16—Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law but by faith in Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, that we might be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law; for by the works of the law no flesh shall be justified.

2 Timothy 1:9—Who has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace which was given to us in Christ Jesus before time began.

Romans 3:28—Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith apart from the deeds of the law.

Romans 11:6—And if by grace, then it is no longer of works; otherwise grace is no longer grace. But if it is of works, it is no longer grace; otherwise work is no longer work.

Ephesians 2:8-9— 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.

Titus 3:5a—Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us.

Galatians 2:16—Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law but by faith in Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, that we might be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law; for by the works of the law no flesh shall be justified.

2 Timothy 1:9—Who has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace which was given to us in Christ Jesus before time began.

Romans 3:28—Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith apart from the deeds of the law.

Romans 11:6—And if by grace, then it is no longer of works; otherwise grace is no longer grace. But if it is of works, it is no longer grace; otherwise work is no longer work.

Colossians 2:16-17—So let no one judge you in food or in drink, or regarding a festival or a new moon or sabbaths, (17) which are a shadow of things to come, but the substance is of Christ.

John 7:19—Did not Moses give you the law, yet none of you keeps the law? Why do you seek to kill Me?

Acts 15:10—Now therefore, why do you test God by putting a yoke on the neck of the disciples which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear?

Romans 3:19—Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God.

Romans 8:3—For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, on account of sin: He condemned sin in the flesh.

Romans 10:4—For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.

Colossians 2:14—Having wiped out [the slate completely clean of] the handwriting of requirements [the law] that was against us, which was contrary to us. And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross.

Hebrews 8:13—In that He says, "A new covenant," He has made the first [covenant] obsolete. Now what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away.

Hebrews 10:9—Then He said, "Behold, I have come to do Your will, O God." He takes away the first [law] that He may establish the second.

Hebrews 8:6—But now He has obtained a more excellent ministry, inasmuch as He is also Mediator of a better covenant, which was established on better promises.

Romans 7:4—Therefore, my brethren, you also have become dead to the law through the body of Christ, that you may be married to another—to Him who was raised from the dead, that we should bear fruit to God.

Romans 6:14b—You are not under law but under grace.

Romans 8:1-2—There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. (2) For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death.

John 1:17—For the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.

Romans 7:6—But now we have been delivered from the law, having died to what we were held by, so that we should serve in the newness of the Spirit and not in the oldness of the letter.

Galatians 3:13—Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law.

Galatians 5:14—For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself."

Matthew 7:12—Therefore, whatever you want men to do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.

Romans 13:8—Owe no one anything except to love one another, for he who loves another has fulfilled the law.

John 3:36a—He who believes in the Son has everlasting life.

1 John 1:7—But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.