Like the last episode, this program demonstrates that all people, whether religious or secular, do not meet the righteous standards of God. The Pharisees' tendency was to divorce outward behavior and practice from the essence of the Law, which was love of God and neighbor. They replaced God's standard of righteousness with their own. Unbelievers do the same, primarily by appealing to obedience to the civil authority as the standard of goodness. As long as unbelievers aren't ax-murderers and don't commit felonies, most conclude they're basically good people. Well unbelievers are guilty of the same deflecting as Pharisees were: they both substitute their own standards for God's standards. The episode concludes that all are convicted as sinners and should abandon all hope of being good and doing good deeds apart from trusting in the One who was good for them, namely Jesus Christ.
Hypocrisy: When “Good” Deeds Reek
This episode and the next several focus on the 8 woes of Christ against the Pharisees in Matthew 23. The series has so far demonstrated that "good works" are contingent on a good heart. Extrinsic goodness or outwardly good works must flow from a good heart in order to be characterized as good. Since none has a good heart (Romans 3:10-12), no one can produce "good" works, based on God's standard. Christ's 8 woes against the Pharisees underscore this point, recording possibly the most devastating rebuke of hypocrisy in all of Scripture. Christ essentially concludes that all the Pharisees' outwardly good deeds were in fact corrupted because they arose from a corrupt heart. Christ commanded "first clean the inside of the cup and of the dish, SO THAT the outside of it may become clean also." (Mt 23:26) Outwardly "good" works are unclean when the inward condition of the heart remains dirty. The rest of Scripture provides the answer with a new clean heart provided in regeneration.