Having determined on the basis of the Old Testament commandments the essence of religious life and the main duty of man – love for God, the Lord further shifts the thought of His listeners to the fact that the Messiah, promised by the prophets, is also God, and therefore boundless love for Him and devotion on the part of man is an indispensable duty of the latter. The scribes, speaking of the Messiah, most often had in mind His human origin and the mention of Him mainly as a descendant of David. This flattered their pride and self-love, for they also saw in themselves relatives in the flesh of the Great Messiah, but, on the other hand, it weakened the religious feeling of reverence for Him as for God, transferring Him to the realm of ordinary human relations of kindred love. Meanwhile, even for David, the forefather of Christ, the Messiah was first of all Lord and God, before Whom the king and psalmist bowed with a feeling of religious reverence. The Lord reminds His listeners of this, warning them against the mistake of the scribes. The unspoken, presumptive answer to the Savior's question should be this: Yes, Christ the Messiah is the Son and descendant of David by human nature, but He is God by His essence. Here, perhaps, for the first time, the Lord gives His disciples and people a hint, albeit not a direct one, that He is not an ordinary man, but a God-man. It is doubtful, however, that any of the people fully understood Him, and it is possible that only a few of His disciples only vaguely penetrate into this mystery.

If Christ is God, then first of all those who considered themselves the leaders of the people and stood guard over their spiritual life, that is, the scribes and priests, should have understood this. They were the first to recognize the Lord Jesus as the Savior and Messiah and to treat Him with the love that befits God.

But they did not want to and could not do this, and the main reason was that there was no sincere desire and love for God in their hearts. They loved only themselves, they loved the honor, the glory, the respect of the crowd, they loved the material benefits of life, and all their service to God was hypocritical, calculated only to be valued and honored by people. With such a heart, they could not draw near to God, guess the divine personality of the Savior and love Him undivided as God. Therefore, heavy condemnation was inevitable for them.

Much closer to God were simple, poor people, but who loved Him with all their hearts. The poor widow, who gave her last codrant to the temple, was infinitely higher than these arrogant, hypocritical, proud, self-confident scribes, and it is she who the Lord sets up as an example to His disciples, for with the codrant she also gave her heart.

Such is the inner connection of the themes of this Gospel passage.

All of them are united by one basic idea – the need for sincere, heartfelt service to Christ.

The main obstacle to such service is those vices which the Lord notes in the scribes, against which He warns His listeners, and which may be called the chief vices of the heart, in the presence of which the Christian life is impossible, for they nullify and condemn to fruitlessness all the attempts and efforts of the pious will.

These vices are defined in the words of the Saviour as follows: beware of the scribes, who love to walk in long robes (which indicates vanity) and to receive greetings in public assemblies (love of glory), to sit in front of the synagogues and recline in the first place at feasts (ambition), — these who devour the houses of widows (covetousness) and ostentatiously pray for a long time (hypocrisy) will receive the most grievous condemnation (vv. 38-40).

Thus, vanity, love of glory, ambition, greed, and hypocrisy are the main vices that hinder the Christian service to God.

It is not difficult to see that all these vices are essentially nothing but man's service to himself, to his "I," and therein lies the whole trouble. It is impossible to serve two masters at once, and the one who, along with God, places the idol of his "I" in his heart, will inevitably depart from God. We have already seen before and know that there must be a single center of human life and activity - God. These vices represent the substitution of this center for another, and this explains why they make the Christian life fruitless.

The first three vices, vanity, love of glory, and ambition, are vices of the same kind, the chief motive being the love of human glory. A person cares most of all about what people think of him, how they treat him, cares about their opinion, respect, and disposition towards him. For him it is more important to appear than to be in reality, and the opinion of the crowd is more precious than the sentence of God,

Such were the Pharisees, who loved the glory of men more than the glory of God (Jn. XII, 43). That was the biggest obstacle for them to recognize the Messiah in Jesus Christ. "How can you believe," the Saviour reproaches them, "when you receive glory from one another, and do not seek the glory that is from the One God? (Jn. V, 44). They did all their deeds with the expectation that people would glorify them. But when they achieve this, they already receive their reward (Matt. VI, 2). They could no longer expect a reward from God. As St. Nilus of Sinai says, "A vain Christian is a free worker: he bears labor, but does not receive rewards." This is quite natural: since a person serves not God, but himself and human glory, then, obviously, his service cannot be a merit before God. Moreover, it is an undoubted sin in the face of God as a direct violation of the second commandment. That is why the Lord severely punished for the sins of pride and ambition even people who pleased Him, as we see in the example of the unfortunate king of Judah, Uzziah.

Uzziah was sixteen years old when he became king, and fifty-two years he reigned in Jerusalem... And he did what was right in the sight of the Lord, just as Amaziah his father did; and he ran to God in the days of Zechariah, who taught the fear of God; and in those days when he ran to the Lord, God helped him. And he went out and fought with the Philistines, and broke down the walls of Gath, and the walls of Jabnesi, and the walls of Ashdod; and he built cities in the region of Ashdod, and among the Philistines... And the Ammonites gave tribute to Uzziah, and his name came to the borders of Egypt, because he was very strong. And Uzziah built towers in Jerusalem... and... towers in the wilderness, and cut out many cisterns, because he had many cattle, both in the lowlands and in the plains, and farmers and gardeners in the mountains and in Carmel... Uzziah also had an army... a military force of three hundred and seven thousand five hundred, who entered the battle with military courage, to help the tsar against the enemy... And he made in Jerusalem skillfully invented machines... for throwing arrows and large stones. And his name flew far away, for he miraculously guarded himself and became strong. But when he became strong, his heart became proud to his destruction, and he became a transgressor before the Lord his God, for he went into the temple of the Lord to burn incense on the altar of incense. And Azariah the priest went after him, and with him eighty priests of the Lord, men of distinction, and they resisted Uzziah the king, and said to him, It is not for you, Uzziah, to burn incense to the Lord; this is the work of the priests, the sons of Aaron, who are ordained to incense; Come out of the sanctuary, for you have done wrong, and it will not be for you to honor the Lord God. And Uzziah was angry, and in his hand was a censer for incense; and when he was angry with the sower of the sorcerers, the leprosy appeared on his forehead, in the presence of the priests, in the house of the Lord, at the altar of incense. And Azariah the high priest and all the priests looked at him; and behold, he has leprosy on his forehead. And they compelled him to come out of there, and he himself hastened to depart, because the Lord had struck him. And king Uzziah was a leper until the day of his death, and he dwelt in a separate house, and was excommunicated from the house of the Lord (2 Chron. XXVI, 3-6, 8-13, 15-21).

Such was the outward punishment sent by the Lord to Uzziah for the sin of vanity and ambition. The internal inevitable consequence of this sin is falling away from God and forgetting Him.