Are we really “Pharisees”?

Defending Contending has an excellent post here.

So often biblical Christians are slammed with the insult of being called Pharisees by other less discerning Christians. So what is a Pharisee and what did they actually do/believe? DefCon gives half a dozen examples of biblical evidence of real Pharisees and just as many reasons why Online Discerning Ministries (ODMs) are not pharisaical at all.

In conclusion, DefCon states:

Now let’s render a verdict, shall we? The Pharisees taught the
following:

*They denied that they were sinners by birth (an idea we do not believe or teach)
*They placed man-made traditions, extra-biblical writings, and oral traditions above the written word of God (an idea we do not believe or teach)
*They believed that health, wealth and prosperity indicated God’s blessing on a person, and that the rich were more likely to go to Heaven. They also taught that illness and poverty were signs that the person was under God’s curse. (ideas we do not believe or teach)
*They denied the Deity of Christ (we, in fact, affirm the Deity of Christ)
*They taught that one earned salvation by works (an idea we do not believe or teach)
*They needed “signs and wonders” in order to believe that Christ was the Son of God (an idea we do not believe or teach)

Hmmmmmm……………So, how is it exactly that WE are “Pharisees” if we don’t
believe or teach anything that the Pharisees believed or taught? It seems like
the ones who are calling us “Pharisees” are, in fact, Pharisees
themselves.

Furthermore, I believe that none of these things are optional. Christians cannot even suggest nor believe that Biblical Doctrine is optional to believe. In other words, God's standard holds for all people and isn't up for a debate. Either all of His Word is true, or none of it is. Therefore, its not an option to believe in the Deity of Jesus Christ---while many say its what they believe, not all hold all others up by this standard--its merely a personal preference and therefore to condemn us for condemning others in denying the deity of Jesus Christ, they still are pharisees. The same holds true for Salvation by faith alone, Justification alone, etc.

The Sermon on the Mount by Jesus is three chapters long, in which He "deconstructs" the Pharisee's leaven and shows the TRUTH of Scripture. In other words, the Lord wasn't saying pick and choose what you like from the Pharisees and Scribes since they have some truth. No, rather, He was rejecting them wholely (starting with His first action in His earthly ministry which was a call to spiritual war on them on their own "turf" (as they saw it) when He cleansed the Temple and then did it again at the end of His ministry). He showed how utterly blind and dead those men truly were. For further reading go here.