So far, there is no essential difference, that I can see, between the Pharisaic teaching and that of the Gospels, or the New Testament generally, about reward and punishment. The difference that does exist is due to the fact that Pharisaism was the religion of Torah. For here the divine approval or disapproval was necessarily associated in an especial degree with the "Mitzvōth," the precepts which expressed the will of God for the conduct of man. To say that there is a reward for doing a "Mitzvah" is no more out of keeping with true piety than to say there is a reward for praying to the Father which seeth in secret. In each case it only means that the act of devotion to God, whatever form it take, is acceptable to Him, and His blessing is given to the doer of it. Now, the Mitzvōth were clearly-defined, specific acts; and the Pharisee, as has been already pointed out in a previous chapter, regarded them not as irksome constraints, but as welcome opportunities for serving God. The more Mitzvōth he could meet with the better. If, by doing them, he could thereby please God, what more could he wish for? Certainly he looked for reward; but the joy of service and the blessing of God was the reward he looked for. That is the real mind of the Pharisee in regard to reward. And if some Pharisees interpreted the blessing of God in a material sense, to be shown in outward prosperity, while others interpreted it in a spiritual sense, that is only a difference of temperament as between particular Pharisees. What the reward should be, in what way God would show His approval and give His blessing, was as God should please. The Pharisee served Him with gladness and zeal; and only hoped (as Christians also have been invited to hope) that God might say to him: "Well done, good and faithful servant, enter thou into the joy of thy Lord."