Matthew
15:1
At the start of Matthew Chapter 15, the
Pharisees come against Jesus again to attack him, to try to accuse him,
and to try to trip him up. Instead, what actually happens is that their own
hypocrisy and godlessness is revealed. When
you are tempted to point a finger at someone, remember
that you have three other fingers pointing back at yourself. As Jesus said in
the Sermon on the Mount, "Judge not, that you be not judged." Matthew 15:1-2 says, "Then came to Jesus scribes and
Pharisees, which were of
It is important to understand
the failures of the Pharisees. The Pharisees were a strict religious group that
failed to know what it meant to worship God. The failure of the Pharisees is
the failure of legalism. There are many similarities between the Pharisees and
many of the religious organizations of our day. This failure is
the classic example of law versus grace. We are saved by grace through faith.
By the deeds of the law shall no flesh be justified. All
false religions are in some way based upon legalism, the idea that a human can
merit the favor of God through their own actions or through the keeping of some
list of good deeds.
The Gospel of Jesus Christ emphasizes the
fact that God came into the world to save sinners, sinners who are incapable of
saving themselves through their own efforts and who are undeserving of being
saved. Everyone who goes to heaven will have this in common: they are sinners
who were saved only by the grace of God through Christ. Only a sinner who turns
from their sins, and turns to Jesus for the forgiveness of sins, can understand
the grace of God. You will not understand God’s grace until you experience it
as a penitent sinner.
Anyone who rejects God’s grace
has only one option left if they want to be involved in religion. They will become involved in legalism,
because they will attempt to achieve salvation through human effort. Of course, they will never be able to do
enough to be truly justified. The Bible says in Romans
Those who embed themselves in
legalistic religions usually become critical of others. They are especially
judgmental of others who do not make the same attempt as they do to obey their
laws. Plus, they often tend to become self-righteous about their own good deeds
forgetting Luke 18:19 that says, “None is
good, save one, that is, God.”
This harsh, judgmental, and self-righteous attitude was exactly the problem
of the Pharisees when they came against Jesus. When they condemned Jesus
because His disciples did not wash their hands before eating, the Pharisees were not concerned about cleanliness.
Instead they were talking about a ceremonial washing. This ceremonial washing
was supposed to be a symbolism for washing away the contamination of the
sinfulness of the world. However, the Pharisees gave a legalistic meaning to the
washing instead of its true spiritual emphasis. Therefore, in the judgments of
the Pharisees anyone
who did not do this washing was contaminated by sin when they ate with unwashed
hands.
The Pharisees had asked Jesus, “Why do your disciples transgress the tradition of the
elders? for they wash not their hands when they eat bread." But Jesus did not answer
their question. Instead He exposed one of the great
errors of the Pharisees. In Matthew 15:3 the Bible says, "But he answered
and said unto them, Why do you also transgress the commandment of God by your
tradition?"
In spite of the accusations of the
Pharisees, the disciples of Jesus had committed no sin because the ceremony of
the washing of hands was merely a human religious tradition. It was
not a commandment of God. In contrast to the
disciples being innocent, the Pharisees were
guilty of using man-made traditions to break
God’s commandment. Be careful of following human traditions in religious
organizations. The keeping
of man-made religious traditions in an attempted service to God can cause you
to actually break God’s commandments.
Unfortunately, many human traditions are still being taught in religious organizations today, and these traditions are often taught as if they are
the commandments of God. There are hundreds of examples that we could choose to illustrate this problem of human traditions and
how these human traditions permeate the core teachings of many Christian
churches. For
instance, let’s use the example of water baptism. Water baptism is taught in many different
ways, depending upon which church you attend. Also,
both the method of baptism and the meaning of baptism vary widely in the way that they are taught by various churches.
Obviously, all of the different church
teachings on baptism cannot be right.
Therefore, we must conclude that: 1. Either one church teaching is correct and
the others are all wrong, or 2. All of the churches are wrong about what they
teach on water baptism.
With either case, it means that
there are a tremendous number of people who teach and perform traditions of men as if they are commandments from
God, when they are not. They teach water baptism in a way that is the tradition
of men and is not the commandment of God. Those are the kinds of falsehoods
that exist in organized religion. As time passes many churches often accept
more and more human traditions that have crept into their doctrines. When that
happens, they will end up with the same result as what happened with
the Pharisees, and Jesus said in Matthew 15:9, "But in vain they
do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men."
There are a
couple of actions that you can take to make sure that you do not accept
the traditions of men in place of the commandments of God. Always retain the Bible as your final authority.
Never allow a human’s opinion to be your final authority;
not a preacher, not a pastor, not a teacher, and not a church
organization. The written Word of God and only
the written Word of God must be your final authority in all matters of faith
and practice. Remember that the Bible says in Acts 17:11 that the believers of
Another thing that you can do
to make sure that you do not fall under the error of human tradition is to
remember that denominational differences did not exist during the time
of the first century Christians. At that time a person was either a believer
and a follower of Jesus, or they were not. The differences between the various
denominations were developed over the centuries as human tradition became more and more embedded in
these denominations. You can avoid falling into the errors of human tradition
that may be taught by your denomination by remembering like the first century
believers: a Christian is a follower of Jesus and not a follower of man’s
teachings.
In Matthew 15:4-6 Jesus showed the
Pharisees the exact commandment that they had violated because of their
tradition. Jesus said, "For God commanded, saying, Honor your father and mother;
and, He that curses father or mother, let him die the death. But you say,
Whosoever shall say to his father or his mother, It is a gift, by whatsoever
you might be profited by me; and honor not his father or mother, he shall be
free. Thus have you made the commandment of God of none effect by your
tradition."
The Pharisees had
attempted to justify ignoring the needs of their aging parents. In a day
when there was no social security and no retirement funds, it was critical that
aging parents be helped by their children. The Pharisees
purposely avoided contributing to the necessity of their parents and tried to
justify their actions
by claiming that they needed to use their financial resources for the
furthering of their religious goals. What they
had really done was to transgress the commandment of God by their tradition.
The commandment that the Pharisees had
violated was the one that said, "Honor your father and your mother." This is one of the Ten Commandments and was
quoted by Jesus from Exodus 20:12. Two of the Ten Commandments directly
addressed family life. One of them was written to husbands and wives and said, "Thou shall not
commit adultery." The commandment
that directly relates to the parent-child relationship is the one that Jesus
quoted, "Honor
your father and your mother."
The commandment
to “honor your
father and mother” is a very important
commandment for the family unit and for society, and
therefore the failure of the Pharisees to keep it was a very great failure. The
responsibility of obeying this commandment is placed upon the child. Children
are accountable to the Lord for honoring and obeying their parents. Children
who do not honor and obey, have disobeyed the Lord’s will for them, and their
lives will ultimately suffer negative consequences for rejection of God’s way.
Everyone makes their own choices, including children. God’s way is always the best way, and
in most situations no human being will care more for a child than the parent. The
best advice that most children get will come from
those loving parents. If a child throws away good advice, where does that leave
him or her?
Almost every parent wants their
children to do what is right, and desires their children to choose the good
path and not the evil path. There are many evil paths that children can choose
to take. For example, more and more children are choosing to do drugs. I have
never known a parent who wanted their children to use drugs. One thing is for
sure, most parents warn their children not to take drugs and hate drug abuse.
It is not the fault of the parents. It is the fault of the children who chose
to use drugs in spite of the warnings of the parents. Usually, it is when the wise council of the loving parent is ignored that the child becomes known as a foolish child and
suffers the consequences of a bad decision. The day that more children honor
their parents like Jesus said to do, is the day that drug use will go down
instead of up. It also will be the day that
better decisions in all categories of life will be made by children.
The commandment to honor your father and
mother is important because of the warning that goes with it. Exodus
Jesus quoted the book of Isaiah in His
denunciation of the Pharisees. In Matthew 15:7-9 Jesus said to the Pharisees, "You hypocrites,
well did Isaiah prophesy of you, saying, This people draws near unto me with
their mouth, and honors me with their lips; but their heart is far from me. But
in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men." Evidently Jesus was trying to make a point
about the Pharisees, and Jesus wanted to make it very clear why and where the
Pharisees failed. Three times Jesus referred to the traditions of the Pharisees
as being the key to their failure. Jesus said in verse 3, "Why do you also
transgress the commandment of God by your tradition?" In verse 6 Jesus said, "Thus have you made
the commandment of God of no effect by your tradition." And in verse 9 Jesus said, "But in vain they
do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men."
The Pharisees had accused
Jesus’ disciples of defiling themselves because unlike the Pharisees the
disciples did not do the ceremonial washing before eating. In Matthew 15:10-11
Jesus answered the Pharisees criticism of the disciples. The Bible says,
"And he
called the multitude, and said unto them, Hear and understand: Not that which
goes into the mouth defiles a man; but that which comes out of the mouth, this
defiles a man." Even though what
Jesus said seems clear enough to us, Peter did
not understand it, so he asked Jesus to explain. Matthew
In Matthew 15:17-20 Jesus said, "Do not you yet
understand, that whatever enters in at the mouth goes into the belly, and is
cast out into the draught? But those things which proceed out of the mouth come
forth from the heart, and they defile the man. For out of the heart proceed
evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness,
blasphemies: These are the things which defile a man: but to eat with unwashen hands does not defile a man."
It is clear from this passage of scripture that Jesus is teaching that neither water nor
a religious ceremony that involves
water is able to cleanse us from sin. In
order to understand what cleanses from sin, we must
also understand what
really defiles a person. If you have
been defiled, it will be because of what comes out of your heart. And
therefore, if you become cleansed, the cleansing must also take place in your
heart. There is no religious ceremony that can accomplish that cleansing.
Cleansing from sin is given by Jesus Christ in the spiritual experience of the
new birth. The Bible says in Romans 10:10, “For
with the heart man
believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto
salvation.”
In Matthew 15:17-20 Jesus told
us what defiles a man: “For out of the heart proceed
evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness,
blasphemies.” In the list of evil deeds that Jesus gives that defile a person, the
thing that Jesus listed first, “evil
thoughts,” is really
the precursor of all the other sins. Evil deeds start with an evil thought
process. If you can keep your thoughts right, the right deeds will naturally
follow. But if you cannot keep your thoughts right, the wrong deeds will
follow. Proverbs says, "Keep your heart with all
diligence, for out of it are the issues of life." Of the sins listed by Jesus that
defile a person, two are sexual sins: adultery and fornication. Then there is
the terrible sin of violence, the murder of one’s fellow man. Jesus mentioned the sin of blasphemy
against God, and the two common sins of mankind: stealing and lying. The great
evil that can come out of the human heart is very disquieting. Thank God that
He provided a means for us to be saved from our sins by sending Jesus into the
world to die for the sins of the world. Because of Jesus, everyone has the opportunity to turn from their
sins and to receive forgiveness from Him. Have you confessed your own
sinfulness, and turned to Jesus for forgiveness?
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Copyright; 2007 by Charles F. (Rick) Creech
All Rights Reserved