For the past few weeks we have followed Jesus response to
the Pharisees challenging His miraculous credentials. Their arguments seem to have swayed many
people to reject Jesus as Messiah, yet they still enjoyed hearing Him and
experiencing His healing—apparently, even if it was supposedly the work of
Beelzebub! The heart of the problem was
one of authority. Jesus had challenged the authority of the Pharisees. Everyone claimed that they wanted the kingdom
of heaven but they weren’t so sure about wanting to live like one of the
blessed citizens.
We have a similar issue today—what I call the problem of
‘cafeteria Christians.’ I’ll have some love, justice and mercy for me
(not my neighbor). Skip the truth—it’s
too convicting. Transform my neighbor.
She needs it, but I’m just fine.
So, Jesus taught regarding the nature of the kingdom—in
parables. The kingdom was not universal
in membership but it would affect the entire world. Some would reject and others would accept
this message with varying degrees of enthusiasm and dedication. It would start small but would be
thorough. It was God’s highest desire
for which He would pay the highest price.
Then Matthew records how even Jesus’ own family and hometown
rejected Him as a teacher—just as His people would ultimately reject Him. (We know His mother and at least two of His
brothers were later totally on board just as we know that His own people will
also one day be totally on board.) And
yet, even non-Jewish Edomite Herod seemed to believe up to a point. And many other people were desperate enough
to trust Jesus for miracles of healing and provision.
Now in Matthew
15:1-20 the Pharisees were back with some legal experts from Jerusalem and
they wanted to prove that Jesus wasn’t following some universal Jewish
traditions—some things agreed upon by both the Sadducees and the
Pharisees. This was a set of customs
called the Halakhoth: the “traditions of the elders.” They are not found in Scripture but are long
standing traditions that are supposed to help the Jews maintain their purity of
religion.
In Matthew 15, the
immediate issue was the custom of ‘washing away’ impurity from contact with non-Jews. So, you washed before and after eating, after
coming from the marketplace, or after a journey. You washed pots and pans and containers. You always used a tiny container holding
perhaps half a pint of water taken from a ceremonially pure stone container or
from a flowing stream. The washing had
nothing to do with dirt but had everything to do with ‘ceremonial uncleanness.’ When you washed your hands, you made a fist
and let the water dribble down to your wrists.
Then you were considered clean.
Jesus taught His disciples that this was unnecessary and the Pharisees
hit on Him for opposing a universally accepted custom.
Now it was not wrong to
do all these washings—except those who maintained these traditions began to see
them as a simple way of verifying one’s righteousness. Jesus could have just followed the custom so
as not to upset the people (and given the Pharisees an opening to accuse
Him). But something very important was
at stake here. There is NO substitute
for righteousness of the heart.
Jesus needed to give authoritative easily understood proof
that these Halakhoth (traditions) were blinding them to their need for true
righteousness. He pointed to another tradition
that was also one of the eleven universally accepted Halakhoth. The Jews called
it Corban meaning “dedicated to God.” This
sounds mighty righteous, doesn’t it? The custom was originally instituted to
allow a person to promise to give some property or some money to the Temple
upon death but to go on using it as if it still belonged to you until
then. It benefited both the Temple
treasury and the ‘donor,” in that, no one could attach this property for a debt
and the Temple was constantly being enriched as people died. Also, people who were owed money or who
claimed they were owed money could declare that debt as Corban thus making the
other person guilty of wrongfully withholding money belonging to the Temple. Yet
if the debt were paid the person collecting it could still withhold it from the
temple since it did not pass to the Temple until their demise! Jesus
was pointing out that some people were doing this just so they didn’t have to
provide for their elderly parents. The
whole thing had become a con game for people’s greed. There was nothing righteous about it.
But what about the hand washing tradition? (You’re evading the issue, Jesus.) So, Jesus, after establishing that some
traditions contradicted the Law of God, went on and demonstrated that this
particular tradition did not do what they taught it did—namely, it did not
remove true defilement. Hand washing
removes only exterior filth but it has no value with regard to spiritual
defilement. Such impurities come from
the heart as He has taught them over and over again. Our heart needs to be cleansed because that
is where external sin is born. Little do
they know that this is what Jesus has come to do.
Now after his explanation that the traditions of men could
not and did not replace the actual commandments of God, He quoted from Isaiah
22:13 to the effect that their misplaced tradition had the effect of
distracting them from the true worship of God because this replacement had
become disobedience.
Things got pretty uncomfortable and even Jesus’ disciples
became somewhat fearful of offending the Pharisees and mentioned the fact to
Jesus. But Jesus compared their reliance
on extraneous traditions to weeds that will be destroyed at harvest time. He also pointed out that this was due to
blindness on their part. They really
thought they were guiding people but the awful truth was that they would lead
many to destruction.
Notice that Peter still didn’t understand that the Pharisees
were providing a cure for an imaginary defilement while being completely
oblivious to real defilement which resides in the heart. (By the way, Jesus came, not only to forgive the sins of the body and the
sins of the heart, but also to cleanse
us—1 John 1:9.)
Even today, it is still possible to maintain a list of “don’ts”
or even “dos” that can serve to distract us from our need for heart
righteousness—even when the list itself may be Biblical. I may think that because I have maintained
the external standards—I have controlled my behavior—and now I am “good to go.” That’s Pharisaical righteousness! The behavior may be commendable but what about my
heart?
© 2018 Eric Thimell
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