In his excellent book, Shepherding a Child’s Heart, Tedd Tripp points to a familiar scenario that all parents with multiple children have no doubt experienced. Your children are playing together when suddenly a fight breaks out over some toy. Perhaps each of them in holding on to one end of the toy or, as I’ve seen, one has it, is rolled over to keep the other one from grabbing it, and the other child is fighting tooth and nail to get his hand on that toy. So you hear the yelling, screaming, and fighting, and what do you do?
Well, the temptation is simply to ask, “Who had it first?” and direct the child who did not have it first to either stop trying to get the toy or hand the toy over. But, Tripp points out that this response (which I feel like I mastered, especially as my kids were younger) misses the point because it misses the heart. He writes, “If we look at this situation in terms of the heart, the issues change. Now you have two offenders. Both children are displaying a hardness of heart toward the other. Both are being selfish. Both children are saying, ‘I don’t care about you or your happiness. I am only concerned about myself. I want this toy. My happiness depends on possessing it. I will have it and be happy regardless of what that means to you.’”1
Consequently, as you would expect, Tripp warns that it’s not sufficient to deal with external behaviors. We must deal with our children’s hearts. But the reason this is hard to accept, especially if you’re a parent of young children and know how often scenarios like the one Tripp describes happens, is that simply addressing the external behaviors is so much easier. We’re no doubt tempted to think, “If I keep taking this shortcut of by-passing the heart, won’t it eventually work?”
The same thought often occurs in the pursuit of holiness in our own lives. There is a certain discipline of focusing on the heart that I at least am often tempted to want to by-pass, taking the shortcut of focusing merely on external behaviors and fixing them. But Jesus warns us in our text this morning that merely focusing on the external is insufficient for dealing with defiled hearts in his confrontation with the scribes and Pharisees.
Therefore, what I want to do this morning is simply give us some headers to walk through and understand the text itself while also providing a note of application for us under each one of them. Let’s then look at our text, where we first see:
The specific situation here in Matthew 15:1-20 is that a group of scribes and Pharisees come from Jerusalem to deal with Jesus. That is, these weren’t just the local guys but probably a contingent of scribes and Pharisees even more highly recognized than others. And immediately, they come to Jesus, recognizing something that his disciples are doing wrong, they believe. Matthew says that they come to Jesus and ask him, “Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands when they eat” (v. 2).
Now, before we are tempted to panic and think that Jesus is allowing his disciples to sin openly as they travel around, we need to recognize that there is no commandment in the OT that commands God’s people to wash their hands before eating. The only command that deals with hand washing is a command strictly for the priests who must wash their hands before going into the tabernacle or eating the sacrificial food.
So, how did the Pharisees get this thought that one should wash his hands before eating. Well, there are really two streams that contributed to this moment. On the one hand, there developed a tradition of teaching from the rabbis outlining particulars in how to obey certain laws. Remember, for example, when we looked at Jesus’ confrontation with the Pharisees over the Sabbath. The Sabbath command made clear that one was not to work, but it didn’t outline specifically every action that might constitute work. Therefore, the rabbis began putting together lists of actions that constituted work, these were shared, and eventually this tradition of the teaching of the elders was considered as binding as Scripture. You have Scripture, and you have the tradition of the elders.
The other stream was a tendency to “build a fence around the Law.” That is, the rabbis thought to themselves, “If we shouldn’t do something, then we should make a rule that makes that action not even possible.” So, for example, if sexual immorality is sinful (and it is), then they might make a rule that an unmarried man and woman can never be in a room together alone. After all, if a man and a woman are never together alone in a room, then they will not be able to commit sexual immorality.
However, what happened over time is that the application (an unmarried man and woman not being alone together in a room) became understood as law itself, rather than a practical and helpful application of how one might be able to keep the law.
It seems that this is what happened with this tradition of washing hands before eating. The rabbis most likely reasoned something like, if the law commands the priests to wash hands before eating the sacrificial offering then that must be a holy act. And if we want all people to be holy, then there’s no reason we shouldn’t strive for all people to mimic this holy act of the priests. Therefore, all people should wash their hands before eating. This expansion of the law, then, became the oral tradition of the elders, and ultimately was understood as being a binding law itself on God’s people. And that brings us to our scene here in Matthew 15 where the Pharisees and scribes from Jerusalem ask Jesus, “Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands when they eat” (v. 2).
Now the setting that has produced this question alone leads to one point we need to apply from this text, namely,
We must beware of establishing binding laws for other believers that the Bible doesn’t command
Again, I don’t think I need to explain further why this is a legitimate point to draw from this text because we’ve walked through how the Jewish rabbis did this very thing that led to this moment wherein the Pharisees are ready to condemn Jesus’ disciples for not doing something that the Scripture itself doesn’t command.
But I do want to elaborate on the warning itself. It’s good and fine for us to make rules for ourselves and our family that are not explicitly given to us in Scripture. For example, you may make a rule that because of the threat of internet pornography, you nor anyone in your family will have a smart phone. That is a fine and good decision that reflects a zeal for righteousness. But what you can’t then do is begin judging your brother who has a smart phone. You see? After all, you can imagine a few years down the road one church member condemning another for breaking the command not to have a smart phone, forgetting that there is no command, simply a tradition established as a helpful guide for a particular family that ultimately was seen as a binding law for everyone. We must guard against that.
Now, continuing on in the text, we see:
Now, you would think that with their focus on the law being so extreme that they’re even establishing laws to keep themselves from breaking the law that though they don’t believe, at least they should be living holy lives. But Jesus’ response to these men show that this is clearly not the case.
In verses 3-9, Jesus points out that the Pharisees and scribes, with their obsession over these extra-biblical laws and their denial of the gospel, have actually grown in sin not holiness. They are hypocrites. He points this out by noting a certain tradition from the elders they practice that actually leads them to violate an explicit command of God.
Jesus says, “And why do you break the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition? For God commanded, ‘Honor your father and your mother,’ and ‘Whoever reviles father or mother must surely die.’ But you say, ‘If anyone tells his father or his mother, “What you would have gained from me is given to God,” he need not honor his father.’ So for the sake of your tradition you have made void the word of God” (vv. 3-6).
Now, what Jesus was referring to here when he mentions them declared something “given to God” was a tradition and practice called “Corban.” The idea of declaring something “Corban” is declaring that some possession of yours is devoted to the Lord. This was most often practiced with one’s land.
So, think, for example, that you have a few acres of farmland, and you decide that you want to devote this land to the Lord. Well, that’s a good thing. So, you would declare it “Corban,” and you would notify the religious leaders that you’re committing your land to the Lord. And what this would mean is that once you died, the land would become the property of the religious leaders (to be used of the Lord). Again, all that sounds great.
But the precise mechanics of this practice were a bit odd. After you committed the land to the Lord, you could still use the land for yourself. In fact, the land could benefit you until you died. However, the land could not be used to benefit your parents. After all, you had given the land to the Lord, not to your parents.
Consequently, imagine that your parents suffered a financial catastrophe, and needed your help. And the only way you could help them was by using the asset of your land to provide for them. Well, if you went to the religious leaders and said, “I need to use my land for my parents well-being,” the answer would have been, “No. You’ve already devoted it to the Lord.”
Thus, Jesus points out that though the Law clearly commanded that one should honor his parents and even that to revile one’s parents was a crime punishable by death, they were not permitting one to honor his parents because he had to abide by the tradition of the elders – keeping the land devoted solely to the Lord.
Therefore, Jesus calls them hypocrites. On the outside, they appear great. They’re abiding by all these laws that go beyond even the Scripture itself. But actually, their hearts are still defiled. So, Jesus notes that Isaiah the people that Isaiah condemned in his day, saying that they honored the Lord with their lips while their hearts were far from him and worshiped him in appearance while teaching the commandments of men as if they were commandments of God, are exactly what they are. Isaiah was prophesying against these very people.
This provides a great word of application to us.
We must not ignore the gospel and focus merely on rules, for it will only lead to hypocrisy
Now, I think this may seem counter-intuitive. We often think of the gospel as the reason why we’re forgiven of our sins, cleansed before God, and accepted by him. Therefore, when we think of a pursuit of holiness, we often want to move on from the gospel and merely focus on laws, commands, and rules.
And when you combine that with the fact that we are all legalists at heart, just yearning and longing for giving ourselves over to the idea that I am justified somehow other than on the basis of faith in the finished work of Christ alone, we are all on the doorstep of going down this path.
To ignore the gospel, thinking it is merely the salve of forgiveness we apply when we sin is to misunderstand the gospel. Its’ to misunderstand grace. Paul wrote to Titus in Titus 2:11-12 that the “grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age.” The gospel of grace is the key means by which our hearts are trained to renounce ungodliness and live godly lives in the present age.
Jerry Bridges, who just recently went to be with the Lord, wrote a book that probably affected anyone who read it, titled, The Pursuit of Holiness. Well, after that book, he wrote another book titled, The Discipline of Grace. And here is what he wrote in his opening paragraph of that book:
I think Bridges is right. We see it in the extreme with the Pharisees who have denied the gospel altogether and merely focused on laws, even manmade laws. However, the same reality can occur in our lives if we turn away from a focus, by faith, in the gospel and merely look to law in our pursuit of holiness. It will lead to joyless hypocrisy. And we see why in verses 10-20. There, we see:
In verses 10-11 Jesus says to the people around him, “Hear and understand: it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out of the mouth; this defiles a person.” Then, his disciples inform him that he’s offended the Pharisees when he said that. So, Jesus simply informs them that these Pharisees do not know or belong to God. He says, “Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be rooted up. Let them alone; they are blind guides. And if the blind lead the blind, both will fall into a pit” (vv. 13-14). The Pharisees looked good on the outside to many and appeared godly with their strict teaching, but they actually didn’t know the Lord himself.
In the OT, God’s people were pictured as a plant, a vine that God himself had planted. Thus, when Jesus says that they are not a plant planted by God, he is saying that they do not know God or belong to God. They’re not leading you to the Father but are like blind guides. Therefore, to follow the Pharisees is to be led around by one who is blind. That’s something that you don’t want to do if you’re walking in an area where to fall may cost you your life, and how much more when eternal life is at stake.
The disciples, then, seeing that they’ve not followed Jesus’ teaching that clearly to this point decide they should just go ahead admit that they didn’t understand Jesus’ parable from verse 11, when Jesus says that it’s not what one eats or drinks that defiles a person, so they ask him to explain it to them. Therefore, Jesus answers, “Are you still without understanding? Do you not see that whatever goes into the mouth passes into the stomach and is expelled? But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a person. For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a person. But to eat with unwashed hands does not defile anyone” (vv. 16-20).
With this teaching, not only is Jesus making clear that the OT food laws are not binding on those on this side of the death and resurrection of Christ, but he’s reminding us that our core problem is not external behavior.
That is, our problem is that we have defiled hearts. And simply making laws, even laws that build a fence around God’s laws, simply isn’t sufficient for changing our defiled hearts. You can make a rule that men and women can’t walk on the same sidewalk together, but don’t think that this will purify their hearts that desire sexual immorality. You can give a pig a bath, but that won’t stop him from loving to roll around in the mud. Only the gospel can change our hearts.
This is why Paul says in Colossians 2:16-23, “Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath. . . . . If with Christ you died to the elemental spirits of the world, why, as if you were still alive in the world, do you submit to regulations—‘Do not handle, Do not taste, Do not touch’ . . . –according to human precepts and teachings? These have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-made religion and asceticism and severity to the body, but they are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh.” Only the gospel is the answer to the indulgence of the flesh. We must repent of our sins and place our faith in the one who lived, died, and was raised for us. This is what the Pharisees needed to understand. And Jesus wanted those who were tempted to follow the Pharisees to hear it as well.
And there is also a word of application for us as believers as well, namely, that:
We pursue holiness from gospel-saturated hearts
We’ve already seen that merely focusing on external laws is powerless to change our hearts. Otherwise, the Pharisees would have been quite impressive, but instead they’re hypocrites. And we’ve seen that focusing merely on external behavior is insufficient because our defilement comes from within, from our hearts. Our primary issue isn’t that we coveted our neighbor’s possessions but that we have hearts that do not love our neighbors enough not to covet his possessions.
Now, in eternity, you nor I will need a law written on the walls of heaven that says, “Do not covet,” because finally our hearts will perfectly love our neighbor such that we will not desire to covet his possessions but only do him good. Until then, I need laws and reminders that covetousness is wrong because my heart is not purified and is easily deceived and hardened by sin. In fact, I can give myself over to covetousness so long that I no longer feel in my heart that it is wrong. That’s the hardening and deceiving effect of sin on our hearts.
So, what you and I need to do is to pursue holiness by first focusing on our hearts by looking to the gospel of grace, which trains our hearts in godly living.
That is, my great strength for obedience doesn’t start by fixating on what I want to try not to do or by focusing on extra laws that might make these sins impossible to commit (i.e. the build a fence around the law strategy). Rather, our strength is found in remembering the gospel and the fact that we, by faith, are free from condemnation, credited with the righteousness of Christ, and made God’s very own children whom he loves. Then, realizing God’s love, we are moved to love him and keep his commandments. Or, in the language of Scripture, we love him because he first loved us. That is, our pursuit of holiness does not come as we flee from condemnation. We flee condemnation by running to the crucified and risen Lord in faith. Our pursuit of holiness comes from having saturated our hearts in the gospel and all it means for us.
This means that our starting point for each day is to remember the gospel and respond to it afresh as we first did in our salvation—with repentance and faith—remember all that it means for us.
Then, with a gospel-saturated heart that rests in God’s love for and delight in us, we seek to obey his commands, perhaps even thinking through certain extra-biblical means we need to take to help us obey (like getting rid of a smartphone – without binding others’ hearts with these things, of course). That is the course I believe that the Bible outlines for walking in obedience.
Now, of course, this requires great discipline. It requires the discipline of daily, faithful gospel meditation, and it’s a discipline because our hearts and souls drift away from gospel realities, toward legalism and license. And it takes the discipline of asking how we might fight sin as those who because of the gospel love and want to obey the Lord. But it is a discipline rooted and strengthened in the gospel, a discipline that flows from a gospel-saturated heart.
And if our hearts are rooted and strengthened continually in the gospel, then we are employing the appropriate means find ourselves diligent for our own holiness and willing to love our neighbors well instead of modeling the hypocritical lives and judgmental spirits pictured by the Pharisees and scribes in our text this morning. Therefore, let our first response to this text this morning be focusing ourselves afresh on the gospel as we come to the table. Amen.