THE TRADITIONS OF MEN (Mark 7:1-13)
INTRODUCTION:
As we begin chapter seven this morning we will see a shift in the tone of Mark’s gospel. Mark has mostly recorded for us the amazing supernatural works of the Lord Jesus, he did this to make his case that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God. Up to this point Mark has not included much of Jesus’ teaching with the exception of the parables in chapters three and four. By contrast, the other Gospels have large sections of Jesus’ teaching interspersed with the narrative. Beginning in Mark seven we have recorded for us some additional teaching from Jesus. This teaching is provoked by an incident which leads Jesus to indict the Pharisees and scribes with their legalism, specifically their traditions of men. When we speak of legalism, especially within the church, it is important that we define what we mean to avoid confusion, there are at least three forms of legalism by which the truth of God’s Word is distorted, Jesus confronts two of these in today’s passage.
The most basic form of legalism is also the most devastating. It is the belief that we can be justified in the sight of God by obedience to the law. This dependence on our good works is wholly and completely opposed to the way of salvation that God declares so plainly in His Word—justification by faith alone in Christ alone, who provides the only righteousness that can possibly make a person have a right standing before God. If we are trusting any other righteousness than the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ, we are caught in the snare of legalism.
A second form of legalism is the one which we will see Jesus indict the Pharisees and scribes within our passage this morning. This legalism is an elevation of the traditions of men to the point where they bind the consciences of God’s people where God has left them free. This form involves adding to the law of God commandments and prohibitions that God has not spoken.
A third form on legalism that Jesus will also address in this passage is a legalism that might be called “loophole-ism.” It happens when people try to find ways to get around the law of God. They try to keep the letter of the law even while the trample the whole point and spirit of the law underfoot. We have looked at this a little already when we looked at the prohibitions put on the Sabbath and how they got around what was called a Sabbath-day journey which allowed you only to go so far from your home on that day. The rabbis allowed a person to get around this by stashing food or personal items at various points along the route that someone planned to travel on the Sabbath. The rabbinic reasoning was that placing a personal item or some of your food on a piece of real estate established residency. On the Sabbath you could go from “domicile” to “domicile” until you reached your destination, never having traveled more than a Sabbath-day journey between stops. This was clearly “loophole-ism,” an attempt to get around the law of God regarding the keeping of the Sabbath. Let’s pray and then get into our passage for today.
--PRAY--
SCRIPTURE:
Turn in your Bibles this morning to Mark 7:1-13. Please, if you are able, stand in honor of the reading of God’s Word and follow along as I read.
Mark 7:1-13,
“The Pharisees and some of the scribes gathered around Him when they had come from Jerusalem, and had seen that some of His disciples were eating their bread with impure hands, that is, unwashed. (For the Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they carefully wash their hands, thus observing the traditions of the elders; and when they come from the market place, they do not eat unless they cleanse themselves; and there are many other things which they have received in order to observe, such as the washing of cups and pitchers and copper pots.) The Pharisees and the scribes asked Him, ‘Why do Your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat their bread with impure hands?’ And He said to them, ‘Rightly did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written: “This people honors Me with their lips, But their heart is far away from Me. But in vain do they worship Me, Teaching as doctrines the precepts of men.” Neglecting the commandment of God, you hold to the tradition of men.’ He was also saying to them, ‘You are experts at setting aside the commandment of God in order to keep your tradition. For Moses said, “Honor your father and your mother”; and, “He who speaks evil of father or mother, is to be put to death”; but you say, “If a man says to his father or his mother, whatever I have that would help you is Corban (that is to say, given to God),” you no longer permit him to do anything for his father or his mother; thus invalidating the word of God by your tradition which you have handed down; and you do many things such as that.’ ” (Mark 7:1–13, NASB95)[1]
THE PHARISEES’ INQUIRY (Mark 7:1-5)
If you remember from John’s Gospel, the feeding of the five thousand took place just before the Passover. The incident recorded here most likely took place during this same time or just after the Passover. Mark writes, “The Pharisees and some of the scribes gathered around Him when they had come from Jerusalem,” (Mark 7:1, NASB95)[2] The distance from Jerusalem to Capernaum was about ninety miles, the fact that they made this journey from Jerusalem suggests that they were highly motivated to observe and confront Jesus. This was not the first time that Jesus had been confronted by a group of religious leaders from Jerusalem. It is very possible that they had made this trip at the request of Galilean members of the Pharisee sect to help them confront Jesus in light of His widespread and threatening popularity. These may have been leading Pharisees, maybe even members of the Sanhedrin, they represented a significant ecclesiastical authority. As the recognized experts in the Old Testament law and rabbinic tradition, the Pharisees were champions of the popular form of legalistic Judaism that dominated first century Israel. From the outset of Jesus ministry, the Pharisees and scribes knew His message was a direct assault on their system of self-righteousness. Because of this, they were always seeking a way to discredit Jesus and His ministry in the eyes of the people, with the ultimate goal of ending His life.
This group that had gathered around Him had found another occasion to attack Him. Mark writes, “The Pharisees and some of the scribes gathered around Him when they had come from Jerusalem, and had seen that some of His disciples were eating their bread with impure hands, that is, unwashed.” (Mark 7:1–2, NASB95)[3] Though the Law of Moses prescribed ceremonial washings for priests, it did not require others to wash their hands in any particular way before eating. The Pharisees insisted that the Jewish people perform specific ceremonial washings, not because they were biblically commanded but because they were part of rabbinic tradition. This had nothing to do with good hygiene but everything to do with the Pharisees and scribes’ obsession with ritual tradition. Mark went on to explain ceremonial washings to his mostly Roman readers. He writes, “(For the Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they carefully wash their hands, thus observing the traditions of the elders; and when they come from the market place, they do not eat unless they cleanse themselves; and there are many other things which they have received in order to observe, such as the washing of cups and pitchers and copper pots.)” (Mark 7:3–4, NASB95)[4] Mark explains to his non-Jewish readers the ritual requirements that had been passed down by the former rabbis, these traditions of the elders where you washed your hands before you ate, and you did an even more intense cleansing when you returned from the market place just in case you came in contact with a Gentile, or a Samaritan, or and unclean Jewish person, you would cleanse yourself before eating. Mark goes onto explain that there were certain ritual washings concerning cups, pitchers, and copper pots as well.
The traditions of the elders consisted of extrabiblical regulations that governed every area of life, these traditions had been passed down from the time of the Babylonian captivity. They were passed down as oral traditions until about the second century A.D. when they were written down in what is known as the Mishnah and that is combined with a commentary of rabbinic writing that make up what is called the Talmud. The Talmud in printed form is made up of thousands of pages of extrabiblical material. According to the Talmud, God gave Moses the oral law which he passed on to other great men in Israel. These men were charged with personally living out this oral law in their own lives, training others who would teach the law to each new generation, in this way they would build a wall around the written law in order to preserve it. This so-called wall of protection consisted of extrabiblical regulations intended to ensure that people never came close to breaking the written law. In reality, those rabbinic rules undermined and obscured the written law of God that it was intended to protect. Over time, the Jewish people began to measure their spiritual condition in terms of external conformity to these traditions of the elders, rather than in terms of sincere love for God and humble obedience to His Word. The result was the rituals of Judaism found in the traditions of the elders could be practiced outwardly without regard to the condition of one’s heart before God.
The Pharisees and the scribes took these traditions very seriously, including the handwashing. To not keep the traditions of the elders in their opinion was a salvation issue. The Jerusalem Talmud teaches: “Whoever is firmly implanted in the land of Israel, who speaks the holy language, who eats his food in purity [as required by hand-washing rituals], and recites the Shema morning and evening, is assured of life in the world to come.”[5] It is no wonder that the religious leaders accused Jesus’ disciples of committing a serious offense. They brought their accusation in the form of an inquiry, incensed they asked Jesus, “Why do Your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat their bread with impure hands?” (Mark 7:5, NASB95)[6] It is important to note that while the Pharisees and scribes came with a complaint about the behavior of the Jesus’ disciples, the obvious target of their hostility was not the disciples but Jesus Himself. This inquiry was not out of curiosity either but out of outrage. They were enraged that Jesus would allow His disciples to openly disregard a ritual they considered so binding. They saw this as another issue on which they could discredit Him.
THE PROPHET’S INDICTMENT (Mark 7:6-8)
Jesus responded to the Pharisees and scribes but not by answering their question but by indicting them for their hypocrisy. Jesus confronted His attackers head-on and offered no explanation or excuse for the actions of His disciples. Instead using the Word of God, Jesus confronted the calloused unbelief of the religious leaders showing them the false, legalistic system that they embraced. The legalism of the Pharisees and scribes, in holding to the tradition of the elders had bound the peoples’ consciences where God had left them free, adding human regulations to the law of God, which is a most devastating form of legalism. Every time we add to the law of God, we end up subtracting from it. Instead of putting our attention on the things that God is concerned about, human regulations cause us to lose sight of what concerns Him. We begin to major in minors. We begin to give our devotion to our own traditions, our own human regulations.
Taking the Pharisees and scribes straight to the Scriptures, Jesus began by pointing to the prophet Isaiah. “And He said to them, ‘Rightly did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites…’ ” (Mark 7:6a, NASB95)[7] The religious leaders were hypocrites because, although they looked holy on the outside, their hearts were unrepentant and corrupt. Just like the Israelites of Isaiah’s day, the Pharisees and the scribes emphasized external rituals and extrabiblical regulations while completely neglecting a genuine love for God. Quoting Isaiah 29:13, Jesus said, “…as it is written: ‘This people honors Me with their lips, But their heart is far away from Me. ‘But in vain do they worship Me, Teaching as doctrines the precepts of men.’ ” (Mark 7:6b–7, NASB95)[8] Jesus in quoting Isaiah called attention to two parts of the body—the lips and the heart. The lips are on the surface. The heart is the very core of a person’s being. Jesus was telling the Pharisees and scribes, “Your lips move. You sing praises. You say prayers. You say you love God, but it is no deeper than your lips. It does not come from the center of your being.” Jesus was saying, “My Father wants people to worship Him in spirit and in truth, not just with their lips, because lip service is the very essence of hypocrisy.”
We look on outward appearances, but God looks on the heart. All that to say, outward cleansing is of little ultimate value compared to inward cleansing. We need to ask God to cleanse us in our inward parts, to make our hearts right, that our words would not be evidence of hypocrisy. What did Jesus mean when He quoted Isaiah’s words, “But in vain do they worship Me”? he meant the Pharisees and scribes’ worship was futile because it did not come from the heart. They paid more attention to human regulations and human traditions than to God’s law. They taught commandments made by men as if they were the very words of God. They were not concerned to discover and teach that which God had said.
These hypocrites were outraged that Jesus disregarded their traditions. But Jesus knew that neither He nor His disciples were bound to follow rabbinic traditions. Only that which came from Scripture was authoritative, where tradition conflicted with the Word of God, tradition needed to be overturned and those who bound the people with it needed to be openly exposed. Jesus ended His formal accusation by declaring, “Neglecting the commandment of God, you hold to the tradition of men.” (Mark 7:8, NASB95)[9] In other words, it was not the disciples who were guilty of a serious offense, it was the Pharisees and scribes who were guilty of the real crimes against God. They had neglected the commandment of God and influenced many others to do the same. Their hands may have been washed, but their hearts were not. Jesus’ answer to their question was that the tradition of the elders was not equal to the law of God and therefore should not replace God’s law. If they continued on this path, they and their followers were headed for eternal judgment.
THE PROPHET’S ILLUSTRATION (Mark 7:9-13)
Having indicted the Pharisees and scribes as the true law breakers by the words of Isaiah. Having exposed this legalism of giving authority to mere traditions of men over the commandments of God recorded in Scripture, Jesus now turns to another prophet to expose the Pharisees and scribes’ legalism of loophole-ism. Jesus said to them, “You are experts at setting aside the commandment of God in order to keep your tradition. For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and your mother’; and, ‘He who speaks evil of father or mother, is to be put to death’; but you say, ‘If a man says to his father or his mother, whatever I have that would help you is Corban (that is to say, given to God),’ you no longer permit him to do anything for his father or his mother; thus invalidating the word of God by your tradition which you have handed down; and you do many things such as that.” (Mark 7:9–13, NASB95)[10] The key to understanding what Jesus is saying here is to understand this strange term Corban. It is a Hebrew word, and it has to do with giving or setting aside one’s private property or personal wealth to God. In and of itself, this is a good principle. But it had been twisted by the rabbis as a way to get around one of the most important laws of God, the commandment that required people to honor their fathers and their mothers.
Jesus began by referring to them as experts of setting aside the commandment of God in order to keep your tradition. Make sure you notice that Jesus was not saying the problem was that they keep the law and tradition, but rather that they neglect or reject the law of God and replace it with your tradition. In fact, you are using your tradition as an excuse to keep from obeying the law of God. This is loophole-ism.
Jesus then quoted from Exodus 20:12, the fifth commandment of the ten commandments, and from Exodus 21:17, “For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and your mother’; and, ‘He who speaks evil of father or mother, is to be put to death’ ” (Mark 7:10, NASB95)[11] then Jesus added, “But you say….” Notice the contrast. First Jesus noted what Moses said. Moses was the spokesman for God; he delivered divine revelation. Then Jesus prepared to contrast Moses’ words with what the Pharisees and scribes said. These religious experts were delivering their opinions, which fell far short of divine revelation. The Pharisees and the scribes were not agents of divine revelation, but Moses was. The contrast is glaringly clear.
What precisely did the Pharisees and scribes say? Jesus said, “…but you say, ‘If a man says to his father or his mother, whatever I have that would help you is Corban (that is to say, given to God),’ you no longer permit him to do anything for his father or his mother.” (Mark 7:11-12, NASB95)[12] The Jews had developed a method of deferred giving, in which a person could promise that at his death he would give all his possessions to the work of God. That meant that during his lifetime he would not be able to use his personal wealth for any other purpose, because it had been devoted to God. So, in a show of self-righteousness, a person could escape the obligation of caring for his parents in times of illness or in their old age, when they might be too frail to support themselves. He could simply say, “Mother, Father, I am very sorry. I would like to help you, but my wealth is Corban (devoted to God). Everything I have is committed to the Lord, and I cannot give the Lord’s money to you.”
Even more strange, the regulations of Corban permitted the person to use his wealth that had been committed to the Lord for himself during his lifetime. He just could not spend it on anyone else. This tradition sought to sanctify a way for a person to get out from under the responsibility that God had put on His people to give honor to their parents.
Jesus ended His illustration by declaring that their use of the Corban vow invalidated the word of God, the divine revelation given to Moses, and it elevated the tradition which they had handed down. And that was not all, Jesus went on to say, “…and you do many things such as that.” (Mark 7:13b, NASB95)[13] The religious leaders of Jesus’ day were systematically minimizing the Word of God in the lives and hearts of the people of Israel by their loophole-ism and their elevating the traditions of the elders above the commandments of God.
CONCLUSION:
What can we take from Jesus’ indictment and illustration, I believe that from it we can draw some truth for our own lives. Theologians and Bible school students use the big word hermeneutics, which simply refers to the science of biblical interpretation. It governs the principles and rules of how we handle and interpret a passage of Scripture, without hermeneutics we could shape and form a passage of the Bible to say anything that we want it to say. At the heart of the science of hermeneutics is what is called the law of faith which, simply put, says that no portion of Scripture can ever be set against another portion of Scripture. The first assumption in this law of faith is that all of Scripture is the Word of God. The second assumption is that God does not speak with a forked tongue, so no Scripture contradicts another Scripture, therefore whatever God reveals in His Word is always consistent.
A glaring example of pitting one portion of Scripture against another is seen in the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness. Satan tried to seduce Jesus by quoting Scripture to Him. Satan took Jesus to the pinnacle of the temple in Jerusalem and dared Him to leap off, saying, “He will command His angels concerning You,” a quote from Psalm 91:11. He was saying to Jesus, “Throw Yourself down. Nothing bad will happen to You because God has promised that His angels will catch You.” Jesus replied to Satan, “It is written, ‘You shall not put the Lord your God to the test,” a quote from Deuteronomy 6:16. Jesus was saying, “Satan, you are violating the law of faith. You are operating with a poor hermeneutic. You are setting Scripture against Scripture. The Bible says I am not to tempt God. If I am too be obedient to that command, I cannot give in to your suggestion.” He did not allow Satan to tempt Him to act on one verse of Scripture ripped from the context of the entire Word of God.
This is the very thing that Jesus was dealing with in our passage this morning in His dispute with the Pharisees and the scribes. The traditions of the elders were opening all sorts of loopholes to permit people to get out from under the clear teaching of the truth of God. The question must be answered in every mind, where does ultimate authority lie? Is it in the Scriptures alone or is it in the Scriptures and traditions? If it is in both Scripture and tradition, tradition will always come out on top by giving the binding interpretation of Scripture. So, in truth, there are not really two sources of authority, Scripture and tradition, but one, tradition, which becomes more important than God’s Word. If tradition is being elevated above the Word of God, then the tradition must be thrown out. It is easy to look back and say, “Shame on the Pharisees, Shame on the Elders, Shame on the rabbis.” But before we do that, we need to look at our own hearts and make sure that the final authority on all theological and moral debates rests solely on the Word of God. The only way we can make sure that the Word of God is our ultimate and final authority is to know the Word of God and that can only be accomplished by reading the Word of God. What have you read this week?
[1]New American Standard Bible: 1995 Update. 1995. La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation.
[2]New American Standard Bible: 1995 Update. 1995. La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation.
[3]New American Standard Bible: 1995 Update. 1995. La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation.
[4]New American Standard Bible: 1995 Update. 1995. La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation.
[5]Shabbat 1:3; brackets added.
[6]New American Standard Bible: 1995 Update. 1995. La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation.
[7]New American Standard Bible: 1995 Update. 1995. La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation.
[8]New American Standard Bible: 1995 Update. 1995. La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation.
[9]New American Standard Bible: 1995 Update. 1995. La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation.
[10]New American Standard Bible: 1995 Update. 1995. La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation.
[11]New American Standard Bible: 1995 Update. 1995. La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation.
[12]New American Standard Bible: 1995 Update. 1995. La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation.
[13]New American Standard Bible: 1995 Update. 1995. La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation.