Beloved, I am glad to share with you today on Pharisees and the scribes’ hypocrisy through the theme: “And you, why do you break the command of God for the sake of your tradition”? We read this in Matthew 15.3. It should be remembered that Pharisees’ religious zeal observed a number of forms of traditions. And under the cover of this pious appearance which can deceive men but without being able to deceive God, they actually followed all the inclinations of their natural heart.
First, some Pharisees from Jerusalem ask the Lord Jesus why his disciples are breaking elders’ tradition, taking their meals without ablution of their hands. To which he replies that they themselves transgress God’s commandment by their tradition. And he gives as proof of this the fifth commandment violated by them, because they authorize to no longer help his poor parents whoever declares to have made an offering of his belongings to God. So he accuses them of hypocrisy by applying to them a statement from Isaiah about vain worship from the lips, to which the heart remains foreign: “These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain; their teachings are merely human rules.”
Next, the Lord Jesus addresses the crowd, answering Pharisees’ question and recalling that it’s not food that defiles man, but rather evil that is in his heart and that is revealed by his words. Indeed, this account shows the growing enmity of the adversaries of the Savior because of the elders’ tradition, it was religious uses which they had gradually added to the law’s prescriptions. For this tradition had more importance in the eyes of Pharisaism than the law itself; so that this opinion could be based on misinterpreted Scripture’s passages, such as for example Deut 17:10: “You must act according to the decisions they give you at the place the LORD will choose. Be careful to do everything they instruct you to do.”
Thus, tradition prescribed various ablutions, in particular before each meal. But the Lord Jesus and his disciples, whom Pharisees reproach for this negligence to place the responsibility on the Master, did not feel bound by these traditions although they observed the law. Now all the children’s duties towards their parents are included in the first part of these words, while the second, which expresses all the rigor of the law against the foreseen crime, will end in death. But, Pharisees understood this because under this pretext, their tradition exempted a man from assisting his poor parents (Mark 7:12). And the Lord added: He who does so will certainly not honor his father or his mother, and he will have violated the command of God. Then he does not hesitate to apply to his listeners a divine word which remains true at all times and which thus becomes a prophecy of future, while for Isaiah it was fulfilled in present.
So honoring Eternal God with the lips while the heart is foreign to all fellowship with him is what constitutes hypocrisy that Christ Jesus reproaches his listeners with. This is why it’s quite obvious that while any worship that one pays to him is vain and empty of direction and value, since it’s only a deceptive formalism (James 1.26), how much more so will be, if this worship is based not on divine truth, but on human doctrines and commandments. Indeed, food, even when it’s taken with hands that have not been purified by ablution, cannot morally defile; but what comes from the heart comes out of the mouth in words.
But the Pharisees found it a scandal, an occasion for downfall. For in this way they fell even lower in their opposition and in their irritation against the truth. Therefore, any doctrine, any work, any church or any soul that God has not planted in his kingdom by his Spirit is destined to perish (Matthew 13:40).
Finally, the Lord Jesus responds to his disciples who warn him that the Pharisees are scandalized by this speech; to which he responds by comparing his adversaries to a plant that ‘is going to be uprooted, and to a blind man leading a blind man’: “ Leave them; they are blind guides.If the blind lead the blind, both will fall into a pit.”
Then Peter asks the Lord Jesus for the explanation of the image he used. So he clearly says that food that goes into the mouth, does not defile the person, but rather bad thoughts and all the sins that come from the heart. This statement and the word are Christ Jesus’ response to the disciples’ observation. And the worst part about this blindness of the Pharisees was that they were unaware of it.
This is why the disciples will understand this time, and the long enumeration of these sins which come out of the heart will instruct them on the moral nature, and especially on the corruption of man, especially since the emphasis is on the glut of evil. So when the Lord Jesus says that the good man draws good things from his good treasury, and the bad man draws bad things from his bad treasury (Matthew 12:35), he assumes that his regeneration has first taken place.
The following verses have been compiled for your edification and put together for your best understanding.
- Pharisees are taken back
-Commandments: Deut 6.6 These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts.; Deut 11.8 Observe therefore all the commands I am giving you today, so that you may have the strength to go in and take over the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess,; Ps 19.9 The fear of the LORD is pure, enduring forever. The decrees of the LORD are firm, and all of them are righteous.; Ps 119.6 Then I would not be put to shame when I consider all your commands.; Mt 15.3 Jesus replied, “And why do you break the command of God for the sake of your tradition?; Mt 22.38 This is the first and greatest commandment.; 1 Jn 5.3 In fact, this is love for God: to keep his commands. And his commands are not burdensome,
-Traditions of men: Mt 15.3 Jesus replied, “And why do you break the command of God for the sake of your tradition?; Mark 7.8 You have let go the commands of God and are holding on to human traditions.”; Col 2.8 See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the elemental spiritual forces of this world rather than on Christ.; Ti 1:14 and will pay no attention to Jewish myths or to the merely human commands of those who reject the truth.; 1 P 1.18 For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your ancestors,
-Parents’ curses: Ex 21.17 “Anyone who curses their father or mother is to be put to death.; Pr 20.20 If someone curses their father or mother, their lamp will be snuffed out in pitch darkness.; Pr 30.11 “There are those who curse their fathers and do not bless their mothers; Mark 7.10 For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and mother,’and, ‘Anyone who curses their father or mother is to be put to death.’;
-The order to honor parents : Ex 20.12 “Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the LORD your God is giving you.; Lev 19.3 “ ‘Each of you must respect your mother and father, and you must observe my Sabbaths. I am the LORD your God.; Dt 27.16 “Cursed is anyone who dishonors their father or mother.” Then all the people shall say, “Amen!”; Pr 1.8 Listen, my son, to your father’s instruction and do not forsake your mother’s teaching.; Pr 30.17 “The eye that mocks a father, that scorns an aged mother, will be pecked out by the ravens of the valley, will be eaten by the vultures.; Isa 45.10 Woe to the one who says to a father, ‘What have you begotten?’ or to a mother, ‘What have you brought to birth?’; Mt 15.4 For God said, ‘Honor your father and mother’ and ‘Anyone who curses their father or mother is to be put to death.’; Eph 6.2 “Honor your father and mother”—which is the first commandment with a promise—; 1 Tim 5.4 But if a widow has children or grandchildren, these should learn first of all to put their religion into practice by caring for their own family and so repaying their parents and grandparents, for this is pleasing to God.
- Children
-The Bible: the words of the Bible are sacred and must not be altered: Deut 4.2 Do not add to what I command you and do not subtract from it, but keep the commands of the LORD your God that I give you.; Pr 30.6 Do not add to his words, or he will rebuke you and prove you a liar.; Rev 22:19 But he said to me, “Don’t do that! I am a fellow servant with you and with your fellow prophets and with all who keep the words of this scroll. Worship God!”
-Law despised: 2 Ch 36.16 But they mocked God’s messengers, despised his words and scoffed at his prophets until the wrath of the LORD was aroused against his people and there was no remedy.; Isa 30.9 For these are rebellious people, deceitful children, children unwilling to listen to the LORD’s instruction.; Hos 4.6 my people are destroyed from lack of knowledge. “Because you have rejected knowledge, I also reject you as my priests; because you have ignored the law of your God, I also will ignore your children.; Mark 7.9 And he continued, “You have a fine way of setting aside the commands of God in order to observe your own traditions!
-Examples of hypocrisy: Mt 15.7,8 You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you: 8 “ ‘These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.; Mt 23.13 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the door of the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to.; Rom 16.18 For such people are not serving our Lord Christ, but their own appetites. By smooth talk and flattery they deceive the minds of naive people.
-Separation from God: Ps 58.4 Their venom is like the venom of a snake, like that of a cobra that has stopped its ears, ; Jer 2.5 This is what the LORD says: “What fault did your ancestors find in me, that they strayed so far from me? They followed worthless idols and became worthless themselves.; Ez 14.5 I will do this to recapture the hearts of the people of Israel, who have all deserted me for their idols.’ ; (Ez 44.10 “ ‘The Levites who went far from me when Israel went astray and who wandered from me after their idols must bear the consequences of their sin.); Mt 15.8“ ‘These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.; Eph 2:12 Remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world. ; (Eph 4:18 They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts.)
-Warnings against false teachers: Mt 15.9 They worship me in vain; their teachings are merely human rules.’”; 1 Tim 1.7 They want to be teachers of the law, but they do not know what they are talking about or what they so confidently affirm.; 1 Tim 4.2 Such teachings come through hypocritical liars, whose consciences have been seared as with a hot iron.; 1 Tim 6.3, 4 If anyone teaches otherwise and does not agree to the sound instruction of our Lord Jesus Christ and to godly teaching, 4 they are conceited and understand nothing. They have an unhealthy interest in controversies and quarrels about words that result in envy, strife, malicious talk, evil suspicions; 2 Tim 4.3 For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear.; Tt 1.11 They must be silenced, because they are disrupting whole households by teaching things they ought not to teach—and that for the sake of dishonest gain.; 2 P 2.1 But there were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the sovereign Lord who bought them—bringing swift destruction on themselves.
- Explanation of the parable
-Comprehension, examples of those who are slow to believe: Ps 32.9 Do not be like the horse or the mule, which have no understanding but must be controlled by bit and bridle or they will not come to you.; Pr 12.11 Those who work their land will have abundant food, but those who chase fantasies have no sense.; Pr 28.16 A tyrannical ruler practices extortion, but one who hates ill-gotten gain will enjoy a long reign.; Mt 13.19 Whoever has ears, let them hear.”
-Spiritual enlightenment: Ps 18.29 With your help I can advance against a troop ; with my God I can scale a wall.; 2 Co 4.6 For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ.; Eph 1:18 I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people,; 1 P 2.9 But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.
-Beware of false witnesses: Ex 23.1 “Do not spread false reports. Do not help a guilty person by being a malicious witness.; Pr 25.18 Like a club or a sword or a sharp arrow is one who gives false testimony against a neighbor.; Mt 19:17 “Why do you ask me about what is good?” Jesus replied. “There is only One who is good. If you want to enter life, keep the commandments.”
-Origin of sin: Gen 3.6 When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.; Ps 51.7 Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.; James 1.15 Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.; James 4.1 What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you?
From all of the above, we note that the Lord shows the Pharisees that they not only placed tradition on the level of the Scriptures, but transgressed these with their traditions. Honoring the Eternal God with the lips while the heart is foreign to all fellowship with him is what constitutes the hypocrisy which Christ Jesus reproaches his listeners. This is why any worship that one pays him is vain and empty of meaning and value. Let us therefore beware of the hypocrisy of the scribes and Pharisees which only leads to perdition. Our prayers are with you all in your efforts to take the greatest care of your heart, which is the source of all kinds of thoughts.
PRAYER OF ACCEPTANCE OF JESUS CHRIST AS LORD AND PERSONAL SAVIOR
I now invite anyone who wants to become a new creation by walking in the truth, to pray with me as follows:
Lord Jesus, I have long walked in the lusts of the world ignoring your love for humans. I acknowledge that I have sinned against you and ask forgiveness for all my sins, because today I have decided to give you my life by taking you as my Lord and personal Savior. I acknowledge that you died on the cross of Calvary and that you rose from the dead for me.
I am now saved and born again by the power of the Holy Spirit. Lead me each day to eternal life you give to all who obey your Word. Reveal to me and strengthen my heart and my faith so that your light may shine in my life right now.
Thank you, Lord Jesus, for accepting me in your divine family so that I too can contemplate the wonders of your kingdom.
I will now choose a nearby waterpoint to baptize myself by immersion, in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
To you all worship, power, and glory, now and forever and ever. Amen!
I would be glad to respond to your queries and comments as necessary, before sharing with you next week on the important place granted to one disciple : “I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.”
May the Lord Jesus Christ bless you profusely.
David Feze, Servant of the Almighty God.