Matthew 15

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CHARACTERISTICS OF DEITY WE SEE IN JESUS IN Matthew 15

Law-Giver and Judge: Ye hypocrites! The Law-Giver can set aside Moses-’ Law, (Matthew 15:1-20; Mark 7:19)

Conqueror of Evil: He cast out a demon without even a verbal order! (Matthew 15:21-28)

Creator: Healer of His maimed creation. (Matthew 15:29-31)

Sustainer: fed 4000 on practically nothing (Matthew 15:32-38)

FACT QUESTIONS

Explain the vital need for this trip that Jesus takes with the Twelve. Refer to any facts of significance drawn from earlier periods that give clues.

Show on a map, or indicate the travel plan that Matthew and Mark describe, Into the area of what two famous cities did Jesus lead His men? According to Mark, through which one of the two did they travel?

Is there any record of Jesus ever making another trip out into Gentile territory? When? Under what circumstances?

Name the major area where the events of this section occurred. On what other occasion(s) had Jesus been in this area? What had He done there previously? What had been the reaction of the populace to His earlier ministry there?

What changes are obvious in the response of the people of this area to the ministry described in this section?

Matthew describes this ministry in general terms, while Mark gives a specific incident. Describe this incident, explaining any problems arising in connection with Jesus-’ method.

What psychological preparation had been made for Jesus-’ service in this area, between His first visit here and the ministry recorded in this text?

Describe the religio-political makeup of this crowd now gathered around Jesus. List the reasons you conclude that the group was of this nature.

List any significant differences between the two miraculous multiplications of food to feed large multitudes. Some unbelieving theologians feel that the Gospel writers confused two separate legends that centered around one fundamental incident. Give, therefore, the evidence that proves the Gospel writers saw a clear distinction between the two miracles.

List the facts or statements within this section that lend insight into the personal character or supernatural identity of Jesus.

Quote the two separate statements that describe the crowds-’ reaction to Jesus-’ ministry in this section.

THE SECTS OF THE PHARISEES AND SADDUCEES CONTRASTED

by Lynn Gardner

A political or religious movement in time usually results in two groups, a liberal and a conservative party. Judaism followed this pattern as a study of Jewish sects and denominations reveals. The Pharisees formed the right wing and the Sadducees the left wing of Judaism. We can see the contrast in these terms: the Pharisees were separatists and the Sadducees were collaborators; one nationalistic, the other internationalistic;·one orthodox and fundamental, the other modernist and liberal; one supernaturalistic and the other humanistic. Neither party was free from error, as both, at times, felt the censure of Jesus.

Origin and Early History

The Babylonian captivity taught the Jews to be monotheistic [i.e. true to their God-given ideals to which they had been unfaithful before the captivity and brought on this punishment. HEF], gave them the synagogue and increased interest in the Scripture and the religious practice enjoined therein. The reformers, Ezra and Nehemiah, possibly were forerunners of the Pharisees. It is also possible that the priestly court party under Zerubbabel foreshadowed the Sadducees. When Jerusalem came under the power of Alexander the Great, the pressure toward Hellenization became strong, After Alexander’s death his kingdom was divided into four segments, Palestine was a political football, first ruled by the Ptolemies of Egypt, then the Syrian rulers of Antioch, The rise of a Hellenistic party among the Jewish priestly aristocrats threatened the utter destruction of the Old Testament religion. Hellenistic culture, customs, and idolatry along with the use of the Greek language threatened to inundate the nation, Countering this infidel and pagan movement among the priesthood, there arose a group of pious Jews full of devotion to the law, and fierce in their opposition to the corrupting Greek influences.[1] When the Syrians were attempting to force the Jews to accept Hellenization, in 167 B.C., Mattathias, the father of the Maccabees, headed a rebellion. The Pharisees supported the Maccabeans in their campaigns, but John Hyrcanus, when in power, formed an alliance with the Sadducees, who remained the party supporting the government so long as the Maccabeans were in power. In 37 B.C. when Herod began to reign, he promptly executed forty-five of the most powerful Sadducees, thus bringing the Pharisees back into power. In the days of Christ the Pharisees had more religious influence and the Sadducees had more political power, as we shall see.

[1]

R. C. Foster, An Introduction to the Life of Christ, p. 62.

Significance of Their Names

The term Pharisees means the separated ones. It is not known whether this title was self-assumed or was given them by enemies. Earlier they had been called the Hasidim, then came to be called Pharisees because of their separatism. They were an exclusive group, while the Sadducees were inclusive in their fellowship. They even separated from those of their own race who did not accept or follow their interpretations of the law. We can see the intense prejudice against publicans and sinners in Luke 15:1-2; Luke 18:9-13.[2]

[2] Edersheim believes that the name Pharisees was given to them by their opponents. He states that they called themselves Chasidim, or the pious. The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah, Vol. I, p. 323.

The Sadducees either derived their name from Zadok, who was high priest in the days of David and Solomon and whose sons were the priestly hierarchy in the time of the captivity,[3] or from the word meaning righteous. Edersheim asks, Is it likely that a party would have gone back so many centuries for a name, which had no connection with their distinctive principles? He further argues that the name is a derivation from the word for righteous:

[3] These scriptures give historical Biblical background for Zadok and his sons: 2 Chronicles 31:10; Ezekiel 40:46; Ezekiel 44:15; Ezekiel 48:11. This hypothesis for the origin of the name is a Jewish legend of about the seventh century A.D. It receives no support from Josephus or early Jewish writings. [Other rabbinic works, however, identify the Sadducees-’ forefather as Zadok, disciple of Antigonus of Socho (Aboth de Rab. Nathan, cap. 5; cf. Bowker, 162; 6:1-2) who was himself a disciple of Simeon the Just, one of the remnants of the Great Synagogue. (Mishnah: Aboth. i, 1-4; cf. Bowker, 109; 2:26) This Antigonus lived about 250 B.C. (ISBE, 2659), which would date the above-named Zadok after that date. HEF]

While the Pharisees would arrogate to themselves the Scriptural name of Chasidim, or the pious, their opponents would retort that they were satisfied to be Tsaddiqim, or righteous. Thus the name of Tsaddiqim would become that of the party opposing the Pharisees, that is, of the Sadducees. There is, indeed, an admitted linguistic difficulty in the change of the sound i into u (Tsaddiqim into Tsadduqim), but may it not have been that this was accomplished, not grammatically, but by popular witticism? Such mode of giving a by-name to a party or government is, at least, not irrational, nor is it uncommon. Some wit might have suggested: Read not Tsaddiqim, the righteous, but Tsadduqim (from Tsadu) desolation, destruction. Whether or not this suggestion approve itself to critics, the derivation of Sadducees from Tsaddiqim is certainly that which offers most probability.[4]

[4] Alfred Edersheim, The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah, Vol. I, 323, 324.

Their Power and Influence

In the New Testament the Pharisees are the most prominent, as they were in the entire first century. They were the unrivaled teachers of the people because the common people recognized the Pharisees as the true and loyal standardbearers of traditional Israel. Josephus said of the Sadducees, They only gain the well-to-do; they have not the people on their side.[5] This doctrine has reached few individuals, but these are of the first consideration.[6] Levison says concerning the Sadducees:

[5] Josephus, Antiquities, XIII, 10, 6.

[6] Ibid., XVIII, 1, 4.

That they did not find followers among the working classes is not to be wondered at. The Pharisees had politically a Utopia to promise. The Messiah was their offer to the people. And if not the Messiah, a resurrection after death which would bring with it material bliss. In these matters the Sadducees-’ platform was poor; all they could afford was a satisfaction that comes from a consciousness of having done one’s duty, and the rest must be left to God.[7]

[7] Levison. Jewish Background of Christianity, p. 162.

Josephus says of the Pharisees: Whatsoever they do about divine worship, prayers and sacrifice, they (the people) perform them according to their direction.[8]

[8] Josephus, Antiquities, XVIII, 1.3, 4.

The Sadducees did not make the strict profession of religion current among the Pharisees unless they found it profitable in securing and retaining a place of power among the people. They were moved by policy continually, and usually adopted the principles of the Pharisees when they secured an official position.[9] This could be illustrated by this story: according to the teaching of the Sadducees the incense was to be lighted outside the Holy Place and carried burning within; according to the Pharisees, on the contrary, it must be lighted inside. Once a young priesta Sadduceeperformed this function in the manner approved by the Sadducees. Later his father admonished him, Though we are Sadducees, we must do as the Pharisees teach, for they have the people behind them.[10]

[9] Foster, op. cit., p. 76.

[10] Morton Scott Enslin, Christian Beginnings,p. 113.

In the days of Jesus and during the rise of the church they [the Pharisees] constituted the backbone of Judaism. Firmly entrenched in their religious leadership, revered by the masses, with synagogues virtually in their control, they alone of the groups known to us survived the dreadful years of revolt against Rome.[11]

[11] Ibid.

The Pharisees excelled in popularity with the people and religious influence in general. But in the area of political power and influence the Sadducees are in the forefront. Foster shows this distinction:

They (the Pharisees) believed in a theocratic democracy; God was their sole king. But they bowed to the Roman rule as a punishment for the sins of the nation. They were a religious rather than a political party. Nevertheless, they looked for a Messiah to lead against Rome, and when they thought the proper time had come, they revolted with the rest. Josephus says there were more than six thousand Pharisees, but not all the Pharisees were scribes, and had supplanted the priests as instructors of the people when the Pharisees gradually won the favor of the masses. The scribes rule in the synagogue, as the Sadducees in the temple.[12]

[12]

Foster, op. cit., p. 75f.

Actually the Pharisees took little interest in politics as long as the government did not interfere with their religious pursuits. But the Sadducees were more concerned with political affairs than with religious.

Since Jerusalem functioned as the political capital of Judaism, and the Temple the headquarters of Jewish government, the interests there became dominantly political. These worldly and political interests controlled the Sadducees.[13]

[13] H.E. Dana, New Testament Times, p. 57.

They possessed the political power and were the governing group in the civil life of Judaism during the days of Christ. The New Testament (Acts 5:17) and Josephus (Ant. xx, 9, 1) testify that the high-priestly families belonged to the Sadducean party. The Sadducees were the dominant group in the Sanhedrin, which was the supreme court of Judaism.

Doctrines

There was disagreement concerning the law and traditions. Josephus says, The Pharisees have delivered to the people a great many observances by succession from their fathers, which are not written in the law of Moses. Their theory of tradition was that these additions to the written law and interpretations of it had been given by Moses to the elders and by them transmitted orally down through the years. They taught these traditions as binding upon Jews and having equal and sometimes greater authority than the law, It must be recognized that the Sadducees were not opposed to traditions as such but they were opposed to the principle and practice of traditionalism of the Pharisees.

And that there was sufficient ground for Sadducean opposition to Pharisaic traditionalism, alike in principle and in practice, will appear from the following quotation, to which we add, by way of explanation, that the meaning of phylacteries was deemed by that party of Scriptural obligation, and that the phylactery for the head was to consist (according to tradition) of four compartments. Against the words of the Scribes is more punishable than against the words of Scripture. He who says, No phylacteries, so as to transgress the words of Scripture, is not guilty (free); five compartments, to add to the words of the Scribes, he is guilty.[14]

[14]

Edersheim, op. cit.,1, 315.

The Sadducees recognized only the written law as binding and rejected the entire traditional interpretation by the Scribes. Josephus said, The Sadducees say, -Only what is written is to be esteemed as legal. what has come down from tradition of the fathers need not be observed.-’[15]Scholars differ on whether they accepted all the Old Testament or only the Pentateuch. They were liberal in their attitude toward, and interpretation of, the law, but they were literal and conservative in its application.

[15]

Josephus, Ant., XIII, 10, 6.

Another doctrinal difference concerned the period after death. The Sadducees say that there is no resurrection, nor angel, nor spirit; but the Pharisees acknowledge them all. (Acts 23:8) The Pharisees believed that there was to be a final judgment with its consequent eternal rewards and punishments.

There was disagreement upon the doctrines of predestination and free will. Josephus called the Pharisean view fatalism.

But, properly understood, the real difference between the Pharisees and Sadducees seems to have amounted to this: that the former accentuated God’s preordination; the latter, man’s free will; and that, while the Pharisees admitted only a partial influence of the human element on what happened, or the co-operation of the human with the Divine, the Sadducees denied all absolute preordination, and made man’s choice of evil or good, with its consequent misery or happiness, to depend entirely on the exercise of free will and self-determination.[16]

[16]

Edersheim, op. cit., I, pp. 316, 317.

Yet at times the Pharisees carried the idea of Providence to the verge of fatalism, as Edersheim admits. The absolute and unalterable predestination of every detail of every event is insisted upon. Some affirmed that every incident in the history of Israel was foreordained, and the actors in itfor good or for evilwere only instruments for carrying out the Divine Will. Yet their insistence upon man’s freedom of choice and his personal responsibility and obligation modified their view of fate. Akiba stated it this way, Everything is foreseen; free determination is accorded to man; and the world is judged in goodness.[17]

[17]

Ibid., I, p, 319.

The Pharisees preached and looked for the Messiah, while the Sadducees did not. The Pharisees expected Him to be a political Messiah. (Cf. Luke 17:20; Luke 19:11; John 12:32-34) They expected Him to glorify them and bring all nations to their point of view. The Sadducees were too well off and trusted themselves too much. They felt that the order of things which they had made was good enough for them and they neither wanted or needed a Messiah.

They also had some distinct differences concerning ceremonial and ritual and juridical questions.[18]

[18] Edersheim, I, pp. 319-322. [Cf. also Bowker, Jesus and the Pharisees, esp. pp. 53-76.]

Characteristics

Because of their scrupulous obedience to the letter of the law the Pharisees became fussily self-righteous. Often in highest hypocrisy they considered themselves the only pious and righteous souls. Levison makes this comment concerning the self-righteousness of Sadducees.

They believed in themselves, and did not see the need for any change in the affairs of men. Their view of their own importance led them to take a very strong view of the freedom of the will; they believed themselves to be capable of acting rightly without being helped or coerced by God into doing so. We usually think of the Pharisees as the self-righteous. Their self-righteousness was based upon the belief that they were doing the will of God; but the Sadducees were far more self-righteous, for they believed that they do and will rightly by personal effort, The Temple was not so much the dwelling-place of God as a place in which they allowed God a share with them in their special domain. As priests they saw to it that they shared with God in their sacrifices that were offered and in the glory of the offering.[19]

[19]

Levison, op. cit., p. 164.

The Pharisees were over-zealous in legalism. They would restrict liberty for the sake of security and protection. This was called the hedge about the law. The principle is the same which provides play pens for children and safety zones on city streets. They would build a fence about the Law to prevent one from transgression. Deuteronomy 25:3 set the limit of punishment at forty lashes. The Pharisees reduced it to thirty-nine, lest it be accidentally exceeded. The elaborate fences about the commandments made the law a tedious and burdensome task. They seemed to think that the more difficult the commandments, the more merit they would receive for observing them.

Relationship of These Sects to Jesus Attitude and Action of the Pharisees toward Jesus:

They disliked His claim to forgive sins and considered it blasphemy. Matthew 9:3 f; Mark 2:6 f; Luke 5:21

They objected to His social freedom with publicans and sinners. Matthew 9:11; Mark 2:16; Luke 5:30; Luke 15:1

They complained that the disciples of Jesus did not observe stated fasts. Luke 5:33

They accused Him of being in league with Satan. Matthew 9:34; Matthew 12:24 ff; Mark 3:22 ff; Luke 11:14 ff.

They attacked Him for violating their rules of sabbath observance. Matthew 12:2; Matthew 12:10; Mark 2:23 f; Mark 3:2; Luke 6:2; Luke 6:7; Luke 13:14 ff; John 5:10; John 5:18; John 9:13 ff.

They joined with the Herodians to kill Him. Mark 3:6.

They joined with the Sadducees to test Him. Matthew 16:1; see Matthew 22.

To entrap Him Pharisees and Sadducees plotted His death. Matthew 27:62; John 18:3.

They charged Him with planning the destruction of the Temple. John 2:19; Matthew 26:59-61; Matthew 27:39-40.

They accused Him of being a deceiver. John 7:12; Matthew 27:62-64.

They ridiculed Him. John 7:48.

They accused Jesus of being a Samaritan and having a demon. John 7:20; John 8:48; cf. John 10:20.

They charged Jesus with treason against Caesar. Luke 23:1 f.

They mocked Christ on the cross. Matthew 27:41 ff.

(There were some honest and [some relatively] friendly Pharisees. Luke 7:36-50; Luke 14:1 ff; John 3:1-2; John 7:50-52; John 19:39.)

Jesus denounced the Pharisees as:

Hypocrites. Matthew 15:7; Matthew 23:13.

Offspring of vipers. Matthew 12:34; Matthew 23:33.

Inwardly wicked. Luke 11:39-41.

Adulterous generation. Mt.-’ Matthew 12:39; Matthew 16:4.

Blind guides. Matthew 15:14; Matthew 23:16; Matthew 23:19; Matthew 23:24; Matthew 23:26.

Whited sepulchres. Matthew 23:27.

More careless of the kingdom than publicans and harlots. Matthew 21:31 f.

Unworthy of Moses-’ seat, which they held. Matthew 23:2 ff.

Loving praise. Matthew 23:6 ff.

Making proselytes worse than they were themselves. Matthew 23:15.

Unworthy of the kingdom which shall be taken away from them. Matthew 21:43 ff.

Being tradition-bound. Mark 7:3-13.

Self-righteous. Luke 18:9.

Being prejudiced against Him. John 5:39-40.

Blasphemers. Matthew 12:22-32; Mark 3:19.

Rejecters of God. Luke 7:29-30; Luke 10:16; John 12:48-50.

Rejection of Christ by the Sadducees:

(They are mentioned by name only on three occasions in the Gospels, but they are referred to by the term chief priests.)

They tempted Jesus by demanding a sign from heaven. Matthew 16:1.

They tried to arrest Jesus at the feast of Tabernacles. John 7:32; John 7:45.

The raising of Lazarus angered them very much. John 11:47.

Caiaphas (a Sadducee) called for the death of Jesus for a personal and political reason. John 11:48-50.

They were enraged by the triumphal entry and entrance into the Temple itself, Matthew 21:15.

The cleansing of the Temple caused them to challenge the authority of Christ. Matthew 21:23; Mark 11:27 ff; Luke 20:1 ff.

They sought to entrap Jesus in a question about the resurrection. Matthew 22:23; Mark 12:18; Luke 20:27.

They took a leading part in the condemnation of Jesus. Annas. John 18:13; John 18:19.

Caiaphas, chief persecutor. Matthew 26:57; Matthew 26:63; Matthew 26:65.

Brought charges before Pilate. Matthew 27:12; Mark 15:3.

Stirred people to ask for Barabbas instead of Jesus. Matthew 27:20; Mark 15:11.

They mocked Jesus on the cross. Matthew 27:41; Mark 15:31; Luke 23:35.

Jesus condemned the Sadducees:

He warned the kingdom of God would be taken away from them. Matthew 21:43 ff.

He told them they were wrong about the resurrection and did not know the Scriptures nor the power of God. Matthew 22:29.

He called them an evil and adulterous generation, Matthew 16:1-4.

Jesus warned the disciples to beware of their bad influence. Matthew 16:5-12.

Both conservatism and liberalism tend to pride and prejudice. One trusts himself concerning his interpretation of religion and the other trusts himself to determine his religion. The religious climate of Jesus-’ day is strangely familiar, Today we can see in religious thinking the same attitudes and tendencies only in different garb. We must not allow the Devil to push us off on the one side into exclusive sectarianism nor off the other side into inclusive latitudinarianism.

For Further Study

Bowker, John. Jesus and the Pharisees. (Cambridge University Press) 1973. Bowker collects together in one volume translations of the relative literature and discusses the problems involved in identifying the Pharisees, the emergence and development of the Hakamic movement and its divisions, Jesus and the Pharisaioi, and their charges against Him.

Edersheim, Alfred. The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah. Vol. I, pp. 308ff. See also his opening Chapter s VII and VIII in which he discusses the Jewish attitudes about separation from Gentiles, traditionalism: its origin, character and literature.

DO YOU HAVE THE WORD IN YOUR HEART?

Give the context, problems, meaning and application of these phrases:

Of a truth thou art the Son of God.

It is not lawful for thee to have her.

It is I; be not afraid.

This is John the Baptist; he is risen from the dead; and therefore do these powers work in him.

But in vain do they worship me, teaching as their doctrines the precepts of men.

… and they glorified the God of Israel.

Every plant which my heavenly Father planted not, shall be rooted up.

Whosoever shall say to his father or mother, That wherewith thou mightest have been profited by me is given to God; he shall not honor his father.

Let them alone: they are blind guides.

It is not meet to take the children’s bread and cast it to the dogs.

… but to eat with unwashen hands defileth not the man.

Why do ye also transgress the commandment of God because of your tradition?. Ye have made void the word of God because of your tradition.

… but that which proceedeth out of the mouth, this defileth the man.

And if the blind guide the blind, both shall fall into a pit.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN PREVIEWING IN OUTLINE FORM

Section 39. Jesus refuses to give additional signs from heaven to religious leaders (Matthew 15:39 bMat 16:4)

Section 40. Jesus warns disciples against the influence of popular leaders and parties (Matthew 16:5-12)

Section 41. Near Caesarea Philippi Jesus tests and teaches His disciples (Matthew 16:13-28)

CONTENT OUTLINE

RELIGIOUS LEADERS DEMAND ADDITIONAL DOCUMENTATION OF HIS AUTHORITY: JESUS REFUSES (Matthew 15:39 b - Matthew 16:4; Mark 8:10 b - Mark 8:12)

Situation: As if Jesus had given no previous supernatural credentials, the religious leaders demand them.

Response: The critics are criticized.

Although naturally capable of reading relatively dependable weather signs, you are morally unqualified to demand signs when these times are full of them, signs either unread or deliberately misunderstood!

Reminder of sign already given: Jonah!

II.

JESUS WARNS DISCIPLES AGAINST INFLUENCE OF POPULAR LEADERS AND PARTIES (Matthew 16:5-12; Mark 8:13-21)

Situation: Jesus and disciples sailed from Magadan-Dalmanutha, leaving the hyper-critical theologians behind. Having sailed without purchasing bread, they had only one loaf aboard.

Jesus-’ cryptic warning: Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, Sadducees and Herod.

The disciples-’ gross literalism: He means the leaven of bread.

Jesus-’ rebuke (Matthew 16:8-11; Mark 8:17-21)

Accusation of inadequate faith.

Reproach for limited spiritual insight.

Reminder of two stupendous miracles in the same area of their doubts.

Repeated statement: Not bread, but leaven!

The Apostles finally understand. (Matthew 16:12)

III.

JESUS TESTS HIS DISCIPLES ON HIS IDENTITY, SHOCKS THEM WITH NEWS OF HIS FUTURE SUFFERING AND DEMANDS SUPREME LOYALTY (Matthew 16:13-28; Mark 8:27 to Mark 9:1; Luke 9:18-27)

The Good Confession (Matthew 16:13-20; Mark 8:27-30; Luke 9:18-21)

The disciples are questioned about public opinion.

Matthew 15:1-20

**Section 36

JESUS DEBATES WITH JERUSALEM PHARISEES ABOUT THE ELDERS-’ TRADITIONS (Parallel: Mark 7:1-23)**

TEXT: 15:1-20

1 Then there come to Jesus from Jerusalem Pharisees and scribes, saying, 2 Why do thy disciples transgress the tradition of the elders? for they wash not their hands when they eat bread. 3 And he answered and said unto them, Why do ye also transgress the commandment of God because of your tradition? 4 For God said, Honor thy father and thy mother: and, He that speaketh evil of thy father or mother, let him die the death. 5 But ye say, Whosoever shall say to his father or his mother, That wherewith thou mightest have been profited by me is given to God; 6 he shall not honor his father. And ye have made void the word of God because of your tradition.

7 Ye hypocrites, well did Isaiah prophesy of you, saying, 8 This people honoreth me with their lips;

But their heart is far from me.

9 But in vain do they worship me,

Teaching as their doctrines the precepts of men.

10 And he called to him the multitude, and said unto them, Hear, and understand: 11 Not that which entereth into the mouth defileth the man; but that which proceedeth out of the mouth, this defileth the man. 12 Then came the disciples, and said unto him, Knowest thou that the Pharisees were offended, when they heard this saying? 13 But he answered and said, Every plant which my heavenly Father planted not, shall be rooted up. 14 Let them alone: they are blind guides, And if the blind guide the blind, both shall fall into a pit. 15 And Peter answered and said unto him, Declare unto us the parable. 16 And he said, Are ye also even yet without understanding? 17 Perceive ye not, that whatsoever goeth into the mouth passeth into the belly, and is cast out into the draught? 18 But the things which proceed out of the mouth come forth out of the heart; and they defile the man. 19 For out of the heart come forth evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, railings: 20 these are the things which defile the man; but to eat with unwashen hands defileth not the man.

THOUGHT QUESTIONS

How can we distinguish good traditions from bad ones?

Why were there scribes and Pharisees from Jerusalem here in Galilee? What was their purpose for prowling around so far from home, precisely at this time and place?

It is a matter of observable fact that the disciples of Jesus did in fact eat with defiled hands. Why do you think they did this? Do you think the multitudes ceremoniously washed their hands before eating the bread and fish miraculously provided by Jesus? Why did not Jesus insist on their washing their hands?

John 7:1 says that about this time Jesus went about in Galilee; He would not go about in Judea, because the Jews sought to kill Him. This very clearly was the time of the Passover (John 6:4). Does John mean to suggest that Jesus Himself did not attend the Passover feast in Jerusalem? If so, what does this reveal about Jesus? If not, what do the available facts mean? Did Jesus, as God in the flesh, need to attend such feasts, commanded for all Jews, even though He Himself was Hebrew? Or, to put it another way, does Jesus violate Mosaic Law as well as the traditions of the elders?

If you take the view that Jesus did not attend the feast, because for good and sufficient reasons He was exempt from attendance, do you think that He would keep the Apostles away from the Passover? If so, why? If not, why not?

At what point, do you think, does tradition make void the commands of God, or make worship vain? Use the illustration in the text to help you formulate your answer.

Jesus called the Pharisees hypocrites. Wherein did their hypocrisy lie?

Do you think that what had been declared Corban was actually given to God? That is what the word means, but did the children really turn it over to God? What is your opinion?

What do you think the command Honor your father and mother includes? Did Jesus Himself honor His own, earthly parents in this way? If so, when or how?

Do you think that Isaiah had the Pharisees in mind when he penned the words quoted by Jesus in reference to them? If not, how could Jesus affirm: Well did Isaiah prophesy of you? If so, what is the message intended for the people of Isaiah’s own day?

Can you explain why a religion, or worship, based on human commandments is useless?

Can false religious teaching or religious leaders with faulty ideas actually lead sincere followers to destruction? Is not sincerity a sufficient safeguard against that eventuality?

But, all that the Pharisees and scribes were doing for the Jewish people was interpret the Mosaic Law and the prophets for them, so that they could know God’s will. Do you think it is right, then, to interpret the Scriptures for other people?

Explain how BOTH of the following mottos would have helped to prevent the Pharisees from making the mistakes of which Jesus accused them:

(1)

Where the Scriptures speak, we speak. Where the Scriptures are silent, we are silent.

(2)

Where the Scriptures speak, we are silent.

Where the Scriptures are silent, we speak.

Do not choke on this second expression of the same profound truth! Study it to see its genius, then show how both propositions would have helped even the Pharisees to handle God’s Word more worthily.

Do you think Jesus could contradict Old Testament teaching by the principles He espoused? If so, how could He do thathad the OT been wrong? If not, then how is His teaching in this section to be understood?

Were the Apostles being defiled according to the OT Law when they ate without washing?

According to the principles of Jesus, does ANYTHING, either eaten or drunk, ever defile a person? If so, what? If not, why not?

Would you drink blood or eat things strangled, i.e., with the blood in it, or any food made with blood? Why? (Cf. Acts 15:20; Acts 15:29)

Why should the disciples be so concerned about how Jesus talks about the opinions of the learned Pharisees?

What, do you think, is the relative responsibility before God of a blind guide and a blind follower? Is one more responsible than the other, or are both equally guilty? Are they equally lost?

Does it really matter much whether one is defiled by what comes out of the heart? Are you personally concerned about being defiled in the sight of God? What does defilement mean to you?

Why could not the disciples understand the teaching Jesus gave regarding the true source of defilement, i.e., what factors would have hindered their grasping His meaning immediately?

Can you explain why the Law of Moses contained such regulations about defilement by eating or touching certain things which the New Testament definitely and clearly allows? Did God change His mind in the meantime?

What is so earth-shaking, from a religious standpoint, about Mark’s inserted comment (Matthew 7:19): Thus He declared all foods clean?

Is Jesus defending as clean food or drink that would be destructive to the human body? In what sense are we to understand Mark’s word all foods? What about foods to which one is allergic? What about foods or drink which leave one stuffed or drunk?

Is Jesus teaching us to tolerate others more than the Pharisees did, or to reject and condemn such unscriptural practices in religion like theirs?

aa.

If Jesus is more concerned about the condition of a man’s heart, why does he pointedly list so many outward manifestations of what He calls real defilement, or sin? Why does He still list murder as defiling, when He is really concerned about the hate that prompts it, for example?

bb.

Is pride always wrong? How and when does it defile a man?

cc.

What kind(s) of foolishness defile a person?

dd.

Why list three kinds of sexual sins: fornication, adultery and lasciviousness? Are they not all sexual sins? What is the difference between them?

ee.

If the Pharisees were able to pervert a God-given religion like Judaism, what are our chances of twisting a beautiful relationship with God like Christianity into something that Jesus Himself would not be able to recognize? What if we have already made this fatal switch? What remedy is open to us to correct whatever is false or perverted in our religion, in order to bring ourselves back to Jesus-’ original plans for His people? A more important question is: what are the unchanging marks of true religion whereby we can judge ourselves and recognize the degree of truth or falsity in our religion?

ff.

What is the psychological danger in that unsound compensation made by an individual who deliberately sets aside a commandment of God, because it does not suit him to observe it, and then thinks he can make up for it by being extra careful about something else? The Pharisees were past masters at this sort of dodging their moral responsibility. Do you know any Pharisees in your circle of acquaintances? What do you think about people who preach a lot about baptism but ignore Jesus-’ orders to evangelize the whole world? What about Christians who are especially punctilious about the form of baptism, but are not especially bothered by the selfishness and indifference to others-’ needs seen among their members?

gg.

Do you think the Pharisees brought this question to Jesus because they hated sin, or because they simply hated to see any of their opinions or traditional views discounted or put in doubt? Why do you bring up objections in a discussion of religion or morality? Is it because you hate sin, love sinners and long to save them from the consequences of a false philosophy, or do you bring up arguments in order to bolster your confidence in the views and conclusions held by some revered teacher in your acquaintance? Are you a Pharisee?

PARAPHRASE AND HARMONY

A group of Pharisees, along with some doctors of the law who had come up from Jerusalem, approached Jesus. They noticed that some of His disciples ate their meals with defiled handsin other words, without washing them in the ceremonial way. (In fact, the Pharisees and the Jews in general never eat unless they have washed their hands in a particular way, following an old, established tradition. It is their practice never to eat anything upon returning from the market place until they have sprinkled themselves for ceremonial purification. There are many other points which they consider essential on which they have a traditional rule to maintain, for example, the immersing of cups, jugs and copper basins,) Accordingly, the Pharisees and lawyers challenged Jesus, Why do your disciples not follow the ancient tradition, but eat their food with -defiled-’ hands? In fact, they do not wash their hands when they eat,

Jesus answered them, And what about you? You have a fine way of rejecting and breaking God’s clear commandment in order to keep your tradition! Because God, speaking through Moses (Exodus 20:12; Deuteronomy 5:16), commanded: -Honor your father and your mother,-’ and -Anyone who reviles his parents must die,-’ (Exodus 21:17; Leviticus 20:9) But you say, -If a person tells his parents, Anything of mine which might have been used for your benefit is now vowed to God,-’ then you permit them no longer to do anything for their parents. And so, by your man-made rule, you render God’s direct command null and void. This is typical of your procedure! You hypocrites; Isaiah (Isaiah 29:13) beautifully described your kind when he said:

-These people say they honor me; But their heart is somewhere else. When they worship me, they are wasting their time, Since they just teach men’s ideas for divine law.-'

Then Jesus called the people around Him again and exhorted them, Listen to me, all of you, and understand this: there is no defilement so damaging in what one eats as that moral contamination involved in what one says or does! Later, when Jesus had gone indoors, leaving the people outside, the disciples approached Him with the question, Do you realize that you have horrified the Pharisees with this sort of talk? His answer was: Every plant that my heavenly Father did not plant will be pulled up by the roots; so ignore them! They are blind guides leading the blind: anyone who follows them will fall into a pit with them! But Peter demanded, Explain what you meant by that enigma. Jesus responded, Are you all also still unable to grasp this? Do you not understand that what you eat will not harm your soul, because food does not come into contact with your innermost being, but simply passes through your digestive system and out again? (By saying this, Jesus declared all foods kosher or ceremonially pure.) He went on: But what a man says, comes from his soul. This is what really pollutes a man. For from within the man, out of his own mind, arise evil thoughts like murder, adultery, fornication, theft, perjury, slander, greed, malice, deceit, indecency, envy, arrogance and folly. These things come from within a man’s mind. These are the things which make a man unfit for God, but there is no defilement in eating without first washing your hands according to some ceremonial ritual!

SUMMARY

After the climax and collapse of Jesus-’ Galilean ministry, He was attacked more vigorously by the Jewish authorities on the basis of His failure to demand that His followers obey the traditions of the fathers. He counterattacked by pointing out the fundamental danger in following human tradition at all: it can very easily take precedence over clear commands of God. Further, human tradition leads people into a useless worship based upon what are thought to be God’s commands when they have only human authority for their practice. The specific charge of the Pharisees and theologians was a clear case of exaggeratedly externalized ceremonialism. Jesus counters by showing with undeniable clarity that real religion is that of the heart, and that the real defilement or pollution is that of the heart and soul of a man, not merely of his body. The nervous disciples feared the consequences of Jesus-’ severe teaching upon the Pharisees. Jesus retorted that the Pharisees-’ ideas were, after all, of human origin and worthless, but dangerous enough to destroy both the blind leader as well as all who blindly follow him. When the Twelve asked for further clarification, Jesus patiently explained that eating per se is a purely physical process that leaves the soul totally unaffected. Contrarily, the products of a man’s mind, the expression of his wrong desires, in short, his sins, really corrupt a man.

NOTES A. THE ATTACK LED BY THE PHARISEES:

You break our rules!

Matthew 15:1 **Then: **because the Synoptic writers-’ time-connections are difficult to ascertain with precision, we are limited to the supposition that this attack took place while Jesus was in Galilee sometime either before or after the Passover mentioned in John 6:4 in connection with the feeding of the five thousand. Perhaps the exciting rumors about the feeding of the 5000 men had been spread around at that feast in Jerusalem, spurring the national leaders to move decisely to block Jesus-’ mounting popularity and theological influence, **There came to Jesus from Jerusalem Pharisees and scribes: **this fact harmonizes well with John’s comment (Matthew 7:1): After this (the feeding of the 5000 and the Sermon on the Bread of Life preached at Capernaum) Jesus went about in Galilee; He would not go about in Judea, because the Jews sought to kill him.

Whether or not John means to imply that Jesus did not attend the Passover mentioned in John 6:4, is not clear, because the Apostle uses peripateîn: to walk around, to circulate in an area, perhaps in the sense of evangelistic tours in Judea. However, he may be implying that Jesus actually attended the feast, merely mingling with these masses rather than doing any attention-getting public teaching and miracles. (See Arndt-Gingrich, 654.) Nothing positive is affirmed about whether Jesus hindered the Twelve from attending the feast, if He himself remained in Galilee. There is wisdom is avoiding a fatal conclusion of one’s ministry when he who does so knows there is yet work to do. He told the Twelve: When persecuted in one town, flee to the next (Matthew 10:23). When the time came, Jesus did not avoid death. There is a day to flee and a day to die. See Thought Questions d. and e. for further problems involved in this question. The Synoptic Gospels record the travels (cf. John’s peripateîn en tê Galilaìà) Jesus took during the period between the Passover and the Feast of Tabernacles that year, a period which perhaps began with Jesus-’ debate with the Pharisees in this chapter.

**From Jerusalem Pharisees and scribes **is significant, because, whereas every city of Jewish population had its Pharisees from almost every walk of life, these guardians of righteousness stir forth from the capital with their own theologians in tow. However, this is not the first time these bloodhounds trail Him. (Cf. Mark 3:22; Luke 5:17) Pharisean views were popularly held, because these rabbis, as Bowker (Jesus and the Pharisees, 31) observes.

… went as far as possible to make Torah practicable for all the people, but they nevertheless insisted ultimately on the observance of Torah. The people welcomed the assistance of the Hakamim [i.e., scholars] in alleviating the strictest interpretations of Torah and in defending their traditional ways, but many of them were by no means prepared to submit their lives to the whole detail of Torah.

Bowker (ibid. 30) also notices the tension existing between the scholars and the common people who by no means necessarily went all the way to accept every detail of scholarly interpretation in their own lives. Since it was the scholars-’ design to define the Law so that, theoretically, ordinary people could actually achieve a condition of holiness as defined in the Law, and since they extended their influence over the people through education in the synagogues whereby their exegesis and applications of the Law molded the popular mind, naturally, any evidence of weakening or lowering of the traditional interpretations or standards would be viewed by the Pharisees as an instant threat to the holiness of Israel. As our text will amply demonstrate, Jesus posed a grave menace to the Pharisees on the following grounds:

He ignored tradition as a question of conscience. This is no small issue, since, as Bowker (ibid. 17f, emphasis added) points out:

The basic obligation of searching out the meaning and application of Torah was no easy matter. It was assisted by the recognition that Torah had already been applied and lived out by earlier figures from the time of the prophets, pre-eminently exemplified in the restoration of Torah under Ezra. Thus the notion of Scripture was as important as the acceptance of Torah, since with the writings coming from the later period, the first interpretations of the meaning of Torah could be found. Yet of course there was no reason in principle to stop at Ezra. [From OUR standpoint, however, it should be remembered that all previous men were inspired in various ways, hence, authoritative interpreters, whereas those following the time of Ezra, were neither inspired nor authoritative. HEF] In practice it proved necessary, not least because of the proliferation of scriptures; but in fact the important point was that the earlier writings recorded the first implementations of Torah, and tradition continued the record in the post-scriptural period. From this point of view, the long tradition of what it has meant to obey Torah (and, equally, to disobey Torah) is in a sense as important as Torah itself. Torah and Scripture have a distinct status, but the tradition of what Torah means in practice continued to be an essential part of exegesis.

Thus, for Jesus to ignore tradition meant to reject, as it seemed to the scholars, one of the most essential tools of Biblical Interpretation.

Jesus seemed to side with the Sadducean philosophy of tradition. Surprisingly enough for Bible readers, the very fact that Jesus should reject tradition seemed automatically to align Him with the Sadducean attitude toward tradition. Bowker (ibid., 18) notes that the Sadducees denied the validity, both of the methods of Hakamic exegesis, and of the support which they gave to traditional ways of doing things, and. they insisted on the application of the literal text of Torah wherever possible. (See also Josephus, Ant., XIII, 10, 6.) Edersheim (Life, I, 313f) cautions that it would be a great historical inaccuracy to think that the Sadducees had no traditions at all, for the Sadducees did not lay down the principle of absolute rejection of all traditions as such, but that they were opposed to traditionalism as represented and carried out by the Pharisees. (See also note on Matthew 15:9.) And, while Jesus-’ theology was not at all materialistic like that of the Sadducees, certainly He too opposed traditionalism as fostered and practiced by the Pharisees. They could not but feel that His anti-traditional attitude swung too much weight behind their opponents-’ policy.

Jesus was popular. Among all the preceding leading lights in Judaism the Pharisees enjoyed the popular vote and the deepest influence. (Cf. Mark’s expression: Pharisees and all the Jews, Matthew 7:3) But with the advent of Jesus, however, public opinion had begun to swing away from those Separatists and their minutiae. As Morgan (Matthew, 194) preaches:

The attractive power of Jesus Christ did not lie in the accidentals which appealed to a few; it was rather that of His essential humanity, which found an answer in all human life, notwithstanding the accidentals of birth and position and education.

So, when Jesus-’ prodigious popular ministry numbered thousands in His audiences and when He publicly flouted time-honored traditions, His fame and influence plainly signaled a revolution in public thought.

An exquisite passage in Josephus (Ant., XIII, 10, 6), himself a Pharisee (cf. Life, 2), summarizes the Pharisean position as he understood it.

This congressional investigating committee from Jerusalem sought and soon found an opportunity to open fire. Because of the specific accusation involved in their attack and because their aggression begins in such close proximity to the feeding of the five thousand, it would be easy to consider their assault as somehow related to that event. The Jerusalem rabbis may well have remained stupefied by the magnitude of that miracle and all its glorious implications, until one of them, trying to imagine the event, wondered how such a mass of people could properly prepare themselves to eat by doing the prescribed washings. When he struck upon the probability that, out there in the wilderness, they could NOT have washed their hands in the right way, all the majesty of God that had been revealed in that stupendous miracle lost its luster in the (for them) more glorious discovery that Jesus-’ disciples transgress the tradition of the elders, for they wash not their hands when they eat!

The timing, if we have correctly understood it, as Matthew and Mark record it, coincides generally with the great Sermon on the Bread of Life delivered in the Capernaum synagogue. (John 6) It was at the conclusion of that soul-testing pronouncement that Jesus-’ popularity in Galilee collapsed. In perfect concord with John’s representation of that popularity crisis, the former Evangelists describe the theological issue of that same climax. (See the introductory critical notes on Matthew 14:34-36.) Their point is simple: the ultimate crisis of the cross arises out of this fundamental clash between Jesus-’ authoritative representation of God’s will and His unequivocal rejection of Jewish tradition as inimical to proper fulfillment of God’s will.

Mark (Mark 7:3-4) provides the explanation of their contention, a fact that incidentally helps to determine to which readership Mark addressed his Gospel. Matthew omits entirely all explanations about Jewish purification rites, because they would have been perfectly familiar to those whom we have supposed to be his readers, the Hebrews themselves. Mark, in this case, probably needed to explain such matters to his audience, i.e., non-Jews. Because Mark asserts that all the Jews do not eat unless they wash., we may ask how many among Jesus-’ associates participated in God’s laws on cleanness and defilement?

Lepers kept themselves at a distance from people and cried, Unclean, not merely because their disease was contagious, but because of ceremonial defilement of others contacted by them, (Luke 17:12 f;Leviticus 13:45 f)

Mary and Joseph kept the law of birth purification, (Luke 2; Luke 22 f, Luke 2:39)

A Jew argued with John’s disciples about purification, (John 3:22-30)

At the wedding feast in Cana plenty of water was furnished for the Jewish rites of purification. (John 2:6)

Peter habitually ate kosher food, (Acts 10:14)

The Pharisees themselves strictly avoided defilement and expected others to do the same. (Cf. Matthew 23:25 ff; Luke 7:39; John 18:28)

Regulations about food, drink and various washing were a characteristic part of Judaism. (Cfr. Hebrews 9:9 f)

Because such ceremonious cleansing and ritual purity was so common in Jewish households, Mark’s statement that the Pharisees and all the Jews. wash is not at all extreme, but historically exact. For interesting notes on the historical position of the Pharisees in Judaism, see Lynn Gardner’s summary at the end of this chapter.

Matthew 15:2 **saying, Why do thy disciples transgress the tradition of the elders? for they wash not their hands when they eat bread. **Note how astutely their denunciation is worded: they consider Jesus-’ disciples to be the living fruit of His ministry, the exemplification of His doctrine, almost as if they turned Jesus-’ own words against Him: By their fruits you shall know them (false prophets). This charge is serious, because it implies that Jesus Himself teaches His disciples to violate the rules, because the followers undoubtedly reflect Jesus-’ own views. (Cf. Luke 11:38) On other occasions they had attempted without success to expose His miracles as worked by secret agreement with Satan. (See on Matthew 12:24 ff; cf. Matthew 9:33 f) Having been thoroughly embarrassed by His answers there, these experts now apparently make no effort to deny or explain the reality of His supernatural credentials upon which the authority for His claims and practice was based. These critics now blast the Lord where they suppose they can hurt Him worst: His disregarding their revered traditional practices. To believe wrongly is bad enough, but to teach others to ignore the accepted norms is infinitely worse. So, had the Pharisees only been theologically correct, their attack would have been rightly ordered and truly devastating.

This debate is fundamental, not peripheral, regardless of our western attitude toward the specific taboos involved here. Back of both Jesus-’ and the Pharisees-’ arguments is the basic concept of CLEANNESS and DEFILEMENT. We must never lose sight of the fact that the fundamental idea of defilement by eating unclean foods, or by contact with unclean objects or persons was actually part of God’s Law. (Cf. Leviticus 5:2 f; Leviticus 7:19-21; Leviticus 11; Leviticus 13-15; Leviticus 17:15 f; Leviticus 18; Leviticus 19:31; Leviticus 21:4; Leviticus 21:11 f; Leviticus 22:1-9; Numbers 5:3; Numbers 6:9; Numbers 9:6 f; Numbers 19:13; Numbers 19:20; Numbers 19:22; Deuteronomy 21:22 f; Deuteronomy 14:3-21; Deuteronomy 23:10-14) Once these laws are understood, the modern surprise that smiles at such carefulness in washing as that practiced among the Jews becomes unnecessary and unjustifiable.

Cleanness, simply stated, is that state in which man might not only worship or approach God, but also in which he might live in fellowship with his human society. Contrarily, uncleanness, impurity or defilement mean that he is in a state where this kind of worship or approach to God is impossible and his social relations with his fellows are hindered. So, this whole concept of clean and unclean has little, if anything, directly to do with physical cleanliness or hygiene, except perhaps indirectly and subordinately.

(Is it possible, on the other hand, that God considered literal, physical cleanness and hygiene, ALONG WITH MORAL, SPIRITUAL PURITY, as not only a condition of fellowship with Him, but also conducive to man’s deeper happiness in his earthly condition? That is, is it possible that physical filth and corruption are also abhorrent to God because unrepresentative of His perfect creation in which God saw everything that he had made, and behold it was very good? According to this understanding, then, even physical hygiene and removal of material filth become man’s responsibility in order to keep himself physically proper for God’s sight and ready for human comradeship. This view, while not at all denying that God has always intended that man keep himself morally pure, hence fit for divine and human fellowship, intends only to picture some of the Levitical washing laws as also intended to remove real dirt, germs and other filth that defile, disease or otherwise render a person unready for divine and human fellowship. Further, this view has the advantage of seeing the human being as a whole, composed of body and spirit, both of which must be pure and undefiled before God’s holy presence and, thus, ready for human society.)

The concept of moral filth is also important to our understanding. (See Isaiah 4:4; Isaiah 64:6; Isaiah 65:5; Lamentations 1:8 f, Lamentations 1:17; Ezekiel 22:15; Ezekiel 24:12 f; Ezekiel 36:25; Ezra 9:11; Proverbs 30:12) However, a careful examination of these passages and the above-mentioned laws will not render any specific law that requires any Hebrew to wash his hands before meals. It is understandable, however, that the learned concept of a defilement that must be removed by washing should affect Jewish thinking so deeply as to find expression in the desire to eliminate even potential defilement. Nevertheless, GOD DID NOT COMMAND THE HANDWASHING RITUAL.

Its institution was attributed to Solomon (Shab. 14b; on washing in general, cf. Haggai 2:4 f; Ber. 14b, 15b, 22a; Shab. 14b) However, in a comment on Numbers 18:7 in Sifre, sec, 116, it is argued that if a priest must bathe his hands before service in the Temple, so he must sanctify his hands before eating holy things in the country. For him to eat holy things is like the service in the Temple. Therefore, it is concluded, handwashing to eat food sanctified is required by the Torah. It should be noticed here that the very necessity to argue the case of handwashing puts in doubt the presumed Solomonic, hence, inspired, origin of the custom, as if it were not so Solomonic after all, despite the fact that it is said that, when he instituted handwashing, the Divine Voice (Bath Qol) came forth giving approval. (Shab. 14b) Bowker (Jesus and the Pharisees, 70) notes, further, that handwashing was a matter of continuing controversy: even as late as the compilation of B. Hull. 105a it was not determined how much of the washing of hands was obligatory and how much meritorious; and one man was treated as apostate because he threw doubt on cleansing of hands. (See ISBE, 415 on Bath Kol for an excellent discussion of the so-called Divine Voice concept that arose in Judaism after the cessation of true prophetism.)

Edersheim (Life, II, 13) agrees that immediately prior to Christ, Hillel and Shammai agreed on hand-washing and fixed the rabbinic views on this subject, even though it did not take on the force of universal authoritative tradition until the time of Christ. In this case, the hand-washing ordinance would have been a recent enactment which, by specific rabbinic rules, could not be questioned or invalidated.

Further, the precise report of the scribes-’ attack affords most valuable indirect confirmation of the trustworthiness of his Gospel, as not only showing intimate familiarity with the minutiae of Jewish -tradition,-’ but giving prominence to what was then a present controversyand all this the more, that it needs intimate knowledge of that law even fully to understand the language of the Evangelist. (Edersheim, Life, II, 14f)

However much in harmony with the concept of Biblical cleanness and defilement the hand-washing ritual may have logically fit, it is of human, not divine, origin. However well it may have seemed to instill in people a sense of what was common, profane or unclean and what was sanctified or holy (cf. Leviticus 10:10; Ezekiel 22:26), still it was human judgment that decided it so. Further, whereinsofar each single Hebrew freely chose to wash his hands before eating food in full awareness of the contamination that pollutes the soul and can only be washed by the blood of perfect sacrifices and as a symbol of that cleansing, there could be no valid argument against such a free, independent, personal decision. Here, even the Christian laws of personal liberty would fully permit this personal choice. However, the rabbis had elevated their interpretation to the status of authoritative custom possessed of special value or merit within itself in the service of God, and by this move they took the act out of the realm of free, personal choice and placed it in the realm of law.

To appreciate the seriousness and apparent justice of the Pharisees-’ question, we must see that Judaism in general viewed the Mosaic Law as consisting of two equally essential parts: the written Law, i.e., the Pentateuch, and the oral, or traditional, Law. The former was penned by Moses and commented upon by the prophets. The latter, or oral law, was supposedly whispered by God to Moses and handed down only in oral form, never reduced to writing until the second century after Christ in the Mishnah (collected around 132-200 A.D.) and developed by Haggadah or additional comments, illustrations, anecdotes and wise sayings, Halakah, or casuistry, traditional ordinances, logical legal deductions and finally collected in the Talmudim in the third and fourth centuries after Christ.

The essential difficulty of the Jews lay in their undifferentiated view of traditions. They could rightly cite prophetic precedents for some practical interpretations of the law, as, for example, Nehemiah’s city ordinance that protected Sabbath observance in Jerusalem (Nehemiah 13:15-22), Ezra’s marriage reforms (Ezekiel 10; Nehemiah 13:23 ff), Malachi’s pronouncements on divorce (Malachi 2:13-16) and others. These illustrate how the Law was to be interpreted. However, they failed to see that THESE traditional interpretations were made by prophets or by inspired men, an observation that cannot with justice be made for those traditions born of common, uninspired attempts to interpret and apply the Law. It was the assumption that the intertestamental elders-’ opinions carried as much weight as that of inspired prophets that got them into this difficulty. This is the reason why the Bath Qol concept was so malicious a doctrine: it gave apparent divine sanction to purely human notions!

Jesus-’ entire argument, that their traditions (on hand-washing supposedly attributed to Solomon) annul the Word of God, flatly denies the Solomonic paternity of that custom, hence of the traditional authority upon which it was based. Affirmations that these oral traditions were given by God to Moses and handed down unerringly and uninterruptedly to Jesus-’ contemporaries, must, of course, be documented. But the bad joke on oral tradition is that when it is documented, it is no longer oral but written, and, if written, subject to the same tests as any other written document, subject to the same historical verification as any other report of things that are said to be. Unconfirmed Mishnaic affirmations that the traditions were handed down through a given chain of authorities must not be accepted without proof. (Cf. Aboth. Matthew 1:1-4 or Tosefta: Yad Matthew 2:16) Other than these allegations, is there any trustworthy documentary evidence that PROVES a greater antiquity for these traditions than the post-exilic period? This is not to say that the rabbis did not even try to document and/or antedate their traditions. In fact, rabbinic defence of oral tradition as essentially Mosaic took the route of:

Warped exegesis of texts like Deuteronomy 4:14 and Exodus 24:12, whereby the attempts are made to identify the Mishnah and the Talmud hidden in words of these texts. Hosea 8:12 is supposed to mean that God did not write all of His Law, hence, if He wished Israel to know it, it was passed down by oral tradition, i.e., unwritten, and nonetheless authentic and authoritative. (Edersheim, Life, 1, 99)

Confusion of local judicial decisions for revelations from God forever binding the conscience of all succeeding generations. (Study Deuteronomy 17:8-13)

But this is far from proving Mishnaic assertions, like those of* Aboth.* i.1-4, or Yad. ii. 16 (Tosefta), that presume to list a few of the elders.

This is why the Pharisees-’ charge must never be dismissed as simple sectarian punctiliousness, as if they could not find any greater misdemeanor than this, whereas the disciples of Jesus truly conducted themselves so inoffensively that this was the very worst accusation that could be levelled against them. To think this way is to miss the point of what it means to BELIEVE IN INSPIRED TRADITIONS! Equally erroneous is any sniggering about a Rabbi Joses-’ determination that to eat with unwashen hands is as great a sin as adultery, because his view is perfectly consistent with his belief in the divine origin and authority of both ordinances, the former being decided by a Voice from heaven (Bath Qol), the latter by a written commandment at Sinai. He is not seeking to distinguish what is essential from what is non-essential in what he believes (wrongly, we think) to be God’s Word. The rabbi’s mistake is in believing that God inspired or authorized the tradition about hand-washing.

B. JESUS COUNTERATTACKS (15:3-20; Mark 7:6-23)

Before the Pharisees: You break God’s Law to keep your rules!

Matthew 15:3 **Why do ye also transgress the commandment of God because of your tradition? Ye also: **this is no mere ad hominem argument whereby Jesus defends the practice of His disciples by pointing out that the Pharisees are also culpable. Ye also admits the disciples-’ guilt, but with the vast difference that, whereas the disciples were confessedly guilty of ignoring human traditions, the critics themselves were liable for a far more serious crime, not against men, but against the living God! Morgan (Matthew, 196) is right to observe that, had He excused the disciples or suggested that, after all, they had not violated tradition, He would tacitly have admitted that tradition as such was not so blameable, but was, rather, the commonly accepted norm. But by saying Ye also, He admitted this violation of tradition, thus opening the way to attack tradition as normative. Note that He never objects to the traditional hand-washing as a custom. Rather, He firmly refused to recognize it as a conscience-binding rule of religion.

An important question to consider now is whether the Pharisees of any age set out deliberately to transgress the commandment of God in order to keep their traditions. There is a type of Pharisee that finds it undesirable to observe some command of God, and so deliberately sets it aside, hoping to make up for his failure by being extra scrupulous at some other point. This, it is assumed, will compensate for his refusal to observe the other precept. At last, this kind of compensation can so deaden his conscience that it no longer rebukes his disobedience, since, after all, it is supposedly covered by his severe strictness elsewhere. But may it be assumed that this kind of deliberate disobedience is intended here? Since Jesus is dealing with people whose reliance is upon the Law and whose boast is their relation to God, who know His will and approve what is excellent (cf. Romans 2:17 ff), their failure may well be found in their blindness, i.e., their inability to conceive the possibility that their own rules, invented to protect and correctly apply God’s Law, could actually transgress that Law. (However, see also on Matthew 15:6.)

It may be that these legalists were not at all intending to ignore any part of God’s Word in their attention to tradition, because their declared purpose for creating these fences to hedge in the Law was to protect it against violation. However, their scrupulous observance of human traditional practice led surely and directly to a corresponding negligence and unscrupulousness regarding God’s Word. Thus, the entire procedure was a question of ATTENTION. (Cf. notes on Matthew 13:9) By their elaborate arguments they gave close attention to human procedures, debating trifles and treated as matters of conscience what could never affect nor effect inward purity. But, by so doing, they unconsciously turned their attention away from the very laws of God they proposed to interpret and obey! Here is another case where, had they given attention to God’s preferences for mercy and not sacrifice (see on Matthew 9:13 and Matthew 12:7), they would not have forgotten nor ignored true morality by insisting on such arbitrary interpretations and rituals.

It is because of this traditionalist mentality, this inability to see how far human rules and attempts at interpretation can really supplant God’s will, that Jesus attacks the whole system of tradition. The key to understanding this entire discourse and its proper application in our own case lies in Matthew 15:9. What is perhaps most damning is that attitude taken in the Mishnah (Sanh. xi. 3): It is more punishable to act against the words of the Scribes than against the Scripture. (quoted by Edersheim, Sketches, 223) This explains why Jesus could never treat traditionalism with indifference! (Cf. Jeremiah 8:8) Not only was failure to comply with their rules perfectly legitimate: direct opposition to them was a duty! At every point where human authority competes with God’S, it must not only be accepted. It must be resisted.

By saying your tradition, the Lord renders those rabbis immediately and personally responsible for the customary usages they hold and teach as conscience-binding rules. Even though these impositions are the inventions of others (the elders), those who uphold and pass them on are equally liable for having followed their guides. (See on Matthew 15:14; cf. Mich. Matthew 6:16.) By characterizing their procedure as transgressing the commandment of God. Jesus warns His followers against the evil consequences of men’s imposing their strictures upon others, because, while initially seeming only to restrict the freedom of action enjoyed by Christ’s disciples, they proceed to become laws where God not only made none, but deliberately left men free to decide spontaneously and responsibly.

While it is certainly true and probably right to affirm, with some, that while Jesus-’ clash with the Pharisees is a collision between two views of religion, between externalism and spiritual religion, and while the great defect of rabbinism was to make sin so merely external that an act was considered right or wrong depending upon the presence or absence of some external condition, yet the fundamental problem, according to the Lord, is not externalism as such. This supreme religious contest is waged over the fundamental problem of AUTHORITY IN RELIGION: shall it be human or divine? Shall we break God’s Law to keep men’s or vice versa? Externalism is but one symptom and a result of the even greater defect, i.e., teaching as obligatory what is but the precept of men. Externalism is only admissible where human authority has already begun to take precedence over God’S.

Matthew 15:4 **For God said, Honor thy father and thy mother: and, He that speaketh evil of father or mother, let him die the death. **(Exodus 20:12; Exodus 21:17) For God said is Jesus-’ final word on the divine paternity of the passages in question. His word cannot be laughed off as mere cultural accommodation to the popular prejudices and traditional understanding of Pentateuchal authorship. For those who have ears to hear Jesus, He makes a clear-cut distinction between human traditions, as followed by the elders of the Pharisees, and the Word of God as a divine, infallible guide. This should warn all scholars everywhere that for Jesus Christ the indisputably right author of Exodus is really Moses (Mark 7:10) and God (Matthew 15:4). It would be crushingly ironic, were Jesus, in His argument against human traditions that He regards as mistaken, however well received on ancient authority, to cite what, according to modern criticism of the Old Testament, turns out to be nothing better than human tradition! By such standards, Jesus Himself must be seen to fall into the same confusion of which He accused His opponents! (See also on Matthew 15:7 where He points to Isaiah as the real author of his prophecy.) But if the Lord may be credited with even average rationality, He could have seen that the validity of His arguments DEPENDED upon the unquestionably divine origin and traceable transmission of the citations He adduces. It is in this kind of context that the afore-mentioned thesis of some scholarly criticism fails its most crucial test by refusing to permit Jesus to testify in an area where He is most qualified to speak. Either Jesus said this or He did not. If He said it, then the critics cannot affirm that His quotations and indications of prophetic paternity and divine inspiration of the OT books represent merely the traditional beliefs of the Jewish people. It is false to accuse the Lord of having refused to declare Himself on such critical Old Testament questions, thus leaving such matters for the relatively recent European scholarship to decide, when, as a matter of fact, He is actually discussing traditions.

For Matthew to quote Jesus as saying, For God said., while at this same point Mark (Mark 7:10) says, For Moses said. creates no contradiction, because the Lord may have actually said both; For God through Moses commanded, saying. In this case, the Evangelists simplify these introductory words, since both recognize Moses-’ divine mandate and God’s human agent.

**Honor thy father and thy mother, **according to Jesus, is a command with life-long obligations. No amount of physical maturity can ever release the children from due respect for their parents, because honor has no terminal limits. In fact, honor means, among other things, to maintain them with daily sustenance. (Cf. 1 Timothy 5:3-17; Ephesians 6:1-3) Jesus honored His earthly parents and cared for His mother as best He could. (Luke 2:51; John 19:26 f) **He that speaketh evil of father or mother, let him die the death. **Edersheim, (Life, II, 21) notices this typically rabbinical method in Jesus-’ answer by which He mentioned, along with the precept, the penalty for its transgression. This detail has evidential value in that it reveals the Master’s intimate knowledge of His people’s traditional manner of teaching the Law. He is no ignorant iconoclast. Rather, He meets the scribes on their own grounds, reads them their own Scriptures and leaves them self-condemned. Matthew Henry (Vol. V, 211) reminds:

The sin of cursing parents is here opposed to the duty of honouring them. Those who speak ill of their parents, or wish ill to them, who mock at them, or give them taunting and opprobrious language, break this law. If to call a brother Raca be so penal, what is it to call a father so? By our Saviour’s application of this law, it appears, that denying service or relief to parents is included in cursing them. Though the language be respectful enough, and nothing abusive in it, yet what will that avail, if the deeds be not agreeable? It is like him that said, I go, Sir, and went not. ch. xxi. 30.

God had placed reverence for parents on the same level with Israel’s national and personal holiness and in context with the sanctity of the sabbath and with the proper worship of God. (See Leviticus 19:3 f.) It is because the majesty of God, violated in this disrespect for the persons of the parents that the sin of cursing them is made punishable with death. All of God’s representatives are to be served with honor and fear, because in this commandment lies the foundation for order in the whole social realm. Here God teaches us to acknowledge rightful authority by showing proper reverence in thought, word and deed. Out of this understanding of the true positions of father and child grows our appreciation of, and demand for, good government and, consequently, our grasp of the Kingdom of God. This relationship is so fundamental, because it gives moral character and stability to a nation, and prosperity and well-being to its people. Thus, the failure adequately to value this parent-child relationship, especially through the grown son’s refusal to support his aging parents, is direct evidence of a fundamental moral decline in appreciation for the majesty and authority of God. Not only is the image of God in the parents no longer kept sacred, but the Word and authority of God are also ignored. This is why refusal to support one’s parents in their helplessness and senility is a sin worthy of capital punishment under the Mosaic system.

Matthew 15:5 But ye say: Here is written the condemnation of every false religion, because, notwithstanding the fact that God has spoken, men think they can still have their say! By so thinking, they permitted a scribal rule to wipe out one of the Ten Commandments! Here Jesus quoted God’s Law, and then threw the rabbinical position into sharp contrast with it. Consider, however, what is involved when He quotes a command of God and then throws His own word into contrast with it. (Cf. Matthew 5:21 f, Matthew 5:27 f, Matthew 5:31 f, Matthew 5:33 f, Matthew 5:38 f, Matthew 5:43 f) In the former case, the Jews had no divine authority to make any alteration in God’s Law; in the latter, however, Jesus Himself was God’s Word come in human flesh to reveal God’s changes of emphasis. (Cf. John 1:14; John 1:17 f)

Why Jesus should select this particular illustration to deal with the rabbis-’ attack is understood differently by commentators. McGarvey (Matthew-Mark, 134) thinks:

This example did not touch the question of uncleanness, but it proved that tradition was an unauthoritative and mischievous guide, and as the objection of the scribes was based on the authority of tradition, it destroyed the force of an objection. The particular tradition about eating with unwashed hands is discussed on its merits in the next paragraph; principles are settled first, and details afterward.

However, Edersheim (Life, II, 19), on the basis of a Talmudic comment that may well represent earlier rabbinical thought, believes Jesus to have seen an association of ideas between the Pharisees-’ accusation about washing of hands and the hand of Corban:

The Talmud explains that, when a man simply says: -That (or, if) I eat or taste such a thing,-’ it is imputed as a vow, and he may not eat or taste of it, -because the hand is on the Qorban-’ (Jer. Nedar. 36d, line 22)the mere touch of Qorban had sanctified it, and put it beyond his reach, just as if it had been laid on the altar itself. Here, then, was a contrast. According to the Rabbis, the touch of -a common-’ hand defiled God’s good gift of meat, while the touch of -a sanctified-’ hand in rash or wicked words might render it impossible to give anything to a parent, and so involved the grossest breach of the Fifth Commandment! Such, according to Rabbinic Law, was the -common-’ and such the -sanctifying-’ touch of the hands.

In any case, the fundamental principle involved is the concept of vows. Mark (Mark 7:11) underlies this by bringing into his Gospel a Hebrew word he then has to translate for his uninformed readers: Corban (that is, Given to God). What is this Corban-concept? Was the Corban-clause a deliberate ploy to avoid responsibility to parents, or was it not, rather, just another apparently correct application or interpretation of divine Law, that, however apparently orthodox in intention, was used in actual practice to justify just this same sort of inhumanity scored by Jesus here? Thus, regardless of its original intention or regardless of the sincerity of the human authors who started this tradition, it was used to subvert God’s commands. If we would avoid the same trap, we need to understand:

The Biblical revelations that formers of the Corban-clause could cite for its correctness. Consider the following passages and see if you too come out with any other conclusion than that, once a person has promised to give God something, he is duty-bound to do so; Numbers 30:2; Leviticus 19:12; Leviticus 27; Deuteronomy 23:21-23; Proverbs 20:25; Ecclesiastes 5:2; Ecclesiastes 5:4-6; Zechariah 8:16 f.

The human arguments for the Corban-clause. Since it would be necessary to distinguish between a loosely-stated half-intention and a solemn promise, it may be that the Jews decided that a vow had not been made unless the person should affirm: It is given (= Corban). This would establish clearly in the minds of all that a solemn oath has been pronounced. Naturally, no one who made this serious affirmation before God would consider breaking the oath once made. Therefore it stood as valid, and any failure to maintain it would be equal to taking God’s Name in vain and so the man would be held liable before God.

The fatal flaw in the Corban-doctrine. The precepts governing oaths presume that a person is actually free to give to the Lord what he voluntarily promises. (Deuteronomy 23:23) But, if God has already obligated a man to use his possessions differently than he might have vowed, then is he no longer free to vow them to the Lord. He must use them as God commanded, as, for example, to care for his aged parents. He must not vow them at all, for to vow them brings them under the law of oaths which require that he pay what he had no right even to promise, thus bringing one of God’s laws into contradiction with another of His laws. But God had left a way out: REPENTANCE of the oath and SACRIFICE for the sin of having thus to break it! (Leviticus 5:4-6) Further, the possession thus vowed could actually be redeemed from the Lord by adding 20% to its value, (Leviticus 27) These two steps made it possible to obey God and care for one’s parents, despite the ill-taken oath.

(The fact that a father might cancel a vow made by a daughter, by forbidding her fulfilling it, suggests the principle that filial obedience to a father stands higher in God’s eyes than carrying out her self-imposed religious service. See Lev. 30:3-5)

The positive perniciousness of the Corban-doctrine: The fact that God had not revealed the Corban-concept should warn against its ever being considered all-inclusive and absolute, lest anyone abuse God’s other revelations in ways of which he may yet be unaware. This Corban-concept, when blindly and absolutely carried to its severely logical extreme, could not but actually encourage people to neglect morality because of a religious quibble, a punctilious principle, and so pave the way for that spiritual deterioration that ends in unembarrassed iniquity.

Is it true that the man who pronounced the magic word, Corban, not only avoided thereby his obligation to support his parents, but could at the same time continue to enjoy the comforts and use of his own possessions although vowed to the service of God? If this sham dedication was as common as the real, Jesus-’ denunciation adequately touches both cases.

Edersheim (Life, II, 18ff, emphasis added) states that what might be suspected about the common usage of language, held true even in the case of Corban. It must not be thought that the pronunciation of the votive word -Qorban,-’. necessarily dedicated a thing to the Temple. The meaning might simply be, and generally was, that it was to be regarded LIKE Qorbanthat is, that in regard to the person or persons named, the thing termed was to be considered AS IF it were Qorban, laid on the altar, and put entirely out of their reach. Accordingly, what is involved here is not so much a consecration to God, but an oath of personal obligation, and binding, even though it involve a breach of the Law. (Nedar, ii, 2)

If no real service to God is intended, how much more wicked is the selfish son who talks this way!

So, human need, according to Jesus, takes precedence over any rites and ceremonies, especially those of admittedly human origin. For God is not so much interested in precise and punctual performance of ceremonies as He is in relieving human suffering and making men over in His image. It is increasingly important today to remember that God thinks SOME ceremonies to be beautifully fitted to accomplish these high goals. He admits no false dichotomy between ceremonies and merciful helpfulness, because He knows that He can have BOTH. (See notes on Matthew 9:13.) Jesus-’ words must never be distorted to mean that ceremonies, like baptism, the Lord’s Supper, congregational worship and such, may be safely dispensed with as somehow unimportant, and perhaps even detrimental because susceptible of becoming empty ceremonialisms. In the case of ceremonies which God has ordained, a Scriptural case could be made for the spiritual benefits accruing to the sincere disciple who participates in them. (Cf. Psalms 51:16-19) So, before concluding that we may decide to sacrifice ceremonies to morality on the basis of something we think Jesus means in this text, we must recall that He intends morality in the sense of what God defines as morality. No arbitrary decision of ours about what constitutes morality may disagree with His, for to ignore His decisions about ceremonies is immoral.

Note the general principle that not even gifts given to God Himself can close His eyes to the inhumanity and disobedience of selfish hearts. (Cf. Deuteronomy 10:17; 1 Samuel 15:22) Here were men who were trying to be so holy that they could not use their holy money to obey the command of God! Any money given to God today usually and rightly goes to help some human being. He does not need our money. (Micah 6:6-8; Psalms 50:10-15) So, logically, it must be used to help people. Further, in the sense that the aged parents had the right to expect filial support, the traditional interpretation of the rabbis was a violation of human rights.

Matthew 15:6 **He shall not honor his father. **These words belong grammatically to the words of the traditionalists, but it may well be asked whether they ever said this in so many words.

Lenski (Matthew, 585) comments that the remark that the Pharisees would scarcely have contradicted the Fourth (sic) Commandment so flatly does honor to Christian feeling but fails to understand the Pharisees.

Farrar (Life, 338, note 2) notes that some of the rabbis had expressly taught that a vow superseded the necessity of obedience to the fifth commandment. That they actually so taught is documented in the Mishnah, (Nedar, ii. 2; ix. 1; v), only collected in the late second century A.D.

Accordingly, it is possible to credit the Pharisees with having taken the extreme position whereby the Corban-principle actually transcended the Fifth Commandment and codified it into law by the time of the Mishnah collection, whereas in Jesus-’ time it may have been in the formative stage. Had the common non-Pharisee said in so many words, He shall not honor his father, his rejection of God’s commandment would be obvious, because expressed in language so nearly equal to God’s that it called attention to it. Rather, in Christ’s time, they may have decided simply: Anyone who pronounces -Corban-’ over his property is obligated thereby not to use its value for any other purpose not consonant with its dedication to the Temple. If this were the case, then Jesus slices away all the rule’s apparent legality by pointing to an application so evident, so practical and so vicious, that none but the willfully blind could deny it. The purpose of God’s Temple is to express His concern that men learn to live not only holy lives before God, but also to learn to love and honor one another. What a tragedy that one’s own parents should be shut out of God’s plan for their care in their senior years by a deliberate misuse of God’s plans! Knofel Staton (Perfect Balance, 83), applying this text, rightly challenges:

Do we consider a person’s provisions to his needy parents a part of church giving? (Read 1 Timothy 5:1-16) What kind of witness do Christians give to unbelievers when we turn the care of our parents over to the government? Is God happy that our faith-promise pledge is high while our care for our parents is nil?

Unless we remain sensitive to what God desires, we too may buy the rubbish of the rabbis by letting some magic oath, some homemade, ax-grinding rule release men from a God-ordained obligation.

Jesus-’ conclusion: **And ye have made void the word of God because of your tradition. **Again Jesus-’ emphasis is on the personal responsibility of those who follow the tradition: your tradition which you hand on. And many such things you do. (Mark 7:13) Edersheim (Life, II, 17) notes that

It was an admitted Rabbinic principle that, while the ordinances of Scripture required no confirmation, those of the Scribes needed such, [Babylonian Talmud, R.H. 18b, cf. Bowker, p. 135] and that no Halakhah [i.e. traditional law] might contradict Scripture. (Jer. Taan. 66a)

From this standpoint, therefore, Jesus not only proved that on this critical issue and in many others (Mark 7:13), the scribes-’ traditional views contradicted or vitiated the Law of God, but He was also arguing on grounds perfectly acceptable to the scribes themselves, and by their own rules they stood self-condemned!

Your tradition: points to the human origin and transmission of such rules. Accordingly, not every traditional practice comes under the condemnation of the Lord, because there do exist good and true traditions, defined as such by their ORIGIN. (Cf. 1 Corinthians 15:3 I delivered = parédoka; Matthew 11:2; Matthew 11:23; 2 Thessalonians 2:15; 2 Thessalonians 3:6; Jude 1:3 delivered, paradostheise; 2 Peter 2:21 delivered) This very distinction in ORIGIN signals the chasm that separates acceptable from unacceptable traditions: are they from God, i.e. delivered (or handed down) by the prophets and apostles? If so, accept and obey, cherish and teach them. Are they products of human reasoning? If so, beware of elevating them to the level of divine authority, since they may be found to promote violations of God’s Word. Of course, they may not too, since they may be nothing more than the good, practical ways of understanding and applying God’s Word in a given period. Their ever-present weakness is their humanness.

A modern illustration may serve here. The Holy Spirit describes Christian baptism in the New Testament as the burial in water of a penitent believer for the forgiveness of his sins, in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. (Matthew 28:19; Mark 16:16; Acts 2:38; Acts 8:38 f; Acts 22:16 et al.) Over the centuries, however, it has become traditional to acknowledge as valid baptism some other act:

which consists in nothing more than a sprinkling of water on the head of a baby that cannot believe, repent or confess personal faith in Jesus Christ;

or, which, in other cases, while being performed by immersion has no vital connection with a salvation that has according to its practioners, already occurred in the believer, hence is not absolutely essential to receive remission of sins, the gift of the Spirit, eternal life, etc.

or is eliminated altogether as a superfluous relic of a bygone age.

Whenever human traditions dare say that anything else is just as good as, or just as saving as, what God requires, they fall under the same condemnation Jesus levels against those who made void the word of God because of their traditions. We ought therefore to have a holy fear of any religious system that affirms that ANYTHING is required for our becoming Christians or for maturing our spiritual life, more than the commandment of Christ or the Apostles. Not even men’s best applications or extension of meaning of Scripture will do, because no time at all is required for these to become a tradition which rivals God’s Word, no matter how well grounded in good reasons those applications might once have been.

Matthew 15:7 **Ye hypocrites **is Jesus-’ epithet for them, perhaps to avoid calling them moral imbeciles. The justifications for His judgment are multiple:

They had condemned Jesus-’ disciples for ignoring human traditions, while they themselves, because of their devotion to those human opinions, disobeyed God’s Word, while pretending great devotion to God!

So painfully careful about ceremonial defilement of hands and household articles, they ignored the real pollution of the heart by their sins and their bold contradictions of God’s Word.

They pretended to the teaching, judging office, whereas they had become incapable of discerning what is vital in morality! Intolerantly, they made mere trifles into matters superior to justice, mercy, faith and obedience to God! Morality was sacrificed to ritual.

By their attitude they were expecting that men consider them as holy as they ought to be before God, but they were not. In their self-deception they had arrived at the point where they actually considered themselves to be what they only pretended to be.

**Isaiah prophesied well of you hypocrites, **not in the sense that he said something predictive about the Pharisees personally, but in the sense that what he affirmed of the hypocrites of his own day, taken as a class, so well describes you, because, by your actions, you have placed yourselves in that class. **Ye hypocrites **form a class so large that your colleagues were the object of God’s reproof in Isaiah’s day, and what He said about your crowd rings true about you younger members of that notorious crew! How unchangeable is God’s ethics: seven centuries had not made any difference in morality: hypocrisy was an abomination to God in the historical context of both Isaiah and Jesus Christ. Here is evidence of an underlying unity in the moral realm that should give us pause when we boast of great moral achievements, lest we think we have discovered something the prophets were already preaching centuries before Christ!

**Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites: **Before attaching so much weight to the beliefs and doctrines of the ancients which you cite against me, you should honestly and critically examine what God’s inspired prophets were saying about them when those ancients actually lived! The ancients had failed to grasp the futility of punctilious performance of HUMAN prescriptions and commands as if they were the expression of true worship and submission to GOD’S Word. The elders and their children had followed them blindly, disregarding how far those human regulations led them away from the way of righteousness and true godliness. Therefore, because the Pharisees pretended to accept the prophecies of Isaiah, it was easy for the Lord to destroy the presumed authority of the elders who had ignored God’s revelations, since Isaiah had already scored their blindness in his day. His accusations are multiple:

HEARTLESS FORMALISM: This people honoreth me with their lips; But their heart is far from me.

SELF-DECEPTION and consequent FUTILITY: In vain do they worship me.

SUBSTITUTION: Teaching as their doctrines the precepts of men.

What was wrong? Missing were the essential ingredients of true worship and a right approach to God: concentration on God and His revealed will. 1.

They did not approach God in the right spirit (John 4:23 f)

There must be a longing love to meet God in Christ through real adoration. Hypocrites have less interest in obedience and loyalty to a revelation than they do their own ideas. In effect, they worship self when they give absolute value to their own exalted opinions.

There must be a consequent humility that permits a true self-evaluation before God. Hypocrites-’ prayers no longer evidence their dependence upon God, because THEY need no grace, no power, nor guidance. (Cf. 2 Timothy 3:5; Isaiah 1:11-20; 1 Samuel 15:15; 1 Samuel 15:22 f; Psalms 51:16 f; Proverbs 21:3; Proverbs 21:27; Proverbs 15:8; Proverbs 28:9)

There must be a capacity to be compassionate toward any of God’s creatures who is lost without God or who otherwise needs God’s merciful help expressed through His people. Hypocrites can only look down in unmoving pity upon such unfortunates beneath their level. They think: If God blesses the good and curses the bad, then to help those staggering under the curse of common human problems which I don-’t have would overturn God’s judgment against them. Better leave them alone to suffer! We must not put religious pride above human need by caring only about the rigid preservation of our system. (James 1:26 f)

They did approach God in truth. (Cf. John 4:23 f)

We must approach God according to the truth of God. This means, therefore, the right use of those forms of worship and service that are acceptable to God. A real love for God expresses itself, among other things, by adoring and serving Him by observing those ceremonials which He has instituted. (Cf. Acts 17:30 f; Romans 10:1-3) Hypocrites, on the other hand, lay great stress on these ceremonials, because, being external, they can be counterfeited, thus gaining for those who do them credit for holiness in the eyes of those they seek to impress. (Cf. Ezekiel 33:30-33; contrast Jeroboam’s false worship: 2 Kings 13:25 to 2 Kings 14:6) But where man’s heart truly seeks the living God, even the external forms are acceptable and accepted because founded upon God’s truth, (See 1 Corinthians 10:14-33; 2 Corinthians 11:1-15; Galatians 1:6-10; Galatians 4:1-11; Galatians 5:1-14; Colossians 2:16-23; Jude; Matthew 23:1-39; Luke 11:37-52.)

We must approach God in sincerity, with a true heart, in truth.

(1)

The presence of sin in one’s life indicates a heart that is far from God. (Matthew 5:19 f; Isaiah 59:2) Every failure of self-discipline that refuses to eliminate the causes of true impurity invites self-corruption and, at the end, self-destruction. We must learn to hate sin’s power to corrupt our conscience and pollute our motives and undermine our will.

(2)

True purification of heart must eliminate the true uncleanness, sin. (Hebrews 9:13 f; Hebrews 10:14; Hebrews 10:22; Acts 8:22; 1 Peter 1:2; 1 Peter 1:22; 1 John 1:5-9)

Matthew 15:9 **But in vain do they worship me. **In vain (màten) is an expression rich in significance to describe human worship founded solely upon human precepts: It is vain, wrong, useless, stupid, without motive, reason or wisdom; audacious, false, deceitful (Rocci, 1186). Such religion is specifically folly, because it imposes upon its adherents a carefulness and rigor that accomplishes precisely nothing except make them uncomfortable, sensitive to trifles, ascetic, hypercritical and intolerant. Further, because such severe self-abasement has no relation to reality, because only what God says is reality, these human demands leave men ignorant of reality, subject to self-deception and superstition.

But why should the spiritually withering and eternally unsatisfying external ceremonies commanded by the precepts of men be actually preferred to the wholesome requirements of God?

Because ceremonies can be seen and experienced by him who does them, and they satisfy him more easily and sooner than the slow, inner, invisible growth in godliness.

Because ceremonies are visible to others, there is also self-satisfaction in being praised as godly by them.

Observing rites is far easier than the slow maturing in righteousness and walking with God, having the courage to repent and deny oneself of such easy satisfactions.

Matthew 15:9 **But in vain do they worship me: **Isaiah and Jesus pronounce the unmitigated futility of such hypocrisy, because great zeal for precepts of men can never guarantee anyone that God is pleased or served. (Cf. Romans 10:1-3) Here is written also the final doom of such hypocrisy, because, since it never produces any result that pleases God. He has, in effect, never been worshipped nor served by such people. Why should He embrace them in His Kingdom?

While it is well to see that Jesus-’ quotation of Isa 29:13 differs from the standard translation as we have it directly from Hebrew in our Bible, it should be remembered that two factors enter in to explain the difference:

Jesus is giving an interpretative paraphrase of Isaiah, showing, even while quoting, how the quotation itself applies to the situation. Such interpretative quotations were common in Judaism, the so-called Targums. (See ISBE, 2910ff; Edersheim, Life, I, 206)

Since His quotation, with but minor changes in word order, approximates more closely the Septuagint, we must remember that the LXX translates into Greek a Hebrew text that, being far more ancient, hence even more accurate, than our available Hebrew manuscripts of this passage, Jesus might thus be quoting the more accurate reading.

Compare them together:

**ISAIAH (Hebrew)

ISAIAH (Greek)

JESUS**

Because this people draw near with their mouth

This people draws near me

This people

and honor me with their lips,

They honor me with their lips,

honors me with the lips,

while their hearts are far from me,

But their heart is far away from me,

and their fear of me is a commandment of men learned by rote.

In vain they worship me Teaching commandments of men and doctrines.

In vain they worship me Teaching (as) doctrines commandments of men.

The critical question raised by these readings is: who are the men whose commandments are intended: mere humans who never enjoyed inspiration, or God’s men treated as mere humans? The implications of either reading are the same, because, following the Hebrew, God’s religion (Their fear of me), as far as an annoyed Israel was concerned, had become nothing but a boring series of commandments, just a lesson to be memorized. Consequently, their religious practice was purely perfunctory and habitual, without conviction, because the majesty and authority of God had been forgotten and the words of His prophets were then treated at the merely human level. If we follow the Greek, the prophet is complaining of human opinions being exalted to the level of divine doctrine. Either way, therefore, whether God’s Word is debased to the human level, or human doctrines are enthroned beside divine revelation, the same tragic results occur.

As noted above at Matthew 15:1, the Pharisees are not alone in following human doctrines, because the Sadducees had their own real traditions too. (See Edersheim, Life, I, 313f and note 1.) It would have been impossible, in fact, for Luke (Acts 23:8) to state so clearly their distinctively unbiblical position, had they had absolutely no opinions, no interpretations of Scripture, no philosophy of Law, etc., that marked them out as a separate school of thought (hairesis) among the Jews. Whether they accepted ALL the OT or only the Pentateuch, they too come under Jesus-’ condemnation, because there is enough in those five books to demonstrate the fallacy of their stated views on angels. (Cf. Genesis 16:7-11; Genesis 19:1; Genesis 19:15; Genesis 22:11; Genesis 22:15; Genesis 32:1 f; Exodus 3:2; Numbers 22:22-35) Jesus argued against their rejection of the resurrection, from Exodus 3:6 (Matthew 22:32 and par.). Even a later Pharisean rabbi, Gamaliel II, argued from Deuteronomy 1:8 that a resurrection would have to be implied, since the promise was made, not to you but to them. (See Edersheim, Life, I, 316; II, 403 for Sanh. 90b where another rabbi argued the same from Exodus 6:4.)

**Teaching as doctrine the precepts of men **is the precious key to understanding this entire discourse, and, consequently, the clue to its proper application in our own case. This, because even in the law of Christ revealed in the NT, there are many, many details that Christ and the Apostles have not revealed, details that we would like to know in order to complete our obedience to that Law. Thousands of questions arise because of the Lord’s deliberate silence in many areas. However, it should be obvious that, since the Lord Himself chose not to reveal His specific will in those areas, He did not consider it important for us to be precise there either. Therefore, whatever we decide to do about matters He has not revealed cannot ever become precepts or doctrines to be taught to others as law. However, the mere fact that our opinions cannot be taught as doctrine is,in itself, insufficient to condemn our decisions, if we recognize them for what they are, i.e. human opinions. It is, rather, when we begin to TEACH AS DOCTRINES THE PRECEPTS OF MEN that we automatically fall under Jesus-’ condemnation. As pointed out in the special study following this chapter, The Law of Christ-How to Avoid Becoming a Pharisee, in areas where God has not commanded or prohibited a given thing, He has left us free to have private opinions, so long as these opinions do not nullify His commandments and are not considered as equal to His Words.

One illustration may serve here: Whereas the Lord requires that Christians sing Him their psalms, hymns and spiritual songs heartily with thankfulness to God (Ephesians 5:19; Colossians 3:16), He did not specify whether in every case those musical expressions are to be accompanied by any or by many musical instruments. His silence leaves Christians free to decide. However, no Christian is free to decide that his decision must become law for others. Nor may he expect their compliance, except insofar as they share his opinion. All, however, must recognize that any opinion in this area is purely human and can never become doctrine, either for or against the musical instrument. Therefore, anyone who commands the use of an instrument, or demands its removal, does so on the basis of the same human logic that got the ancient Jews into the moral bind we see in our text, by exalting to the level of teachable doctrine what they themselves decided should be precepts. To avoid becoming Pharisees when we learn that some sincere disciples of the Lord are using (or not using) a musical instrument to accompany their corporate singing, we should always investigate whether they teach as doctrine what, in the final analysis, can be nothing but the opinionable precepts of men. On the other hand, if their choice is not being taught as divine law, but recognized as a simple expression of human freedom, without any pretense to a more sacred origin, so that any subsequent alteration or difference in the use of, or non-use of, these things produce no division or contention in the Church, they are free to make use of them or not as things of a purely relative utility.

Protestant traditionalists are perhaps less explicit in their affirmation that their own distinctive doctrines are divinely inspired, than are the Roman Catholic authorities, but are none the less in perfect harmony with the Jewish traditionalistic approach condemned here by the Lord. (See special notes on the inspiration of Catholic tradition, Matthew 15:13.)

Before the multitudes:

Real defilement is not external, but spiritual! (15:10, 11; Mark 7:14-17)

Matthew 15:10 **And he called to him the multitude, and said unto them. **Had this crowd been gathering, but politely ignored during what seemed to be a private conversation between Jesus and the Pharisees? Now, however, He deliberately includes them, as if they, too, had heard the major charge levelled by the Pharisees. Otherwise, this startling declaration (Matthew 15:11) would seem too much out of context for it to be understood instantly and without further explanation.

Despite the real probability that the reverend doctors from Jerusalem would be humiliated by this deliberate escalation, and despite the noticeable embarrassment of the Twelve who felt themselves publicly trapped between the official doctrine of the recognized scholars in Judaism and their Master’s pronouncements, the Lord Himself cannot further tolerate the substitution of God’s truth by whatever means. He must show compassion upon the masses who were led to their spiritual death by these blind, spiritual guides. When the Master turns to the crowdsthe non-specialists in Judaism, the multitudes despised by the proud scholars,this is glorious mercy. The obstinate, unteachable chiefs are bypassed for those who, however weak and unfit in other ways, were far more open and teachable. (See notes on Matthew 11:25-30.)

**Hear and understand. **How many of the merely curious and careless would actually ponder His meaning? Here is the acid test of His audience, used in precisely the same manner as in His great Sermon in Parables. (See Matthew 13:9-22 and relative notes.) Man’s morality is deeply affected by his own receptivity to truth, because he can decide whether to listen to Jesus or not. By attempting to influence His hearers, He refutes the excuse that sin is somehow necessary under certain circumstances for which the individual is somehow not responsible, because in precisely the same way man can shut the doors of his mind to truth, he can shut them to temptation! So, man is liable for all that comes out of his own heart, because he can decide which way he will permit himself to be influenced, for good or ill. Consequently, every man is the final source of his own character. This is why practical discipleship to Jesus is so vital, because what we let Him teach us affects our attitude toward all else that enters our lives. This urgent invitation to hear and understand is rightly addressed, not merely to the scholars, but especially to the ordinary people, who must dedicate themselves to study and understand what the Lord means.

Nevertheless, it may be fairly asked to what extent the Lord expected ANY discipleApostle or otherwiseto understand and apply His Law-changing, revolutionary declaration about ceremonial purity? (Matthew 15:11) Since the Levitical system, upon which such distinctions were based, would not be cancelled until His own sacrifice at the cross (Hebrews 7:11 ff, Hebrews 7:26 ff; Hebrews 9:15 ff, Hebrews 9:24 ff; Hebrews 10:9 f; Colossians 2:13-15, etc.), did He really expect at least some of them to stop washing themselves after ceremonial defilement, or neglect to eat only kosher foods, and the like? Or, is not this lesson much like that on the new birth of water and the Spirit, presented to Nicodemus? (Cf. John 3:1 ff) If so, then, Jesus is enunciating a principle that, however much in advance of its actual promulgation it were stated, would not actually take effect until the Holy Spirit should have come on Pentecost to execute Jesus-’ will. His teaching given in advance of that moment, then, served to bring His disciples-’ thinking back to the profounder OT teaching, lest the apparent newness of the revelations to be given later by the Apostles under the guidance of the Spirit be too totally unfamiliar.

Thus, the following statement is Jesus-’ revelation of how God really regards the dual question of external and spiritual defilement and purity. In this light, then, if the Lord does not expect His people to begin at once to act upon His revelation by their rejecting kosher distinctions, they are at least to begin thinking about it, so that the New Covenant revelations will become the welcome confirmations of these previews.

Matthew 15:11 **Not that which entereth into the mouth defileth the man. **The revolutionary significance of this statement can hardly be overestimated, because it amounts to a practical abrogation of the Levitical distinction between clean and unclean foods. (Mark 7:19) Whereas the abrogation itself would not take effect until Christ’s death removed the entire Law of Moses (cf. Romans 3:20 f, Romans 3:28; Romans 6:14; Romans 7:1; Romans 7:4; Romans 7:6; Romans 8:1-4; Romans 10:4; 2 Corinthians 3:3; 2 Corinthians 3:7; 2 Corinthians 3:11; 2 Corinthians 3:14 etc.), nevertheless, here in the ministry of Jesus is another clear statement of His intent to rescind that ancient norm. And yet, nothing could be clearer, from a careful reading of the OT Law on defilement, than that the physical contact through touching certain objects or eating certain foods definitely defiled the one who did so. (Leviticus 11; see note on cleanness and defilement at Matthew 15:2.) The Law included these rules which are altogether ignored by the NT, for these reasons:

Because God was dealing with a nation in its infancy with a view to bringing it to maturity and preparedness for the final, perfect revelations of Christ. (Galatians 3:23 to Galatians 4:7)

Because Jehovah was dealing with Jews in a specific historical setting in which they were literally surrounded by idolatry with its abominable regulations and orientation, which would compromise the distinctiveness and moral growth of Israel. (Deuteronomy 7) The purpose of the laws of purity and defilement had no immediate or primary connection with either sanitation or health, although these might certainly be secondary considerations. The primary concern was always: Consecrate yourselves therefore and be holy, for I am holy. You shall not defile yourselves with any (thing). you shall be holy to me, for I the Lord am holy, and have separated you from the peoples, that you should be mine. (Cf. Leviticus 11:44 f) Any Hebrew who was really listening to Moses could understand that ceremonial cleansings and abstinence from certain foods had value only insofar as these expressed this fundamental concept. Where the heart was holy, even the ceremonies had value, because God commanded them. Alone, however, these rituals were impotent to produce holiness, since the separation unto the Lord of man’s heart is the key factor. If the heart belongs to God through man’s personal consecration, all his deeds are clean. (Cf. Titus 1:15)

Because God was furnishing the Christian Church with a foundational vocabulary that defined the concept of personal holiness. (Cf. Peter’s citation of Lev 11:44 f in 1 Peter 1:16; see 1 Thessalonians 4:3-7)

The Law (Word of God) temporarily required these regulations until the time when, having accomplished their purpose, they could be replaced by a more permanent Word from God. Who is this Jesus of Nazareth, then, if He, towering above God’s Law, dares to change it? Here is implicit evidence of His essential deity as Author of the OT, evidence that is in perfect harmony with His more explicit claims.

Contrary to the view of some, this passage does not represent a psychological or religious revolution in terms of what God reveals about the things that really affect human existence, because God, both in the Law and through the Prophets, was constantly hammering on the eternal importance of the conditions of man’s heart. In fact, Jesus-’ declaration is but the summation of hundreds of OT sermons which would actually prepare the Hebrew mind to accept just such a statement as that of Jesus here. (Cf. Psalms 5:9; Psalms 50; Psalms 51; Psalms 58:2; Psalms 78:36 f; Isaiah 1:10-20; Jeremiah 2:22; Jeremiah 4:14; Jeremiah 6:19 f; Jeremiah 7:21-26! Jeremiah 11:15; Jeremiah 13:27; Jeremiah 14:9-12; Jeremiah 33:8) How many great prophets and godly men before Jesus had lamented and condemned Israel’s hypocritical ceremonialism because the nation had no vital confidence in God, no real concern to be holy! Remember the great religious reforms of Hezekiah (2 Chronicles 29-32) and Josiah (2 Chronicles 34, 35) and the prophetic preaching like that of Micah (Matthew 3:11; Matthew 6:4-6) or Malachi. (Cf. Amos 4:4 f; Amos 5:21-24; Joe 2:12-14; Ezekiel 14:11; Ezekiel 20:7; Ezekiel 20:26; Ezekiel 22:24; Ezekiel 23:13; Ezekiel 23:17; Ezekiel 23:30; Ezekiel 24:9-14; Ezekiel 33:30-33; Ezekiel 36:17; Ezekiel 36:20; Ezekiel 36:24-27)

Matthew 15:11 **Not that which entereth into the mouth defileth the man; but that which proceedeth out of the mouth, this defileth the man. **This is but one sentence, one pithy, memorable proverb, directed to the people, the meaning of which Jesus will later explain to the disciples. (See on Matthew 15:18-20.) Is this verse the substance of an entire message delivered by Jesus at this point? This might be admitted, because it would seem less likely that He would have drawn the crowds into His conversation with the Pharisees just to hear this single sentence. Yet, He could have intentionally thrown this mysterious maxim into the crowd like a live hand grenade, to stir them to reflect on its meaning, question Him further and thus deepen their discipleship as well as their understanding. (See on Matthew 13:10; Matthew 15:12.) The fact that the Twelve later ask about it proves not only their personal loyalty but also that He had not made it clear to them in the presence of the multitudes.

The Apostle to the Gentiles will develop this concept in the concise Christian axiom: The kingdom of God does not mean food and drink, but righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit; he who thus serves Christ is acceptable to God and approved by men. (Romans 14:17) By affirming that real purity or defilement is not merely external, but of the heart, the Lord established a principle so fundamental in its application that it not only expressed the radical character and grandeur of Christian freedom as this contrasts with Mosaic restrictions, but it also warns that the standard by which men will be judged is not merely by their outward deeds but by the character of their heart.

Before the disciples, privately (15:12-20; Mark 7:17-23)

When He entered into a house away from the crowd, His disciples questioned Him. (Mark 7:17) This decisive move permitted the concerned to draw Him out and receive the help His surprising declaration made necessary.

Matthew 15:12 **Then came the disciples, and said unto him, Knowest thou that the Pharisees were offended, when they heard this saying? **The fact that they are worried enough to warn Jesus about possible evil consequences of His position shows that these are real men with real confusions. They are not story-book characters whose bad side should be glossed over. This is a mark of authenticity. Matthew Henry (Vol. V, 214) wonders whether the disciples themselves might not also be scandalized by Jesus-’ extreme statements. After all, if they had begun to see that Jesus, in theory at least, is removing the proper, Levitical boundaries between clean and unclean meats, even if on any other ground they had no quarrel with Jesus because of the solid character of their trust in His divine credentials that proved His right to speak for God, yet here He dares lay hands upon already well-authenticated revelation from God. So, even though the Pharisees had attacked the disciples personally, still, from the point of view of what the unquestionable Law of God had taught, they surprisingly found themselves on the defensive against Jesus who now seemed to negate a significant part of God’s Word. From this standpoint, they found themselves effectively thrown onto the same side with the Pharisees! Their worry is twofold:

The question of authority: In the face of this open rejection and refutation of the Pharisees-’ position with its consequent affront to these men of light and learning, as well as the religious power of the day, do you adhere to your position? Here is the fundamental question: who really represents God here? The Pharisees and their traditional theologians who, without any demonstrable evidence of divine authority for nullifying God’s explicit orders by their interpretations, or Jesus of Nazareth a man attested to you by God by many mighty works and signs which God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves know? (Cf. Acts 2:22) How much weight should be given to His credentials, if His message seems to detract from the authority of well-attested revelations in Leviticus? (Cf. Deuteronomy 13:1-5; Isaiah 8:20) Humanly speaking, their position is not an easy one.

The question of favorably religio-political support: These are men of considerable power and influence in the nation. Can you successfully wage a significant campaign for religious reform in Israel without their patronage and influence? Must you, through lack of sufficient foresight and tact, lose the all-essential support of backers like these? The disciples-’ view of the Kingdom is measurably mistaken if they believe that the Kingdom’s interests can be rightly served by men who habitually nullify the Law of the King, and whose best service to the King is dictated by their own tastes, customs and rules!

Having seen Jesus deliberately break with the popular nationalistic principles of the Zealots-’ cause (see on Matthew 14:22), the disciples probably fear that to enrage these influential scholars would precipitate a tragic end to His program.

**The Pharisees were offended. **Indeed, they had every reason to be shocked and angered, because He dared teach the people doctrine that put in doubt the traditional basis of their customs by exposing revered rabbinical opinions as absurd and ungodly. He discredited their pretended scholarship and popular authority. If He is right, their entire theory of piety is wrong. The rightness of His opposition is in exact proportion to the arrogance of their self-assertion, self-worship and self-complacency. But here is a proper test-case of scandal. (See on Matthew 11:6.) Jesus MUST teach the truth and do His duty. If anyone is scandalized by His actions, it is the fault of that individual, but not of him who, in obedience to truth, does his duty. Jesus-’ justification which follows, explains His attitude toward those theologians.

Matthew 15:13 **But he answered and said, Every plant which my heavenly Father planteth not, shall be rooted up. **Two views of the plant are possible: (1) traditions; (2) traditionalists.

If Jesus means the figure of the plant not planted by God, to represent people who nullify God’s Word in their teaching and/or practice, then He may be referring to a fact which would actually occur when these very false teachers, who had seemed so formidable to the Apostles, would one day be removed from their positions of influence and authority. In this light, the Lord is warning the Apostles that the reverend gentlemen from Jerusalem, because they rejected God’s truth, would one day be rudely uprooted from their glorious position, whereas, if the Apostles themselves shall have truly honored God’s will, would remain in God’s field.

If, on the other hand, Jesus means to refer to the human traditions, then He is saying that since human tradition does not possess God’s authority, it must be eradicated, whereas His own teaching will stand that test. (Cf. Jeremiah 23, esp. Jeremiah 23:28-29) Here Jesus underscores the important distinction between one tradition and another: who started it? Who or what is its ORIGIN? If God planted it, it will endure. If, on the other hand, it can claim no more than human authority, it is destined to be removed from consideration and must be evaluated from that standpoint. Its value is decided on the basis of origins.

In practice, it is unimportant which of these interpretations is the better, because beliefs can never really be distinguished from those who teach them, because what they believe makes them what they are. People are to be identified with, and judged by, the doctrines they say they believe in. (Remember what Jesus said about the interrelation of heart and doctrine in Matthew 13. See notes on Matthew 13:38 b, c.) Jesus had already taught that not all the plants growing in the Kingdom are of His sowing, hence, not all please Him. (Matthew 13:24-30; Matthew 13:36-43; cf. 1 Thessalonians 2:15)

Is it urgent here to decide WHO would do the uprooting? Is it God? Jesus? the apostles? Time? In our text Jesus Himself furnishes the sickles and shovels whereby the Apostles and Christians anywhere might root up ALL teaching that does not square with God’s Word, is done without divine authority or approval, by comparing it with the Bible, by recognizing the tendency of human opinions to nullify some Word from God. Further, by implication, Jesus defends His duty to attack and root out what is false, corrupting and positively dangerous for the growth of what my heavenly Father planted.

In fact, implicit in Jesus-’ words is the suggestion that there is at least one kind of plant which the heavenly Father DID plant, that shall never be rooted up. Is it not the Kingdom with its doctrine and its believers? It is to be a Kingdom in which Mosaic legislation about impurity of any sort other than moral is to have no part. In contrast to rabbinic notions of the importance of their own hoary traditions, it is to be a Kingdom in which the Father’s Word is to be the only standard. In contrast to scribal contempt for publicans and sinners, Samaritans, Gentiles and women, it is to be a Kingdom that embraces all who bow before the King and joyfully do anything He says. Naturally, as Maurice (PHC, Vol. XXII, 382) has it.

The most natural and necessary antagonists of it were the sects; that Sadducees and Pharisees hated it equally; that they saw in it the destruction of the sect-principle.. There is a plant in your heart and mine which our heavenly Father has not planted, and which must be rooted out. It is that same plant of self-seeking, of opinionativeness, of party-spirit, which has shed its poison over the church and over the world.

NOTES ON CATHOLIC TRADITIONS

Study the new Catholicism as this denomination is revealed in her Documents of the Second Vatican Council. Following is my translation from Italian of excerpts from the document Dei Verbum, Chapter II: On the Transmission of the Divine Revelation. Compare these assertions with Judaism’s attitude toward tradition and traditional authority to teach God’s Word.

… The Apostles, so that the Gospel might always be preserved complete and alive in the Church, then left the Bishops as their successors, entrusting to them their own personal position as teachers (suum ipsorum locum magisterii). This Sacred Tradition, therefore, and the Sacred Scriptures of both testaments are as one mirror in which the Church, pilgrim on earth, contemplates. God. Meanwhile, the apostolic preaching, which is expressed in a special way in the inspired books, had to be preserved by continuous succession until the end of time. Therefore, the Apostles, committing that which they themselves had received, admonish the faithful to hold to the traditions which they had received either by word of mouth or by letter (cf. 2 Thessalonians 2:15), and to contend for that faith which had been once for all delivered to them (cf. Jude 1:3).

This Tradition of apostolic origin progresses (proficit) in the Church with the assistance of the Holy Spirit (sub assistentia Spiritus Sancti): in fact the comprehension grows both of the things as well as of the words handed down, both by means of the meditation and study of the believers who meditate upon them in their hearts (cf. Luke 2:19; Luke 2:51), and by means of the experience that derives from a deeper understanding of spiritual things, as well as by the preaching of those who, along with the episcopal succession, received a certain charisma of truth (ex paeconio eorum qui cum episcopatus successione charisma veritatis certum acceperunt). The Church, that is, in the course of the centuries, incessantly tends toward the fulness of the divine truth, until the words of God be brought to (or come to) perfection (donec in ipsa consummentur verba Dei.).

The assertions of the Holy Fathers attest the life-giving presence of this Tradition, the riches of which are transfused into the practice and life of the Church that believes and that prays. It is the same Tradition that causes the Church to know the entire canon of the Sacred Books, and, in her, causes to understand more profoundly and animates the Sacred Letters themselves (et indesinenter actuosae reddentur); thus, God who spoke in the past, does not cease to speak with the Bride of His Beloved Son, and the Holy Spirit, by means of whose voice the living voice of the Gospel resounds in the Church, by whose means (it resounds) in the world, leads the believers to all the truth and causes the word of Christ to dwell in them in all its richness (cf. Colossians 3:16).

The Sacred Tradition therefore and the Holy Scriptures are bound closely together and are communicating between them. Since both spring from the same divine origin, they form, in a certain sense, one thing and tend toward the same goal. In fact, the Sacred Scripture is the word of God, because written by the inspiration of the Spirit of God; the word of God, entrusted by Christ and by the Holy Spirit to the Apostles, is entirely transmitted by the Sacred Tradition to their successors, so that these, illuminated by the Spirit of truth (praelucente Spiritu veritatis), might preserve it faithfully by their preaching, expound and publish it; and thus it is that the Church bases its certainty about all the things revealed, not upon the Scripture alone (non per solam Sacram Scripturam hauriat).Therefore the one and the other must be considered worthy of veneration with equal pious affection and reverence (Quapropter utraque pari pietatis affectu ac reverentia suscipienda et veneranda est.).

The Sacred Tradition and the Sacred Scripture constitute one sacred deposit of the Word of God entrusted to the Church. The Office of interpreting authentically the word of God, written or handed down (verbum Dei scriptum vel traditum) is entrusted only to the living Magisterium (i.e. Teaching Authority) of the Church, whose authority is exercized in the name of Jesus Christ. This Teaching Authority (Magisterium), however, is not superior to the word of God, but serves it, teaching only what has been handed down, since, by divine mandate and with the assistance of the Holy Spirit (ex divino mandato et Spiritu Sancto assistente), it piously heeds, holily guards and faithfully expounds that word, and from this one deposit of the faith draws forth all that it proposes to believe as revealed by God.

It is clear, therefore, that the Sacred Tradition, the Sacred Scripture and the Teaching Authority of the Church (Magisterium), by the supremely wise counsel of God are so thoroughly connected and joined together as not to be able to stand independently, and all together, each in its own way, under the action of one Holy Spirit, effectively contribute to the salvation of souls.

Compare the Catholic, the Jewish and the Charismatic views;

Matthew 15:14 **Let them alone. **(àfete, 2Aorist imperative, 2nd person plural of afìemi) This expression is made problematic by the broad meaning-potential of the word: let go, send away; 2 cancel, remit, pardon; 3 Literally; leave, abandon; Figuratively, give up, abandon; 4 Let, let go, tolerate; allow, let, permit. (Arndt-Gingrich, 125f)

Because the verb-form is second plural, we must reject with reluctance the construction, suggested by A.B. Bruce (Training, 84), whereby these words are seen as the disciples-’ advice to Jesus: Let them alone, Jesus! Otherwise, the words bounced back to the disciples would have probably been expressed in the second person singular verb-form. We must understand the plural as really addressed to the disciples.

Jesus-’ meaning, based upon the meaning-potential of this verb, might be:

Divorce them from your thinking. Their doctrine is not permanent, because it is not God’S.

Pardon them their offense at the truth I teach, They are wrongly scandalized, but I am not backing down. From this standpoint, He not only places Himself above the scribes, i.e. in a position to overlook their offense; He actually requires that the disciples rise to the position where they can remit or cancel, as far as their own feelings are concerned, this false scandal of the rabbis. Jesus Himself certainly did not hold this particular attack against the Pharisees, because He continued vigorously to attempt to convince them, even if this meant exposing their hypocrisy and opposing their doctrine. The Apostles would later be engaged in public debate with Judaizers clear until the fall of Jerusalem.

Give up on the Pharisees, because they are incorrigible. Stop worrying about what they think, because there comes a time when you must shake the dust off your feet against them and abandon them to their wilful blindness and self-chosen fate.

Tolerate the Pharisees as individuals, because we are dealing with the evils of their system, not attacking them personally. By temporarily tolerating them, we may actually grant them the mercy to reflect and repent, if some of them will. (Cf. Matthew 13:30!) Tolerate them until their blindness reaches its culmination and they are toppled into destruction along with all who agree with them.

Does it matter which of these suggestions is correct? In all of them runs Jesus-’ sound advice: Do not be overly excited about their approval or unfavorable opinion of my teaching or program, for they shall fall. God guarantees their condemnation, regardless of their apparently powerful influence and their presently great authority. Above all, do not fear them! (Cf. Luke 12:1-12; Matthew 10:16 ff, Matthew 10:26-33) The Pharisees-’ spiritual condition, with its self-willed blindness and stubborn hypocrisy, its deliberate adherence to human traditions rather than love for God and His revelations, fully justifies His (and, consequently, their) abandoning them to their just condemnation.

**They are blind guides. **Jesus never once denied that these Pharisees are guides, furnished with scholarship, credentials and an impressive following. What is really comforting to the disciples is His confident assertion that they, who claim the exclusive vision of the truth and the unique right to lead Israel in her worship and service to God, are really blind. (See notes on Matthew 13:13-17.) Blind, in this case, means biased, prejudiced so as to be unable to grasp truth, however evident it might be. Truth, according to these imperturbable bigots, is not to be found outside their vain opinions. This assertion of Jesus comforts the disciples, because they begin to see that the formidable specter presented by these religious scholars did not represent ultimate reality, because THEIR EYES, and those of their followers however numerous, WERE CLOSED TO IT. The real issue is always whether Jesus-’ disciples really believe that Jesus is the God-sent Guide who can see to lead His people safely back to God.

Blind guides: if their boast of their knowledge of the Law qualified them to be Rabbis, a guide to the blind, a light to those who are in darkness (Romans 2:17-24), what a shock to hear them described as the tragic perversion of their high calling! Worse still was their total unconsciousness of their self-chosen blindness, confounded by their pretense to be able to see. (Cf. John 9:40 f) What blindness to be unable to discern the futility of zeal and diligence in activities intended to justify oneself before God but which were totally uncalled for by God! They were blind guides, because they knew perfectly well what God said in the Law, but still thought they had a right to have their own way. (God commanded. But you say. v. 4, 5) The Apostles had not yet understood that all that even great, learned authorities affirm with unhesitating confidence must be compared with God’s message, and should their notions be found inconsistent with His, they may be safely discarded without fear of losing something of value or permanence. (Cf. Acts 4:19 f)

**And if the blind guide the blind, both shall fall into a pit. **The crushing irony here is that these very blind guides are themselves the blind followers of those ancient elders whose traditions they held in such reverential honor, because they followed them blindly, unconcerned about how far from the way of truth, righteousness and true godliness those completely human ordinances would lead them.

**Both shall fall into a pit. **Blind followers ARE responsible for what they believe. However much they may be influenced by false leaders, they are lost. Thus, false religious teaching or mistaken religious leaders actually take sincere followers along with them to their destruction. (Study notes on Matthew 7:13-24; Matthew 7:28.) If a man believes himself to be in need of leadership but freely and deliberately chooses as leader another man who himself needs correction, he deserves the tragedy that will be his. (Jeremiah 14:14-22; Jeremiah 20:6; Jeremiah 28:15 f; Isaiah 9:16; Ezekiel 14:9-11) McGarvey (Matthew-Mark, 136) rightly counsels:

He should choose a leader who can see, and as there is no leader who can see all the way that we have to travel except Jesus, let us take his word as our only guide, going only as it leads us.

Despite our felt need for human teachers to help us along toward truth (cf. Acts 8:31; 1 Corinthians 4:15; Ephesians 4:11), we should follow no man, except as he follows Christ. (1 Corinthians 11:1; 1 Corinthians 4:16)

Matthew 15:15 **And Peter answered and said unto him, Declare unto us the parable. **Evidently, Peter is the spokesman for the disciples who had become uneasy about Jesus-’ indifference toward the violent reaction of the religious leaders. In fact, the sharp rebuke Jesus administers is in the plural (ye), hence, addressed to the group Peter represents, (Matthew 15:16).

What expression of Jesus-’ seemed so obscure to Peter that he described it as the parable?Whereas in Matthew there are two germ parables in the context, i.e. that of the rooted up plants (v. 13) and that of the blind guides (v. 14), Mark’s version omits these two by passing directly from the public statement about internal defilement to the explanation of this parable. (Mark 7:14-17) So Peter is requesting clearer information about this enigmatic public statement. (Matthew 15:11 = Mark 7:15)

NOTE: Here is further evidence that parable in NT language, does not always refer necessarily to a one-point illustration, as required by modern rhetoric. The parable referred to by Peter is: Not what goes into the mouth defiles a man, but what comes out of the mouth, this defiles a man. (v. 11) The only way to consider this a one-point illustration is to suppose either that Jesus actually said more, which is, of course, possible, or that Peter sees this sentence as picturing an incomplete story teaching a moral about a man who ate some food that did not defile him. Then there was that unclear part about what came out of his mouth that defiled him. It is better, however, to see parable in Peter’s usage here as meaning: a terse, ingeniously expressed thought, whose meaning is partially hidden by its brevity and partly by its form and content. What Peter does not understandfor whatever reasonhe calls a parable (parabolén).

Nevertheless, in the declaration referred to (Matthew 15:11), there is a feature that is common to parables: real truth is expressed by literal symbols, invisible ideas are symbolized by visible images. In this case moral defilement of the heart is symbolized by something coming out of one’s mouth. Peter’s question is not totally groundless, because, without further explanation or previous insight, it would not be clear what it is that comes out of a man’s mouth, when it was food that went in.

Matthew 15:16 **And he said, Are ye also even yet without understanding? **If Jesus-’ rebuke seems exaggerated by contrast to a simple request for information of what was unclear, it must be measured against the much private information and exceptional opportunity that had already been given these very close disciples. (Cf. Matthew 15:12) They are not simply part of the people (Matthew 15:10; Mark 7:14; Mark 7:17) whom Jesus often left on the outer fringe so long as they chose not to become closer disciples. (Cf. Matthew 13:10-17) There is an emphatic sting in each of the words: Are you alsoeven yetwithout understanding? because of the implied contrast with all others. Despite the pretended authority of the Jerusalem scholars, these refused to learn from Jesus, so remained without understanding, and rightly so. The crowds who asked no questions and wanted no answers were also without understanding. But what justification could the Apostles muster for their inability to see the far-reaching implications of His great revolutionary declaration? Even if their main difficulty is their inability to admit that this basic element of Mosaic legislation can be eliminated once the fundamental purpose for its original enactment had been fulfilled, what excuse could cover their failure to admit Jesus to be the Lawgiver Himself and fully empowered to change, correct or even abolish His own Law? Or should they fail to hold so exalted an estimate of their Master, they are also without understanding of even the basic concepts taught both in the Law and prophets which God intended all Israel to understand. (See on Matthew 15:10 f.) Matthew Henry (Vol. V, 216) is right to admonish: Christ expects from us some proportion of knowledge, and grace, and wisdom, according to the time and means we have had. See John 14:9; Hebrews 5:12; 2 Timothy 3:7 f.

Matthew 15:17 **Perceive ye not, that whatsoever goeth into the mouth passeth into the belly, and is cast out into the draught? **The Lord describes here the normal functioning of the alimentary canal: common food passes from one part of the digestive system to the other and what cannot be assimilated is eliminated. Because He is speaking generally, those substances that are positively harmful to the body are not considered here. However, normal food is used in the body for its strength, but this process does not defile the body, because the moral state of a man is not really based upon the material or the mechanical. That is, purely physical processes, which have no relation to the will, the intellect, the emotions, or the conscience, can never really pollute or profane the heart. There is no proper connection, no real affinity between material food per se and the soul.

It is because of this objective lack of affinity, therefore, that Jesus can affirm that food, any food, is objectively clean, pure. The Levitical system was, thus, an arbitrary law that forbade the eating of certain foods so that the Israelites might learn holiness through obedience to these arbitrary laws. The defilement, involved in eating foods declared unclean, lay not in the objective impurity of those foods, but in a Hebrew’s disregarding God’s law by requesting and justifying his eating of that food. Lenski (Matthew, 589, 592) is right to say that forbidden meats could be eaten only by a Jew who was set on disobeying God’s Levitical law, but he draws a wrong conclusion therefrom when he denies that Jesus intended no abrogation of the Levitical laws concerning meats. In fact, when Jesus declares the objective purity of ALL foods (Mark 7:19), He says the opposite of the food laws which said SOME meats are impure. So He is actually undermining any consideration of the Levitical distinctions as absolute. By going back of the subjective impurity of certain foods to the objective purity of all foods, Jesus is going back of the Levitical rules that established that subjective impurity, and effectively cancels the distinctions they created. But, by so doing, He rises above the Levitical system and dares say something different than it had said. Mark (Mark 7:19) does not want his readers to miss that connection, but Matthew, sensitive to the biases of his readership, does not want to close their mind to the more important truth he wants to get across. He knows that if they accept Jesus as Lord, Messiah and revealer of God, they will, in time, see that He can erase Levitical rules too. (Cf. Acts 10:10-16; Acts 11:9)

Jesus-’ declaration expresses His fundamental confidence in the basic goodness of God’s creation, as over against an ascetic tendency to suspect certain aspects of God’s creation as intrinsically contaminating or profaning. (Cf. 1 Timothy 4:1-5; Genesis 1:31; Genesis 9:3; Romans 14:2; Romans 14:6; 1 Corinthians 10:25-30; Acts 10:28)

True enough, an inordinate appetite, intemperance, and excess in eating, come out of the heart, and are defiling. (M. Henry, Vol. V, 216) Further, while it is true that foods DO have their effect on the body and cannot be regarded as having absolutely no effect, Jesus, however, is discussing what will defile man’s soul, not discussing health or simple sanitation. Even if the precise food laws affected by Jesus-’ declaration might yet be followed as a question of health and hygiene and common sense and medical wisdom (Barclay, Matthew, II, 131), after they were abrogated at the cross, they could never remain in vigor as a question of conscience to disturb the soul.

This basic character of Judaism, as opposed to true, OT religion, whereby the former pitted ritual purity against ethical purity at the expense of the latter and seen in the tendency to multiply regulations for external self-abasement, is all too easily reproduced in the Church. (Study 1 Timothy 4:1-5; Colossians 2:8-23.) Paul’s whole argument in Colossians 2, 3 is that man cannot achieve life with a holy God by strict adherence to human regulations, precepts and doctrines which, however wisely they appear to promote rigor of devotion, self-abasement and severity to the body, have no value in dealing with the root cause of fleshly indulgence. This must come from a new mind-set.

Matthew 15:18 **But the things which proceed out of the mouth come forth out of the heart; and they defile the man. **This is probably the profoundest declaration on mind-pollution. Nothing pours out of the mind through one’s speech but what was first put there. The great issue, then, is what is getting into a man’s mind? This is why propaganda in all its forms, both good and bad, is a life-changing activity, since man’s conduct is deeply affected by whatever is in his mind. (Cf. Staton, The Perfect Balance, 79f)

What does this say about the Pharisees-’ failure to let the Word of God so completely permeate their thinking that they were able to miss seeing their flagrant violation of God’s holy commandment? Where had they failed to teach the proper concern for one’s aged, needy parents? They had failed to keep ALL of God’s message in mind, both with its emphasis on parental care, as well as its emphasis on giving to God what had been promised. These theological bunglers failed to maintain that nice balance which God had placed in tension. Consequently, they concentrated on only a portion of the truth, and this imbalance produced the travesty of truth that Jesus exposes here. He attacks it because He is sure that half-truth cannot make a man whole, and the resulting self-deception, ignorance and conceit is the fatal source of sin in all its expressions, (Study Psalms 119:9; Psalms 119:11; Psalms 119:44 f, Psalms 119:104; Psalms 119:130; Psalms 119:165; Colossians 3:16; Ephesians 1:15-19; Ephesians 3:14-19.) The Pharisees were so terribly wrong, because they had filled man’s vision of God with a dedication to ceremonials, externals and details, rather than with the knowledge of God, mercy, justice and faithfulness, (Hosea 6:6; Matthew 23:23; Philippians 4:8)

**The things which proceed out of the mouth **means words, of course, and these really defile the man. Man’s thoughts and intentions shape them into the creatures they are before they are ever expressed verbally. In fact, it is not essential that one’s plans ever be vocalized for them to pollute his heart and life. (Cf. Matthew 5:22; Matthew 5:28) Whereas by the very nature of food, whatever does not assimilate into the body is eliminated, the nature of sinful words and attitudes produces, unfortunately, quite another result, because whatever is produced in the soul (psychè) influences the character and blights every human expression. This finds confirmation on the positive side of human experience, because Jesus states it as a general rule that a good man out of his good treasure brings forth good. (Matthew 12:33-37) Good also begins in the mind. (Philippians 4:8; cf. Matthew 7:17 f; Luke 6:43-45) The heart is all that, taken together, composes the entire man: his desires, his conscience, his will, his intellect, his memory, his habits, his temperament. They defile the man: the only defilement worth discussing is that of an evil, unregenerate mind, because this is the true source of those thoughts, words and deeds that offend against God’s Law. (Cf. James 1:13-15; Jeremiah 17:9; see on Matthew 15:19.)

Matthew Henry (Vol. V, 214) astutely notices that it is not the disciples that defile themselves with what they eat, but the Pharisees that defile themselves with what they speak spitefully and censoriously of them. It is so easy to defile ourselves by transgressing God’s Law against censoriousness, while we criticize others for their transgressions of His Law. There are no neutral words that do not count: they must positively bless others or they defile the person who says them. (Colossians 3:16; Colossians 4:6; Ephesians 4:29; Ephesians 5:4; 1 Peter 3:15-16; James 3:10)

Matthew 15:19 For: the principle stated in Matthew 15:18 is now to be explained and amplified. **Out of the heart come forth evil thoughts: **this does not state a law of permanent depravity that excludes the possibility of any good as coming from the heart as such, because the Lord Himself also affirmed the latter. He means here that evil thoughts and all their effects come from the heart, not from some missed ceremony or bungled ritual. Since a wicked heart is the poison fountain whence this pollution pours, if His hearers desire to alter the character of what comes from their hearts, they must have a NEW HEART! Jesus-’ statement only becomes an unchangeable law for those who refuse to change the character of their entire being by total conversion to Christ. (Cf. Hebrews 3:12 f)

**Evil thoughts **are the father of the deeds that make up this defiling catalog. In fact, were these never the subject of man’s daydreams nor the object of his desires, they could never surface as deeds, because they would have died abortively.

NOTE: Mark introduces only evil thoughts with definite articles (the thoughts, i.e. the evil ones) whereas he seems to place all the other sins in apposition to them, hence without articles, as if the latter are to be considered as the natural expression evil thoughts, which is, of course, what Jesus affirmed explicitly.

Since the sins listed begin with, and are the expression of evil thoughts, we must beware of an itching interest in them, lest our own steadfastness be compromised by our own apparent conscientiousness which may be nothing but a lusty curiosity that loves to dwell on the details. (Ephesians 5:12 in context) For this reason we must be set straight by Jesus on these subjects, that we might have His power for our self-defense against them.

In order to include Mark’s additions, Matthew’s list has been reorganized to capture certain groupings that reveal how the acts externalize the evil thoughts:

HATEFUL THOUGHTS. Murder is but the external manifestation of hate latent in the heart. (See notes on Matthew 5:21 f; cf. James 4:1 f; Psalms 55:21; 1 John 3:15.) An evil eye (ofthalmòs poneròs) means that jealous envy that broods hate, because unable or unwilling to rejoice in the good fortune of another and wishing to deprive him of it.

SENSUAL THOUGHTS. Adultery (moicheîai) differs from fornication (porneîai) in that the former refers in this context to extramarital sexual relations, while the latter refers to premarital relations, but both are natural products of a lusty heart. (See notes on Matthew 5:27-32.) Mark (Mark 7:22) adds licentousness (asélgeia) whose range of meaning includes: debauchery, sensuality, especially of sexual excesses (Arndt-Gingrich, 114) as well as dissoluteness, insolence, shamelessness, courseness, arrogance (Rocci, 277). See 2 Peter 2:14 a.

DISCONTENTED THOUGHTS. Theft (klopaì) is born of a desire to possess something without which it cannot rest content until it is taken. Mark (Mark 7:22) adds coveting (pleonexìai), which is the insatiable greed that leads to theft, and many other soul-piercing evils as well. (Cf. 1 Timothy 6:6-10) There are degrees of greed in everyone, that are in direct proportion to the degree we content ourselves with what God provides. (Hebrews 13:5 f) Greed expresses the real idolatry in the heart. (Colossians 3:5) The whole spirit of covetousness defiles, because people do not want to be satisfied to live without all the products promoted by industry. They must have more (pleon + exia), even if someone else must pay the bills.

UNCHARITABLE THOUGHTS. False witness (pseudomartyrìai) may be prompted by inner fear to represent openly what is known to be otherwise than is declared, as well as by the hate that gives testimony that deliberately damages an innocent person. Mark (Mark 7:22) notes also deceit (dòlos) which points to that cunning treachery and stealth by which one intentionally deceives others. (See 2 Peter 2:14; Psalms 62:10.)

BLASPHEMOUS THOUGHTS. Slander (blasfemìai) is a degrading, derogating kind of speech often produced by maliciousness or bitterness, whether directed at God or man. (cf. James 3:9) At its heart is pride and censuring criticism. (See on Matthew 7:1-5.) It engenders and is also produced by false witness to which it is necessarily kin.

PERVERSE THOUGHTS. Wickednesses (Mark 7:22 ponerìai) in the plural speaks of various kinds of evil-mindedness and individual expressions of it, malicious acts (Arndt-Gingrich, 697); perversity (Rocci, 1539)

VAIN THOUGHTS. Pride (Mark 7:22, hyperefanìa) refers to haughtiness and arrogance (Arndt-Gingrich, 849) which includes insolence, contempt and scorn (Rocci, 1895). Pride is always wrong when it is pride in man, his position, his accomplishmentsanything but the living God. (Cf. 1 Corinthians 1:31)

THOUGHTLESS THOUGHTS. Foolishness (Mark 7:22, afrosùne) speaks of a lack of moral and intellectual sense that borders on insanity, but is caused by indifference and imprudence. (Rocci, 326) Moral recklessness is not merely foolish; it is sin. (Proverbs 24:9)

From the above it is evident that, whereas human law can judge a man on the basis of what he actually does, never on the basis of his attitude except as this expresses itself in deeds, God’s judgment tests everything by man’s motives or intentions before they ever lead him to act or speak as he does.

Matthew 15:20 **These defile the man, **says Jesus. God is no ogre who forbids something conducive to man’s well-being and best interest, when He demands moral purity. He knows that this contributes to what is right for man, his health and strength. Therefore, that lack of self-discipline which refuses to remove these causes of real defilement invites not only self-pollution, but, finally, self-destruction. This is why we must learn to hate sin and its defilement of our conscience, its pollution of our dearest relationships, its vitiation of our highest motives. The trouble with the Pharisees was that they did not hate sin. They only hated to see any of their opinions discounted. Since their conscience had been so long accustomed to insist upon ceremonies of human origin and to being intransigent sticklers for something that never really mattered at all, their mind was impossible to arouse by any discussion of real defilement. But are we moderns personally concerned about being defiled in the sight of a holy God? Do we really glorify God for His power to cleanse us? (Cf. Psalms 51)

Merely because the NT repealed and removed the OT legislation on defilement and cleansing, it did not thereby make everything right and innocent without qualification. Study the following texts: Romans 14:14; Romans 14:20 and Titus 1:15 in harmony with James 3:6; James 4:8; 1 Corinthians 3:17; 1 Corinthians 8:7; Hebrews 12:15; Romans 1:24; Romans 6:19; Ephesians 4:19; Ephesians 5:3; Ephesians 5:5; Galatians 5:19; Colossians 3:5; 1 Thessalonians 2:3; 1 Thessalonians 4:7; 2 Corinthians 7:1; 2 Corinthians 12:21; 2 Peter 1:4; 2 Peter 2:10. Again, since sin defiles the man, real cleansing must be able to remove this real defilement. (Study Acts 8:22; Acts 15:9; Ephesians 5:26; Titus 2:14; Titus 3:5; Hebrews 9:13 f; Hebrews 10:14; Hebrews 10:22; 1 Peter 1:2; 1 Peter 1:22; 1 Peter 3:21; 1 John 1:5-9.) The OT legislation merely furnished us the vocabulary and strengthened our moral muscles to walk and talk with God in perfect sanctity of flesh and spirit. The concept of purity and pollution taught us in the OT Law has not been forgotten, but elevated, strengthened and made far more imperative. The details whereby the concept is to be practiced differ, because we are not under the Mosaic Levitical system, but the concept of personal holiness is as fully obligatory as it is fully Christian.

J. Parker (PHC, Vol. XXII, 383) summarizes the proper application of this section to Christian practice:

So long as we think we can wash the evil off our hands in any one of the world’s rivers, we do not feel our want of a gospel, That want is felt only in proportion to our conviction that sin is in our very souls, that it penetrates every fibre, and poisons every spring and energy of our being.

This is why this section is so fundamental: modern Christians may not observe a hand-washing tradition whereby they hope to justify themselves before God and be able to live among men, but whatever they invent or accept as handed down to them from the fathers is totally inadequate to make them all God wants them to be. It may be positively damaging in that it nullifies what God required, and, as a religious exercise, it threatens to blind their mind to what really separates man from God and destroys human communion.

We would entirely miss the real meaning of this passage if we but substituted other human rules whereby we would avoid becoming Pharisees, but failed to do the one thing necessary for real, lasting cleansing from all defilement of flesh and spirit. Morgan (Matthew, 197) ponders:

Is our religion a thing of the heart, a communion between our inner life and God, a force that drives us to the watch-tower in the morning to catch a gleam of the glory of the pathway of His feet, a passion that sends us back to Him with shame and disgust when we have sinned? That is the true religion. If Jesus in all the virtue of His life and love sits sentinel in our heart, we shall guard our lips, and be careful as to what we eat or drink.

We shall be careful to do anything He asks, without artful dodging our duty by sham regulations and great zeal for meaningless rituals invented to measure our piety.

**But to eat with unwashed hands does not defile a man. **Merely because Jesus placed hand-washing as a religious ritual in the category of things indifferent is no excuse for hippy Christians as if what is important is what people do, not what they look or smell like. In no sense did He approve of indifference to the use and abuse of food and drink, or indifference toward personal cleanliness and filth. Rather, His principle means that all these matters are fully expressions of our tastes, inclinations, desires, choices and willin short, the character of our heart. The very reasons why some choose to be filthy in dress or hygiene may be very defiling because these involve the sins of lack of concern for the conscience and feelings of others, the refusal properly to reflect the image of God in one’s own person, and perhaps other sins as well.

FACT QUESTIONS

Discuss the worship of God. What is worship? What kind is acceptable or unacceptable to God? How did Old Testament worship differ from New Testament worship? What are the essential elements of worship?

Describe briefly the Jewish traditions concerning purification. Include Mark’s brief summary. What was the original foundation of these ideas? Why did Jesus violate them? Was there any difference between Jesus-’ teachings on defilement and the God-given teaching in the OT? How much and why?

What was the OT teaching concerning defilement and purification? Was ceremonial defilement a serious matter in the OT? What was the usual method for obtaining cleansing from defilement under the OT Law?

Why and how did Jesus violate the traditional rules of the elders? Who were these elders?

What did Jesus say was wrong with the Jewish traditions?

What are traditions? Are there some that are good to keep? If so, which? If not, why are there none which are good?

Where did the Pharisees and scribes come from who place this critical question before Jesus? What is significant about their presence in Galilee at this time? What is significant about their attack now?

Outline chronologically the events that occurred during this general period from the Sermon on the Mount up to and including the clash with the Pharisees over traditions. Where did this latter occur?

What does the word Corban mean and how was it used by the Jews?

How did Jesus offend the Pharisees? What does the word offend mean?

List the statements or facts in this section that reveal the unique, supernatural identity of Jesus.

Whom did Jesus call blind guides? What does Jesus mean by telling His disciples to let them alone? Was He letting them alone?

What did Jesus mean by the parable about blind followers of blind guides?

Summarize the total answer Jesus gave to the question of the Pharisees: Why do your disciples transgress the tradition of the elders?

What did Jesus say really pollutes, or defiles, a man? What is the real source of all wickedness? List the things which Jesus named that actually defile a man and give a clear, brief definition of each.

What other NT passages discuss cleanness, pollution, purity and filth? Are there any things that are now taboo in Christianity?

Make a list of American taboos that have found their way into American Christianity, but have no necessary origin in the religion of Jesus. This requires more insight than most of us think or have, but give it a try. But once you have finished making the list, realize that this is but a modern, American version of the traditions of the elders.

What is the point of Jesus-’ statement about plants that God did not plant?

What method of cleansing is available to us, or is there anything we can or must do to be cleansed of our defilement?

What is the significance of Mark’s statement (Matthew 7:19) about Jesus-’ making all meats clean?

Describe pure, undefiled religion.

What opinion did the Pharisees have of Jesus to attack Him as often as they dared? Why did they feel this way?

HOW TO AVOID BECOMING A PHARISEE

Who would WANT to be a Pharisee after all Jesus had to say about them? Ironically, however, for all our abhorrence of their mentality, we may well find ourselves entrapped by inattention to what made the Pharisee what he was. What element(s) stand out; what factors best describe the hideous distortion of true religion that we should identify with the Pharisean mentality? Is it hypocrisy? Superficiality? Pride? Self-worship? Punctiliousness? Proselyting? Self-righteousness? But are not all of these and more but indications of a fault far deeper and more essential, a fault so basic that facilitates all the others? That fault is the fundamental confusion of one’s own opinions and traditions for the Word of God. Therefore*,* if we would avoid the rise of Phariseism in our selves, we need to take the following steps:

I. WE MUST BE ABLE TO RECOGNIZE THE TRADITIONALIST MENTALITY.

What is the traditionalist mentality? How do wrong traditions get started and perpetuated anyway? Someone gets a good idea about how to understand or apply God’s will. Others like it, and soon it becomes the POPULAR way to interpret the passage. It is only a small step for this understanding to become the ONLY way to think about that particular point or the only way to do it. In time, the good reasons for the ideas are forgotten or become unimportant, or, they may even be no longer valid. The idea, however, continues to be promoted and perpetuated for itself, with no more support for it than its antiquity or its acceptance by people whose opinion is valued. Neglect of the idea becomes equivalent to neglect of the very Word of God it was intended to interpret and apply. At this point it is nothing but a habitual, ritualistic way of reacting. In fact, no thinking dare be done about it, for this would compromise one’s orthodoxy in the eyes of those who unquestioningly accept the idea. Rethinking or re-evaluating the idea is the ultimate heresy, because to do so appears to question the goodness or rightness of the idea at its inception: After all, our authorities must have had a good reason for accepting the idea in the first place, or they would not have taught it! First, then, we see the unwillingness and/or the inability to examine critically the validity of one’s own traditions, customs, opinions or interpretations. But the traditionalist mentality involves something more deadly than this. The traditionalist mentality expresses a deep-rooted indifference toward those means whereby men may recognize the Word of God, distinguishing it from every other communication. The confirmed traditionalist cares more about maintaining the status quo than about distinguishing good traditions from those which are tendentious and false. In short, he presumes that everything he believes, does or teaches is automatically guaranteed valid by divine inspiration and enjoys the same divine authority characteristic of well-authenticated revelations, even though his views do not possess all the qualities demanded of messages revealed by authentic prophets. God has taught us, however, that His genuine revelations will be unveiled by prophets possessing the following characteristic credentials;

The true messenger of God must speak in the name of the Lord God of Israel, Javéh, in contrast with so-called revelations coming from any other source. (Deuteronomy 18:9-22; Jeremiah 26:16)

The true prophet will offer supernatural credentials that cannot be falsified, either in the form of immediate, visible miracles, or predictive prophecies which, when precisely fulfilled, provide indisputable proof of the prophet’s divine mandate. (Deuteronomy 18:22; Exodus 4:1-9; Exodus 4:21; Exodus 4:29-31; 1 Kings 18:36-38; 1 Kings 13:1-6; 1 Kings 14:1-18; Matthew 16:1-4; 2 Corinthians 12:12; John 10:37 f; John 14:10 f)

The true messenger of God must speak in harmony with the well-authenticated revelations which become the norm by which to judge all new revelations. (Isaiah 8:16; Isaiah 8:20; Jeremiah 26 esp. Jeremiah 26:18; Jeremiah 26:20; 1 Corinthians 14:29) The older revelations constitute a prophetic context within which to evaluate all later ones. Remember the appeal of Jesus and the Apostles to the harmony existing between their own affirmations and the message of Moses and the prophets. (Cf. Acts 26:22 f; Acts 17:11; Acts 13:27-41; Acts 15:15; Acts 17:2; Acts 18:28; Acts 26:6 f; Acts 28:23; Romans 1:2-5; Romans 3:21; 2 Peter 3:2)

The personal morality of the prophet should harmonize with his message. (Cf. 2 Corinthians 12:12; Matthew 7:16-20; John 8:46) However, this characteristic may not always be present, since, for specific purposes and situations. God can make use of those who, at last, turn out to be wicked prophets. (Cf. Deuteronomy 13:1-5; Numbers 22-24; 2 Kings 13:11-25; Ezekiel 14:1-11; Matthew 7:22 f; 1 Corinthians 9:27)

What does not occur to the traditionalist, who imagines his human opinions, interpretations and traditions to have been inspired or dictated by God, is the fact that the original proponents of these very traditional opinions not only did not possess the above-mentioned prophetic credentials, but actually opened the door to direct apostacy from the living God and His true word. But the traditionalist seems immune to the following God-given defences against imposture:

If a predicted sign or wonder does not occur, the prophet has spoken presumptuously. (Deuteronomy 18:21 f; contrast 1 Samuel 3:19 f)

If a prophet dares speak in the name of some other deity, he has not been authorized by Javéh. (Deuteronomy 18:20)

Notwithstanding the verification of a true miracle done by a given prophet, if that prophet teaches apostacy from the Lord, he is false. (Deuteronomy 13:1-5) This is also true of every type of false or wicked counsel or counsellor who, however not possessing divine credentials, already enjoys the confidence of those who must decide about him. (Deuteronomy 13:6-18) Apostacy may include his ignoring the well-established prophetic context of genuine revelation. If his message will not harmonize with the undoubted Word of God, he is false.

Worse still, the traditionalist who embraces uncritically the claims or opinions of ANY so-called prophet, inspired tradition or teaching authority guided by the Holy Spirit, by that act unwittingly relinquishes the definitive character of the Christian Gospel as the normative revelation of the will of God, i.e. as the now finally completed prophetic context. The NT speaks of:

Itself as the sound doctrine, the pattern of sound words (1 Timothy 1:10 f; 1 Timothy 4:1-6; 1 Timothy 4:11; 1 Timothy 4:16; 1 Timothy 5:21; 1 Timothy 6:1-4; 2 Timothy 1:13; 2 Timothy 4:3 f; Titus 1:9; Titus 2:1; Titus 2:10; Titus 2:15)

The importance of holding fast to the Apostolic documents and messages. (1 Timothy 1:3; 1 Timothy 3:14 f; 2 Timothy 2:2; 2 Timothy 3:16 f; 2 Thessalonians 2:14; 2 Thessalonians 3:6; 2 Thessalonians 3:14)

The authority of the Apostles-’ doctrine. (Romans 16:17; 1 Corinthians 2:6-16; 1 Corinthians 14:37; 2 Corinthians 12:1-12; Galatians 1:6-9; Galatians 1:12; Ephesians 3:3-5; 1 Thessalonians 2:13; 1 Thessalonians 4:2; 1 Thessalonians 4:8; 1 Thessalonians 4:15; 1 Thessalonians 4:18; 2 Peter 3:2; 2 Peter 3:15 f; 1 Peter 1:12; 2 John 1:10)

The decisive, conclusive and final character of the revelation completed during the lifetime of the Apostles themselves: (Hebrews 1:1-2; 2 Peter 1:3 f, 2 Peter 1:12; Jude 1:3; Romans 16:17)

The danger of accepting as apostolic tradition some declaration that never was taught by any apostle. (Romans 3:8; 2 Thessalonians 2:2; John 21:23)

Now, while there could be more texts, at least these teach that the Apostles expected their revelations to be received as normative for the Church, as sound doctrine, as the last word from God. And, while no clearcut statement of Scripture indicates the date when the perfect comes to take the place of prophecy (which) will pass away; tongues (which) will cease; (miraculous?) knowledge (which) will pass away (1 Corinthians 13:8 f), nevertheless, nothing is ever to be received uncritically as from God. Rather, everything is to be judged and only what is decidedly from God is to be loved, practiced and taught. (Cf. 1 John 4:1; 1 Thessalonians 5:19-22; 1 Timothy 4:1; Revelation 2:2; 2 Thessalonians 2:2) It just may be that God gave no date for the cessation of genuine prophecy, in order to be able to test every believer’s faithfulness to that message once for all committed to the saints, (Study Deuteronomy 13:1-5.)

The key issue is, then, not tradition versus tradition, i.e. ours against yours, because we all have traditions. Rather, the issue is good traditions as against bad ones, an issue that can be decided by seeking to know the ORIGIN of the traditions: Are they of God, or are they of men? (Study Matthew 21:23-27, esp. Matthew 21:25.)

But the attitude of the traditionalist effectively blocks any serious examination of his own intricately entangled beliefs and practice, because any admission that he really needs to rethink anything becomes a menace to his own psychological security based upon his belief system. But God intended that man’s real certainty be based upon the very elements mentioned above that distinguish God’s Word from every other! This is why the traditionalist deserves to be damned: he depends for his salvation upon his own unexamined belief system, rather than trust and utilize God’s tools to correct his belief system so that he may have only divine truth to fill and transform his soul and save him for eternity! But what of the traditionalist that is not merely indifferent and lazy, but sincere and conscientious, who wants to obey every detail of God’s Law in order to please Him? If we would avoid becoming Pharisees,.

II. WE MUST ALSO BEWARE OF THE THEOLOGICAL PRESUPPOSITIONS OF TRADITIONALISM.

Do traditionalists also have identifiable theological presuppositions? While there may be other factors that make a traditionalist what he is, for our purposes here, the key issue is this: what are the arguments behind the formation of traditions, arguments which urge the teaching and practice of the traditions once formed? Here are some:

Obedience to God means precise, conscientious and faithful performance of His Law, This good principle, however, is interpreted by the traditionalist in the sense that only punctilious of minutiae can satisfy the demands of God and is the only service pleasing to God.

Traditionalism must presume that God’s will, as He left it for men in the Bible, is deficient, because it does not inform men about every detail he must know in order to be sure that he has observed God’s Law in every detail.

Since obedience totally based upon law is not perfectly possible where God has not legislated every detail whereby the godly may know when they have faithfully, conscientiously and precisely fulfilled His Law, it becomes the supposedly essential function of pious scholars to formulate the missing details in order to supply the supposed deficiency in God’s Law. The spectacle of a supposedly imperfect Law from a perfect God is an embarrassment which, according to the traditionalists, can be corrected only by supplying the missing details through the use of the best logic of which the sanctified human mind is capable.

This presumes, of course, that one man or any group of men is both capable and qualified to perfect the deficiency by using fallible human reason.

Those who sense the fallacy of their following human conclusions reached in this fashion yield to the temptation to attribute divine authority to the conclusions, even though the scholars themselves lack the aforementioned prophetic credentials absolutely essential to stamp their words as divine.

Next, the traditionalist presumes that the final result of this pious and scholarly closing of the loop-holes in God’s Law can yet please God, bless mankind and still do so without adding any negative side effects, like, for example, breaking God’s Word to keep these human rules. The essential reason for the existence of these traditions is the attempt to fill the empty spaces, the silence, the loop-holes in the Law of God, notwithstanding such warnings as Deuteronomy 4:2; Deuteronomy 12:32; Proverbs 30:5-6! Revelation 22:18 f and similar.

Finally, when once the missing details are furnished in this fashion, they take on the force of divine law. Their observance has the force of obedience to God; their neglect means unfaithfulness to God. Otherwise, why bother?

The great, damning assumption behind all this kind of thinking is its fundamental criticism of God: He did not tell us all that we believe we need to knowor desire to knowin order to do His will. There is also that presumption that sighs: So WE have to supply God’s deficiencies!

To measure just how real all this is, just think of the challenge thrown down at Jesus by the Pharisees: Why transgress the traditions of the elders? Implied in this challenge are the following offensive propositions, all of which express the essential diversity between traditionalism and the religion of Jesus Christ:

There is a body of doctrines which is officially described as of the elders, of the Jewish Magisterium (Teaching Authority), but the question means: Why transgress the doctrine of God as this is interpreted and taught by the elders?

Whereas this doctrinal corpus is without authentic prophetic credentials and so is of human origin, it is nevertheless elevated to the level of divine revelation, a fact made clear by the nature of the test question itself, as well as by the motives of the examiners who so formulate it. It may even be exalted above it, as illustrated in the following quotations from the Palestinian Talmud (Ber. i. 4 in Bowker, op. cit., 154):

The words of the scribes are related to the words of Torah [the Law of Moses] and are to be loved like the words of Torah.. The words of Torah include both prohibitions and permissions; they include commands both of light and weighty importance, but the words of the scribes are all weighty. This can be known from the saying, He who says that there should be no tephillin [phylacteries], thereby contradicting Torah, is without guilt, but [he who says] there should be five compartments thereby adding to the words of the scribes is guilty.. The words of the elders are weightier than the words of the prophets.

To violate, ignore or otherwise transgress the traditions of the elders is equal to a violation of God’s Word. (Some extremists held that violation of the tradition was actually far more culpable than transgression of God’s Word. San. xi. 3; Ber. i. 4)

The blindness of the traditionalists-’ philosophy lies in their inability seriously to question the rightness of these propositions.

In all fairness to the elders themselves whose traditions are so blindly followed and passed on by their disciples, we may well ask: Did these -fathers,-’ who are cited as originators and/or bearers of the sacred tradition, or who are cited as illustrations of the -teaching authority-’ at work, did they consider themselves to be PROPHETS with the necessary credentials in order?

If they actually considered themselves as prophets, where is the historical documentation of their credentials?

If they did not consider themselves prophets, by what criteria should their disciples attribute them such authority? If a given Jewish Rabbi or a given Church Father knew himself to be uninspired by the Holy Spirit with that special inspiration whereby God speaks to men by the prophets, by what right do later generations attribute it to him?

The Fathers-’ written opinions and interpretations of Scripture do contribute to the growth of tradition, but they are not therefore any more inspired or more divine than other men, despite all the wishful thinking of their disciples.

So, since we must beware of the traditionalist mentality and avoid the theological presuppositions of traditionalism, what is our salvation? What will keep us from becoming Pharisees?

III. WE MUST CONSTANTLY COMPARE OUR BELIEFS WITH THE LAW OF CHRIST AND PRACTICE IT ONLY.

Before rejecting this truism as an oversimplification of the problem; let us at least examine it. The great issue before every conscientious soul is what to do with the loop-holes in God’s Law, or, to put it another way, how to deal with God’s silence. That God has not spoken on many subjects is no surprise to anyone who has read the Bible. In fact, most Christians are fairly familiar with God’s revealed will when it comes to obeying the specific commands and the well-known prohibitions in His Word. But how should we go about solving the billion and one problems about which He has chosen not to speak in the Bible?

Should a Christian take any part in military service?

What precise definitions will establish a distinctively Christian style of dress, length of hair, etc.?

Should a Christian dance in any form of dance, anywhere?

What about birth control?

What should be our approach toward extra congregational ecclesiastical organizations?

To what extent is mourning for our dead a Christian expression and at what point does it become pagan?

Is it possible for a Christian to please God and smoke?

This list is but a beginning, but it indicates areas of discussion where God has chosen not to reveal His specific will on these and many other specific subjects.

At this point we ask, But doesn-’t God’s Word cover EVERY phase of our lives? Isn-’t the Bible complete? Couldn-’t God foresee these problems and resolve them for us in His Word? How do we deal with them? Others are tempted to answer, Just pray for the guidance of the Holy Spirit in such matters, without realizing that the Law of Christ we are about to study IS THE GUIDANCE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT for just such decisions as we must make.

HOW IS THE LAW OF CHRIST EXPRESSED?

It is expressed generally in the word LOVE (Matthew 22:34-40; Romans 13:8-10; Galatians 5:13 f)

It is expressed in some detail in the form of:

Clear, positive commands, exhortations, good examples and lists of virtues to imitate;

Express prohibitions, exemplar punishments, long lists of sins to eliminate;

Rules that govern our Christian liberty to act on questions not specifically treated in the other revelations of Scripture, i.e. in the areas where God has chosen to be silent.

(1)

Necessity. These rules are needed in order to eliminate the need for a gigantic library of canon law that deals with every single case of every single individual ever to live on earth.

(2)

Nature. These rules are a collection of directives to help us arrive at a suitable conclusion about matters that God has not discussed in His Word. However, THESE DIRECTIVES ARE HIS WORD intended to cover such cases, therefore we may not treat these rules with indifference nor ignore them as somehow unessential. They are the revelations of the Spirit purposely made to close up the loop-holes.

(3)

Purpose. God wants to leave Christians genuinely free to decide and act responsibly. So He liberates us from slavery to a detailed system that would compromise our freedom by dictating our everyday decisions. Again, He frees us from that slavish attention to legal detail that exalted law as a principle of self-justification. Finally, any law can command and prohibit many things, but no law yet written can describe in sufficient detail all the possible positive deeds and attitudes by which the man of God should react rightly in response to his God and his neighbor.

(4)

Here are some of these directives: 1 Corinthians 6:12 to 1 Corinthians 11:1; Romans 14:1 to Romans 15:7; Galatians 5:1-25. From these texts we derive the following:

THE PRINCIPLES OF CONTROL BY WHICH WE DECIDE about matters God has not decided for us, i.e. THE DIRECTIVES THAT GOVERN CHRISTIAN LIBERTY:

CHRISTIAN LIBERTY STATED: All things are lawful for me (1 Corinthians 6:12; 1 Corinthians 10:23), except what God has ordered or prohibited, because our freedom can never be an excuse to disobey Him. Beyond what He has expressly forbidden or commanded, nothing is unclean of itself (Romans 14:14; Romans 14:20). To the pure all things are pure (Titus 1:15), because everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, for then it is consecrated by the word of God and prayer. (1 Timothy 4:4 f; 1 Corinthians 10:26; Mark 7:19) So, we are really free to decide about such matters.

CHRISTIAN LIBERTY DIRECTED by the following principles:

Pragmatic utility: Not all things are helpful, BUT SOME ARE. (1 Corinthians 6:12) If the thing under discussion fails to do the job for which it is intended, why use it?

Enslavement: I will not be enslaved by anything. (1 Corinthians 6:12) We are morally obligated to acknowledge no other lordship than that of the Lord Jesus. (Consider the enslavement to habits that rob us of our spontaneity, intimacy and awareness of others. Think of enslavement to drugs, or worse, to unexamined ideas!)

Honesty in the application of these rules: Do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh. (Galatians 5:13) Live as free men, yet without using your freedom as a pretext for evil; but live as servants of God. (1 Peter 2:16) Shun immorality, idols, etc. (1 Corinthians 6:18; 1 Corinthians 10:14; Romans 3:8) No dishonest use of these rules can ever justify sin.

Effect on others: Cause no stumbling (Matthew 18:1-14; 1 Corinthians 8; 1 Corinthians 10:31 to 1 Corinthians 11:1)

The right to dispense with our rights: Any undeniable right may be dispensed with for sake of our neighbor, particularly where the use of that right scandalizes a brother for whom Christ died. (Romans 14:13-16; 1 Corinthians 9:12; 1 Corinthians 9:15; 1 Corinthians 9:18-23; 1 Corinthians 6:7)

Edification of others is a positive good that should be sought in every decision: Let us pursue what makes for peace and mutual upbuilding. (Romans 14:19; Romans 15:2) Not all things build up, Let no one seek his own good, but the good of his neighbor. (1 Corinthians 10:23 f) I try to please all men in everything I do, not seeking my own advantage, but that of many, that they may be saved. (1 Corinthians 10:33; cf. 1 Corinthians 8:1; Romans 15:1 f)

Recognize the liberty of others to decide for themselves before God. All decisions are strictly personal, not universal: Let every one be fully convinced in his own mind.. The conviction that you have keep between yourself and God. (Romans 14:5 b, Romans 14:22)

All decisions must reflect the true nature of the Kingdom of God which does not consist in food and drink, but righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit; he who thus serves Christ is acceptable to God and approved by men. (Romans 14:17 f)

Always decide a question leaning to the side of mercy. (Matthew 5:7; Matthew 6:9; Matthew 6:12 f; Matthew 9:13; Matthew 12:7; Matthew 18:15-35; James 2:12 f; James 3:17)

Do everything for the Lord (Romans 14:6-9), in the name of the Lord Jesus (Colossians 3:17), as serving the Lord and not men (Colossians 3:22-24; Ephesians 5:22; Ephesians 5:25; Ephesians 6:1; Ephesians 6:5-9), to the glory of God. (1 Corinthians 10:31)

Accept as a brother in Christ everyone who is genuinely in Christ, regardless of those differences of opinion that distinguish you. (Romans 14:1; Romans 15:7)

The last rule is that there may be more rules! There may be more directives in God’s Word that should go on this list. These listed, however, are typical, but they are mandatory and not opinionable nor optional. They are God’s revelations about how to deal with subjects about which He has chosen not to make His specific will known in each and every case.

It becomes increasingly clear, then, that decisions made on this kind of basis are going to vary from person to person, from congregation to congregation, and from century to century. According to this view, therefore, God has built into His system some directives that actually permit differences of opinion. This, then, is one area where complete uniformity is decidedly impossible. And God wants it that way! This is the reason behind the excellent motto:

In essentials, UNITY. In non-essentials, LIBERTY. In all things, CHARITY.

We must be perfectly united in the essentials, proclaiming with one voice what God has expressly commanded or forbidden, as well as the above-listed rules which direct our free decisions as we express our Christian liberty. However, nothing God has omitted from His revelations can be considered essential, so in these very non-essentials we are truly free to exercise our liberty and grant the same freedom to others. But in our obedience to the essentials, as well as in our decisions about the non-essentials, the fundamental principle is always love.

To put it another way: Where the Scriptures speak we speak. Where the Scriptures are silent, we are silent. This means that, when the Scriptures order or prohibit something, we must require only that which the Scriptures authorize, because these are the essentials. If the Scriptures require nothing for a given case, we may impose nothing either. This same principle can be applied to the non-essentials by expressing it inversely: Where the Scriptures speak, we must be silent and give our whole-souled obedience without complaint or objection. Where the Scriptures are silent) only then may we speak our opinion, for God has left us free to decide and act responsibly. Since these rules require that we think and act responsibly, some Christians in their immaturity are bound to reject them and never make use of them, choosing rather to let others do their thinking and deciding for them, or else continue in their traditional habits, indifferent to new truth and changing conditions, insensitive to people and, most tragically of all, insensitive to the normative revelation of the Word of God. But our God has chosen to set us free from bondage to men and slavery to detailed systems, so that we might act in character as His sons. So, for those who love Jesus and are willing to submit to His will, even that part of His will where He would push them out of the nest to try their wings and learn to fly in the boundless liberty of the sons of God, their course is clear! And there is not a Pharisee among them.

**Section 37

JESUS HEALS A SYROPHOENICIAN WOMAN’S DEMONIZED DAUGHTER (Parallel: Mark 7:24-30)

Matthew 15:21-28

TEXT: 15:21-28

21 And Jesus went out thence, and withdrew into the parts of Tyre and Sidon, 22 And behold, a Canaanitish woman came out from those borders, and cried, saying, Have mercy on me, O Lord, thou Son of David; my daughter is grievously vexed with a demon. 23 But he answered her not a word. And his disciples came and besought him, saying, Send her away; for she crieth after us. 24 But he answered and said, I was not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel. 25 But she came and worshipped him, saying, Lord, help me. 26 But he answered and said, It is not meet to take the children’s bread and cast it to the dogs. 27 But she said, Yea, Lord: for even the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters-’ table. 28 Then Jesus answered and said unto her, O woman, great is thy faith: be it done unto thee even as thou wilt. And her daughter was healed from that hour.

THOUGHT QUESTIONS

It would appear that a person, who desired to be known by as many of the world’s people as possible, would go where the most people are, especially those who would be prepared to grasp his message. (See John 7:3 f.) But here Jesus deliberately leaves Palestine for Phoenicia seeking PRIVACY. (Mark 7:24) How do you account for this apparent inconsistency in Jesus-’ conduct?

Though Jesus sought privacy, He could not be hid. How do you explain this?

Mark says that the Syrophoenician woman heard of Him. How would she have heard about Jesus?

Why do you suppose this Gentile woman addressed Jesus by that strictly Jewish title: Son of David? What could she possibly understand by the use of such a title?

Is it not courteous to reply when spoken to? Yet Jesus did not answer her one word. How do you account for such conduct?

Can you explain how Jesus could be so anxious to speak to the Samaritan woman but was so reluctant to take time for the Syrophoenician?

How do you account for the disciples-’ insistence that Jesus send her away? Had not Jesus helped Gentiles before? Had they themselves not learned to show merciful helpfulness to those in need? What could have motivated these closest followers of Jesus to talk this way?

After Jesus explained to the woman His basic mission to earth, why then did she not leave? Was there something in His manner that indicated to her that, when He said no, He really meant yes?

By implication of Jesus-’ figure of speech, He was calling the woman a dog. Do you think this was right? Is not this kind of treatment cruel? Do you think it right to tax this poor woman’s feelings this way?

Why is Jesus so overjoyed at the greatness of this woman’s faith? What is so unusual about her faith that makes it great in Jesus-’ judgment?

Although no text specifically describes the activity of Jesus and His Apostles during this journey outside of Palestine, after considering not only the events that immediately preceded the trip as well as the critical moments in the larger context, would you suggest what Jesus and His men might possibly have done while gone from Palestine? What specific needs could this trip have met, that, until the journey was made, could not have been satisfied?

After explaining to the woman His basic mission to earth, which limited Him to the Jews, why then did Jesus go ahead and cast the demon out of this Gentile woman’s daughter? What would you think if Jesus had absolutely refused? What would the Apostles or the woman have thought?

PARAPHRASE AND HARMONY

Jesus and His disciples went away from the area around Capernaum and withdrew completely out of Galilee to the foreign district of Phoenicia around Tyre and Sidon. There He entered into a house because He would have liked to remain incognito. But to remain hidden proved impossible, for a Canaanite woman from that region, whose young daughter was possessed by an unclean demon, heard about Him. Now the woman was a Greek, or pagan, and Syrophoenician by birth. Right away she approached Him, calling out, Have pity on me, Lord, David’s Son: my daughter is severely tormented by an unclean demon! But Jesus gave her no replynot one word. So His followers crowded around Him urging, Do send her away, Lord, because she is continuing to follow us shouting. Jesus objected, But I was sent to help the Jews, not the Gentiles. But the woman came around in front of Jesus, fell to her knees at His feet, begging Him to cast the demon out of her daughter. She pleaded, Help me, Lord! To this Jesus answered, Let the children first be fed! It is not right, you know, to take the children’s bread and throw it to the puppies. Yes, Lord, however, even the little dogs under the table eat the children’s scraps that fall from their masters-’ table. Lady, you-’ve got a lot of faith! For an answer like that, what you desired shall be done for you! You may go home content, because the demon has already left your daughter. Thus was her daughter healed instantly. Her mother went home and found her child lying quietly in bed, the demon gone.

SUMMARY

Travelling incognito in Phoenicia, Jesus and His Apostles encountered a mother whose daughter was demonized. Jesus preferred anonymity, but the woman recognized Him and immediately sought His supernatural aid in behalf of her daughter. Jesus parried her pleas with the objection that the purpose of His ministry was primarily in behalf of the Jewish people, even though this Gentile woman had called Him the Christ. She insisted. He seems to object again, but leaves the door open to further appeal, since He neither sent her away nor flatly refused to help. She seized upon a part of a figure of speech He had used, turning it to her credit. Admiring her motherly determination and indomitable confidence in His ability, Jesus granted her request. Instantly the demon departed from the daughter, leaving her in peace, resting in bed.

NOTES WHAT IS MATTHEW UP TO NOW?

No Bible student may forget that each of the Gospel writers is independent of the others, even though much of what he includes shares striking verbal similarities with that recorded by the others. This fact raises the question concerning the purpose for each author’s including this or that fact, as well as the significance of certain unusual omissions or inclusions. Even as the Apostolic Epistles were written to deal with needs in the early Church, the Evangelists intend to present a picture of the Lord Jesus that will not only be adequate for all time, but will meet needs in their own century. This is why only the Holy Spirit can be the editor-in-chief of these materials, because only He is sufficiently far-sighted to know what will accomplish these two divergent purposes. Now, while it is certainly true that the Hebrew Christians and those yet unconverted Jews of the first century would need to grasp the universality of the Christian Gospel, is it necessary or even possible to see in each single difference between the two narratives we have of this event, some key to the individual emphasis of Matthew or Mark? For example:

Is the fact significant that Matthew, not Mark, records Jesus-’ affirmation: I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel? (Matthew 15:24)

Is it important that Matthew does not say, with Mark: Let the children (Jews) first be fed? After all, if Matthew’s point is to teach precisely this conclusion that the Gospel is for the Jews first and then for the Gentile, how could he have omitted it? Or, did he, as a wise master teacher, prefer to suggest the conclusion without stating it? (See notes before Matthew 8:18: What Is This Text Doing Here?)

Is it true that Matthew’s quotation: It is not fair to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs, while also quoted by Mark, since it stands alone in Matthew’s context with Jesus-’ earlier statement of His Jewish mission (Matthew 15:24), leads to the conclusion that the pagans have no right to help whatever? If so, upon first reading, such a view would have been acceptable to the Jewish reader. Nevertheless, the whole impact of Matthew’s entire section is the moral impossibility of being deaf to their cry.

Matthew, not Mark, cites Jesus-’ praise of this Gentile woman’s faith (Matthew 15:28), whereas Mark emphasizes the brilliance of her trusting response with no special mention of her faith.

Of less importance is Matthew’s omission to mention that Jesus entered a house in a heathen land (cf. Acts 10:28; Acts 11:3), because not even Mark who mentions it affirms that it was a pagan’s house, since it could have been one belonging to a Jew living in Phoenicia.

Whereas Mark, using normal Jewish parlance, describes the woman as a Greek, which would mean gentile to anyone even distantly familiar with the paganizing influences of Hellenism in Israel and would remind the orthodox of the nationalistic struggles of the Maccabean period, yet it is Matthew that calls the woman a Canaanite, a word almost impossible to overload with connotations: pagan, ignorant, godless, superstitious, damned Gentile.

Whatever the details, that Matthew should have seized upon this one incident to illustrate Jesus-’ trip abroad, merits attention because of His meaningful encounter with this non-Hebrew. Because of the apparently casual nature of this meeting, it would be risky to affirm that He was laying the foundation for later evangelization among the Gentiles. His personal intention is another. (See Mark 7:24.) However, Matthew’s inclusion of this incident, because of the evident trust of this woman in the Hebrew Messiah, would undoubtedly argue the rightness of including also others of like precious faith in God’s Kingdom, even though they be of heathen background.

This is evidence for seeing the proper place of this narrative in the general Matthaean apologetic for the place of Gentiles in the New Israel. Whereas Jesus intended to initiate no personal mission to the Gentiles, as He Himself indicates in the text, still His reactions demonstrated toward them an openness that taught Matthew to open HIS heart to them too. Now, the cosmopolitan outlook of this Apostle gently nudges his kinsmen according to the flesh to reconsider their understanding of the Messiah. Though this entire period spent by the Lord outside of Palestine probably offered excellent opportunities to give the most concentrated attention and teaching He was ever able to provide His Apostles in private, nevertheless, Matthew leaves that possibility entirely out of the picture. Rather, he deliberately records for his readers just this one incident,and the lady and her daughter are CANAANITES! This fact might sail over the heads of Gentile readers, but it could hardly do less than stun a Hebrew leaving him wide-eyed with wonder in the presence of a universal Messiah. (See on Matthew 15:22.) A Gentile Christian might impatiently ask, Couldn-’t Matthew have played down her unsavory past and gotten on with the Gospel? Matthew seems to answer: But this IS Gospel! When the Messiah of Israel blesses a Canaanite, this is the most glorious news I can think of! When the Servant of Jehovah becomes the servant of the servant of servants, what glorious grace and mercy must be available to men! (Study Genesis 9:25-27; Genesis 10:6; Genesis 10:15.)

Another direct connection Matthew may intend is that between the preceding discussion with the Pharisees about ritual purity and (by implication) clean and unclean foods, and this section that deals with unclean and defiling people. This same approach is used by God in teaching the Jewish Peter to admit Gentiles into the Kingdom. He does this by first demanding that the Apostle eat unclean food and then sends him to unclean people. (To appreciate this relationship,-’ study the [to us] odd connections between Peter’s vision and the conclusions he drew from it. Acts 10:14 f, Acts 10:28; Acts 10:34 f) This, then, is the type of argument that Matthew’s Jewish readers could best appreciate and arrive at the right conclusion: if ritual purity is not the main issue, and if the heart purity is the essential, it may be true, then, that even Gentiles, who know nothing of Levitical ceremonies, but who have genuinely pure hearts and trust the God of Israel, may be considered clean and candidates for membership in the New Israel too.

Beyond Matthew’s personal purpose for including this section, we should also enjoy the psychological study this narrative provides for examining the interplay of personality as Jesus deals with this woman, and as she deals with Jesus. Stay alert, because He MAY deal with us in just this same way!

SITUATION: JESUS DESIRES PRIVACY (15:21; Mark 7:24)

Matthew 15:21 **And Jesus went out thence, and withdrew. **(exelthòn ekeîthen ho Iesoûs anechòresen) Reasons for this strategic journey must be decided in the light of His larger situation. (Matthew 13-17. See notes on Matthew 14:1; Matthew 14:13, where Jesus-’ problem and plan are more fully discussed.)

His primary reason: And from there he arose and went away to the region of Tyre and Sidon. And he entered a house and would not have anyone know. Yet he could not be hid. (Mark 7:24) From this it is concluded that He desired privacy, not merely from the Jews whose land He had left, but even from the Gentiles in whose country He now sojourned. Out of this grow the following surmises:

The entire band needed relaxation from the strenuous activities of the preceding weeks: the evangelization of Galilee, the feeding of the five thousand, the emotional strain after the murder of John the Baptist, the concern about Herod Antipas-’ undesirable curiosity about Jesus, the pressure of the Pharisees-’ attacks, the unbelief of the people.

The Twelve needed opportunity to evaluate their own evangelistic attempts concluded just before the climax and collapse of Jesus-’ Galilean ministry. Before this there had been no significant time for that.

The Twelve needed relief from the pressures of Israel’s majority rejection of Jesus as Messiah, so they could more objectively weigh Israel’s unbelief against the total picture of their Master’s unassailable prophetic credentials.

Since Jesus had dealt with Tyrians and Sidonians before, even if these were Jewish residents of Phoenicia (cf. Mark 3:7; Luke 6:17). could He have realistically hoped to travel through that region with the Twelve and remain unrecognized? This consideration renders it difficult to exclude a half-veiled intention to show by this one incident that, while His mission was specifically to the Hebrews, nevertheless His blessing and power is eventually for the Gentiles also. Morgan (Matthew, 202) may be right to suggest;

Perhaps He took His disciples there that they might see the thing He had not been able to show them in the midst of His own people with their traditionalism and ritualism; that they might see faith working free and untrammelled; and as He took them there He revealed to them the force of faith in contrast with the barrenness of ritualism.

Could He not have foreseen that He could not be hid (Mark 7:24) and forestalled any and all contact with needy pagans, had He really wanted to avoid that? If so, then His desire to remain in the background is directly related to His intention NOT to begin a foreign-based Gentile ministry, while any personal contacts are to be exceptional.

**Tyre and Sidon **are located roughly fifty miles south of Beirut, Lebanon. This is Jesus-’ second physical presence in a foreign country, occasioned now, as upon His flight to Egypt (Matthew 2), by the suspicion of a Herodian king and the lack of spirituality among God’s people. Edersheim (Life, II, 37f) disagrees that Jesus is out of Israel, because:

Jesus withdrew from the Capernaum area to the borders of Tyre and Sidon but did not cross the border. (See Mark 7:24.)

He entered into a house which would undoubtedly be a Jewish home. (Cf. Acts 10:28; Matthew 8:8)

The Canaanitish woman came out from those borders to seek Jesus-’ help in extreme northern Galilee. (Matthew 15:22)

However, none of these arguments are conclusive because:

While Mark’s tà hòria does mean boundaries, however in our literature it is used exclusively in the plural to mean region, district. (Arndt-Gingrich, 584f; cf. Matthew 2:16; Matthew 4:13; Matthew 8:34; Matthew 15:22; Matthew 15:39; Matthew 19:1; Mark 5:17; Mark 7:31 b; Matthew 10:1; Acts 13:50) If interpreted strictly as borders, all these cases would prove that the events narrated occurred on the border, never within the given district. But these are not borderline cases! Further, Matthew’s tà mére agrees perfectly with this understanding, since his tà mére refers to the parts of a country, hence, region, district (Arndt-Gingrich, 507; cf. Matthew 2:22; Matthew 16:13; Mark 8:10; Acts 2:10; Acts 20:2)

Who, in the light of the vastness of the Dispersion, can prove there were no Jewish homes outside of Palestine? (Acts 2:5-11! Matthew 14:21) On the other hand, to avoid the need for Gentile hospitality, could not Jesus have hired a house for His stay? Were there no funds at His disposal? (Cf. Luke 8:3 and notes on Matthew 14:16)

The Greek word order of Mat 15:22 may well represent a quite different nuance captured by the RSV: A Canaanite woman from that region came out. Came out refers, not to her departure from Phoenicia, but from her own home in that area in which Jesus now finds Himself.

Mark (Mark 7:31) is conclusive geographic evidence that Jesus is definitely out of Israel, because Jesus returned from the region of Tyre, and went through Sidon (élthen dià Sidônos), hence traveled even further north from Tyre before turning back eastward and south toward the Decapolis. (See on Matthew 15:29.)

I. THE REQUEST BY FAITH (15:22)

Matthew 15:22 **And behold, a Canaanilish woman came out. **Sidon is one of the most ancient Canaanite cities in the world. (Genesis 10:15-19) Compare the history of Elijah in this same territory during a period of great Jewish unbelief where he too found great faith in another Syrophoenician woman (1 Kings 17). That well-known event in Hebrew history should mitigate the surprise of pious Hebrews who would be tempted to be offended by the Messiah’s travels and sharing God’s gracious power beyond the physical limits of Israel. (Luke 4:24-26)

Her request came out of the depth of her distress:

The failure of her pagan religion to meet the crisis of her demonized daughter only exacerbated her disgust for its empty, powerless idolatry. Her pagan faith had sufficed until that dark day when only REAL power could answer her need. The presence of the demonic in the little Gentile girl provides further evidence of the objective reality of demons, because not limited by nation, age or sex of their victims.

Her own vicarious suffering was great in proportion to the love she felt for her child. (Cf. Mark’s picturesque thugàtrion: little daughter.)

She had to come alone, unable even to bring her afflicted child before Jesus so as better to be able to plead the depth of her need by showing Him the distressed girl personally.

Her request came despite the distinct disadvantages of her position:

She is a woman. Could she have known about Jewish prejudices that frowned upon a woman’s talking with a rabbi, or the reluctance of a common rabbi to be addressed by a woman? (Cf. John 4:7-9; John 4:27) Still, she approached THIS Rabbi, confident that He is potentially so much more than the run-of-the-mill Jewish teacher, calling Him Lord, Son of David.

She, a Gentile, came to this Jew:

She was Greek by culture and language, but to Hebrews, mindful of the earlier Maccabean struggles against the paganizing tendencies of Hellenism, Greek means pagan. (Cf. Romans 1:13-16; Romans 2:9 f; 1 Corinthians 1:22-24)

She was Syrophoenician because of the geographical position of her home. Syro-phoenicia means that part of Phoenician domain that lies west of Syria and is connected with it, as opposed to Phoenician colonies of Lybia, or Libophoenicia.)

She was a Canaanite by ancestry, and perhaps also by religion. This fact inserted into a Jewish Gospel rings alarm bells everywhere, because she is a remnant of the accursed race of Baal-worshippers with which Israel was to have absolutely NO DEALINGS. (Genesis 9:25-27; Genesis 10:6; Genesis 10:15; Exodus 23:23-33; Exodus 34:11-16; Deuteronomy 7:1-5; Deuteronomy 7:16; Deuteronomy 20:16-18)

Her right to petition Jesus was very much in doubt and only negatively admitted:

He did not answer her (Matthew 15:23), but no answer is better than no.

He did not send her away as urged by the disciples. (Matthew 15:23)

He did not admit her prior privilege to receive His help, but having said that others came first, He did not deny she came second. (Mark 7:27)

Her request is based upon some knowledge of Jesus, however meager.

Whereas Jesus-’ intention was to gain privacy, someone recognized Him anyway. To imagine that some residents of Phoenicia had been present to hear the Sermon on the Mount and go home amazed to tell about it and Him is not difficult. (Cf. Luke 6:17; Mark 3:7) However much we would wish it otherwise, this incident provides no firm basis for believing in a widespread Gentile expectation of a Jewish Messiah, that is, an expectation totally unconnected with Jewish expectations based on prophecy. Mark (Mark 7:25) says she having heard about Him. came, without stating how or from whom she learned it. It is more likely that some Jewish neighbor living in her Phoenician town told her what they had learned on their festal trips to Israel. (Cf. 2 Kings 5:2-4)

The address with which she presented her case to Jesus is not the sort of appellative to be expected in the mouth of a totally ignorant, superstitious pagan. Just how much understanding does it reveal she had? This would probably depend upon the testimony of those (Jewish?) fellow-citizens who informed her about Jesus: did they use this title with all the understanding we expect of spiritual Jews, hence, did they communicate to her something of Jesus-’ great mission?

Lenski (Matthew, 594) suggests that when the woman combines -Lord-’ with -son of David,-’ she understands -Lord-’ in the higher sense as being in fact the Messianic title. (But see on Matthew 15:25.)

Edersheim (Life, II, 39) believes that she could not have had full spiritual understanding of the world-wide bearing of the Davidic promises, or of the world-embracing designation of the Messiah as the Son of David. Hence, **Son of David **may have been for her but a popular, political title that certainly elevated Jesus to earthly power and glory as a supremely powerful man, but, because it was devoid of the rich content such a title must express to be used rightfully, it treated Him as a political, Jewish superman. However, Jesus helped others who had not all that understanding. (Matthew 9:27; Matthew 12:23; Matthew 20:30 f)

Unfortunately for her, to call Him all that this title implies can never make her a member of the covenant people. If He is really **Son of David, **the Messiah of Israel, then she can claim no rights inherent in her use of that title, because she is not Hebrew. Mere use of glorious, complimentary titles as such can never guarantee her participation in the covenantal relationship to Abrahami.e. unless, by an expression of great faith, she prove that she possesses that dependence upon Jesus that would constitute her a true daughter of Abraham by faith. (Cf. Romans 4:11; Romans 4:16) If so, then she would be amply qualified to receive anything destined for those who hail Him **Lord, Son of David. **But until this latter truth is fully evident, by the terms of His own mandate and because of the confusion He would cause by appearing to reverse His position taken in Israel against uninformed appeal to His messianic powers without appreciation of His true messianic identity and Lordship, He cannot grant her request.

II. THE RELENTLESSNESS OF FAITH (15:23-27; Mark 7:27 f)

Matthew 15:23 **But he answered her not a word **is totally contradictory to what we would have expected from a tender, compassionate Savior, who, without compromise to His Jewish mission could have symbolically pictured the future universality of His Kingdom by responding positively and instantly to her request. In fact, would not His positive response to this appeal for help from Israel’s Messiah be the better type of that future expansion into all the world? This very feature that, at first, disappoints our expectation is another evidence that our story is not the sort of thing Christian sentiment would have dreamed up. Rather, it demonstrates that in our hands is no dubious tradition or Christian myth, but authentic history. Its authenticity, in turn, invites us to dig deeper to discover whether our disappointment be groundless or not.

**He answered her not a word. **Some object to the explanation of Jesus-’ attitude as intended to test the woman, because incompatible with His divine purity and rectitude, especially should she, in her weaknesses, have failed the test. But this underevaluates Jesus by supposing that He would not have mercifully come to her rescue, as He did in the case of Jairus (Mark 5:35 f; Luke 8:49 f) or that of Peter (Matthew 14:30 f) or that of the nine Apostles (Matthew 17:16 ff). Is it more credible that Jesus should not have helped even this smoldering wick of faith, however ignorant or unqualified? (Cf. Matthew 12:20) And, for the perfection of her understanding and faith, who can say that Jesus cannot use precisely a method that seems an unspeakably cruel trial, but, because He knows how far He can test, proves to be precisely the best means of teaching her what she must learn and leading her to greater heights of faith?

It is a wrong view of God that supposes that He cannot, or does not, try us by delaying answers to prayer or by acting in some way that appears to us to be His willing affliction or His disguising His loving purposes for us, in order to produce some effect in us. It is also a limited understanding about God that fails to appreciate His love to be wrestled with by His people. (Cf. Abraham, Genesis 18:16-33; Jacob, Genesis 32:22-30; Moses, Numbers 14:11-20; Exodus 32:9-14; Exodus 32:31-35)

Her RESOLUTION remained undaunted by Jesus-’ seeming indifference and her apparent temporary failure.

Unsatisfied to cry to Him from afar once or twice, she continued to appeal.

The perplexed disciples, aware of Jesus-’ purpose for this journey and His desire for anonymity, probably worry about the woman’s continual shouting, since her calling attention to the presence of the Son of David in this area could easily compromise everything Jesus intended to accomplish toward the training of the Twelve. Ironically, however, part of their discipline must consist in the lesson that showing compassion upon a needy person who is a nuisance just to get rid of them is not Christian compassion. Nevertheless, His silence is so unlike Jesus that the Twelve immediately notice it and are openly embarrassed by it.

The disciples-’ solution is to urge the Lord to send her away. Even though they counsel the Lord to end her persistent, nerve-racking pleading, their advice is not entirely heartless, because the men probably remember that Jesus had helped Gentiles before. (Matthew 8:7 ff) So it would not be wholly unreasonable to expect Him to be merciful to this foreign woman too. If so, not totally unsympathetic to her cries, they excitedly advise the Master to get it over with, cast out the demon and send her on her way. Their intercession, even in this negative way, encourages her to hope.

His seeming discouragement served only to intensify the warmth of her pleading (Matthew 15:25). How long did she follow this group of thirteen men down the road, attracting attention to herself as she cried after Him? Her determination is being tested to the limit by these circumstances.

This quick-witted mother noticed that Jesus, in ignoring the Apostles-’ complaint, offers her a glimmer of hope. If she dare not hope that silence gives consent, at least His silence was not a cold nor final refusal. It may also be that His own unruffled manner, despite His seeming stand-off attitude, and the total absence of any evidence of displeasure at her insistence, communicated more to her than His reported words tell us.

Jesus demands simply that all embrace the divine plan for His personal mission. (Cf. Romans 15:8 f)

Matthew 15:24 **But he answered and said, I was not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel. **This answer is addressed primarily to the Twelve who urge Him to send her away. On the assumption that they counsel Him to grant her request so as to hurry her away, Jesus is seen as explaining to them why He should not grant it without clearing up the essential issue involved. If their advice be based upon Jesus-’ miraculous help and limited sharing of His truth with Gentiles and Samaritans prior to this event (as e.g. Matthew 8:5 ff; John 4:7 ff, John 4:42), in those cases, however, His Jewish mandate had not been in doubt, probably because He was then within the physical borders of Israel. Here, on the other hand, He is in Gentile country.

**I was. sent. unto the lost. of Israel. **This is the definite principle and the proper method guiding His ministry, divinely determined for the purpose of bringing it to a successful and right conclusion. This is why it is not easy to ignore it. Yet it could be departed from, if the reason were valid to justify it. It was not an inviolable law admitting of no exceptions. Nevertheless, because of its fundamental character, it could not be ignored, except for unusual circumstances. Whether or not this situation qualifies as exceptional, had not yet been demonstrated.

**I was not sent but to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. **This is true in two senses:

My personal mission is only to the Jews in the sense that I will live, work and die among them only. My followers will evangelize the Gentiles too, but the peculiar demands of my mission limit my work to the Jews, in order to guarantee salvation to all. For this reason I cannot labor extensively among Samaritans or Gentiles until my mission to Israel will have been fully executed. This is the tactic of limited objectives. Time is too precious to permit me to neglect the very people whom God has been preparing for centuries for just this moment when I may win and train Hebrew disciples to become missionaries to the entire world. (Indications of His sense of world mission are: John 10:16-18; cf. John 11:52; John 12:32; John 17:20 f.) Further, any extensive ministry among pagans could so alienate my precious Hebrew following that all past teaching would be lost. (Study the continuing racial problems in the life of the early Church to appreciate Jesus-’ practical dilemma here.) Some fail to see that Jesus-’ motive for refusal to enlarge His ministry to include Gentiles would have prevented His acceptability as Messiah to the Jews, since, they say, His nation had already rejected Him. But this objection overlooks the prejudices and limited understanding of those genuine disciples who had truly accepted Him, but still could not accept the evangelization of Gentiles. (Cf. Peter in Acts 10; Acts 11:15; Galatians 2)

Figuratively: only those who are willing to become lost sheep of the house of Israel. can come under the terms of my mission. That is, if you really understand that the Davidic reign and the promises include Gentiles too, if you confess your lostness without the grace of the God of Abraham, and if you admit your trust in anything He reveals, then you can enjoy the right to call me Son of David in its fullest sense and reap the benefits of your confession. In fact, you, too, will have thus become a true child of Abraham by faith. This explanation, however, stretches the literal use of the phrase which definitely limited the evangelistic outreach of the Apostles when Jesus sent them to preach just a few weeks earlier. (Matthew 10:5 f) Hence, to have expected any Gentile to understand this extended sense is asking too much comprehension on their part.

While Jesus-’ answer is primarily directed to the Twelve, it is for her ears too, because she must probe her own understanding of the situation: You call me Son of David? Then you admit that I am the Messiah of Israel. Since you are not a Jewess, how can I help you? Jesus insists that the woman recognize the sacred distinction between God’s chosen people and all others. This is not racism, but reality, since it helps her to recognize that salvation is of the Jews (John 4:22). In fact God had already spent two thousand years to develop a system of belief, a vocabulary of faith and an understanding of God upon which men of all nations could set their hopes and by which they could recognize the incarnate Messiah when He came. It has now come to its fruition in Jesus of Nazareth, the Messiah of ISRAEL, and men must come to Him and be united together in the New Israel, if they are to receive the blessing for which they yearn.

Is Jesus TESTING this woman at all? It is doubtful that He intended so to test her patience as to make her value His blessing, because His arguments are theologically, not psychologically, oriented. He does not doubt her objective sincerity nor argue against the rightness or depth of her motherly concern. Rather, He argues against His own subjective right to extend the terms of His own personal mission and mandate to include Gentiles. His objections are right and proper within themselves, even if He should never grant her request. It is a matter of tactics that His ministry had to be severely limited to accomplish the specific goals of His incarnation, and this meant strategic limitations of His efforts to Israel. Thus, the blessing of any Gentile, who happened to come into contact with Him, was purely incidental to His main purpose. Nevertheless, despite the primary thrust of these objections, whereby He explains to all present why He cannot consider an extensive Gentile ministry, the very act of stating these reasons produced in the Syrophoenician a secondary result: they tested her understanding and her determination to continue. In fact, since these objections do not categorically refuse her, she is left free to respond to them as she will. The sense and flow of this conversation may be outlined as follows:

Lord, Son of David, help me!

But my mission is to the Jews.

Lord, help me!

My mission is properly and primarily to the Jews.

I accept your mission and see my place in it.

Good, I-’ll help you!

Notice, therefore, that, because He graciously condescended to teach her what she must know in order rightly to call Him Son of David, and because He has already begun the lesson, there is more real mercy in His refusal than in the Apostles-’ well-meaning advice to ignore the lesson, get on with the healing and hustle her away, so terminating the embarrassing situation. They intend only to relieve a temporary aggravation to themselves. The Lord is already at work to save a soul for eternity!

Further, His tender affection for His own nation and His single-minded determination to save His people from their sins, revealed in the expression (Matthew 15:24), underscores His deep Shepherd’s care and concern for their lost condition. (Study Matthew 1:21; Matthew 9:36; Matthew 10:5; Cf. Luke 19:41 ff) Though these words are intended for Jewish ears and Jewish readers, they certainly cater to no nationalistic prejudices, for they imply the damnation of the Hebrew flock: they are the LOST sheep of Israel’s house. So, unless a given Hebrew says to Jesus: I have gone astray like a lost sheep; seek thy servant, for I do not forget thy commandments. (Psalms 119:176), he cannot be saved. This establishes once more the righteous condemnation of the self-righteous who have no need for Jesus! (See on Matthew 9:13.)

Her RESERVE is shown by her proper humility, despite the rightness of her request and the painful desperation of her need, should Christ refuse. Matthew 15:25 But she came and worshipped him, saying, Lord, help me.

She always recognized Jesus as Lord in all her addresses. Her own understanding of the word may well not equal what a Christian now means when he confesses Jesus as Lord to the glory of God the Father. (Philippians 2:10 f; 1 Corinthians 12:3; Romans 10:9) Nevertheless, her considerate humility requires of her that she address Him as Sir, whether she knew all about His true authority or not. On the other hand, when she couples Lord with Son of David, she may mean to acknowledge His true Lordship.

She did not argue with Him whether His Messiahship ought to be international or not, however biased or prejudicial His affirmation of His Jewish mandate may have sounded to her. Rather than argue, **she came and worshipped him. **Mark (Mark 7:25) notes: She came and fell down at his feet (elthoûsa prosépesen pròs toùs pòdas autoû), as if she had been following (cf. Matthew 15:23), crying after Jesus, and now runs around ahead of the group, practically blocking their passage by kneeling before Him, She apparently just could not permit herself to entertain the opinion that He was a sectarian Savior, however rightly His mission be directed toward the Hebrew people.

She focused attention, not on her nation, but upon the crying need of her single human problem: Help ME! At this point she has dropped the Jewish title, Son of David, as though she recognized her lack of right to use that nomenclature. Even this seemingly desperate act is not devoid of genuine faith, because where her lack of qualification is greatest, she hurls her case, her lack of qualificationherself at Jesus-’ feet, as if to say, Lord, help me to qualify! If this is not total, believing dependence upon His grace, what could be? If this is not the finest expression of Abrahamic faith that qualifies one as a child of Abraham, what could be?

She could focus others-’ attention upon her problem, because it was so much at the center of her own. This woman, as Barclay (Matthew. II, 136) puts it: had the one supremely effective quality in prayershe was in deadly earnest. Prayer for her was no ritual form; it was the outpouring of the passionate desire of her soul, which somehow felt that she could notand must notand need nottake no for an answer. When one knows he can turn to no other for help, he wastes no idle words in expressing his urgent need.

Matthew 15:26 **And he answered and said, It is not meet to take the children’s bread and cast it to the dogs. **Since the following evidences prove that Jesus knew all along what He was doing, we can stop worrying whether His methods seem right and loving or not:

Although He had earlier answered her not even a word (Matthew 15:23), His statements proved He had been listening and understood her pleas.

Although He gave her no direct encouragement to continue, still He did not send her away nor concur in the Apostles-’ counsel.

Although He declared that His ministry was PRIMARILY for the Jews (Let the children first be fed. Mark 7:27 a), He did not entirely shut the door to the Gentiles.

How, therefore, should Jesus-’ answer be interpreted? Two views of **dogs **are common:

By referring to Gentiles even as animals under the table, Jesus really intends to bring out the classic Jewish-Gentile prejudices without subscribing to them Himself. That is, whereas kunàrion is admittedly diminutive, still puppies are animals, not people. But because He said puppies, not dogs, He is seen as arguing good-naturedly with her about the usual mutual contempt between the two peoples.

The other view sees nothing of this partisan byplay. Rather, Jesus-’ exquisite choice of words flashes pictures all over the screen of her mind. In fact, even though this woman’s little girl may not have owned a pupply (kunàrion),the lady herself was certainly familiar with house-dogs hopefully wagging their tails for a tidbit (psichìon) accidentally dropped by their little masters. Thus, Jesus-’ words intend only to picture a situation without any reference to traditional biases. In effect, they become a germ-parable that continues to insist upon a sense of fitness or appropriateness: Children are fed in one way and time, while the puppies are fed differently and generally later. They are not permitted to act as if they too were children, however hungry they might be for even the meagerest morsel intended for their owners. The normal order is: first, the children are fed, and then the house-dogs. (Mark 7:27) Nor is the children’s food to be taken from them and given, instead, to the house-dogs. (Matthew 15:26) Neither of these possibilities would be proper (kalòn).

If Jesus had no intention of helping her at all, there is no excusing Him for leading her on, opening up so many doors to hope. Only the long-faced, dull commentators fail to see the twinkle in Jesus-’ eyes or miss the kindliness of His voice, and so can only quarrel about the bitterness and contemptuous arrogance of the word dog. Had Jesus really said dog as the common versions generally render it, then the commentaries would have some reason to mention dogs as a derogatory term for foreigners and others of ill-repute. Although Arndt-Gingrich (458) say that kunàrion can also be used with no diminutive force at all, the only mention of kunària in the NT is in this text, whereas all references to dogs in the NT are only in Matthew 7:6; Luke 16:21; Philippians 3:2; 2 Peter 2:22; Revelation 22:15, and the word there is always kùon, never kunàrion. Jewish-Gentile prejudices do not even enter into Jesus-’ meaning, because His argument is against the impropriety of taking what has been especially prepared (bread) for a particular people (Jews) and giving it, instead, to another group (Gentiles) for whom it was not immediately intended. The whole question revolves around the planning of the Master of the house (God), who ordained that the normal procedure should follow the proper order: (1) Children (Jews); (2) House pets (Gentiles). The decision about what is good, fair or right (kalòn) is decided by the Master of the house, not by hard feelings and prejudices between those who, in this figure, turn out to be the children and the dogs. (Study Acts 3:26; Acts 13:26; Acts 13:46.)

**Let the children first be fed **(Mark 7:27 a) is a theme developed in the Roman epistle by Paul, who, though fundamentally determined to expound the universality of the salvation in Christ, cannot set aside this rigorous precedence: The Gospel is the power of God to save anyone who believes it, to the Jew first and then to the Greek. (Romans 1:16) For eight Chapter s Paul presents justification by faith as quite unconnected with any sacred preexisting conditions such as possession of the Law or descendence from the right nation through the patriarchs, etc. Immediately thereafter, however, in Chapter s 9-11 even he too deals with Israel’s preciousness to God in the universal plan of salvation.

Whereas Jesus had presented to the lady an either-or dilemma, i.e. either children or puppies; or, at least, first children, then puppies, she briskly turns it into a both-and proposition, i.e. both children and puppies. Watch how she does this:

Matthew 15:27 But she said, Yea, Lord: For even the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters-’ table.

C. Her RESILIANCE is shown by her steady good humor though she was desperate.

Her obvious humility admitted the truth of whatever name Jesus applied to her. Her quick-witted tact helped her to grasp her relationship with God’s plans for Israel and act immediately to take advantage of what she now understood as her relationship. Edersheim (Life, II, 41) says so well:

Heathenism may be like the dogs, when compared with the children’s place and privileges; but He is their Master still, and they are under His table; and when He breaks the bread, there is enough and to spare for them.

By finding her place in His mission to the Jews, she implicitly accepts the limitation of His personal mandate to that nation. Whereas Jesus had raised the objection that in a household the proper feeding order is first the children and then possibly the dogs (Mark 7:27), never rightly reversed, she answered with the undoubted fact that, even before all the children’s needs are met, the puppies are permitted a few crumbs CONTEMPORANEOUSLY with the feeding of the children. In this way she argues the rightness of her hope to be blessed even before Jesus completed His ministry to Israel. Therefore, she consents to God’s limitations of His Messiah’s mission to Israel. She has now learned what she needed to know.

She did not ask great things: only a crumb of His power. Whereas her request is of inestimable value to her, she pictures His bountiful power as so great that, by comparison, her request is really insignificant. This is genuine understanding of His power, because the common human impotence in the presence of demon-possession made anyone who could exorcize demons appear great, and yet she considers such a marvelous miracle as mere crumbs for Jesus.

This gallant woman acquiesced in everything He revealed, but persisted in finding her place in His plans. Because she kept bouncing back after each seeming rebuff, He was able to verify for all time the excellence of her faith, build her understanding, strengthen her faith, and, at the same time, justify His temporary stepping outside His strictly Hebrew role.

III. THE REWARDING OF FAITH (15:28; Mark 7:29 f)

Matthew 15:28 **Then Jesus answered and said unto her, O woman, great is thy faith: be it done unto thee even as thou wilt. **Mark (Mark 7:29) connects this response of Jesus directly with this indomitable woman’s marvelously brilliant attitude: He said to her, -For this saying you may go your way; the demon has left your daughter.-’ Nothing conquers Jesus-’ heart faster than that faith that says, Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him! However, why should we think, with some, that Jesus allowed Himself to be worsted in argument, when He has been skillfully guiding her into this situation where she can rise in faith to this glorious conclusion? Plummer (Matthew, 217) is right to say that

… He at once accepts her interpretation of the metaphor as proof of her insight and faith, With doglike perseverance she had excelled even the children in trust, and assuredly she might receive what the children would never miss.

**Great is thy faith: **by His treatment, Jesus had personally sounded the depth of this gallant woman’s character, and His conclusion is well-founded:

Doubtless, her excellence of character had a great deal to do with the toughness of her faith. (See notes on Matthew 13:23.)

If her trust in Jesus at the beginning only thought of Him as a local Jewish Messiah, it has now grown to see all nations blessed by Israel’s Christ, even if only as undeserving dogs under the table. No one can rightly approach God without this fundamental understanding of his own need for grace.

Like the Gentile centurion, she also believed that Jesus could heal at a distance. (Cf. Notes on Matthew 8:5)

The Lord had thrown up barrier after barrier, yet she brilliantly hurdled them all with keen wit, steady resourcefulness and genuine humility and finally with real understanding of what Jesus taught about His mission.

Jesus-’ verdict is further vindicated by her instant obedience to His command to go home to find her daughter free from the demon.

Whether Jesus so intended it or not, this incident well illustrates the justice of His condemnation of Bethsaida, Chorazin and Capernaum. In fact, He had pointed out that, had those ancient cities of Tyre and Sidon enjoyed the opportunities for faith that the Galilean cities had known, the former would have long ago repented in deep humility. Whereas one example does not establish a rule, still she is genuinely typical of the joyous reception the Gospel later received among outcasts and pagans. (Cf. Acts 8:4-8; Acts 13:48; Acts 16:34)

**Be it done unto thee even as thou wilt. **Note Jesus-’ total confidence in His own authority over demons not even present. Without prayers, without orders directed to the demons, without exorcism, by the simple exercise of His mighty will, the distant demon leaves the girl.

Did Jesus-’ acquiescence to the woman’s wishes constitute a contradiction of His own objection in Matthew 15:24?

No, because to help this one woman as an exception would not interfere with His fundamental ministry to the Jews. Because it is truly an exception to the rule, it demonstrates the reality of the rule.

No, because Jesus had helped Gentiles before. (Matthew 8:5-13) Even if the strict wording of His divine mandate had read: Jews only, He knows that God desires mercy and not sacrifice. (See notes on Matthew 9:13; Matthew 12:7.)

No, because she had not asked Him to forsake the Jews that He might dedicate Himself exclusively to the Gentiles. She had requested only a little help for one Gentile.

No, because her present understanding and faith may be seen as qualifying her to become a real daughter of Abraham, the larger target of Jesus-’ mission. (See on Matthew 15:25.)

**And her daughter was healed from that hour. **i.e. healed of every symptom and result of demon possession. With characteristic confidence in Jesus, the lady went directly home, certain of the truth of His affirmation. Mark (Mark 7:30) narrates how she found the child lying in bed, and the demon gone. It is unnecessary to interpret the Greek phrase bebleménon epì tèn klìnen as referring to the violence with which the demon left, for this is a regular idiom for lying in a bed. (Study Matthew 9:2; Matthew 8:6; Matthew 8:14 in Greek. Cf. Arndt-Gingrich, 130; article bàlio.)

If there had been any doubt in the mind of the Jewish reader about the rightness of the Messiah’s dealings with a Canaanite woman, Jesus-’ instantaneous liberation of the demonized daughter is supernatural proof of His right to bless any Gentile He chooses, even if they be descendants of the cursed Hamitic race.

Why not start a collection of stories illustrating the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ that show how gently He dealt with foreigners and outcasts, like this Phoenician lady, the Roman centurion, the schismatic Samaritans (John 4:7 ff, John 4:30; John 4:39 ff), and the excommunicated Hebrew (John 9:35-37) and others?

LESSONS FOR APPLICATION

What this incident meant to race relations between Jews and Gentiles in the first century, it signifies for all race relations today too. If the severely limited Son of God can appreciate and bless this foreigner, a member of an accursed race, what of His followers now freed from racial restrictions and specifically ordered to love and evangelize the whole world?

Jesus answered the believing request of this woman who was not even a member of the covenant people. Beware of believing that God must answer only the prayers of our people, if He finds great faith outside the New Israel!

During His earthly ministry, Jesus chose to be guided by the methodological principle of His own Jewish Messiahship. This placed relative limits on what He could accomplish in terms of Gentile evangelization and blessing. Today, He has established spiritual guidelines by which He judges and blesses. Only those who align themselves with His plans, qualify themselves by faith, may hope to receive His bounty. He longs to bless men, but their dams of lack of faith and hope in His mercy hold back His generosity. If He chooses to distribute His gifts according to rules which He chooses not to disobey, who can complain? He is Lord. If man is disappointed with God’s choices and wisdom, it is man’s fault, not God’S. This text, however, encourages us to bring our wants to Christ, however unworthy or unqualified we might be, but with a faith that lets God be God and lets His rules stand.

Morgan (Matthew, 203) exhorts: In our relation to Jesus Christ as His messengers and workers, let us look for faith in unexpected places. Let us not keep out of Tyre and Sidon because there are no good people there. There is a freshness of faith everywhere waiting to surprise us if we will only venture to cross the line.

If God be determined to bless us, nothing can prevent us from receiving the answers to our prayers but our own unbelief, misunderstanding or ignorance of God’s plans.

God’s silence must never be interpreted as indicating His willingness to answer our prayers. Even while He is silent, He may be working out the very answer we seek. His silence may indicate His desire that we learn the discipline of patient prayer and humble waiting. God answers our prayers, however perhaps not according to the time schedules we try to impose upon Him. (Cf. Luke 18:1-8)

Nor should we be discouraged from continuing our prayers merely because of a lack of sympathy in the attitude of Jesus-’ disciples.

Not even the difficult or unclear messages from the Lord should deter us from seeking His blessing and remaining His trusting followers. There may be Bible texts and commands that seem to contradict reason or common sense, but they are revelations of what is otherwise unknowable and must be grasped by trusting God to be telling us the truth.

Barclay (Matthew, II, 136): So many people. pray really because they do not wish to miss a chance. They do not really believe in prayer; they have only the feeling that something might just possibly happen, and they do not wish to miss a chance. This woman came because Jesus was not just a possible helper; He was her only hope.

PHC (Vol. XXIII, 266): We too are living under certain definite laws of God; and if we transgress them, then under all ordinary circumstances we must expect the consequences, and we make a grievous mistake in appealing lightly to the mercy of God. Doubtless His mercy is infinite; but so are His truth and justice, and His determination to uphold the laws He has laid down. Our Lord longed to help the woman, but it was hard for Him to infringe the rule which He had laid down for His own guidance.

PHC (Vol. XXIII, 268) commenting on Mark 7:28, notices: This verse contains three important principles for our guidance in the spiritual life. 1. Agree with the Lord, no matter what He says. Yes, Lord. 2. Think of another truth, and urge it with Him as a plea. Yet. [i.e. open your eyes to other alternatives or other facets of His will.] 3. Whatever happens, have faith in the Lord, and possess thy soul in patience. His dealings may be unscrutable, but the foundation of them all is love.

Edersheim (Life, II, 42): To how many, not only of all nations and conditions, but in all states of heart and mind, nay in the very lowest depths of conscious guilt and alienation from God, must this have brought unspeakable comfort. Be it so, an outcast, -dog,-’ not at the table, but under the table. Still we are at His feet; it is our Master’s Table; He is our Master; and He breaks the children’s bread, it is of necessity that -the children’s crumbs,-’ fall to usenough, quite enough and to spare. Never can we be outside His reach, nor of that of His gracious care, and of sufficient provision to eternal life.

Edersheim (ibid.):Yet this lesson also must we learn, that as -heathens-’ we may not call on Him as -David’s Son,-’ till we know why we so call Him. If there can be no despair, no being cast out by Him, no absolute distance that hopelessly separates from His Person and Provision, there must be no presumption, no forgetfulness of the right relation, no expectancy of magic-miracles, no viewing of Christ as a Jewish Messiah. [i.e. as a Hebrew superman, a political hero.] We must learn it, and painfully. that. what we are and where we are, that we may be prepared for the grace of God and the gift of grace, All menJews and Gentiles, -children-’ and -dogs-’ are as before Christ and God equally undeserving and equally sinners, but those who have fallen deep can only learn that they are sinners by learning that they are great sinners and will only taste of the children’s bread when they have felt [their need].

Galilee’s loss, when Jesus left, is the Gentile woman’s gain. (Cf. Romans 11:11 f) We must take warning from His departure from His own who rejected Him because, although they had almost been moved to yield allegiance to Him, they would not. So He finally abandoned them to their own worst enemy, their own unrealizable personal and national dreams. He can abandon us too, to our own miserable self! (Cf. Romans 11:17; Romans 11:24)

FACT QUESTIONS

From where had Jesus come when he entered the foreign territory mentioned in this section?

Locate geographically the foreign territory where this event occurs.

Summarize the travel plan Jesus followed from the debate about traditions until the demand for a sign from heaven. (Matthew 16)

What was the stated purpose for this trip? How does this purpose harmonize with the events immediately preceding the trip?

List several reasons why Jesus must abide by His original mission to earth by refusing to begin a ministry among the Gentiles.

List the various factors that increased the discouragements which the Syrophoenician woman must overcome.

List the various factors that make the woman’s faith great.

Explain Jesus-’ figure of speech about the dogs under the table.

What additional statement does Mark record that might indicate Jesus-’ willingness to help the woman?

How did the woman turn Jesus-’ figure of speech to her credit, indicating that what she requested was still possible within the express limits of His personal mission?

In what condition did the woman find her daughter when she returned home?

What evidence is there in this section of Jesus-’ supernatural identity?

Matthew 15:29-39

**Section 38

JESUS HEALS MANY IN DECAPOLIS AND FEEDS FOUR THOUSAND (Parallel: Mark 7:31 to Mark 8:9)

TEXT: 15:29-39**

29 And Jesus departed then, and came nigh unto the sea of Galilee; and he went up into the mountain, and sat there. 30 And there came unto him great multitudes, having with them the lame, blind, dumb, maimed, and many others, and they cast them down at his feet; and he healed them: 31 insomuch that the multitude wondered, when they saw the dumb speaking, the maimed whole, and the lame walking, and the blind seeing: and they glorified the God of Israel. 32 And Jesus called unto him his disciples, and said, I have compassion on the multitude, because they continue with me now three days and have nothing to eat: and I would not send them away fasting, lest haply they faint on the way. 33 And the disciples say unto him, Whence should we have so many loaves in a desert place as to fill so great a multitude? 34 And Jesus said unto them, How many loaves have ye? And they said, Seven, and a few small fishes. 35 And he commanded the multitude to sit down on the ground; 36 and he took the seven loaves and the fishes; and he gave thanks and brake, and gave to the disciples, and the disciples to the multitudes. 37 And they all ate, and were filled: and they took up that which remained over of the broken pieces, seven baskets full. 38 And they that did eat were four thousand men, besides women and children. 39 And he sent away the multitudes, and entered into the boat, and came into the borders of Magadan.

THOUGHT QUESTIONS

Why do you think Jesus spends so much time outside of Palestine on this trip without even beginning a special ministry among Gentiles? How could Jesus, the Savior of the world, refuse to teach any part of the world’s people? Yet, in this section, He obviously and deliberately intends to hide from the Gentiles in Phoenicia and Syria through which He travelled. How do you justify this omission?

Earlier when Jesus went to the Decapolis and cast demons out of the Gadarene demoniacs, out of fear the countrymen of the demoniacs flatly asked Jesus to leave. Here, however, the people in this same area welcome Jesus joyfully. How do you account for this change in reception?

Why does Matthew completely omit the mention of the healing of the deaf mute, as recorded by Mark? Or is there any evidence in Matthew that shows that he knew about it and just chose not to record it?

Why do you think Jesus took the deaf mute aside for a more or less private healing? Why do you think Jesus used the method to heal the deaf mute that He did? Could He not have simply spoken a word to cure Him? Why all the pantomime? (See parallel in Mark.)

How could Jesus hope for privacy and silence from the cured deaf mute, with more than four thousand people in the immediate vicinity? Does not His demand that the immediate friends or family of the man, as well as the man himself, not tell anyone seem rather futile, if not foolish, in view of the crowds? If Jesus is not doing something useless or stupid, then, what is the meaning or purpose of His charge to the healed that they should not tell anyone?

Why did people stay with Jesus so long that they ran out of groceries? Had they not brought any along with them?

Why had not the Apostles yet learned that Jesus has power to feed multitudes in a wilderness with only scant provisions? How many times must they see the evidence before they will be certain that Jesus can and will do it? How many times did you hear about Jesus-’ wonderful power before you were compelled to accept it as a matter of fact? If you feel that the Apostles were not unbelieving in His power, what evidences do you see in the text that indicate to you that they had really learned?

PARAPHRASE AND HARMONY

Soon after the incident involving the Syrophoenician woman, Jesus traveled on north from the neighborhood of Tyre, passed through Sidon then turned eastward to the area east of the Sea of Galilee known as the Decapolis. Skirting the Sea of Galilee, He climbed up one of the hillsides and sat down. Great crowds began to flock to Him, bringing with them their lame, their crippled, their blind folk. those who could not hear, as well as many others. They lay them before Jesus at His feet and He healed them. They brought Him, for instance, a man who was deaf and had a speech impediment. They requested Jesus to lay His hand on him to heal him. The Lord took the man aside, away from the crowd. Jesus put His fingers into the man’s ears, spat and touched the man’s tongue. Then, looking up into the sky, He sighed. Next He said to the man in Aramaic Ephphatha, a word which means, Be opened! With that he began to hear and, at the same time, the speech defect was removed and the man spoke normally. Jesus gave him and his friends strict instructions not to tell any one about this incident. But the more He forbade them, the more they broadcast it. The crowd was absolutely amazed. They kept saying, All that He does, He does well! Why He even makes the deaf people to hear again and the dumb speak. Consequently, the people were simply astonished at seeing the formerly dumb people speaking, the maimed now whole, the crippled walking naturally and the blind seeing. They gave the credit to the God of Israel. During that same period of Jesus-’ Decapolis ministry, another huge crowd had gathered around Jesus, but they ran out of food. It was then that Jesus called His disciples over to Him to inform them, I feel sorry for all these people, inasmuch as they have been with me three days now and are completely out of food. I am unwilling to send them away to their homes hungry; they might just not make it there. In fact, some of them have come a long distance. How and where can we find enough food in this forsaken place to feed all this crowd? was the answer the disciples gave Him. Jesus insisted, How many loaves of bread do you have? Seven, they counted, and a few small fish. Then Jesus told the people to sit down on the ground. He took the seven loaves of bread in His hands along with the fish and gave thanks for them. Next He broke them and distributed them to His followers for distribution to the crowd. Everybody ate all he wanted and still they collected seven hampers full of scraps left over. That day there were about four thousand men in the crowd that ate, not counting the women and children too. After dismissing the multitudes of people to return home, Jesus Himself immediately boarded a boat with His men and sailed toward the area of Magadan-Dalmanutha.

SUMMARY

After casting the demon out of the daughter of the Syrophoenician woman, Jesus and the Twelve followed a round-about route to reenter Palestine, concluding their journey in the Decapolis area east of the Sea of Galilee, Great crowds gathered around Him for healing. Three days they stayed, during which time Jesus healed a deaf and dumb man thus amazing the crowds who glorified Israel’s God. When the food shortage became acute, Jesus miraculously fed at least four thousand men, not counting women and children, with only seven buns and some little fish. Then He and the Twelve sailed southwest to Magadan-Dalmanutha.

NOTES THE CRITICAL IMPORTANCE OF THIS ACCOUNT

The key position of this account in the argumentation of Matthew is worthy of notice. Although his introductory geographical notes are less precise than Mark’S, anyone familiar with Mark’s Gospel could know that the incidents recorded in this section took place on the Decapolis side of the Galilean Lake. (Cf. Matthew 15:29 with Mark 7:31) But even without this valuable piece of information offered his readers, had Matthew really intended to describe nothing more than a series of miracles worked for a strictly Jewish group, he could have shown more caution against misunderstanding. Instead, he drops clues that help the reader to decide that the Messiah is ministering to a mixed Jewish-Gentile group:

The response of the multitudes to Jesus-’ miracles now differs from that recorded when Jesus fed the five thousand. The latter, a predominantly (if not entirely) Jewish group, immediately express a Jewish reaction by identifying Jesus as the Prophet who is to come into the world (John 6:14). Contrarily, the present crowd express their marvel at Jesus-’ miracles by glorifying the God of Israel, a fact that suggests the predominantly Gentile character of this group, (See on Matthew 15:31.)

The baskets are different. For the five thousand, they were food baskets considered typical of the Jews, because they carried kosher food when on journeys through Gentile country (kòfinoi; Arndt-Gingrich, 448). For the four thousand, however, they were big wicker baskets, or hampers (spurìdas; see ISBE, 413; however see on Matthew 15:37.) This distinction is maintained even in Jesus-’ rehearsal of the two miracles. (Matthew 16:9 f; Mark 8:18 f) Were the latter baskets typical of Gentiles merely because they were not specifically typically of Jews?

Jesus-’ handling of the situation is relaxed and natural, without the tensions and pressure noticed during the feeding of the five thousand Galileans. (See Jesus-’ Problem and Plan, Matthew 14:13.) Unless some radical transformation has taken place in those politically volatile Galileans, there is no adequate explanation for Jesus-’ unforced decision to feed these people now gathered, unless it be that He is dealing with completely different people. In fact, He is probably standing in Decapolis, surrounded by a crowd well-mixed with a heavy pagan constituency, among whom He can freely move without involuntarily inciting Zealots to riot against Rome.

Whereas we are unable to identify Magadan-Dalmanutha with certainty, to which Jesus sailed after the miraculous multiplication of food for the four thousand, this would have been less a problem for the original readers who could easily deduce where Jesus would have been, and conclude that He had been among the half-heathen population of the Decapolis.

It is also a temptation to follow Edersheim’s suggestion (Life, I, 684; II, 65) that notes Jesus two prayers for the loaves and the fish (Mark 8:6 f) on this occasion, but only for the bread at the feeding of the five thousand because it was the main article of food, a typically Jewish distinction. Nevertheless, while solidly based on John’s wording (see John 6:11), the Synoptic evidence is not so clearly unequivocal, since they indicate that Jesus had both bread and fish in His hands when He blessed them. (Cf. Matthew 14:19 and par.) Even so, why did Jesus pray once for each item now?

Admittedly no single factor mentioned above, taken alone, is convincing, but seen in combination with the others, might be understood as leading to the conviction that Matthew is describing a series of miracles done by the Messiah for people less than 100% Hebrew.

Now, if Jesus is pictured here as ministering to a mixed Jewish-Gentile group, where JEW AND GENTILE SIT DOWN TOGETHER TO EAT A COMMON MEAL IN FELLOWSHIP WITH THE MESSIAH AND PROVIDED BY HIM, then Matthew’s purpose for recording this incident in precisely this chapter becomes acid-clear. In effect, he teaches that standard Jewish ceremonial separatism is finished as a useful concept. Purity, which had been fundamental motivation for national separation and personal holiness, is now decided by quite different criteria such as human need, the condition of men’s hearts, and their relative distance from God. Israel, says Matthew, transgressed God’s commandment to keep human rules and so was liable for all the impurities that came out of Israel’s heart (Matthew 15:1-20), Genuine faith in Israel’s Messiah can be found even among Canaanites (Matthew 15:21-28), and, finally, Gentiles can sit down with Israel to feast on the Messiah’s bounty even in this world (Matthew 15:29-39). What a challenge to a lot of Jewish theology this chapter must have been! Although Matthew has written pro-Gentile statements before (see on Matthew 12:21), this enacted lesson must have struck home to Hebrews hearts with sledge-hammer force, especially as this event stands out in startling contrast to standard Jewish apocalyptic views of what the Messianic banquet should be.

Even if that half-heathenish population could hardly have perceived it, Matthew’s attentive reader must certainly feel that when this Son of David goes beyond the geographical and spiritual borders of Israel and becomes a blessing to all nationsafter all, to the Jews, ANY move beyond Israel practically opens things up to just everyone!He is moving toward the fulfillment of God’s intention that His Christ reach out to all nations, making it possible that in Abraham’s true Son all the families of the earth be blessed. (Cf. Matthew 1:1; Genesis 12:3; Genesis 22:17 f; Galatians 3:16)

A. SITUATION: JOURNEY THROUGH DECAPOLIS FROM PHOENICIA TO GALILEE (Matthew 15:29; Mark 7:31)

Matthew 15:29 **And Jesus departed thence, **i.e. from the district of Tyre, passing north through Sidon by a circuitous route which took the group east over the Lebanon mountains, across the Beqa-‘a Valley (= Leontes River), then south through the region of the Decapolis in the tetrarchy of Philip. He would thus approach the Sea of Galilee on its east side. (Mark 7:31) He deliberately followed this round-about route in order to skirt Galilee and avoid inevitable clashes there, deliberately lengthening this trip as much as possible to gain maximum opportunity to be with His men before the final skirmishes that would precede the crisis in Jerusalem. He **came nigh unto the Sea of Galilee: **how nigh is not told, because this may be only a relative geographical notice, not intending to affirm that He was even then seated on a hill overlooking the lake. At the conclusion of the feeding of the four thousand, true, He embarked to sail for Magadan-Dalmanutha, but this need not be conclusive in determining how far from the lake and how far into the Decapolis region Jesus was during the intervening period before sailing. **And he went up into the mountain, and sat there. **Which mountain (tò òros) is not identifiable, because the area east of the Sea of Galilee, and standing out in contrast with it, is marked by heights rising to 1000-2000 feet. (Cf. Golan Heights)

The Decapolis area is essentially pagan country, consisting of ten free Greek cities within the territory of ancient Israel, mostly located east of the Jordan Valley. (See note on Matthew 4:25 and map, Vol. I, p. 181.) Why, them, should Jesus be so ready to help people among that not strictly Hebrew population, especially after His rigid stance on helping Gentiles in Phoenicia? Two factors help solve this puzzle:

Because this mixed Jewish-Gentile population dwelt in at least a nominally Israelite territory, there would be less confusion about the primary goal of His mission.

Having clarified once for all His truly Jewish Messiahship and mission, the Lord now generously illustrates its intended ramifications by blessing both Jews and Gentiles together. Because of the mixed character of the Decapolis population, Jesus can easily carry out the Syrophoenician woman’s principle without compromise, even if on the drastically limited scale we see here. He can let the children first be fed, while the puppies under the table eat the children’s crumbs.

Although the commentators are undoubtedly correct in imagining this period as one of great training and strengthening for the Twelve, yet Matthew and Mark relate nothing of their lessons, pausing only to tell, in this terser summary fashion, about His ministry among the bi-racial dwellers of the Decapolis.

NOTE: It just may be that these non-Jewish or mixed racial situations furnished opportunity for precisely those lessons that the congenitally biased Apostles needed in order to appreciate even distantly a Kingdom of God in which Jews and Gentiles alike could receive one another for Christ’s sake. To put it another way, our Gospel writers, rather than omit any mention of the training of the Twelve during this long journey abroad, may be actually intending to communicate the content of the lessons learned, using the recorded events as illustrations. That is, was the Lord slowly but deliberately exposing His narrow-minded Jewish followers to the reality of human need beyond the borders of Israel? If it seems that the texts of the events that transpired abroad hardly justify such an emphasis, let it be remembered how gently the Lord would have to move to remove long-standing, deep-rooted prejudices against any consideration of Gentiles as possible candidates for the Kingdom.

While there were many pagans who dwelt in the independent Greek cities of the Decapolis, it should not be thought that there were no Jews at all. Nevertheless, even these Hebrews, whose daily business brought them into constant contact with their pagan neighbors, probably tended to be far less rigid than their more fervent Galilean compatriots, who in turn were despised by their Judean coreligionists as ignorant and unworthy representatives of purer Judaism.

In fact, the importance of the events in this section is best seen by the way it contrasts with the unbelief and rejection that Jesus had experienced among the Jews of Galilee and the religious bigots from Jerusalem. Morgan (Matthew, 202) comments graphically:

All the difficulties were in Jerusalem among those men who were always washing their hands! Christ has no difficulty with the man who is polluted with sin, when that man signs his soul to Him in faith. But He has a good deal of difficulty with the traditional ritualist. It is the man who comes with the great burden, who in faith commits his need to the King, that feels all the virtue of His healing pass into his life. There is no difficulty with these people when they believe.

Although Jesus had been rejected in the Decapolis area earlier (see notes on Matthew 8:28; Matthew 8:34), yet in mercy He forgives and forgets their past ingratitude and welcomes their change of heart, however late it comes.

B. MANY MIRACLES OF HEALING (Matthew 15:30 f; Mark 7:32-37)

Matthew 15:30 **And there came unto him great multitudes. **Where did all these people come from?

Was it the news of Jesus presence heralded by those who knew of the Syrophoenician woman’s daughter’s deliverance? The distance is great enough to render this possibility less likely. Also, her understanding of His Jewish mission and the exceptional nature of His blessing this one Gentile would probably have counselled her silence, even if He had never so requested.

Is the deaf stammerer (Mark 7:32-37), because of his disobedience to Jesus-’ injunction to silence, not merely one example of the great number healed, but also one of the sparks that ignited the excitement that swelled the crowd? If so, it is not all his fault, since, to be healed, he was taken aside from the multitude already present. (Mark 7:33)

Hardly a year before, Jesus sent one of the former demoniacs at Gergesa (Gedara, Gerasa, see Matthew 8:28; Mark 5:1) throughout this district, telling what great things God had done for him. But the ex-demoniac, whose very life was a living monument to Christ’s compassion and power, had proclaimed not only in his home city, but throughout the Decapolis, how much JESUS had done for him. It may be that many of those people he influenced, upon hearing about the personal arrival in the Decapolis of a Person so wonderful as that described by the former demoniac, immediately flocked to Him. In this case, the Lord is merely taking advantage of the excellent advance publicity provided by His humble servant.

The very Gerasenes (or Gadarenes), also inhabitants of the Decapolis, are perhaps just as glad to see Jesus back as they had been for Him to leave earlier. (See notes on Matthew 8:34.)

The subjective reason for their coming was their faith in Jesus:

Not a theoretical conviction crushed by traditionalism and ritual;

Nor a creed to be received, recited and promptly forgotten;

But trust in a Person whose ability was unlimited. Their act of bringing their sick folk to the Lord was a venture of faith.

**Having with them the lame, blind, dumb, maimed, and many others. **(Cf. notes on Matthew 11:4; Matthew 4:23 f; Matthew 8:16) **And they cast them down at his feet: **this surprising verb cast them down (rhìpto) may also be used with no connotation of violence in the sense of to put or lay down (Arndt-Gingrich, 744), which is probably the nuance intended here. (Cf. its synonym bàllo in Matthew 9:2; Matthew 8:6; Matthew 8:14; cf. LXX: Genesis 21:15) This, because of the very slight probability that the sick accepted their being tossed around without complaint, and because the tender concern of their kinfolk already manifest in bringing them to Jesus probably would not permit them to treat them in a manner incongruous with that concern. **And he healed them. **Jesus generously responded to their enthusiasm and concern to bring their sick to Him: whoever they wereJew or Gentile, **He healed them. **What glorious completeness: everyone laid at Jesus-’ feet felt the power of His own healing energy surge through their body, making them well again! How Jesus-’ time would have been occupied in these three days, otherwise in healing sick foLk. neither Evangelist tells us. Is it possible that the Savior could stay three days with people and NOT teach them? This would be determined in each case not only by the urgent needs of the people, but more especially, as here, by the schedule and planning of Jesus. If He saw that popular preaching to that group could cause no serious interruption of His timing, there is no compelling motive to prohibit Him from so doing. Foster (Middle Period, 203ff) imaginatively suggests that Jesus led a three-day summer camp meeting with typically Jewish crowd participation. However, if we have correctly guessed the large pagan character of this group, then total group participation in Jewish Psalms and other expressions of popular worship would necessarily be limited.

Matthew 15:31 The results of Jesus work: **the multitude wondered, **and well they should, **when they saw the dumb speaking. **Whereas Matthew passed over the healing of the deaf stammerer (Mark 7:32-37), he evidently knew about it, even mentioning such cases first in his summary. **They saw. the maimed whole: **deformed cripples now enjoyed the normal use of their limbs. Two excellent results occurred when Jesus worked:

Astonished crowds: He has done all things well! (Mark 7:37) Contrast the commonplaceness with which Jesus-’ miracles would be seen over in Galilee around Capernaum. The extraordinary nature of Jesus-’ wonders is still fresh, still news here in the Decapolis. Contrast this reaction with that of roughly the same populace after the liberation of the Gadarene demoniacs. (Matthew 8:34 and par.) Their reaction seems almost self-accusatory: Look what we-’ve been missing all this time! Every human weakness to which He turned His attention became strength. Not only did He succeed in curing brilliantly every case brought to Him, but the humble, generous, personally tender way He went about it set Him worlds apart from all others.

God was glorified: **They glorified the God of Israel. **Contrast the repeatedly fruitless prayers of many of these benighted Gentiles offered to Greek or Syrian deities. Here, without fanfare or blustering argumentation, Jesus sounds the defeat of idolatry on a practical level that anyone can verify, and He causes men to rejoice in the undoubted victory of Jehovah! These humble people discern the evidential value of Jesus-’ miracles combined with His forgiving, generous love, and conclude that such rich gifts can come only from the God of Israel. What a contrast to those venomous critics who could see no more than Satan’s power behind all that He did!

Is McGarvey (Fourfold Gospel, 404) right to believe that the people whom Jesus healed were Jews, but daily intercourse with the heathen of Decapolis had tended to cool their religious ardor. The works of Jesus revived this ardor and caused them to praise the God whose prophet they esteemed Jesus to be? Regarding the probability that Jesus stirred the ancient fervor of the Jews themselves, yes, however, it may be too much to believe that He healed ONLY Jews. In fact, although the God of Israel be a common title for Jawéh (Luke 1:68; Acts 13:17), it instantly distinguishes Him from the gods of the gentiles. (Cf. Exodus 5:1; 1 Kings 11:9 et al.)

This implied contrast is not without profound theological implications, when penned in this context by a Matthew. Whereas an orthodox reader might tend to be scandalized by the undifferentiated banqueting together by Gentiles and Jews, Matthew shouts that the evident psychological result of Jesus-’ miracles was definitely not undifferentiated, but gloriously specific and theologically correct: men glorified the GOD OF ISRAEL! Salvation IS of the JEWS! (John 4:22) But even so, Matthew’s emphasis is not triumphalistic nor boastful of his nation’s glories. Rather, he draws the readers-’ mind to his nation’s God who is busy lowering segregation barriers without compromising His own high holiness, since it was the God of Israel who was at work in Jesus of Nazareth.

C. JESUS FEEDS THE FOUR THOUSAND (Matthew 15:32-39; Mark 8:1-10)

The similarities between this miraculous multiplication of food and that of the feeding of the five thousand are so many that it is not necessary to repeat what has been written about the essential features. Comments on analogous features are limited to a reference to the earlier notes. Differences in details become important as we respond to cynical students who believe both Evangelists to have fallen prey to two confused accounts of but one incident garbled in oral transmission. Beyond the formal differences involved in the numbers (i.e. 5000 versus 4000 men; 5 loaves as against 7 loaves; 12 baskets in contrast to 7 baskets), there are other evidences that this is not the same event as the former miracle:

Matthew (Matthew 16:9) and Mark (Matthew 8:19 f) both affirm indirectly the differentiation of the two events by quoting Jesus-’ use of the two separate miracles as the basis for His argument. If there were but one event, not only would Jesus Himself be pictured as confused, but both Evangelists could be reprimanded for gross oversight, since they both cite His words.

While the geographic location is somewhat the same, the circumstances that convoke the multitudes are quite dissimilar. The five thousand came over from Galilee to the eastern side of the Lake of Tiberias, and returned there after the miracle. (Cf. Notes on Matthew 14:13-14; and John 6:1-5; John 6:22-25) The four thousand, on the other hand, are residents of the Decapolis region.

Whereas the five thousand sat upon the grass around Passover time (John 6:4; John 6:10; Mark 6:39), the four thousand sit on the ground, a fact possibly indicative of a later period when the grass would have been dried up in the summer heat.

Consider also the differences mentioned earlier under The Critical Importance of this Account, where clues to the mixed half-Jewish, half-pagan character of this episode are noticed.

Objectors may ask why Jesus should repeat a multiple miraculous feeding, since, after all, had He not already demonstrated once and for all His power to do this? Would not a repetition tend to cast doubt on, rather than confirm, His mastery? No, Jesus chose to repeat this miracle for several reasons:

Because of His own compassion for the human weakness of these people. (Matthew 15:32)

Because it could serve as a test of His disciples-’ learning by probing their memory and comprehension. This repeated miracle and the lessons it carried with it would serve to drive the disciples to an unshakeable conviction of Jesus-’ power. (But see Matthew 16:4 ff.) As they reflected on it later, it became the second solid hammer-blow that drove home the nail of conviction.

Because, if there were many Gentiles present, perhaps even more then Jews, He could unobtrusively give them a liberal demonstration of the power and tender consideration of the God of Israel.

Because the repetition of a miracle just does not weaken the force of its first manifestation, any more than the raising of Lazarus should somehow be thought to adumbrate or undermine the raising of Jairus-’ daughter.

Matthew 15:32 Cf. notes on Matthew 14:14. Again Jesus initiates the move to solve the crowd’s food needs, but this time, rather than put pressure on the Twelve to solve the problem, His decision grows out of His own feeling for them: **I have compassion on the multitude. **When people hurt or have needs, the Lord responds with the strength, the kindness and the thoughtfulness of a gentleman. These people He helps are not Christians, as we would esteem them, but just frail human beings many of whom are outside the limits of revealed religion. Nevertheless, He shared with them His bounty, not stopping to check their synagogue attendance record or ask to see their baptismal certificate before providing them a crust of bread and some fish tidbits. They had not even asked for food, just help and healing; He lovingly gave them more than they imagined He had!

**Because they continue with me now three days and have nothing to eat: and I would not send them away fasting, lest haply they faint on the way. With me now three days, **by the usual Jewish reckoning, means since the day before yesterday. Since He does not affirm that they had fasted three days, it appears that the people had dined on the first day, picknicked on the second, but now find themselves without provisions. Their continuance with Jesus is explicable on the basis of the many miracles He worked on their behalf, even if the entire time had not been consumed in healings.

The unusual Greek nominative hemérai treîs (three days), which is not the grammatical subject of prosménousìn moi (they have been with me), is not unknown in Biblical literature. (Cf. LXX: Joshua 1:11; Jonah 3:4)

Matthew 15:33 **And the disciples say unto him, whence should we have so many loaves in a desert place as to fill so great a multitude? **(Cf. notes on Matthew 14:16) The repetition of the disciples-’ lack of believing certainty in so analogous a circumstance and consequent to such a grand miracle as the feeding of the five thousand such a relatively short time before, is not so shocking as it would appear on the surface. Rather, it is but evidence of the authenticity of the narrative, in that it is so psychologically true to life in the straightforward manner it depicts their hesitation, How frequently is a crisis met with forget-fulness of past blessings which should have taught men to know God and never falter or hesitate where He is in charge? (Cf. Moses-’ reaction, Numbers 11:21-23; Israel’S, Psalms 78:19 f, Psalms 78:32) Why did not the Twelve expect Jesus to supply food miraculously as before?

They may have considered Jesus-’ prudent limitation of His supernatural power, because He had not supplied miraculous bread for their travels either before or after the feeding of the five thousand, Farrar (Life, 362) reasons thus:

But surely here there is a touch of delicacy and truth. They knew that there was in Him no prodigality of the supernatural, no lavish and needless exercise of miraculous power. Many and many a time had they been with multitudes before, and yet on one occasion only had He fed them; and moreover, after He had done so, He had most sternly rebuked those who came to Him in expectation of a repeated offer of such gifts, and had uttered a discourse so searching and strange that it alienated from Him many even of His friends. For them to suggest to Him a repetition of the feeding of the five thousand would be a presumption which their ever-deepening reverence forbade.. But no sooner had He given them the signal of His intention, than with perfect faith they become His ready ministers.

Further, having noticed the Gentile character of a significant portion of the crowd, especially after spending the better part of three days with these people, the Apostles may have wondered whether He would provide miraculous bread to be eaten together by Jew and Gentile at the same table.

But even their own question does not necessarily express doubt about Jesus-’ power, rather, merely about their own incapacity to supply food themselves. Note their emphasis: **Where are WE to get bread? **(Pòthen hemîn en eremìa àrtoi tosoûtoi k.t.l.) They may well have remembered their past failure, so phrased this question so as to leave Jesus entirely free to choose His course of action.

Lenski (Matthew, 604) justly warns: To say that the reply of the disciples gives no evidence of the knowledge of a previous miraculous feeding and betrays nothing but complete perplexity, is to misread not only this reply but also all that precedes this reply. In fact, Jesus is not recorded as having scolded them for lack of faith or foresight. Although Scripture’s silence can never offer positive testimony, yet in the absence of a firm word to the contrary, we may assume that the Evangelists intend to convey the impression that He did not reproach them for failure to trust His power.

Matthew 15:34 **And Jesus said unto them, How many loaves have ye? And they said, Seven and a few small fishes. **(Cf. Mark 6:38 and notes on Matthew 14:16) This time, rather than appeal to others, they apparently check their own food stock left from their provisions for the journey just completed outside Palestine.

Matthew 15:35-37 Cf. Notes on Matthew 14:17-20. **Seven baskets full: **Much ado is made over the size and significance of the baskets used to collect the left-overs, without asking the insoluble, but vital, question: to whom did the baskets belong? If these hamper baskets (spùridas) belong to the people in the crowd, they may indicate the non-Jewish character of the people who ate. On the other hand, if these baskets were specially acquired by the Twelve for their long journey into Gentile territory, then the baskets themselves tell nothing about the multitude. Or would the Twelve have only carried kosher food wallets (kòfinoi)?If so, then these baskets (spurìdas) may belong to the multitude.

Whereas there is a fine discrimination in words at Matthew 16:9 f (= Mark 8:19 f) that carefully retains the distinctions in baskets for the five thousand and the four thousand respectively, this distinction should not be pushed too far, because Rocci, (1696) cities illustrations of basket dinners in connection with spurìs: e.g. spurìsi deipnìzein, dine., Arriano Epictetus 4, 10, 21; apò spurìdos deîpna: dinners from the basket. Ateneo, 365.

Matthew 15:38 Cf. notes on Matthew 14:21. **Four thousand: **Is the argument airtight to say that, had this incident been born out of mythical and unhistorical traditions, the miraculous details of this second miraculous feeding of the multitudes would certainly have surpassed those of the first? In fact, would not a clever forger foresee this argument and deliberately reduce the second myth to more believable proportions to promote an intentional fraud? Granted, the psychological impact of a second, somehow less spectacular miracle is to us anticlimactic. It is not, however, more or less believable because of that fact. Rather, for Matthew and his Hebrew readers, this miracle may have been ANYTHING BUT ANTI-CLIMACTIC! In fact, if Jesus fed Jews and Gentiles that day at the same banquet in the desert, this is an exciting climax, even more glorious than the feeding of the five thousand that ended in the Capernaum synagogue debacle. (John 6)

Matthew 15:39 See notes on Matthew 14:22. **And he sent away the multitudes, **because it is not Jesus-’ purpose now to begin a wide-ranging, popular public ministry in the Decapolis, and because of the live possibility that His own popularity should become the involuntary means of its untimely realization. **He entered into the boat **(enébe eis tò ploîon): whose boat? Did they watch for Zebedee’s fishing group to cross to the east side in order to seek passage across the Galilean Lake? (Cf. Mark 1:20) Might the boat, so definitely indicated by the article, have been Peter’S, having been sent for earlier? He **came into the borders of Magadan, **a locality that must be sought on the west side of the lake, because they embark on the Decapolis, or eastern, shore. After the later encounter with the Pharisees (Matthew 16:1-4), they sail for the other side arriving at Bethsaida (Julias? Mark 8:13; Mark 8:22), when they travel to Caesarea Philippi (Matthew 16:13). When Mark (Mark 8:10) says Dalmanutha in place of Magadan, we may assume that these different names are but two ways of referring to the same locality, or perhaps two nearby towns in the same district, or one a place name and the other a descriptive as yet undeciphered.

SIMILARITIES TO THE FEEDING THE FIVE THOUSAND:

This text shows the holy consistency of Jesus as Savior. PHC (Vol. XXII, 389) comments:

Wherever He is (so this repetition shows us) there is the same depth and spontaneity of compassion; the same discrimination and considerateness of affection; the same recollection as well of the temporal as of the spiritual needs of His hearers; the same marked disapprobation also (with all His fulness) of waste; and the same resolute avoidance, also, when the multitudes have been fully met, of idle wonder and fame.

Foster (Middle Period, 206) argues brilliantly that Jesus-’ objective for this repeated miracle was two-fold, i.e. not merely to minister to the body by restoring health and strength, but also to meet the spirit’s needs by producing faith:

Is faith demanded before miracles, but not afterward? Is lack of faith in the hearts of men not a human need to which miracles may minister? The repetition of miracles to bring faith to the hearts of men is as logical as repetition of teaching to bring understanding.

LESSONS

Jesus challenges those who are content with doing nothing merely because they have little with which to work. How many loaves do you HAVE?

Jesus would not do all this work Himself, nor would He summon even one of the angels in heaven to do what His human helpers could.

Jesus did not use heavenly means to provide the need until the full extent of earthly provision could be ascertained and provided.

Jesus taught by practical demonstration that Jews and Gentiles can sit down in peace to eat bread together in His Kingdom, their only points of common interest being their own deep need and His invitation and provision.

If we see the Gospels as living lessons on What It Means to Be the Body of Jesus Christ on Earth Today, the Church, then, must express the compassion of the Lord for people, not by sentimentalities more or less hypocritical, but by swift action to correct the needs of people in each situation faced. Jesus always left men with strength for the way: does the Church do as well?

PHC (Vol. XXII, 390):

We must not tempt men to adopt religion by bribery; we should thus encourage hypocrisy, promote indolence, give a premium to iniquity. But as Christians we should relieve temporal want, and with due caution and discretion use this as a means of imparting spiritual good. Our Lord fed the multitude on this occasion though He well knew that their motives in following Him were far from being pure. We should distinguish between vulgar bribery and Christian benevolence. In any case it were better to do good to men’s bodies than do no good at all.

Even as those who had earlier rejected Jesus-’ help and hurried Him away now gladly receive His help, we may learn that there is mercy with the Lord, even though we ignorantly and temporarily send Him away. Let us thank Him for the privilege of repentance, because He longs to return to us with an abundance of rich gifts.

Matthew 15:39

Section 39 JESUS REFUSES TO GIVE ADDITIONAL SIGNS TO DOUBTERS

(Parallel: Mark 8:10-12)

TEXT: 15:39b16:4

39 And he sent away the multitudes, and entered into the boat, and came into the borders of Magadan. Matthew 16:1 And the Pharisees and Sadducees came, and trying him, asked him to show them a sign from heaven. 2 But he answered and said unto them. When it is evening, ye say, It will be fair weather: for the heaven is red. 3 And in the morning, It will be foul weather today: for the heaven is red and lowering. Ye know how to discern the face of the heaven; but ye cannot discern the signs of the times. 4 An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given unto it, but the sign of Jonah. And he left them and departed.

THOUGHT QUESTIONS

Why do you think the Sadducees would join with the Pharisees in bringing this attack against Jesus?

What was there in Jesus-’ ministry or message that collided with Sadducean tenets?

What, in your opinion, is the meaning of the religious leaders-’ demand: did they want Him to work more miracles than He had already done? Did they want more stupendous miracles? What do you think they expected?

Mark says Jesus refused to give any sign to these Jewish leaders, while Matthew affirms that He gave the sign of Jonah. Which is right? How do you know?

Why is the Pharisees and Sadducees-’ question important to us today?

(1)

Why is it important precisely as asked by these theologians?

(2)

Why is it important as Jesus answered it, but not as intended by those leaders?

In your opinion, what forced these religious leaders to reject or ignore the evidence of all of Jesus-’ other miracles as signs of His identity and consequent authority?

Today, would we be tempted by obstacles in our minds which are similar to those in the minds of the Jewish leaders who rejected Jesus? If so, how? If not, why not?

Does the expression the signs of the times have anything to do with current events in our day? Why do you answer as you do?

PARAPHRASE AND HARMONY

Immediately following the feeding of the four thousand, Jesus boarded a boat with His disciples and sailed for the region of Magadan-Dalmanutha. It was there that the Pharisees and Sadducees approached Jesus together and began an argument with Him. To put Him to the test, they told Him to demonstrate the authority of His ministry by showing them a special signal from God. Sighing deeply within Himself, Jesus answered them, When night falls, you say, -It will be fine weather, for the sky is red.-’ In the morning you observe, -It will be stormy today, because the sky is red and threatening.-’ You know how to interpret the look of the sky, and yet you cannot interpret the most obvious signs given in our times?! Why are these people always asking for more evidence? It is only an evil, unfaithful people that demands more proof! Furthermore, I tell you no other demonstration of my authority shall be provided these people, except -the sign of Jonah.-’ Jesus left them, boarded the boat again with His Apostles and sailed for the other side of the Sea of Galilee.

SUMMARY

Jesus dismissed the Decapolis crowds and sailed west to Magadan-Dalmanutha. There, representatives of both religious parties, Pharisees and Sadducees, demanded that He produce some special miracle to prove His right to speak authoritatively for God. But Jesus-’ answer showed that, given their native ability to interpret weather signs, they ought to be able to interpret something as clear and evident as the miracles He had already done that identified Him as God’s spokesman. Only those unfaithful to God and fundamentally evil could dare ask for more evidence when enough had already been given to convince less biased people. Nor would further, special evidence be given, other than Jesus-’ resurrection. Then Jesus turned His back on His attackers and strode back to the boat.

NOTES

Matthew 15:39 b **And he entered into the boat, and came into the borders of Magadan. **If He embarked on the Decapolis side of the Sea of Galilee (see notes on Matthew 15:29) where He fed the 4000, then **the borders of Magadan **(Dalmanutha, Mark 8:9) would be sought on the western lakeshore, or possibly on the far south side. Presumably, He would normally have walked to any site on the eastern shore, unless impelling reasons forced Him to do otherwise, i.e. reasons such as those surrounding the abrupt conclusion of the feeding of the 5000. Unfortunately, positive identification of Magadan-Dalmanutha is lacking today.

A. THE CHRIST CHALLENGED (16:1)

Matthew 16:1 For fuller notes on the ideas contained in this section, see comments under Matthew 12:38-40. **Pharisees and Sadducees came: **what were these bitter, long-time rivals for the religio-political control of the Jewish mind, doing TOGETHER? This unholy coalition is as unlikely a union of forces as could be imagined. (See Special Study on these sects at the end of chapter 15 and on Matthew 16:6.) Here they temporarily join forces to battle a common enemy. In fact, Jesus-’ supernatural message radically threatened the Pharisees-’ preference for human traditions, (See on Matthew 15:1-20.) Again, His attacks on profitable Sadducean rackets in the Temple (cf. John 2:13-18) and His teaching about resurrection, angels, spirits and other supernatural phenomena supported the Pharisean views against the Sadducees; consequently, these latter felt menaced. Politically, neither could ignore Him, because the common people heard Him gladly. (John 4:40-42; John 4:45; Mark 1:36-38 = Luke 4:42 f; Matthew 4:23 f; Luke 4:15; Luke 6:17; Matthew 7:28 to Matthew 8:1; Luke 15:1; Mark 10:1; Luke 19:48 = Mark 11:18; Mark 12:37; Luke 21:38) They must react with speed and efficiency or lose their grip on the nations, even if later they must battle it out with each other for supremacy in their incessant power struggle.

From the standpoint of their official responsibility to protect the flock of Israel from false prophets, it was their proper duty to demand precisely such evidence as they now require of Him. (Cf. Deuteronomy 18:9-22; John 2:18 f; Matthew 12:38 ff; Luke 11:16; Luke 11:29 f) Whereas Jesus definitely dissected their motives and unmasked their lack of moral qualifications to judge Him (Cf. Matthew 21:23-27 and parallels), He never objected to the request when made honestly with the intention to know.

**Trying Him: **i.e. not a court trial, because the impression left by Matthew and Mark is that Jesus and His group never got far from their boat beached on the shore after disembarking, before these theologians made their attack. Rather, this is but one more attempt to discredit Him publicly by challenging Him to provide credentials they hoped He did not possess. Such bloodless ordeals were the enemies-’ only real strategy short of the violence that surfaced in Jesus-’ final arrest and crucifixion. (Cf. Luke 10:25; Luke 11:53 f; Luke 14:1; Matthew 19:3 = Mark 10:2; Matthew 22:15-40 and parallels,) Their intention not to accept whatever evidence He might give is evident in their argumentative spirit in which they approached Him. (Mark 8:11)

**Asked him to show them a sign from heaven. From heaven **probably means from God: what did they expect? Fire to fall, unconsumed burning bushes, great plagues, suns standing still, moons turning into blood, hail from a cloudless sky, voices from the Throne? But. that this demand, while formally correct, is really hypocritical, may be seen against the background of those who formulated it:

From the Sadducees-’ point of view, no such supernatural interventions would really take place. However, if the ignorant populace and the hated Pharisees want to believe in such, then let the Nazarene discredit Himself in the eyes of His followers by failing to produce them!

From the Pharisees-’ standpoint, He of all people, could not do them, because God would not sanction nor authenticate the message or ministry of one who regularly contradicted their cherished traditions and standard messianic notions, so certain were they of the divine approval of their views. (See notes on Matthew 15:2; cf. John 9:16 f, John 9:24-34)

Although they secretly desired His public exposure as a fraud, the form of their demand suggests that they expected to see some feat of such supernatural proportions that they could do nothing but believe.

B. CHRIST CRITICIZES THE CRITICS-’ CONSPICUOUS CALLOUSNESS (16:2, 3)

2 **But he answered and said unto them, When it is evening, ye say, It will be fair weather; for the heaven is red. 3 In the morning, It will be foul weather today: for the heaven is red and lowering. Ye know how to discern the face of the heaven; but ye cannot discern the signs of the times. **The textual validity of these verses should be noticed: did Matthew write them, or did some scribe copy them into his text from elsewhere? Metzger (Textual Commentary, 41) informs us:

The external evidence for the absence of these words is impressive, including Aleph, B, f13, 157, al. syrc,s, copsa,bo, arm, Origen, and, according to Jerome, most manuscripts known to him (though he included the passage in the Vulgate). The question is how one ought to interpret this evidence. Most scholars regard the passage as a later insertion from a source similar to Luke 12:54-56, or from the Lukan passage itself, with an adjustment concerning the particular signs of the weather. On the other hand, it can be argued. that the words were omitted by copyists in climates (e.g. Egypt) where red sky in the morning does not announce rain. In view of the balance of these considerations it was thought best to retain the passage enclosed within square brackets.

Beyond Metzger’s conclusion, it is well to note that Luke’s Gospel cannot be the source for Matthew’s Matthew 16:2-3, because of the following considerations. In the actual weather information (Matthew 16:2 b, Matthew 16:3 a; Luke 12:54 b, 55) there are 39 Greek words that neither Evangelist shares in common with the other, out of a total of 52 words thought to be parallel. In the rebuke (Matthew 16:3 b; Luke 12:56 b), despite some parallels of thought, only 2 Greek words are actually parallel in the two Gospels (dè and ou!), out of a total for both Gospels of 31 words! One must pronounce the two passages in question as relatively similar in thought, but hardly verbatim repetitions to the extent that one should be thought the literary origin of the other. Because the omission of these verses is easier to account for than is their insertion, their probable authenticity is the better conclusion.

The particular weather signs mentioned by Jesus are characteristic of Palestine. The particular meteorological phenomena in other places might well be different. The Lord is arguing this point with dwellers in Palestine to whom these data would be common knowledge. He is not describing world-wide meteorological information. Had copyists realized this, they would have been less ready to suppress these verses, expunging them from the text.

Rather than meet their challenge with a blazing burst of supernatural power, Jesus refused to grant them additional signs. His reasons are multiple:

Because they already possessed abundant and conclusive evidence, but deliberately misread it. Jesus-’ criticism, spoken as it was in deep sorrow of spirit (Mark 8:12), has a light touch of satire in it which is neither coarse, cruel nor brutal: You are experts at seeing the cause-and-effect relationships in the natural world, yet you cannot discern the same kind of relationships in the very area where you claim to be authorities, i.e. in the world of the spirit, signs and God! You thereby disqualify yourselves to ask me for signs. Though naturally able to read so undependable an indicator as that of the weather, yet they were wilfully blind to the more numerous and far more certain signs Jesus had already furnished. This explains their obvious lack of moral qualification to demand more evidence when their own epoch was replete with signs as yet unread or deliberately misinterpreted by them.

They had demanded **a sign from heaven, **so He bases His rebuttal on their wording. His answer repeats **heaven **(ourands) three times as if to say: The very heaven whence you demand that my proof must come, condemns you for making such an ultimatum, for if you can predict weather on the basis of its observable phenomena, you could also decide about me on the basis of the observable phenomena that characterize this age: the mission and message of John the Baptist, as well as my own ministry and miraculous works predicted by John.

They already possessed **the signs of the times, **i.e. the evidence that they were then living in the days of the Messiah. These are the same evidences that continued to convince the Apostles and other open-minded people that Jesus was really God’s Anointed. (Cf. Matthew 16:16 f) The difference in ability to decide about the signs, therefore, lay not in the miracles themselves, but in the beholder. To what extent would each single observer determine to grasp, or release, his prejudices in favor of new truth? Consider:

What could be more indicative than the spiritual revival of the nation during the ministry of John the Baptist? (Cf. Matthew 3:5-6; John 5:35; Matthew 11:7 ff)

What more spectacular indication of God’s merciful presence and approval of Jesus-’ ministry could be desired than instant healing of so many and so varied human diseases, raising of the dead or multiplying food, as Jesus Himself did? (Cf. Matthew 12:28)

What could stir the Hebrew heart more deeply than the evidence that the ancient prophecies were now being fulfilled in often surprisingly new, but certain ways? (Cf. John 1:45; Matthew 11:4-5)

What could be more surprising than the sheer multiplicity of His signs? (See on John 7:31!)

The Lord rightly insists on the word signs, although He could have referred to His mighty works as wonders or miracles, because these deeds are not important merely for their mere display of supernatural might, but primarily because of that which they SIGNify; God’s gracious mercy at work among men to deliver them from their various bondages. This observation fully justifies Jesus-’ damning the disbelievers, because of their hypocritical claim to be unable to detect the hand of God at work in Jesus-’ miracles of mercy, redemption and healing. (Cf. Matthew 12:22-36) Their demand, as well as Jesus-’ reference to previous miracles, shows that the previous miraculous deeds of the Christ had not convinced them, although they had been objectively both countless and conclusive. This inability to see God at work in anything He had done previously is but the old sin against the Holy Spirit all over again. (Matthew 12)

Another motive for His refusal to provide further signs is the evidential value of all preceding miracles. The endless multiplication of one’s credentials will never convince the doubters, if the first copy be rejected. Why should Jesus appear to downgrade His own preceding demonstrations of divine power, by no longer mentioning their evidential force, while, at the same time, producing miraculous works that would, hopefully, win over the skeptics now? Had He done so, it might have been thought that there were something unworthy, unreal or unacceptable about all that He had done previously. No, there comes a time when the skeptic must face the adequacy of the evidence God gives, and either bow before it or else deny himself, saying he did not see what, in fact, he saw. **The signs of the times **were really sufficient, had they but eyes to see it. First, let them interpret the signs already given, before coming to demand others!

A third motive for refusing to grant them a sign was the fact that He had already conceded them a spectacular sign: **the sign of Jonah. **(Matthew 12:39 f) Here the Lord put these callous critics on trial, because, on their own premises, they must actually await the verification of the sign He gave. So, by giving them THIS sign which promised His own future resurrection, He literally beat them at their own game. Technically, therefore, He was under no obligation to furnish any immediately verifiable miracle. Nevertheless, by reminding them of even this sign, He tested their conscience: would they finally admit the weight of ANY God-given proof of His identity and consequent authority? Or would they continue to reject the obvious direction of all His evidence? It is now their CONSCIENCE, not their intellectual equipment, that is put on trial.

Another motive for not granting the demanded credentials, although not mentioned in our text, lies in the very nature of Christian discipleship.

Had Jesus shown them a heaven full of angels with a vision of the Son of man as glorious as the sun, a heavenly exhibition of such magnitude and glory as to exceed their wildest expectations, would this have produced in them the kind of faith He expects in His disciples? If the discipleship of Jesus is to be founded upon a faith that trusts Him on the basis of the evidence He grants, and does not whine to behold His glory as triumphant and realized (cf. 1 Peter 1:8; John 20:29), is it psychologically probable that they would have been great believers, had He actually granted their wish?

And if faith is to be founded upon evidence that can be verified, but yet must have some unseen, yet hoped-for object, for it to be faith (Hebrews 11:1; Romans 8:24 f; 2 Corinthians 4:18; 2 Corinthians 5:7), how could a celestial demonstration foster real faith, if its effects would have been so imposing on the mind as to render unbelief so impossible that the denial of the evidence would be absolute folly? If Jesus had rendered faith really impossible, how could He hope to consider the witnesses of such a supernatural extravaganza as believers or disciples? They would not be believers, for they would know what now in this life they must yet believe, trusting the evidence to be true.

Further, if faith is to be a personal, free decision, then overwhelming revelations of such magnitude that would nullify the power or reality of personal decision, eliminates each man’s free will. This would make God responsible for their salvation, since none could refuse to follow Jesus. It would also compromise God’s impartiality by representing Him as granting overpowering evidence to some and not to all, as saving some against their will and despite their lack of personal faith, and as damning the rest to whom He gave no such overwhelming evidence.

C. CONCESSION OF CONVINCING COUNTEREVIDENCE TO CULMINATE CHRIST’S CLAIMS (16:4)

Matthew 16:4 **An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign. **His analysis was two-pronged:

They were **evil, **because they were deliberately evading the plain evidence of His previous miracles which revealed God’s will. They resisted the force of empirical proof upon their minds, although it was such evidence as would appeal to the unbiased researcher. What kind of mentality does it take to be far more impressed by thunderbolts from heaven, than by the restoring of usefulness to earth’s suffering humanity? or by fire from heaven, than by miraculous provision of food to feed thousands of hungry and tired men and women? Their hypocrisy revealed itself in their despising the credentials that God had ordered and in demanding other evidence more in line with their own dictates.

They were **adulterous, **or unfaithful, because they loved something other than God. They were not seeking God’s will and approval. (John 5:38-47) Their disposition proved they did not adore God: they bowed before the false gods of their own mind, their own concepts of what God’s will and God’s Messiah must be. They flattered themselves to be wiser than John the Baptist or Jesus. (Cf. Matthew 11:7-19)

**There shall no sign be given unto it. **What they lacked was not a sign, but sight, i.e. the desire to see the obvious. But these men were blind to the moral glory of the Lord. In fact, in contrast to the capricious weather signs, His were not at all difficult to fathom, if the heart of the interpreter be good and honest. (Cf. Luke 8:15) The very moral character of Jesus-’ miracles, demonstrating the fact that a holy, loving God was at work in the person of His Son, tests the character and conscience of the observers. Since every type of truth has its own proper evidence by which it is demonstrated, Christ and His truth must be verified by the proper proof. Rather than be tested by mathematical or musical evidence, the truth of Jesus and Christianity has a double foundation: a historical, or empirical, foundation, and a moral base. But, if the critics themselves are not morally qualified or capable of judging the evidences, they will never see the meaning of His signs, regardless of how strong the historical evidences might be. Not even the best evidence can win over those who have stubbornly decided not to be convinced!

The simple fact that Jesus refused to work a miracle in the presence of His enemies is no sign of weakness or inability. Rather, it evidences His confidence in the adequacy and validity of the miracles already provided, as well as of the prophetic sign He did give. Any imposter can also refuse to furnish credentials to his critics, but only a real prophet can risk his reputation on the precise fulfilment of a future sign, since the imposter who attempts the same is only postponing his own day of reckoning and exposure as a fraud. Also, His refusal to be bullied or frightened into rash miracles is proof of His self-mastery.

**No sign. but the sign of Jonah. **Apparently, on this occasion the Lord did not explain the sense of the prediction, as He had done earlier. (Cf. Matthew 12:39 f) Rather, He simply refers back to it. Not only were the former miracles enough; what He had already told them was enough too! Why keep adding word upon word to convince the wilfully deaf? When He had given them the sign of Jonah in the past, He had furnished EVERYTHING they really demanded and needed. So, this time He just dropped the enigmatic sign in their midst to discuss among themselves. Its very obscurity and its importance as a sign such as they demanded would have spurred them on to debate its meaning until its future fulfilment made its meaning understandable. Then, when the Apostles began preaching the resurrection of Jesus as an indisputable fact, the realization that He had furnished them such unforeseeable information in advance would surprise them with factual evidence that He had known all along what no mere human could have known. This fact throws light on the depth of the leaders-’ obstinance and guilt when, despite their inability to answer the Apostles-’ affirmations and proof, they continued to reject Jesus as Israel’s Messiah.

This exception (no sign. but that of Jonah) is no new method being attempted after all other signs had seemingly failed to convince the skeptics, because.

Jesushad not failed. THEY had failed to admit what other impartial witnesses could see.

This exception, i.e. the proof inherent in Jesus-’ resurrection, is the proper climax of all His other signs, since a permanently dead miracle-worker is less startling evidence of divine approbation than is a resurrected Lord.

This exception underlines once again Jesus-’ patience. In infinite mercy, He continues to leave them evidence when, according to strict justice, they deserved no more.

When Jesus originally gave them this sign, it was sufficient then, and it is sufficient now, no matter how impatient they be to see its realization. Therefore, in the future moment when it would have been fulfilled, they would then be basing their conviction upon evidence already given prior to the resurrection, thus upon evidence they possessed even at this moment. So, let them believe that.

On the previous occasion they had not insisted that the sign come from heaven, as they now required. Nevertheless, by referring them back to the sign of the resurrection, He is giving them precisely what they asked for. Since the resurrection of Jesus would be brought about by the direct intervention of God, rather than by any human agency, this proof would be exactly what they now had requested: from heaven.

This man, whose voice condemned the traditionalism of the Pharisees and whose miracles damned the anti-supernaturalistic rationalism of the Sadducees, would be silenced in death by these very clergymen. But He would rise from the dead to wreck their rationalism by His resurrection and topple their traditionalism and theories by His truth. This was His sign, but they must wait for its fulfilment.

And he left them and departed. For the man or group that refuses to recognize God’s hand in all that Jesus was, did or taught, but obstinately insists that God furnish other reasons to believe, the only alternative remaining (short of immediate, judgmental punishment!) is to abandon such to their self-chosen fate. (Cf. Matthew 4:13; Matthew 10:14 f; Acts 13:44-51; Romans 1:24; Romans 1:26; Romans 1:28; Judges 16:20; 1 Samuel 15:35; 1 Samuel 16:14; 1 Samuel 28:6; Deuteronomy 31:17; 2 Kings 21:14; 2 Chronicles 15:2; 2 Chronicles 24:20; Psalms 78:60; Isaiah 2:6) So, by the very act of turning on His heel and striding back to the boat, Jesus continued to instruct His disciples: that is, there comes a time even for Jesus Christ to leave the critics and their haggling. Not even the Lord would force their will not to believe. He refused even to render it impossible NOT to believe His precious truth! He left them His truth to do with it as they pleased. Now it was up to them to submit to the guidance of the light available to them, or stumble in the dark.

EVIDENCE OF HUMAN FREEDOM

This section underscores once more the absolutely inviolate freedom of the human will. The Pharisees and Sadducees were really free to accept or reject Jesus-’ revelations. God coerces no one to believe against his own will. However, He does furnish man with evidence that is the kind of proof that allows him to be voluntarily willing and obedient, the kind of evidence that is sufficiently convincing to encourage man to exercise his will and choose the right. But none is compelled against his will. The very certainty of God’s evidence, however, gives a moral quality to man’s decision about it, And yet, if man cannot come to God by his own power or on his own terms, neither is he forced by irresistible evidence. Still, the light is sufficient. Therefore, men who love darkness rather than light because their lives are evil, deserve the condemnation that is theirs. (John 3:16-21) Responsibility is always commensurate with the opportunities to know the truth and the favor enjoyed.

APPLICATIONS

SHALL WE PUT GOD TO FURTHER, USELESS TESTS, OR ACCEPT THE IMPLICATIONS OF THE EVIDENCES ALREADY FURNISHED? In what way(s) is it possible for us to demand signs from God in this same illegitimate way? The analogy between our situation and that of those who lived in Jesus-’ time consists in recognizing that:

To us, as to them, have been already granted multitudinous motives for deciding whether or not God has really spoken through Jesus of Nazareth.

To us, as to them, falls the responsibility for weighing the evidences and letting ourselves be guided by their force and direction, be it material or moral.

Neither we nor they have the right to pretend OTHER proof DIFFERENT from what has already been granted. Rather than criticize the proof, we must examine the heart that will not admit such proof.

We too, like they, may have personal or group prejudices that block our ready acceptance of something God says that seems unreasonable, unreal or otherwise unacceptable. Nevertheless, we too humbly submit ourselves in willing obedience to what is revealed to us, without complaining that God should give something other than what He has.

THEREFORE:

When we sigh for miracles to give us more confidence, ignoring those ancient demonstrations that authenticate our faith once and for all, or when we are reasonably certain about a given duty and yet remain unmoved, hoping earnestly that God will provide some spiritual light or emotional stimulation that would blast us into action, then we are demanding that God prove to us what we should already admit. We are haggling over a sign when we already possess sufficient reasons and guidance for moving out in obedience. We must not let ourselves be hindered by the fact that there is always a multiplicity of opinions and differences of interpretation regarding every Christian duty. Rather, we must ask ourselves why SOME cannot see the truth involved in such questions, and seek to know that truth for ourselves with a view to obeying it. He who chooses to remain in doubt, after all that God has said and done to convince the common man, acts in bad faith and merits what he will get! When, in order to justify some decision, we say, If God would just give me some sign, then I would do what He says, we are putting Him to unnecessary tests, and fall under the just condemnation of Jesus! Rather than fall victim to the temptation to say, Oh, if God would just give me some further sign, assuring me of His will regarding some choice I must make, I would be happier, surer, more willing to do my duty, let us walk in the light we have, by faith, not by sight. The original readers of Matthew’s Gospel had to decide whether to put God to further, useless tests, demanding more proof of Jesus-’ Messiahship, or embrace the evidence already furnished. Can we, will we, decide about His revelations to us?

FACT QUESTIONS

Where had Jesus come from and what had He done just before boarding the boat to sail for Magadan?

Locate Magadan-Dalmanutha geographically on the basis of the information in the text.

Who are the Sadducees? What is their theological position in Judaism?

What does this collusion between the Pharisees and Sadducees against Jesus prove about them? What was their more usual attitude toward each other?

What was the semi-official position in Judaism of the Pharisees and Sadducees which would require of them that they ask precisely the question they now place before Jesus?

What is a sign? What part did signs play in the identification of God’s messengers? What are the signs of the times to which Jesus made reference? What are the times intended?

What was Jesus-’ inner reaction to this request for signs? (Mark 8:12)

Harmonize the differing answers reported by Matthew and Mark: No sign shall be given this generation, and No sign shall be given it, except the sign of Jonah. How can both answers be correct?

Explain Jesus-’ point in mentioning the reading of weather signs. Are these weather signs mentioned universal, i.e. true all over the world?

Explain the sign of Jonah. On what other occasion did Jesus explain its meaning?

On what other occasions did people request signs of Jesus and what answers did He give them?

Explain the peculiar immorality of asking for signs in the spirit in which this was done by the Jewish theologians.

Old Green Commentaries

The College Press Bible Study Textbook Series — 59 volumes by 25 authors, published between 1961 and 1992 and affectionately known as the 'old green' commentaries for their green hardback bindings. Each volume is a commentary, workbook and teaching manual in one, written by Restoration Movement …

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Old Testament

GEN EXO LEV NUM DEU JOS JDG RUT 1SA 2SA 1KI 2KI 1CH 2CH EZR NEH EST JOB PSA PRO ECC SOS ISA JER LAM EZK DAN HOS JOL AMO OBA JON MIC NAH HAB ZEP HAG ZEC MAL

New Testament

MAT MRK LUK JHN ACT ROM 1CO 2CO GAL EPH PHP COL 1TH 2TH 1TI 2TI TIT PHM HEB JAS 1PE 2PE 1JN 2JN 3JN JUD REV

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