Matthew 15:1

1. scribes and Pharisees, which were of Jerusalem] Probably a deputation from the Sanhedrin, such as was commissioned to question John the Baptist. Cp. Joh_1:19.

Ch. Mat_15:1-20. The True Religion and the False. A Discourse to the Pharisees, the People, and the Disciples

Mar_7:1-23

These twenty verses sum up the great controversy of the N. T., that between the religion of the letter and external observances and the religion of the heart, between what St Paul calls “the righteousness which is of the law and the righteousness which is of God by (or grounded upon) faith,” Php_3:9.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Mat_15:1

Why do Thy disciples transgress the tradition of the elders?

Pharisaic evasions

I. The worst form of hypocrisy is that which sets aside plain moral duties on the plea that they binder spiritual worship; for, if done as in Gods presence, they are spiritual worship.

II. No moral duty is more clearly expressed, either in the Bible or in the heart, than that of obeying, honouring, and ministering to parents.

1. They are the first of our fellow-creatures towards whom we have responsibilities.

2. They are the representatives of God to us. Through them we are to rise to know Him as our Eternal Father, and through them we are to learn how to care for and regard His human family.

III. Strange perversion of what constitutes the service of God, to imagine that a man can free himself from so fundamental a duty as ministering to his parents, by professing to dedicate his property to the support of the temple-worship, and that such a freeing of himself will be acceptable to Him who prefers obedience to sacrifice, and who is Himself honoured in the honour shown to parents. Such external worship is, in Gods sight, empty and worthless. (V. W. Hutton, M. A.)

Pharisaic formalism

The fatal mistake of many is that they think of nothing but the profession-the mere externalities of religion-the name, the form, the visible rite, or, at most, the aesthetic emotion. Thus, with all their religiousness, they have no religion, no spiritual vitality, no renewal of nature, and no union with Christ. It is recorded of a certain Spartan in olden times, that he tried hard to make a corpse stand; but utterly failing to do so, in spite of every effort, he said, I see it wants something within. So it is with these-they want life, and grace, and unction. Censorious men:-Censorious men commonly take up magnifying glasses to look at other persons imperfections, and diminishing glasses to look at their own enormities. (Seeker.)

Fault-finding reproved

Reader, why will you search another mans wound while your own is bleeding? Take heed that your own vesture be not full of dust, when you are brushing your neighbours. Complain not of dirty streets, when heaps lie at your own doors. Many people are no longer well than while they are holding their fingers upon other persons sores; such are no better in their conduct than crows, which prey only upon carrion. (Seeker.)

Washing of hands

Christ, no doubt, would exceed all scribes and Pharisees in the love of real cleanliness, inner and outer. But He felt constrained to lay His ban upon the imaginary virtue that was supposed to be inherent in the act of removing imaginary uncleanness. It was supposed that there was a demon called Shibta, which sits upon mens hands during night; and if any person touches his food with unwashed hands, then that demon sits upon his food, and makes it dangerous? (J. Morison, D. D.)

Customs of hand washing

It is customary with all, but obligatory for Muslims, to wash the hands before eating. The sect of the Sunnites, which includes the Turks and Arabs, wash both hands, but the Sheites, or Persians, only the right, with which the food is taken and conveyed to the mouth. Thus did the Pharisees in the time of our Saviour. For this purpose a ewer and basin are presented to each guest in turn by a servant, who drops upon his right knee while he rests the basin upon the left; the towel is carried upon his shoulder, or is offered by anotherservant. (Van Lennep.)

Scripture better than tradition

As to those who would officiously substitute their traditions in the room of the clear light of the written Word; it is a similar case as if you should fall in with one travelling on the way, and he offers himself to be your companion and guide; and tells you that you have eyes to make use of in choosing your way, but that these eyes are only troublesome to you; that they represent to you diversities of objects that invite you this way and that, so that you cannot mind your path. And pray, saith he, let me pull out those eyes of yours, and submit yourself to my guidance; and all this that he may draw you into a pit! (J. Howe.)

Tradition unreliable

Would persons as readily believe the correctness of a report transmitted by word of mouth in popular rumours from one end of the kingdom to another, as if it came in a letter passed from one person to another over the same space? Would they think that because they could trust most servants to deliver a letter however long or important, therefore they could trust the same man to deliver the contents of a long and important letter, in a message by word of mouth? Let us put a familiar case: a footman brings you a letter from a friend upon whose word you can perfectly rely, giving an account of something that has happened to himself, and the exact account of which it concerned you to know. While you are reading and answering the letter, the footman goes into the kitchen and there gives your cook an account of the same thing, which he says he overheard the upper servants at home talking over as related to them by the valet, who said he had it from your friends sons own lips; the cook relates the story to your groom, and he in turn tells you. Would you judge of that story by the letter, or the letter by the story? (Illustrations of Truth.)

Scripture, versus system

The late William Jay, in his Practical Illustrations of Character, says, What a difference must a Christian and a minister feel, between the trammels of some systems of divinity and the advantage of Scripture freedom, the glorious liberty of the sons of God. The one is the horse standing in the street in harness, feeding indeed, but on the contents of a bag tossed up and down; the other, the same animal in a large, fine meadow, where he lies down in green pastures, and feeds beside the still waters.

The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Mat 15:1-6. Then came to Jesus scribes and Pharisees — See notes on Mar 7:1-23, where the facts here spoken of are related more at large. Why do thy disciples transgress the tradition of the elders — That is, of the principal doctors or teachers among the Jews. They wash not when they eat bread — Food in general is termed bread in the Hebrew: so that to eat bread is the same as to make a meal. But he said, Why do ye also, &c. — As if he had said, Nay; but I may with much greater reason ask you why you transgress what is infinitely more sacred, even the commandment of God, by your tradition — Your vain and superstitious doctrine, delivered by verbal communication, and handed down from age to age. For God commanded, Honour thy father and mother — Which implies the affording them all such relief as they stand in need of: and, He that curseth father or mother — Although it be in a sudden transport of passion; let him die the death — Let him be put to death without mercy, Exo 21:17; Lev 20:9; where see the note. But ye say — But what you teach is contradictory to this divine command; and an ungrateful child may justify himself in the neglect of it in consequence of your tradition: for your doctrine is, Whosoever shall say to his father, It is a gift, &c. — That is, I have given, or at least I purpose to give, to the treasury of the temple, what you might otherwise have had from me; and honour not his father and his mother — Namely, by relieving them in their poverty, or supplying their wants, he shall be free — From all blame, or from all obligation of giving them relief. Thus have ye made the commandment of God — Even a commandment written with his own finger on the tables of stone; of none effect by your tradition — Have absolutely rendered it useless, and as it were annihilated it.

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

§ 66. — DEBATE WITH THE PHARISEES IN REGARD TO TRADITIONS, Mat_15:1-20.

The scenes of love and faith closing the last chapter are now suddenly reversed. The third passover of our Lord’s ministry to which these vast multitudes were travelling, had now passed, but which, on account of the hostile dispositions of the ruling powers, he did not attend, but remained in the northern parts of Galilee. The Jews, not finding our Lord at the passover, seem to have sent a portion of their number to Capernaum to open a debate with him. They commenced it with a challenge in regard to the disrespect of his disciples toward the traditions of the elders, in not washing their hands before they ate. Our Lord firmly meets them by showing that their traditions both contradicted the law of God, and are founded upon a false and superstitious morality.

1. Then came — Our Lord was probably at Capernaum. Were of Jerusalem — And probably from Jerusalem. Saying — They seem to have come with a quarrel in their mouths.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

CRITICAL NOTES

Mat_15:1. Of Jerusalem.—From Jerusalem (see R.V.). Probably a deputation from the Sanhedrin sent expressly to watch Him.

Mat_15:2. Transgress the tradition.—The Jews attached greater value to tradition than even to the written law, appealing in support of it to Deu_4:14; Deu_17:10 (Meyer). Wash not their hands.—The custom of washing the hands before a meal was not only a cleanly and desirable one, but was rendered absolutely necessary by the habits of the East, which involve the dipping of all hands into a common dish. But it is obvious that occasions would arise in which the nature of a meal, which might consist of dry bread and fruit, or some pressing urgency, or some difficulty of obtaining water at the moment, might render the custom impossible. Even Talmudists admit that handwashing is needless if the hands be clean (Farrar). Jesus did not reject this tradition, viewing it merely as a custom (which was also common among the Persians, Greeks, and Romans). He only refused to recognise it as a binding or religious ordinance, and hence omitted it in urgent circumstances (Lange).

Mat_15:3. Why do ye also transgress … by your tradition?—Because of (R.V.). The “also” must be noted. It admits that there was some kind of transgression on the part of His disciples—transgression of a human injunction. But it asserts that, on the part of the scribes and Pharisees, there was transgression too, though in a far higher plane of things; and, what was of very serious significance, transgression on account of their tradition. The Saviour thus, as Luther remarks, meets the bolt of their question by a counterbolt, which, as it is driven home, pushes out theirs, till it falls to the ground (Morison).

Mat_15:4. Die the death.—The expression “let him die the death” is idiomatic, but now obsolete. It is intended to be emphatic—let him die the death (which is the appropriate penalty of such a crime). The Hebrew expression is also idiomatic, and idiomatically emphatic; and so is the Greek expression, which literally means “let him come to his end by death” (ibid.).

Mat_15:5. It is a gift.—Rather, let it be a gift, or “devoted to sacred uses,” which the Jews expressed by the word Corban, found in Mar_7:11. The scribes held that these words, even when pronounced in spite and anger against parents who needed succour, excused the son from his natural duty; and, on the other hand, did not oblige him really to devote the sum to the service of God or of the temple (Carr).

Mat_15:5-6 (see R. V.). Made the commandment of God of none effect.—Were this clause literally translated it would run thus: And ye abrogated the law of God because of your tradition! The Saviour speaks with indignation—mingling into His words a withering element of irony, which may be partially indicated to the English reader by an exclamation point at the close (Morison).

Mat_15:9. Doctrines … commandments.—Neither word is quite adequately rendered. The “doctrines” are not articles of faith, propositions to be believed, but precepts which were taught as binding. The “commandments” are single, special rules, as contrasted with the Divine “commandment,” which was exceedingly broad (Plumptre).

Mat_15:10. He called the multitude.—The moment our Lord turns to the people, His teaching is by parables. This appeal to the multitude as worthier than the Pharisees to receive the Divine truths is significant of the popular character of the kingdom of heaven (Carr).

Mat_15:11. Defileth.—This principle virtually invalidated the whole mass of the Old Testament legislation which had reference to defilement through external influences and conditions (Wendt).

Mat_15:12. The Pharisees were offended.—A proof of the influence of the Pharisees. The disciples believed that Christ would be concerned to have offended those who stood so high in popular favour (Carr).

Mat_15:13. Every plant, etc.—Not a wild flower, but a cultivated plant or tree. Here the plant cultivated by human hands—the vine that is not the true vine of Israel—is the doctrine of the Pharisees (Carr). At the same time we should also bear in mind what was said in 13 about the identification of individuals with the doctrines which they professed (Lange)

Mat_15:14. Blind leaders of the blind.—It would appear from Rom_2:19 that the phrase “a leader of the blind” was one in common use to describe the ideal of the Rabbi’s calling. Now they heard it in a new form, which told them that their state was the very reverse of that ideal. And that which was worst in it was that their blindness was self-chosen (Mat_13:15), and that they were yet all unconscious of it, and boasted that they saw (Joh_9:41) (Plumptre).

Mat_15:15. This parable.—The parable (R.V.). The answer shows that Peter’s question referred not to the proverb that immediately preceded, but to what seemed to him the strange, startling utterance of Mat_15:11. It was significant that he could not as yet take in the thought that it was a truth to be received literally (Plumptre). The language of Mat_15:11 is not strictly a parable, but it has a feature of the parable proper in that invisible things are represented under visible images, the ceremonial defilement of the Mosaic law being used as an image to indicate, by contrast, the moral defilement of the heart (Mansel).

Mat_15:16. Ye.—Emphatic. Slowness of spiritual apprehension in His genuine disciples grieves the Saviour; from others He expects no better (Mat_13:11) (Brown).

Mat_15:17. The draught.—The word is used in its old English meaning, as equivalent to “drain,” “sewer,” “cesspool” (see 2Ki_10:27). The principle here implied is, that a process purely physical from first to last cannot in itself bring any moral defilement (Plumptre).

SUPPLEMENTARY NOTE

Mat_15:5-6. Release by “Corban.”—So great was the solemnity attached to vows, whether they were rightly or wrongly made, that the Rabbins were prepared to argue that it was of less importance that parents should be honoured than that a vow should be broken. It is the universal penalty that follows on attaching undue importance to forms, that presently they come to override even the great natural laws of human associations, and the Divinely announced commandments of the Decalogue. Ecclesiastical rules come to be valued above Divine laws; and ecclesiastical rules can be made to excuse the neglect of the first and essential human duties. This rabbinical custom is not, however, generally understood, and, indeed, it is so repulsive to all men of noble and generous feeling that it is difficult to secure for it a patient consideration. It seems to have been established as a principle that any man was at liberty to make a vow consecrating his property, or any portion of it, to the service of the temple, after his decease, or even during his life, with the understanding that he would keep the use of it so long as he needed. Properly speaking, such “devotements” ought always to be thank-offerings for special mercies received, and they ought only to have been accepted when they had such a religious feeling inspiring them. But such a custom of “devotements” was open to serious abuse by unprincipled men. If a man’s property was in peril of being seized by his creditor, he could at least save the life-use of it by making it a gift to the temple. And if any special claim—as by parents or brothers—was made on a certain portion of his property, he successfully evaded the claim by affirming that the particular portion had been devoted, by a vow, to the service of God. “Corban” denotes anything offered to God, or the service of the temple. “Almost every possession a man had might be rendered “Corban” by him, even his own person; and, when once offered to God, the article was sacred, and could on no account be turned to a secular use until redeemed. All that was necessary was that a man should say respecting a given thing “May this be as the temple to me”; or, “as the altar,” etc.; or, “as the (sacred) fire,” etc.; or, “as the sacrifice to me.” Thereupon a man, being displeased with his aged or poor parents, might free himself from all obligation to support them by merely pronouncing one of these forms; and then, when either father or mother appealed to him for aid, he would say, “Whatever I might have bestowed on you is now Corban.” And the Pharisees, as Christ complains, insisted on the fulfilment of this execrable vow, even though it necessitated the violation of natural instinct, as well as the command, “Honour thy father and thy mother.” In fact there was no duty a villain might not shun by this infamous procedure. The Talmud actually teaches that every one ought to honour his father and his mother, or to support them if they were poor, unless he has vowed to the contrary. We cannot wonder that such abominable doctrines excited our Lord’s utmost indignation, and drew from Him one of His severest censures.—(R. Tuck, B.A.).

MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—Mat_15:1-20

Jesus in controversy.—We seem to have further indications here of the growing fame of Jesus of Nazareth. Even in distant and haughty Jerusalem some of the most learned and zealous of its inhabitants (Mat_15:1) have heard of His teaching; and are present now for the purpose of engaging in controversy with Him. Truly characteristic, also, of their teaching is the subject of their dispute, being only, in fact, a mere outward question of ceremonial tradition (see Mat_15:2). The Saviour, in reply, deals, first, with the occasion itself; and then, secondly, with certain difficulties to which it gave occasion in turn.

I. The occasion itself.—He begins, e.g. by pointing out to His questioners the disloyalty of their inquiry. Why do My disciples transgress the tradition of the elders? There is another question comes first. Why do ye act as ye do? Why do ye use words in such a way as practically to prevent men from doing their duty to their parents? The word of God is plain enough on this subject, and strong enough too (see Mat_15:4, “let him die the death”). Why do ye set it aside? Why teach men by a subterfuge how not to do what God has told them to do? (Mat_15:5-6). Next, the Saviour points out to them plainly the hypocrisy of their conduct. This excessive zeal about cleanness of skin was a thing of the surface alone. There was nothing corresponding to it—there was much opposed to it—within. The prophet Isaiah had long ago foreseen this, when he said as in Mat_15:8. This must be so, indeed, in such a case as that at present discussed. Wherever men put the “teachings” of men on the same level with the teachings of God, especially where they do so in connection with the “worship” (Mat_15:9) of God, and as a mark of zeal in His service, they (naturally) do so “in vain.” Worse than “in vain” in fact; so as to give Him offence. Why should He be pleased with that which is only done in pretence? Lastly, the Saviour points out the ignorance involved in this fault. Ignorance so great as to lead the Saviour (apparently) to seek to deliver from it not only teachers but taught. “Calling” the “multitude” to Him, He says to them, Hear the truth on this point. Hear how opposed it is to all that these teachers have usually taught you about it. It is not “that which entereth into a man” which is to be thought of the first. Rather, and instead, it is that which “proceedeth out” of him which is to be thought of the first. What his mouth says, in short, not what it feeds on, is that which defiles. This is the truth—the primary truth which their teaching ignores.

II. After the occasion.—Here the Master is found dealing, not with His enemies, but His friends. Certain difficulties appear to have arisen in the minds of His disciples from what they have heard. The first of these has to do with the question of authority. Knowest Thou that that concluding saying of Thine about that which defiles, gave great offence to the Pharisees? That they were absolutely “scandalised” by it, in fact? Dost Thou, therefore, in the face of this—so their question may be understood to imply—adhere to it still? The Saviour’s answer shows plainly and emphatically that He did. “Every plant which My heavenly Father planted not shall be rooted up” (Mat_15:13). By that test I abide. To that proof I appeal. Do not ye, therefore, trouble yourselves as to what these Pharisees say. But understand, rather, that for those who follow them it will be as bad as for them (Mat_15:14). That difficulty disposed of, another arises—a difficulty of comprehension. There is something here, the Apostle Peter seems to feel, which we do not understand as we ought. This “saying” of Thine about that which “defiles” is but a “parable” to us at present. Wilt Thou not then “declare” to us its meaning and truth? (Mat_15:15). This difficulty is met—not without a touch of reproachfulness (Mat_15:16)—by two appeals to themselves. By an appeal, on the one hand, to what they knew about the nature of food. Perceive ye not what happens to food when taken in at the mouth—where it passes to—how it passes away—and how, therefore, it affects nothing but the body alone? By an appeal, on the other hand, to what they knew of men’s hearts. Did they not know the kind of things which came forth from the “heart”? The “evil thoughts,” on the one hand, to which they pointed as their origin? The evil actions and words of all sorts, on the other hand, to which they gave birth; and by which, therefore, all that inward evil was at once evidenced and increased? This was the thing, this outward passage of evil, which, beginning with much pollution, and ending with more, “defiled” all it passed through. The evil of “eating bread with unwashen hands” was not to be named by its side (Mat_15:18-20).

How thoroughly radical, therefore, if man is to be reformed at all must be the reformation of his nature! And by how mighty a hand must it be effected, if effected at all! For the truth on this point, see Psalms 51, beginning of Mat_15:6. For the only proper prayer, therefore, in connection with it, see Psa_51:10.

HOMILIES ON THE VERSES

Mat_15:1-2. Traditions.—

1. It is no new thing that Christ hath adversaries, and these, chiefly, corrupt churchmen, even such as bear office in places most famous for religion; for here are scribes and Pharisees which were of Jerusalem going about to divert disciples from following Christ, and to put a disgrace, if they could, on our Lord, for His disciples’ cause.

2. It is no wonder to see Christ and His church molested with the controvery of nonconformity in human inventions of religion. “Why do Thy disciples transgress the traditions?” say they.

3. Antiquity and Fathers, without Scripture, is the old charter of superstitious formalists. “Why,” say they, “do Thy disciples transgress the traditions of the elders?”

4. That which is lawful in itself while it abideth within the limits of civil fashions, may be left undone, and be discountenanced, when it is set up in state, within the limits of religion; therefore the disciples did not wash their hands before meat, in the company of Pharisees, who made washing at that time to be a holy and religious act.—David Dickson.

Mat_15:1-3. Technical fault-finding.—It is always—

I. Punctilious and trivial.

II. External and superficial.

III. Associated with a wrong condition of heart.

IV. Opposed to the spirit of Jesus Christ.—J. Parker, D.D.

Mat_15:2. Hand-washing.—The Pharisees had elevated ablutions, and even the minutest regulations about the method of performing them, into a matter of religion. A whole order of the Talmud—that called Taharôth, or Purifications—is devoted to washings; and two separate tracts of it, Mikvâoth, or “baths,” and Yadaîm, or “hand-washings,” deal especially with cleansings of the person. These ablutions were extended to all kinds of objects, and in later days were accompanied by elaborate liturgies of recognised prayers. Indeed, so ultra-Pharisaic was this branch of Pharisaism, that it originated the rest of the Sadducees, who, seeing their opponents washing the golden candlestick, said that soon they would not be content until they could wash the sun!—F. W. Farrar, D.D.

Eating with unwashen hands.—Rabbi Joses determined that to eat with unwashen hands is as great a sin as adultery. And Rabbi Akiba, being kept a close prisoner, having water sent him, both to wash his hands with and to drink with his meat, the greatest part being accidentally shed, he washed his hands with the remainder, though he left himself none to drink, saying he would rather die than transgress the tradition of the elders.—M. Henry.

Imaginary defilement.—Christ, no doubt, would exceed all scribes and Pharisees in the love of real cleanliness and cleanness, inner and outer. But He felt constrained to lay His ban upon the imaginary virtue that was supposed to be inherent in the act of removing imaginary uncleanness. It was supposed that there was a demon called Shibta, “which sits upon men’s hands during night; and if any person touches his food with unwashed hands, then that demon sits upon his food, and makes it dangerous.” (Rab. Taanith, fol. xx. 2).—J. Morison, D.D.

Mat_15:3. The traditions of men and the commandments of God.—

1. Traditions may be fathered or mothered on those that maintain them, no less than on those who invented them; for Christ saith, “Why do ye by your traditions transgress?”

2. Such as are most zealous for human traditions shall readily be found transgressors and contemners of Divine commands, and God’s traditions given by Scripture.

3. When the authority of human traditions doth loose or weaken the obligatory power of a moral command in anything, it may and should be despised altogether and rejected, as unworthy to be a rule for a man’s carriage in anything.—David Dickson.

Mat_15:4-6. The claims of parents.—

1. The duty of children unto parents is straitly urged by God’s command, and the wicked transgression of it is made capital.

2. It is a part of the honour due to parents that children sustain them in need as they are able, for not helping is here as much as not honouring their father or mother.

3. Such traditions as, directly or by consequence, do prejudge the true intent of any of God’s laws (whatsoever pretence of religion be made) are wicked, for He saith, “You by your traditions have made the command of God of none effect.”

4. No gift nor voluntary offering presented unto God doth please Him, when the duty of love owing to others is neglected or contravened thereby, for Christ calls such a gift a breach of the fifth commandment.

5. Dispensation with God’s law by human authority and urging of men’s traditions more than of God’s commands, is, in effect, the abolishing of God’s law (Mat_15:6).—Ibid.

Mat_15:5-6. Unholy antagonisms.—

I. There ought to be no conflict between the Divine and social claims.—The family has its claims; society has its claims; God has His claims, and they are all righteous. They are all on the same line of rectitude. There ought to be no conflict between them. This conflict exists among us because the claims of society are often unjust. God’s claims are never unjust.

II. Those who most devoutly recognise the Divine claims are the most faithful in their discharge of social claims.

III. The discharge of the one kind of claims should not be used as a pretext for the neglect of the others.—J. Owen.

Mat_15:7-8. The hypocrite.—I. How far a hypocrite goes.—He draws nigh to God and honours Him; he is, in profession, a worshipper of God.

II. Where He rests and takes up.—This is done but with His mouth and with His lips; it is piety but from the teeth outwards.

III. What that is wherein he comes short.—It is in the main matter, “their heart is far from Me.”—M. Henry.

Mat_15:7. Isaiah and Christ.—I. The importance of plain speaking on all questions affecting the interests of truth. Jesus Christ was pre-eminently a plain speaker. In the text He calls certain persons hypocrites. He does not say behind their backs that they were hypocrites, but He looked straight at them and right through them, and said, “Ye hypocrites.” If we had more such plain speaking it would be an advantage to us all. Two things are required in the plain speaker:—

1. Personal rightness.—“Let him that is without sin cast the first stone.”

2. Moral fearlessness.—Our courage is not always equal to our convictions.

II. The far-seeing spirit of prophecy.—Jesus Christ said to the men of His day, “Esaias prophesied of you.” Observe the unity of the moral world; observe the unchangeableness of God’s laws; see how right is ever right and wrong is ever wrong; how the centuries make no difference in the quality of righteousness, and fail to work any improvement in the deformity of evil.

III. The high authority of the righteous censor.—Anon.

Mat_15:8. True prayer.—The power of a petition is not in the roof of the mouth, but in the root of the heart.—Trapp.

Mat_15:10-11. Moral pollution.—

1. Contesting against Christ’s disciples, slandering and reproaching of such as do not observe human traditions, is a pollution of the slanderer, and more dangerous than the omission of human ceremonies, which may be omitted without pollution of sin. “That which cometh out of the mouth polluteth.”

2. Albeit unto mocking adversaries we need not always give reasons of what we do or omit, yet unto indifferent spectators, it is good to give a reason, for their edification and our own clearing, as here Christ giveth satisfaction to the common people.

3. The fountain of the pollution of a man’s actions is his heart, conscience, and affections, not being rightly disposed.—David Dickson.

Man’s morality not affected by man’s receptivity.—This fact:—

I. Refutes the sophism that crime is necessitated by circumstances.

II. Charges upon man the responsibility of his own words.

III. Shows that every man is the source of his own character and influence.—J. Parker, D.D.

Mat_15:13. God the Uprooter.—

I. The disciples needed this lesson—That they might not be startled by the fading away of much which had seemed to them fair and vigorous, but still more that they might understand what there was in the Jewish soil which could not be rooted out—what there was that would spread its fibres more widely, genially, and send out higher branches, wherein the fowls of the air might dwell. The sect of the Pharisees, our Lord says, His heavenly Father hath not planted. The disciples of Jesus learnt gradually from His lips that they were called and chosen out to preach to their own countrymen that the Son of David and the Son of Abraham had come to bind together in one publicans and sinners—Jews, Galileans, Samaritans. With this message they were to go forth to Jews and Gentiles. As they bore it, they soon discovered that the 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; that they felt they could only maintain even a temporary ascendancy by fighting with this rival as for life and death. Then, when they found how mighty this sect-principle was, and what numbers were pledged to it, they must have recollected the words which had been spoken to them: “Every plant which My heavenly Father has not planted shall be rooted out.”

II. 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. It springs in us from that same root of unbelief in One who is the Head of us all, whose life is the common life of all, out of which all sects and parties have proceeded.—F. D. Maurice, M.A.

Mat_15:14. Blind leaders of the blind.—

1. Obstinate maintainers of false doctrine and of corrupt traditions, enemies to Christ and His disciples, are given over of God, and are worthy also to be given over, and let alone by men, i.e. fellowship is not to be kept with them.

2. Where the teachers and people follow mere traditions in religion, and not the rule of God’s word, the leaders and they that are led are both blind.

3. The following of false teachers and blind guides will not be an excuse before God for people to plead immunity; but seeing none should follow any man, but as that man doth follow the Lord, the blind guide and the blind follower shall both perish, if they hold on in their wrong way.—David Dickson.

Mat_15:19. Crime in germ.—Human law takes notice of acts, not of dispositions. God’s law determines everything by the motive or purpose which leads to action.

1. “Thou shalt not kill.” Killing is not mere blood-shedding. Anger without cause is murder. Oppression of the weak is murder. Depriving a man of the means of getting a livelihood, to gratify his revenge is murder. “Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer.”

2. “Thou shalt not steal.” A man may rob God as well as his neighbour. He who wastes his employer’s time is a thief. He who withholds just praise is a thief. He who detracts from the just honour of his fellow-man is a thief. He who vows and does not pay is a thief.

3. “Thou shalt not bear false witness.” False witness is lying. But what is lying? You may repeat the very words of a speaker, and yet misreport him! How? By putting upon his words an emphasis not his own. You infuse into the emphasis your own passion or purpose. The words are his, the tone is yours! Take the words “When I come, I will come with a rod”; they may be spoken with tenderness and reluctance, they may also be so emphasised as to denote pettishness or even vengeance. He who tells an incomplete tale, involving the reputation of another, bears false witness. So does he (negatively) who lacks courage to defend an injured man, for whom he could say a word of explanation. Now, strange as it may seem, the three crimes of which we have been speaking are spiritually similar, and almost identical. He who kills, steals life; he who steals life is prepared to bear false witness; he who bears false witness both steals and kills. As, therefore, sin is in the sight of God a question of the heart, and not merely a question of the hands, there arises an inquiry of the keenest practical interest. “How are we to reach the disease which is consuming our spiritual life?” We cannot reach it! Is it then never to be reached? When we put this question in earnest, we are prepared to hear the glorious gospel. 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. Seeing what is meant by the spirituality of sin, we shall feel our need of Divine help. Nay, more than help, God must undertake the whole case for us. He has done so. See the Cross! There is a sacrifice which touches sin before sin comes into action—touches it in the heart—touches it as a germ. Then see the ministry of the Holy Ghost! That ministry operates upon the very life of life, upon the first pulsation and breathings of our spiritual nature. We have only to see ourselves as we really are, to see our need of the sacrifice, and our dependence upon the Spirit.—J. Parker, D.D.

The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.

3. The Corruption of the Scribes and Pharisees; the Canaanitish Woman and Her Faith; the Multitudes Healed.

CHAPTER 15

1. The Question of the Scribes and Pharisees.(Mat 15:1-2.)

2. His Answer. (Mat 15:3-9.)

3. The Multitude Called.( Mat 15:10-11.)

4. The Disciples Instructed.( Mat 15:12-20.)

5. The Canaanitish Woman. (Mat 15:21-28.)

6. The Multitudes Healed. (Mat 15:29-31.)

This chapter introduces us more fully into the events which follow the rejection of the King by His people and which manifest the enmity, the Satanic hatred against the Lord. He has now set His face like a flint to go up to Jerusalem and soon He will reveal His sufferings; His death, His resurrection and His return to earth. While going on steadily towards the cross, which was ever before Him, that departure He should accomplish in Jerusalem, the enemies swarm around Him, they test Him and bring their questions, but He silences them all. The wisdom of Him who is wisdom Himself is gloriously manifested. At last the tempting and accusing scribes and Pharisees have spent their last arrow upon Him. He asks them a question which they could not answer (chapter 22). He then reveals their wickedness and hatred of Him and pronounces His “woes” upon them followed by His last word to Jerusalem (chapter 23). But while these evil men with their evil hearts, under the leadership of Satan, approach the Lord from time to time, He also teaches His disciples and utters parables all in harmony with the scope of the entire gospel. We shall fully show this as we continue in our exposition.

“Then the scribes and Pharisees from Jerusalem come up to Jesus, saying, Why do thy disciples transgress what has been delivered by the ancients, for they do not wash their hands when they eat bread?” (Mat 15:1-2).

We can easily learn from this that behind this deputation from the religious Jerusalem stood the whole company of Pharisees and scribes, and that it was a cunningly devised and concerted attempt to ensnare Him. The Lord in answer asks them another question and lays bare their wicked hypocrisies, after which He addresses the people and answers Peter’s question. Before we follow these events a more detailed explanation of the question of the Pharisees and scribes is in order.

We are aware that the two questions, the one by the Pharisees and the other, the Lord’s counter question in the beginning of the fifteenth chapter, are not fully grasped by many readers of the Word. The Jews believed and still believe (at least, the orthodox) in a written law and in an oral law. This they founded upon Exo 34:27 and taught that while Moses wrote down a law another oral law was given to him and that this oral law was handed down from generation to generation. It is believed by them that Moses received both the written and the oral law on Mount Sinai. They placed the oral law above the written law. (The words of the scribes are lovely above the words of the law; for the words of the law are light and weighty, but the words of the scribes are all weighty. -- Beracoth.) Circumstances, however, forced them to commit the oral law to writing, which was done in the Talmud (meaning doctrine), from which we can learn all the ridiculous paraphrases and wicked additions to the law the ancients had made under the plea that it was given by God. To illustrate what interpretation they put upon certain statements of the law we select Exo 34:26: “Thou shalt not seethe a kid in his mother’s milk.” The oral law has expounded this to mean that it is a sin to eat meat and drink milk at the same time, and the elders have gone so far as to declare, if a pot of milk boils over and some of the milk drops into a pot of meat, the meat is unclean and must be thrown away. Butter, coming from milk, is likewise not to be eaten with meat, etc.

Such a question these tempting scribes and Pharisees brought to the Lord. It is the question about the washing of the hands. It will interest the reader to learn a little more about this unscriptural act and what emphasis the Pharisees and the present day talmudical Jews lay upon the washing of hands.

Nothing whatever is said about such washing of hands in the Old Testament scriptures, but the oral law has precept upon precept upon this ceremony, which, if neglected, is looked upon as a great sin, worthy of excommunication. One even was permitted to eat unclean meats, forbidden in the law, and drink unclean drinks, as long as he fulfilled the traditions of the elders and washed his hands before he broke the law. The Pharisaical righteousness consisted in this: “Whosoever hath his place in the land of Israel, and eateth his common food in cleanness, and speaks the holy language, and recites his prayers morning and evening, let him be confident that he obtains the life of the world to come.” Volumes were written and are in existence which enlarge in the most critical and minutest way upon the washing of hands. Dissertations we find here on the simple washing and the plunging into water, on the manner of the washing, what hand is to be washed first, the time when it is to be done, the quantity of water to be used, and many other rules. Besides this we find the grossest superstitions. We read some years ago in a jargon book, published in Poland, that evil spirits light upon the hands over night and if the hands are not washed as prescribed by the oral law these evil spirits find their way into the mouth and stomach of the transgressor and defile him. (This is undoubtedly founded upon the following talmudical statement: “Shibta is an evil spirit which sits upon man’s hands at night. If any touch his food with unwashed hands, that spirit sits upon that food, and there is danger from it.”)

But enough of this. Such were and are the traditions of the elders. The Lord might have easily dismissed the question of the Jerusalem deputation by telling them that their oral law is invalid, but He aims at something higher. He aims at their conscience and uncovers their true condition. With His divine wisdom He has the answer ready which will completely shut their mouths.

“But He answering said to them, Why do ye also transgress the commandment of God on account of your traditional teaching?” For God commanded saying: “Honor father and mother; and he that speaks ill of father and mother, let him die the death. But ye say, Whosoever shall say to his father or mother, It is a gift (corban) whatsoever it be by which received from me thou wouldst be profited; and he shall in no wise honor his father or his mother; and ye have made void the commandment of God on account of your traditional teaching” (Mat 15:3-6).

The great lesson from this is the fact which our Lord makes so prominent, that traditional teachings lead to the transgressing of God’s commandment and make it void. This is true in every case. If we look upon religious Christendom with its traditions and man made rules and institutions, we find ample proof of it and could illustrate it in many ways. The one who follows the traditions of Christendom most, finds himself soon in Rome and then in out and out opposition to God’s revealed will and purpose, and he who has nothing at all to do with traditional teachings and rejects them altogether is in submission to the Word of God and looks to it as his only authority.

Surely ritualistic Christendom, the so-called religious world, is the direct offspring of Phariseeism. Its traditions, lent, holidays, man made ministry and many invented ceremonies, have superseded the Word of God and made it of non-effect. We could easily digress here and enlarge upon this thought. We leave it to the reader to make the application. But think of the awful sin, dear reader, that men can dare to set aside with their own inventions and traditional teachings the very Word of God, eternally settled in the heavens! This has been done, and God will judge Christendom for it in His own time. The Pharisees had no room for the Christ of God; they hated Him. Modern Phariseeism may talk of a Christ and use His name; it rejects the Christ, His person and His work.

The Lord, to uncover the hypocrisy of the Pharisees with their traditions, refers to the commandment which demands the child to honor father and mother. To this Jewish tradition had added, “A son is bound to provide his father meat and drink, to clothe him, to cover him, to lead him in and out, to wash his face, hands and feet. A son is bound to nourish his father, yea, to beg for him.” (Kiddushim.) But with all this strictness tradition had found a way how to avoid this obligation. A person had only to say “corban” -- a gift, something dedicated to the temple or a vow of personal obligation, and the son was completely released from any duty towards his father and mother.

“And so stringent was the ordinance that it is expressly stated that such a vow was binding, even if what was voiced involved a breach of the law. It cannot be denied that such vows in regard to parents would be binding, and were actually made. Indeed, the question is discussed in the Mishnah, in so many words, whether “honor of father and mother” constituted a ground for invalidating a vow, and decided on the negative against a solitary dissenting voice. And if doubt should still exist, a case is related in the Mishnah, in which a father was thus shut out by the vow of his son from anything by which he might be profited by him.” (See Edersheim, “Life and Times of Jesus, the Messiah.”)

And now follows the righteous word of condemnation by Him who searches the hearts of men. “Hypocrites! well has Esaias prophesied about you, saying, This people honor Me with the lips, but their heart is far away from Me; but in vain do they worship Me, teaching as teachings commandments of men” (Mat 15:8-9).

The same verdict He pronounces upon the religious world, modern Phariseeism. There is much talk of worship and approaching God -- the Lord has only one word for the whole thing, “Hypocrites”! May we through the rich grace of God be delivered from Phariseeism in any shape or form and keep delivered. It will need great heart-searching and self-judgment.

“And having called to Him the crowd, He said to them, Hear and understand. Not what enters into the mouth defiles the man, but what goes forth out of the mouth, this defiles the man” (Mat 15:10-11). Without fear, which He never knew, He declares publicly the evil teachings of the sayings of the elders. Simple truth, indeed, and yet how many who are professing Christians have not hold of the very first principle, that the evil is within which defiles the man.

Of course the Pharisees were offended. It lowered their dignity with the common people. They looked upon themselves as the leaders of the people and here, after so strongly proving the contrary teachings of traditions, He corrects in a few simple words the errors of the Pharisees.

“Then His disciples coming up said to Him, Dost thou know that the Pharisees, having heard this word, have been offended? But He answering said, Every plant which my heavenly Father has not planted shall be rooted up. Leave them alone; they are blind leaders of the blind; but if blind lead blind, both will fall into a ditch” (Mat 15:12-14). These words not alone show the doom of the Jewish Pharisees, but they speak also of the doom of that which His heavenly Father has not planted -- Christendom. It will be rooted up and then cast out with its boasted leaders, who are but leaders of the blind.

But even the disciples did not understand His plain and simple language. Peter calls that which was plain teaching “a parable.”

“And Peter answering to Him said, Expound to us this parable. But He said, Are ye also without intelligence? Do ye not apprehend that everything that enters into the mouth finds its way into the belly, and is cast forth into the draught? but the things which go forth out of the mouth come out of the heart and these defile men. For out of the heart come forth evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witnessings, blasphemies; these are the things which defile man, but the eating with unwashed hands does not defile man” (Mat 15:15-20). How slow they were to understand the full meaning of what He wanted to convey to their hearts. Our Lord shows the true source of all defilement. It is within. The Pharisees did not believe in the utter corruption of the heart. “I the Lord search the heart” (Jer 17:10). And this searcher of hearts is present here on the scene and throws His own light upon the source of evil, of which He had said through Jeremiah, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked.” Blessed is he who bows before this verdict.

The incident which follows is in closest connection and fullest harmony with all this inasmuch as it reveals deliverance from the evil which is within.

The first part showed us how the Lord tore down the mask from the Pharisees and uncovered the human heart. “All things are naked and open unto the eyes of Him with whom we have to do.” The One who uncovers here and knoweth the heart, desperately wicked, the Heart-searcher, is the same who called in Eden, “Adam, where art thou?” What else are the religious observances, the traditions of men, than miserable fig leaves to conceal the nakedness of the sinner! But He stripped off these fig leaves, He removed the covering and aimed at the conscience. His divine light revealed the darkness and defilement within. Blessed is the man who puts himself in that light and lets that light uncover and undo him!

The Holy Spirit now connects with the manifestation of Christ as the One who uncovers the heart -- another incident. It is the Syrophoenician woman and the healing of her daughter. If we have in the first part of this chapter the manifestation of Jehovah, who reveals, we find in the second part Jehovah revealed, who covers and delivers His poor, naked and needy creature. The blessed story before us is the full revelation of the loving heart of our Lord Jesus Christ.

“And Jesus going forth from thence, went away into parts of Tyre and Sidon.” He left the religious Pharisees with their hypocrisies and deceitful dealings. He turns His back upon all, and chooses for His path a country where religious observances were unknown, where sin and misery held sway. How significant once more! A foreshadowing again of what should happen soon: the Gospel to be sent to the Gentiles. And now we read of her who is the object of His divine compassion, and through her the Lord manifests His rich grace and power to deliver from evil.

“And lo, a Canaanitish woman, coming out from those borders, cried to Him, saying, Have pity on me, Lord, Son of David! My daughter is miserably possessed by a demon. But He did not answer her a word.”

Assuredly He knew her and her need, her struggles and her faith, and as He went through Samaria on account of that one soul who came to the well, so here He enters these parts to meet the needy one and deliver her. His heart is all for her, and His divine love and desire is toward her. But who is this miserable, crying woman, with her face marred by suffering, lifting her imploring eyes to Him in whom she recognized her Deliverer? She is a Canaanitish woman, or, as she is also called on account of her living in that country, a Syrophoenician. She belongs to a race which is cursed. The Caananite was to perish. Israel was called to carry out the divine sentence. She directs her prayer for help to Him as Son of David. Perhaps she had heard of Him by that name, and how He, the Son of David, drove out demons, healed the sick and raised the dead. Faith she possesses, and faith casts itself upon Him, trusting in His power and willingness to help. But had she a claim upon Him, the Son of David? Had she a promise anywhere that the Son of David would come and deliver and heal a Canaanitish woman? No, not one. For the Canaanite is no hope held out in connection with Israel ‘s Messiah. When at last the Son of David has taken His place upon the throne of His father David, the Canaanite will have been driven out of the land (Joe 3:17; Zec 14:21). For this reason He did not answer her a word. If He had opened His lips it could have only been to speak with the authority of the Son of David, and that would have meant her doom. But nevertheless is His heart full of grace and sympathy for her. He who read the hearts of the proud Pharisees reads her heart too, knows her state and that faith will triumph. So He answered her not a word. In that silence was hidden all His rich Grace towards her. It told her: You have no claim on Me as Son of David; you have no promise to claim Me as David’s Son. In calling Him “Son of David” she claimed what was not hers. He wants her to know that she is to come with no claim, as one stripped of all. This is the gracious object before Him in being silent to her pitiful cries.

We next hear the voice of the disciples. “And His disciples came to Him and asked Him, saying, Dismiss her, for she cries after us.” They did not suggest that her request should be granted. Perhaps they meant it by their expressed desire, “Dismiss her.” Had they not seen multitudes healed? Did they not see the blind, the deaf and dumb, the fever-stricken and the infirm press around Him, and He had healed them all? The centurion with his sick servant, too, was a Gentile, and now they ask Him to dismiss her. How little they knew of His ways. He could not dismiss her without the blessing she craved. He could not give her the blessing she wanted as long as she appealed to Him as Son of David, laying claim to that to which she had no right.

“But He answering said, I have not been sent save to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”

His answer was not only meant for the imploring disciples but it was meant for her. He speaks, of course, as Son of David. And oh! how wonderful is this word, though it has often been declared as harsh. He puts her, so to speak, in the right path to receive the blessing. It is one little word around which all is centered. The little word is “lost.” He gave her thus to understand He had come for the lost sheep of the house of Israel ; and if they were lost and needed a Saviour, how much more she, a Canaanitish woman? And it is this word, lost, which faith lays hold upon, and through which she is enabled to draw near and ask His help simply as a needy one. “But she came and worshipped Him, saying. Lord help me.” She has understood; her heart grasped the meaning. She fully realized her place outside of the commonwealth of Israel, and because she knows it she drops His title, Son of David. With this she declared, “I have no claim upon His mercy.” But she came. Yes, she came into his divine presence, and worshipping she falls at his feet with a cry of need, “Lord help me.” She has taken her place before Him, and casts herself upon Him with all her need. “Lord help me” -- what a blessed prayer it is!

And that she had taken the true place in which He, the Son of God, could bless her, is soon to be brought out. Her faith is to be tested -- to pass through the fire. He knew her; He knew the answer she would give, and in testing her He points out the way to Himself and to the blessing once more. Oh! how gracious and tender He is! And still He deals with the soul in the same tender and loving way.

“But He answering said, It is not well to take the bread of the children and cast it to the dogs.” What would she say to this? A dog -- a Gentile -- the bread for the children! Is her faith truly paired with humility (and true faith always is) to stand this word? Does she really know herself as such an unworthy outcast? Before we read her answer let us glance at the word “dogs.” The word used by our Lord is a diminutive; it really means “little dogs.” It denotes the dogs which enter the house to find something to eat there and not the homeless animals which roam through Oriental villages. In the use of this word she understands once more His readiness and willingness to bless her. And so He led her down, deeper and deeper, and as He leads her down her hope becomes brighter and brighter. Thus He deals with the soul which seeks His help.

But now faith bursts forth in all its fragrance. Crushed she lays before Him, the Lord. Tenderly His eyes must have rested upon His poor creature. Her appeal to the Son of David was hushed, her need and help, her expectation from Him alone, and now the word which had crushed her still more and yet which holds out to her the brightest promise.

Listen to her answer as it comes from her trembling heart and lips, “Yea, Lord, for even the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from the table of their master.” She admits it all. She has nothing to answer back. She assents to it: “Yea, Lord.” Thou art right! But faith rises higher. She takes His word in her lips, “the dogs” -- the little dogs -- “eat of the crumbs which fall from the table of their master.” The little dogs are cared for and in the confession of being one of these little dogs she claims from Mercy’s hands a few crumbs. She has conquered. Once more greater faith is found than in Israel. And now He speaks the Word which must have filled her with praise: “O, woman, great is thy faith; be it to thee as thou desirest. And her daughter was healed from that very hour.” But how it all must have refreshed His heart -- the heart of the rejected One -- moving on towards the cross!

However, while we learn the way of grace and spiritual lessons from these events, let us not forget the dispensational phase of it. The first part of this chapter (Mat 15:1-20) stands for the apostasy of Israel and Israel set aside. The incident of the Canaanitish woman stands typically for the call of the Gentiles and Salvation going forth to them. The third part of the chapter reveals the dispensation to come: the Kingdom age.

“And Jesus going away from thence came towards the sea of Galilee, and He went up into the mountain and sat down there. And great crowds came to Him, having with them lame, blind, dumb, crippled and many others, and they cast them at His feet, and He healed them; so that the crowds wondered, seeing dumb speaking, crippled sound, lame walking, and blind seeing; and they glorified the God of Israel. But Jesus having called His disciples to Him said, I have compassion on the crowd, because they have stayed with Me already three days and they have not anything that they can eat, and I would not send them away fasting lest they should faint on the way. And His disciples say to Him, Whence should we have so many loaves in the wilderness as to satisfy so great a crowd? And Jesus says to them, How many loaves have ye? But they said, Seven and a few small fishes. And He commanded the crowds to lie down on the ground; and having taken the seven loaves and the fishes, and having given thanks, He broke them and gave them to His disciples and His disciples to the crowd. And all ate and were filled; and they took up what was over and above of the fragments seven baskets full; but they that ate were four thousand men, besides women and children. And having dismissed the crowds, He went on board ship and came to the borders of Magadan.”

Here, then, we have once more a foreshadowing of the coming age. The God of Israel is glorified, which will not come to pass in the earth until the King comes back and establishes His kingdom. Then it shall be, “Glory to God in the highest and peace on earth.” The feeding of the second crowd of people has the same meaning. Three days they were with Him and on the third day He fed them miraculously. As we have shown elsewhere, the third day stands always for resurrection and the completion. The seven loaves and seven baskets of fragments teach us the same lessons.

Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Mat 15:5-6

I. There ought to be no conflict between the Divine and social claims. The family has its claims; society has its claims; God has His claims, and they are all righteous. They are all on the same line of rectitude. There ought to be no conflict between them. This conflict exists among us because the claims of society are often unjust. God’s claims are never unjust.

II. Those who most devoutly recognize the Divine claims are the most faithful in their discharge of social claims.

III. The discharge of the one kind of claims should not be used as a pretext for the neglect of the others.

J. Owen, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xvi., p. 260.

References: Mat 15:1-20.—A. B. Bruce, The Training of the Twelve, p. 79; Parker, Inner Life of Christ, vol. ii., p. 321. Mat 15:3-9.—F. W. Robertson, The Human Race and Other Sermons, p. 297. Mat 15:6.—Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. xviii., p. 22; Durrant, Thursday Penny Pulpit, vol. ii., p. 241.

Mat 15:7

These words call us to look at three points, the first of which is the importance of plain speaking on all questions affecting the interests of truth. Jesus Christ was pre-eminently a plain speaker. He did not round His sentences for the purpose of smoothing His way. When He had occasion to administer rebuke, or to point out the errors of those who were round about Him, He spoke keenly, incisively, with powerful effect upon the mind and conscience of those who heard Him. In the text He calls certain persons hypocrites. He does not say behind their backs that they were hypocrites, but He looked straight at them and right through them, and said, "Ye hypocrites." If we had more such plain speaking it would be an advantage to us all.

I. Two things are required in the plain speaker. (1) Personal rightness. "Let him that is without sin cast the first stone." (2) Moral fearlessness. Our courage is not always equal to our convictions. We know the right, and yet dare not pursue it. The right word suggests itself to our lips, and our lips dare not pronounce it.

II. The second point to which the text calls our attention is the far-seeing spirit of prophecy. Jesus Christ said to the men of His day, "Esaias prophesied of you." Observe the unity of the moral world; observe the unchangeableness of God’s laws; see how right is ever right and wrong is ever wrong; how the centuries make no difference in the quality of righteousness, and fail to work any improvement in the deformity of evil.

III. The third point to which we are called in these words is the high authority of the righteous censor. When Jesus Christ spoke in this case, He did not speak altogether in His own name. He used the name of Esaias. All time is on the side of the righteous man; all history puts weapons into the hands of the man who would be valiant for truth. When you speak a right word, the prophets speak through you, the apostles prolong the strain, and the grand old martyrs seal it with their blood.

Parker, City Temple, 1871, p. 305.

References: Mat 15:8, Mat 15:9.—H. W. Beecher, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xix., p. 72. Mat 15:9.—W. H. Murray, The Fruits of the Spirit, pp. 212, 235. Mat 15:12.—J. Keble, Sermons on Various Occasions, p. 312.

Mat 15:13

God the Uprooter of Sects.

I. The disciples needed this lesson, that they might not be startled by the fading away of much which had seemed to them fair and vigorous, but still more that they might understand what there was in the Jewish soil which could not be rooted out—what there was that would spread its fibres more widely, genially, and send out higher branches wherein the fowls of the air might dwell. The sect of the Pharisees, our Lord says, His heavenly Father had not planted. The disciples of Jesus learnt gradually from His lips that they were called and chosen out to preach to their own countrymen that the Son of David and the Son of Abraham had come to bind together in one publicans and sinners—Jews, Galileans, Samaritans. With this message they were to go forth, with this Gospel to Jews and Gentiles. As they bore it, they soon discovered that the 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; that they felt they could only maintain even a temporary ascendency by fighting with this rival as for life and death. Then, when they found how mighty this sect-principle was, and what numbers were pledged to it, they must have recollected the words which had been spoken to them: "Every plant, which My heavenly Father has not planted, shall be rooted out."

II. 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. It springs in us from that same root of unbelief in One who is the head of us all, whose life is the common life of all, out of which all sects and parties have proceeded; from that root of pride which has led to the amazing delusion that God has not called us to be His servants and children, but that we are taking Him to be our Lord and Father. If once by His grace we are delivered from that presumption, we shall not doubt that He has taken care of His own name and His own kingdom in this earth of ours, however ignorantly His creatures have been setting themselves to defend and exalt one or the other.

F. D. Maurice, Sermons, vol. iv., p. 1.

References: Mat 15:13.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. vii., No. 423; Preacher’s Monthly, vol. vi., p. 48. Mat 15:14.—Archbishop Benson, Boy Life: Sundays in Wellington College, p. 67. Mat 15:16.—T. Arnold, Sermons, vol. v., p. 63. Mat 15:19.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xiii., No. 732; Homiletic Quarterly, vol. v., p. 461; H.W. Bellows, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxxii., p. 125. Mat 15:21-28.—Homiletic Quarterly, vol. i., p. 58, vol. vi., p. 143; Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. ii., p. 98; Preacher’s Monthly, vol. iii., p. 297; T. Birkett Dover, The Ministry of Mercy, p. 148; J. Wells, Bible Children, p. 213; Phillips Brooks, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxxi., p. 312; G. Macdonald, Miracles of our Lord, p. 130. Mat 15:21-31.—Parker, Inner Life of Christ, vol. ii., p. 331.

Mat 15:22

This story admits us into one of those curious and subtle phases of character in Christ which, when dwelt on and understood, make Him very near to us.

I. We ask why He said these harsh and cruel things so unlike Himself; and the answer we may give is this: That He desired to get to the root of the woman’s nature—a very human and natural desire. We lose the sense of what Christ was by removing Him too far from our common human nature, by thinking that He could not share in many of our ordinary impulses because He was too near to God. As if the Divine on earth would not become far more intensely human than any one of us can understand.

II. Christ’s object was not only to find out that the woman loved and believed in Him, but also to kindle and to sting into vivid life the spiritual power of faith which He saw in the woman’s heart. For not till that was kindled could He do her the kindness she asked. To awake that Christ gave trial, as God gives it, and the waking of faith was well purchased at the price of a little pain. The woman’s soul was ennobled for ever.

III. The story illustrates the way in which God often deals with men, and it illustrates the faithful way in which men should accept that dealing. There are some who need kindness to make them love and trust God, and God is kind and makes life smooth for such. But there are others whom persistent kindness would weaken, whose characters need sharp treatment and development. And thus they learn the prayer and the perseverance of faith, which does not call itself faith, but which is infinitely more intense in reality than that sleepy trust in God which, believing that all is right, goes drawling through an inactive life without an ideal, without a noble sadness, without a burning desire to live and know we live.

S. A. Brooke, The Spirit of the Christian Life, p. 164.

References: Mat 15:22.—Clergyman’s Magazine, vol. xii., p. 90; R. Glover, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxii., p. 228.

Mat 15:22-28

Mother’s Love.

I. Our Lord judged this woman after He had tried her, as gold is tried in the fire. Why He did so we cannot tell. Perhaps He wanted by the trial to make her a better woman, to bring out something noble which lay in her heart unknown to her, though not to Him who knew what was in man. Perhaps He wished to show His disciples, who looked down on her as a heathen dog, that a heathen, too, could have faith, humility, nobleness, and grace of heart. Be that as it may, our Lord was seemingly stern. "I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel." And this woman was a Greek, a Syro-Phœnician by nation—of a mixed race of people, notoriously low and profligate, and old enemies of the Jews.

II. Yet in the poor heathen mother’s heart there rose up a whole heaven of perfect humility, faith, adoration. If she were base and mean, yet our Lord was great and wise and good; and that was all the more reason why He should be magnanimous, generous, condescending, like a true King, to the basest and meanest of His subjects. She asked not for money or honour or this world’s fine things; but simply for her child’s health, her child’s deliverance from some mysterious and degrading illness. Surely there was no harm in asking for that; and so, with her quick Syrian art, she answers our Lord in those wonderful words—so full of humility, of reverence, and yet with a certain archness, almost playfulness in them, as it were turning our Lord’s words against Him, and by that very thing showing how utterly she trusted Him: "Truth, Lord; yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their master’s table." By her words she was justified. By those few words she proved her utter faith in our Lord’s power and goodness—perhaps her faith in His Godhead. By those words she proved the gentleness and humility, the graciousness and gracefulness, of her own character. And so she conquered, as the blessed Lord loves to be conquered, by the prayer of faith, of humility, of confidence, of earnestness, and she had her reward.

C. Kingsley, All Saints’ Day and other Sermons, p. 76.

Reference: Mat 15:22, Mat 15:23.—E. Bersier, Sermons, 2nd series, p. 159.

Mat 15:23

Out of many lessons to be drawn from the terrible and touching narrative of the Gospel for the Second Sunday of Lent we notice three.

I. With respect to the disciples. We may learn from what is not written as well as from what is written what a lesson they received upon want of sympathy. They fancied they understood the whole question, and that they could read in our Lord’s unfathomable expression the image of their own cold, hard thoughts. We do not read that any words passed between our Lord and His disciples on the subject of this troublesome woman. But what a veil fell from the eyes of these men (so satisfied that they were doing their own duty and the will of their Master) when a few moments later they heard Him exclaim, "O daughter, great is thy faith." The very quality which our Lord was always telling them was so necessary for them and so wanting in them lay in a rich overflowing store in the heart of this heathenish woman.

II. The lesson of perseverance in prayer. The history gives us a picture of a person misled by appearances—(1) from want of knowing enough of Christ, and (2) from not yet having risen to that intensity of earnestness and full stretch of faith of which our nature is really capable. There is in Christ the stern goodness of a man of powerful insight; not the softness which, without doing any good, lavishes blessings before they are appreciated, but that paternal sternness which will have us brace ourselves up for a resolute, sustained effort. The prodigal son has a father’s welcome, but he must come home; he must come all the way. Like this woman, we may hear the words, "Be it unto thee even as thou wilt," but not till we have deserved the earlier words, "Great is thy faith."

III. We learn something even from the daughter. Evil thoughts are to be intensely guarded against, as the ultimate source of all the sin and misery of this world. It may be that this demon-tormented girl was no sinner above the rest. But the spectacle daily before the mother’s eyes was the fruit of sin somewhere, and that sin was the fruit of evil thoughts. If it was not a visitation upon individual evil, all the more fearful is the warning against all sin.

Archbishop Benson, Boy Life: Sundays in Wellington College, p. 251.

References: Mat 15:23.—Homiletic Quarterly, vol. i., p. 529; Spurgeon, Evening by Evening, p. 285. Mat 15:24, Mat 15:25.—Ibid., Sermons, vol. xxx., No. 1,797. Mat 15:26, Mat 15:27.—Ibid., vol. xxii., No. 1,309. Mat 15:27.—Ibid., vol. xii., No. 715; Evening by Evening, p. 87; J. Keble, Sermons from Lent to Passiontide, p. 140.

Mat 15:28

The Greatness of Faith.

I. Observe first, how widely prevalent the principle is which comes to its consummation in the giving of Himself by Christ to men. Everywhere faith, or the capacity of receiving, has a power to claim and command the thing which it needs. Nature would furnish us many an exhibition of the principle. You plant a healthy seed in the ground. The seed’s health consists simply in this, that it has the power of true relations to the soil you plant it in. And how these spring days bear us witness that the soil acknowledges the power; no sooner does it feel the seed than it replies; it unlocks all its treasures of force; the little hungry black kernel is its master. "O seed, great is thy faith," the ground seems to say: "be it unto thee even as thou wilt," and so the miracle of growth begins.

II. Here was this woman whose faith had such a power over Jesus that He could not resist it. The power of weakness over strength comes to perfection in Jesus. Could there be a more complete picture of it than shines out in His own story of the shepherd and the sheep? The shepherd has folded his ninety and nine; everything is safe, and strong, and prosperous; he stands with his hand upon the sheep-fold gate; and then, just as he seems wrapped up in the satisfaction and completeness of the sight, there comes, so light that no ear except his can hear it, the cry of one poor lost sheep off in the mountains, and it summons him with an irresistible challenge, and his staff is in his hand instantly, and he turns his back on everything else, to be the slave of that one lost sheep till it is found. What a wonderful, and everlasting, and universal story that parable is! Faith is the King’s knowledge of His own kingdom. A weak man who has no faith in Christ is a king who does not know his own royalty. But the soul which in its need cries out and claims its need’s dominion—the soul that dares to take the prerogative of its own feebleness and cry aloud, "Come to me, O Christ, for I need Thee," finds itself justified. Its bold and humble cry is honoured and answered instantly; instantly by its side the answer comes: "Great is thy faith: be it unto thee even as thou wilt. What wilt thou that I should do unto thee?"

Phillips Brooks, Sermons in English Churches, p. 157.

I. This woman’s earnestness is an example, as her success is an encouragement to us. She was importunate because she was earnest. If there be any boldness, any forwardness, any obtruding of her case on Jesus, it is to be imputed to this, that—a mother with a mother’s heart—she had a daughter grievously vexed with a devil. Be followers of me, she says. Let faith be earnest in prayer. The more the bow is bent the more the arrow flies.

II. Observe the trials to which Christ put her earnestness and faith. These were three: (1) His silence; (2) His apparent refusal; (3) His apparent reproach of her. That was a strange blow from the hand which was to bleed on Calvary for the chief of sinners, and bind up the broken-hearted, not breaking the bruised reed, nor quenching the smoking flax. In truth, it was time for her to pray, "Lord, help me;" high time, poor soul, for God to help her. And He did it, and fulfilled to her, as He will do to all who seek Him in their hour of extremity, His promise, "As thy days, so shall thy strength be." As the eagle rising on the tempest that beats down birds of feeble wing, and sends them to roost in covert of bush and rock, flies highest in the storm, so did she; with holy zeal as well as power, she seizes on our Lord’s figure and turns it to her own advantage. His purpose, which was a gracious one all along, is now gained. He had sought to draw her out, and bring forth that latent faith the language of which was music to His ear, gratifying the longings of His loving heart, and glorifying the power and grace of God. That purpose gained, he drops the mantle. And now he reveals Himself to her, as He shall to all who will not let Him go until He bless them, crowning her faith with the gracious answer, "O woman, great is thy faith: be it unto thee even as thou wilt."

T. Guthrie, The Way to Life, p. 210.

Note:—

I. the woman’s humble confession.

II. Her thankfulness for the smallest mercy.

III. Her plea; she appeals to our Lord’s generosity.

T. Guthrie, The Way to Life, p. 228.

Consider the four principal cases in which our Lord emphatically commends the faith of those who come to Him for succour.

I. The first is the case of the man sick of the palsy, described in the second chapter of St. Mark. The sick of the palsy was borne to Jesus by four men, and "when they could not come nigh Him for the press, they uncovered the roof where He was, and let down the bed whereon the sick man lay." The hindrances to the accomplishment of their purpose were of an outward and material kind.

II. Again, the blind son of Timæus, as he sat begging at the gate of Jericho, was interrupted in his cries for mercy by those who surrounded him. In his case, again, it is persevering faith which our Lord rewards, and the obstacles to success arise from the opposition and interference of others.

III. In the case of the centurion who desired the cure of his servant, we are not distinctly told of any impediments which would keep him from seeking help from Jesus; we are only left to infer them from his own language. His faith is commended in the strongest language, because the hindrance which would naturally have kept him from Christ was the enjoyment of prosperity and power.

IV. The incident narrated in the text, which is rightly considered as the strongest instance of faith triumphant over difficulties, is different from any of these. Here the obstacles to success are interposed by Christ Himself. Still the woman persisted, and still she was refused, no longer by silence, but by language more harsh and discouraging than silence itself, till at last, when she turns the very reason for the refusal into a proof of her need, and her confidence that Christ will supply it, He speaks to her in words of most gracious commendation; He grants her petition without any further delay. Once more, then, we see the victory ascribed to faith, but the difficulties here overcome are those of delay and disappointment.

Bishop Cotton, Marlborough Sermons, p. 196.

The Canaanite Mother a Type of the Gentile Church.

I. Note first the race and country of the believing mother. In the narrative Christ is said to have departed to the coasts or borders of Tyre and Sidon, and the woman to have "come out of the same coasts." St. Matthew adds that she was a "woman of Canaan." And St. Mark tells us that she was to be considered a Greek (that is, by religion, and habits), "a Syro-Phœnician by nation." These brief notes of country and origin embrace every great division of the then known Gentile world, considered as to position relatively to Israel, and still more regarded (as the Old Testament prophets always regarded them) with a view to their open hostility or hollow and treacherous alliances.

II. Now for a brief summary of the interview. (1) It is the second Adam, and the Church the second Eve. Humble, repentant, and believing, she comes from the long slavery of her idols. She acknowledged that the true solution of the physical and moral curse of this world was the supremacy of him whom the Son of David, and He alone, was empowered to overthrow. (2) Her reception was as remarkable as her appeal. "He answered her not a word." The religion of Christ had at first no word for the Gentile, and its subsequent extension was only an instance of that triumphant wisdom of Heaven which brought the greatest good out of the greatest evil, and enlightened the world by Jewish blindness. The objections of the Lord were twofold; one taken from the limits of His commission, and one from the degradation of the object. And I need not remind you how perfectly the wider parallel corresponds; how the body of the Gentiles, the oppressed of Satan, were excluded from Divine favour, partly by the mysterious limitations of Providence, and partly by the enormity of their own pollutions. (3) The woman insinuated that the Lord had power above His commission; and by that omnipotence which ruled the world it had created, she invoked Him: "Lord, help me." (4) In her words, "Truth, Lord," etc., all Christianity is concentrated in one happy sentence. Men from deep places can see the stars at noonday, and from the utter depths of her self-abasement she catches the whole blessed mystery of Heaven. With what joy did the blessed Teacher see Himself foiled in that high argument! how gladly did He yield the victory to that invincible faith!

W. Archer Butler, Sermons Doctrinal and Practical, p. 155.

Mat 15:28

I. The great faith of this woman is to be traced in her humble confession. (1) She confesses her misery when imploring the mercy of Christ. (2) She confesses her weakness when imploring the help of Christ. (3) She confesses her unworthiness by admitting the mission of Christ.

II. The great faith of this woman is to be traced in her fervent prayer. (1) Mark her recognition of the character of Christ. (2) Observe her confidence in the power of Christ. (3) Notice her earnestness in seeking the aid of Christ.

III. The great faith of this woman is to be discovered by her determined perseverance: (1) Her faith overcame the difficulty of obtaining a personal interview with Christ. (2) Her faith overcame the singularly apparent coldness of Christ. (3) Her perseverance overcame the limitation of the usual ministrations of Christ.

J. Wonnacott, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xvii., p. 156.

References: Mat 15:28.—J. Edmunds, Sixty Sermons, p. 123; S. Greg, A Layman’s Legacy, p. 208; Homiletic Quarterly, vol. iii., p. 128; J. Wonnacott, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xvii., p. 156; E. H. Bradby, Sermons Preached at Haileybury, p. 49; T. T. Lynch, Sermons for my Curates, p. 317; R. Heber, Parish Sermons, vol. ii., p. 251; W. F. Hook, Sermons on the Miracles, vol. ii., p. 33. Mat 15:32-39.—Preacher’s Monthly, vol. i., p. 221; Parker, Inner Life of Christ, vol. ii., p. 340.

Mat 15:33-34

Christ’s direction was, "How many loaves have ye?" And of this sentence it has been strikingly observed that it is characteristic of the way in which all Christ’s nature was wont to move together at once. Christ felt and thought, pitied and weighed, at the same moment. He never did mischief by His benevolence, because His judgment was behind it. The direction of the text is luminous with important principles for the duty we are thinking of today.

I. First, there is the instinct of sacrifice. These loaves were what the disciples had brought for their own use—a frugal, sparse, and homely provision. What they were invited to give away they had the right, not unreasonably, to reserve for themselves. "Not so," said the Lord. "It is yours—to share with them." Does any ask when the kingdom of Christ will really begin to grow? Only when the Church becomes capable of sacrifices worthy of herself and her Lord.

II. Another principle involved in our Lord’s words is the duty of economy. Economy is patent everywhere in the dominion of nature, and it is to be a ruling principle in the activities of grace. Eminently it guided our Lord in the exercise of His supernatural power.

III. This sentence also contains the law of continuity, full of help and guidance for the Church of God. We are not isolated, broken units: we are members of a great body, some of whom are in earth, some in heaven, all of whom must overcome by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, not loving their lives unto the death.

IV. Once more we see the beginning of faith. All great undertakings have grown out of tiny beginnings—grown often to the unspeakable surprise of those who first took them in hand. In fact, there are four stages in the history of mission work—contempt, persecution, acquiescence, triumph; and we are now in the third. Our duty is to obey our Master’s orders, leaving the result with Him. As we obey our efforts are blessed, our provision is multiplied, we find ourselves fellow-workers with God; the starving multitudes are nourished and satisfied with the bread of life. Only let us see what God asks of us, and what mankind need of us; what the Church claims, and what the Advent will discover; and then, out of the touched and listening hearts of stirred thousands, rivers of water will flow, to give life to the world.

Bishop Thorold, Family Churchman, Feb. 23rd, 1887.

Mat 15:34

In this act of our Lord’s there were two principles so fundamental that the Divine power of Jesus worked by them almost of necessity, so important that they must be made prominent even in all His impetuous eagerness to help those starving men. The first is the principle of continuity, that what is to be must come out of that which has been, that new things must come to be by an enlargement, a development, a change, a growth of old things; and the second is the principle of economy, that nothing, however little or poor, is to be wasted.

I. These two principles are stamped on all the operations of nature. Forget nature, and say, "Feed me, or I shall starve," and His question comes back to you, "How many loaves have you? Give me something to begin with, however little it may be." Drop the old remnants of a past life into the ever-fruitful soil, and all the possibilities of new life open.

II. The same truth appears in the use which God makes of men in the world. All history bears witness that when God means to make a great man He puts the circumstances of the world and the lives of lesser men under tribute. All earnest, pure, unselfish, faithful men, who have lived their obscure lives well, have helped to make him. It is the continuity and economy of human life. The great feast grows out of the few loaves and fishes.

III. In all training of character this law must be supreme. Not lawlessness, not slavish subjection to law, is the system under which we live. Progress and growth; but growth from old conditions, progress from the basis of the old life,—this is our law. Is not this what many a poor creature needs to know? You understand that you are wicked. You understand what it is to be good. But the gulf between is dreadful, impassable. What is there in you that can grow into that? Nothing. The development out of the old still needs the mightier force. Evolution is not Atheism. God must do what must be done, but God will do it. God will make you good, by sending His light and love into this past of yours, and giving all that there is good in its true development and consecration.

Phillips Brooks, The Candle of the Lord, p. 127.

References: Mat 15:36.—G. Matheson, Moments on the Mount, p. 88. Mat 16:1-12.—A. B. Bruce, The Training of the Twelve, p. 157; Parker, Inner Life of Christ, vol. ii., p. 348. Mat 16:2.—R. W. Evans, Parochial Sermons, vol. i., p. 284. Mat 16:2, Mat 16:3.—H. W. Beecher, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxviii., p. 411. Mat 16:3.—R. Thomas, Ibid., vol. xii., p. 248; H. W. Beecher, Ibid., vol. xiii., p. 392, vol. xiv., p. 10; J. Guinness Rogers, Ibid., vol. xxvii., p. 56; F. W. Farrar, Ibid., vol. xxxi., p. 97; C. Kingsley, Town and Country Sermons, p. 429. Mat 16:4.—Preacher’s Monthly, vol. x., p. 114. Mat 16:12.—G. W. McCree, Christian World Pulpit, vol. ix., p. 216; R. Scott, University Sermons, p. 151.

The Sermon Bible, ed. William Robertson Nicoll (1888–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

CHAPTER 34

BAPTIZE NOT ALWAYS A TOTAL SUBMERSION

Mat 15:1-2; Mar 7:1-6. “And the Pharisees and certain ones, the scribes, having come from Jerusalem, are assembled before Him. And seeing certain ones of His disciples eating bread with defiled, that is, unwashed hands; for the Pharisees and all the Jews, unless they may wash their hands diligently, do not eat; holding the tradition of the elders; and from the forum, if they may not be baptized, they do not eat; there are many other things which they receive to hold, such as the baptism of pots and cups and brazen vessels and couches.” Here we have the regular Greek word baptizo, constantly used in the Christian ordinance in this case, setting forth the washing of their hands when they came from the forum before they ate. How do you know but they totally immersed their hands? Perhaps they did, and for aught we know they did not but that hypothesis is utterly irrelevant to the question at issue, as it says “they” are baptized — i.e., the whole person — whereas it is a well-known fact that those Pharisaic traditions only required the washing of hands, and that was all they did. But in that case it is said that they were baptized. In a similar manner and from the same reason — i.e., the Pharisaic traditions — they baptize “pots, cups, brazen vessels, and couches.” Of course, they did not immerse the beds on which they slept and the couches on which they ate; as they would have to do it every time they came from the forum, where they were likely to transact business with Gentiles, come in contact with unclean animals, and in various ways contract ceremonial defilement. We have no controversy on water baptism or anything else. We only want the truth, which will stand the white light of the Judgment. We advise all to satisfy your consciences on this subject and every other. These Scriptures certainly reveal the fact that baptizo, the constant Greek word for baptize, does not always mean a total submersion.

PHARISAICAL HYPOCRISY

“Then the Pharisees and scribes interrogated Him, Wherefore do not Thy disciples walk according to the traditions of the elders? But they eat bread with unwashed bands.” The Word of the Lord is alone authoritative. The Churches of the present day are burdened to death with human institutions, unheard of in the Bible, wearing out the people, bankrupting them financially and spiritually, consuming their time, which ought to be spent in saving souls, in which case the Lord would turn on them showers of blessings, making life a heaven instead of a tread-mill drudgery. “And responding, He said to them, Well did Isaiah prophesy concerning you hypocrites, as has been written, This people honoreth Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me. In vain do they worship Me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men. For leaving the mandate of God, you hold the traditions of men, the baptisms of cups and pots, and you do many other such things.” Here we see that our Savior denounces all of these empty Church rites and ceremonies, with which the clergy have burdened the people. God wants His people to be free as angels, unincumbered, to labor in His vineyard with the greatest possible efficiency, and fight the devil, not like soldiers, but heroes. Hypocrite means an actor on the theatrical stage, playing an assumed part. This was the awful trouble of the Jewish Church: they had run into hollow hypocrisy and dead formality, clinging to their Church institutions with the pertinacity of a drowning man, and at the same time spiritually dead, blinded by Satan, and led captive at his will. The Oriental Churches seemed to have lost sight of everything but their own traditional institutions, while the Americans are on their track at locomotive speed. We need all the holiness people in the world — i.e., those who take the Holy Bible as their only guide — to go on eagles’ wings to the ends of the earth, and preach the everlasting gospel, before the people are all caught fast in the meshes of ecclesiastical tradition, tied up in human institutions, and totally blinded to the simple, sweet Word of God; thus led away into playing religion, instead of getting it deep down in their hearts, till it goes through them like a cyclone of fire, revealing all the contents of their interior spirit, committing to the flames all the chaff of dead formality, which constitutes the essence of practical hypocrisy, so abominable in the sight of God, and so utterly withered by the preaching of Jesus.

William B. Godbey, Commentary on the New Testament (1896–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Subdivision 3. (Mat 15:1-39; Mat 16:1-12.)

The heart of man manifested, and God’s heart told out: the way of sanctification.

We are now shown in the teachings of Israel’s leaders the blindness of man’s heart, both as to man himself, and as to the way of blessing for him. The one error of course involves the other, and it is an error, not of the mind only, but of the heart as well. The heart is in fact what is in question everywhere as to man - teacher or taught: out of the heart all evil comes, and dealing with the outside will not help it. Sanctification is not an external thing; and it can only be learnt, moreover, in the sanctuary, - in the presence of God from whom man has deeply revolted. The prodigal must return to his Father; and God is ready to welcome him. Let him take but the place to which his need should bring him, he shall find that Heart that never has been alienated or indifferent poured out over him. This is seen in the person not of a privileged Jew, but of a Canaanitess; and then in Israel we find the table of the Lord spread, and the bounty with which He would attract wanderers to Himself. The closing section returns to that with which it began, and warns against the leaven of the doctrine of the Pharisees and Sadducees.

1. The question with which we begin is raised by themselves, by Pharisees and scribes from Jerusalem, the headquarters of all the religious opposition to the Lord. They come to Him directly with the inquiry, which of course is an accusation; and as a charge against His disciples, impliedly against Him their teacher: "Why do Thy disciples transgress the tradition of the elders? for they wash not their hands when they eat bread." They had here what in their minds convicted the disciples indeed as very manifest sinners; for the breach of such a tradition was with these men a greater sin than the breach of the law itself; nay, by a manifest perversion of Exo 34:27, it was argued that this oral law it was that contained the terms of God’s covenant with Israel,* and not the other.

{*See Edersheim’s "Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah," for much else and worse upon this subject.}

Thus here was a challenge which the Lord could not allow to go unanswered. He answers them with another question; which even to themselves would destroy the authority to which they appealed, if they could not answer it: "Why do ye also transgress the commandments of God for your tradition?" And then He takes up the commandment to which in a special way God had been pleased to attach a promise for the observance of it, a signal punishment for disobedience to it, and shows how thoroughly their tradition left the door open to any who pleased, to violate it with impunity. A man had only to say it was "corban" - a gift to God - that by which he might have ministered to the need of his father or mother, to be completely excused from such a duty. "Of course, the Ten Words,’" says Edersheim, "were the Holy of Holies of the Law; nor was there any obligation more rigidly observed - indeed, carried in practice almost to the verge of absurdity, - than that of honor to parents. In both respects, then; this was a specially vulnerable point, and it might well be argued that if in this law Rabbinic ordinances came into conflict with the demands of God’s word, the essential contrariety between them must indeed be great.

"It must not be thought that the pronunciation of the votive word ’Corban,’ although meaning a ’gift’ or ’given to God,’ necessarily dedicated a thing to the Temple. The meaning might simply be, and generally was, that it was to be regarded like Corban, - that is, that in regard to the person or persons named, the thing termed so was to be considered as if it were Corban, - laid on the altar, and put entirely out of their reach. For, although included under the same name, there were really two kinds of vows: those of consecration to God, and those of personal obligation - and the latter were the most frequent.

"There can be no doubt that the words of Christ referred to such vows of personal obligation. By these a person might bind himself with regard to men or things, or else put that which was another’s out of his own reach, or that which was his own out of the reach of another, and this as completely as if the thing or things had been Corban, a gift given to God. . . . And so stringent was the ordinance that (almost in the words of Christ) it is expressly stated that such a vow was binding, even if what was vowed involved a breach of the Law. It cannot be denied that such vows in regard to parents would be binding, and were actually made. Indeed the question is discussed in the Mishnah, in so many words, whether honor of father or mother constituted a ground for invalidating a vow, and decided on the negative against a solitary dissenting voice. And if doubt should still exist, a case is related in the Mishnah, in which a father was thus shut out by the vow of his son from anything by which he might be profited by him" (Edersheim, vol. 2 pp. 17-21).

Thus was Rabbinism convicted out of its own mouth of the most glaring substitution of its traditions for the word of God, and the moral character of these involved in hopeless condemnation. Nor has traditionalism ever escaped from such a violation of conscience and the word of God. Man being what he is, it could not be otherwise: the maintenance of the word of God in absolute supremacy is his only salvation from the grossest immorality, as the "teaching for the doctrines the commandments of men" is itself rebellion against the Source of all morality.

The Lord calls the multitude together to Him therefore, to give the most public utterance to that which may seem to us so simple, and yet to which a large mass of Christians by profession have not even yet attained; that "not that which entereth into the mouth defileth a man." The source of defilement for a man is, alas, within him; and Christianity by taking away the suppositious sources has lifted the true moral element out of all confusion, and placed it upon an immutable foundation. Brought into the clear light, such a principle commends itself to every man’s conscience; but all the more would the Pharisees resent it. The disciples, in some alarm, represent this to Him; but He at once in most decisive language condemns their principles as what were no plants of His Father’s planting, but as it were weeds that must be rooted up; while they themselves were but blind leaders of blind followers: they would fall into the ditch together. For man cannot escape from the responsibility which the moral faculty entails on him, and which would for the simplest, if they would listen to it, break such snares as these.

Yet, so great is the blinding force of association and habits of thought, that even the disciples, as represented by the ever foremost Peter, desire to have "this parable" explained to them; and He has to reprove them for their spiritual slowness. How constantly was there found in this the cause of this lack of understanding which we would rather even impute to mere mental feebleness. Cannot they perceive the difference between the moral and the material? Here is indeed a fountain of evil which it may pass human ability to cleanse, but it has to be reckoned with. It is an easy thing to legislate about meats and the washing of hands, and by such poor righteousness as this satisfy oneself perhaps but too well; but even this satisfaction convicts the soul of its unrighteousness and lack of truthful dealing with itself. The evil must be faced in order to deliverance; but where shall deliverance be found?

2. The answer we have in the next incident, the story of the Canaanitish woman. From the pitiable self-righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, which is but hypocrisy, the Lord withdraws into the parts of Tyre and Sidon. Here are open sinners, long since under the divine curse for their sins; but here too, as everywhere, are the needs which under God force men to reality. Thus they are mercies in disguise, - a divine Voice, which must have mercy in it, even though this may not be recognized as such.

A woman out of these coasts comes crying after Him. With her it is need that brings her, that blessed need that in one shape or another has brought us all. But she appeals to Him by a strange title for a Canaanite - "the Son of David," and as such she could have no claim upon Him. He answers her, therefore, not a word. With a heart full of blessing for her, He yet could not bless her on false ground: for her it would not be good; for Him it would be impossible. But to come to Christ without a claim seems also at first impossible, not knowing aright either ourselves or Him. We try to claim Him by some betterness beyond our neighbors, or by our repentance and good resolutions, or in some other way by which we may avoid the full facing of our need - of that which has given the devil power against us. But the Canaanite under the curse is still our picture if we put it that way, and Christ is the Son of David, silent and afar off. He had, in fact, to take a far different position; in order that either Jews or Gentiles might have part in Him.

Yet she cries on, till the disciples also beg Him to dismiss her; impliedly (for they knew His grace) by granting her request. But he answers, "I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel." He speaks, let us notice, not of what is in His heart, but in His mission; and He speaks as Son of David, not as Son of man or Saviour. But even the house of Israel were lost sheep, little as they realized it; and if they were "lost," what hope for any, save in pure and utter grace?

She takes heart, as it seems, by this, to draw near to Him: for if Israel be lost, and He has come after them, may not a lost one from outside have hope also? and will not grace be consistent with itself? can it be local merely, and limited - not universal? how could such light shine, and not shine all round? Has he not here, in fact, supplied her with the argument which presently she uses? Did He not mean to do so, when He dropped that word, so penetrating, so assuring, into her heart?

So she comes, now worshiping, and dropping the formal title while she owns in her simple "Lord," in a more personal way, His title over her. Will He not give help to one who needs it? So she drops all other claim than this: "Lord," she says, "help me." "But He answered and said, It is not right to take the children’s loaf and cast it to the dogs."

That might seem as if she had gained nothing, but she has. Again He has dropped a word for her, if she be lowly enough to take it. For the last word "dogs" is not the word for the wild houseless, offal-hunting creatures of the eastern streets, but though still "dogs," yet the "little dogs," the house or pet-dogs even; such as would look, as she was doing, for something in the house. So that the way for her into blessing has really been laid open: if only she has humility enough to take it. And indeed faith and humility - which in a sinner is repentance - are twin companions, never to be disjoined. He that is lowly enough to take the place of dog will soon discern God’s way of grace. She sees at once the steps by which He has been leading her - "the lost," the "dog," yet the house-dog, dependent and to be cared for in some way. And then His bounteous table! perhaps she may have heard of those baskets of fragments taken up after five thousand men had been fed at it: at any rate, she did not ask, - had no need to ask the children’s loaf: the fragments - in her humility and faith, she says, "the crumbs" - would be enough for her: "Truth, Lord; for the dogs eat of the crumbs that fall from their masters, table."

No fear of that argument failing: He himself has given it her; and He would deny His very nature did He say, He was not good enough for that. But He has no thought of this, no need of the argument, which yet, for her sake, He rejoices in: His heart leaps to His lips, as He exclaims, "O woman; great is thy faith! be it unto thee even as thou wilt." And her daughter is healed from that very hour.

Here is how a human heart is led into the sanctuary; and the holy, pure, revealing light is that of grace. What work has been done in it is plain enough, and what no cleansing of the hands could ever have effected. Here is the divine remedy for the heart’s vileness, the revelation of the heart of God to it. But Pharisaism could not even understand it, and the double miracle, wrought for a Canaanite, would only have been a double offence. It is not even presented to them, therefore, but has to be done afar off, though under the eyes of His disciples, a sweet appealing picture for those that have hearts to understand it. To how many hearts has it not appealed since then!

3. So now the table of the Lord is spread, and divine fullness is poured out for man’s need. The dispensational character so largely found in Matthew still characterizes what is here, and after the blessing of the Gentile in the Canaanitish woman, the Lord is here again among the Jews, and the multitudes who are witnesses and recipients of abundant goodness, glorify the God of Israel. This is all in perfect order; and the feeding of the people has in the numbers connected with it a witness that must not be despised. There are seven loaves now, and seven baskets* full of fragments, the number of perfection being thus doubly stamped on the divine bounty, and carrying us on in thought to the final blessing.

{*Larger baskets than in the former miracle: here spurides,

"round, plaited-baskets; fish- or provision-baskets;" in the former case, kopsinoi, "hand- or traveling-baskets. The distinction is always preserved, as in the next chapter.}

4. A new demand is now made upon Christ for a sign from heaven; the Pharisees uniting with their constant enemies, the Sadducees, to make it. The coming together of those otherwise so opposed was but a sign of the strength of that opposition to Jesus which united them. There was not even truth in the desire they expressed; and the character of it showed the reason why they could not see in Him the reality of His claim. A sign that could work upon a carnal people was what they sought, and which would have left them a carnal people still. The faith so awakened would have had none of the moral qualities of faith in it: conscience and heart would have been alike wanting, and God so displayed would have been half dethroned. What a slight, too, would be put upon the Sign of signs, Himself, the Son of God, come in power, yet in all the grace of humanity, among men His creatures! From Him, indeed, the supernatural was natural; but on that account it could not accredit Him: He was above it, though it bore witness to Him. To those who believed on His Name when they saw His miracles, He could not commit Himself (Joh 2:23-25).

In fact, they were prophets of the external and could read well enough the face of the sky: the spiritual condition; which always rules in the signs of the times just because God is a moral Governor, this they could not see. Had they done so, they would have judged first their own condition and have been brought by their need to the supply provided.

But "a wicked and adulterous generation" it was that sought after a sign; and they would get none but the sign of Jonas. His death and resurrection would be a sign against them, that they had rejected the message of God and His grace, such as Nineveh had known nothing about. Already He had declared this as now inevitable, and briefly refers to it here, as to a sentence pronounced. Then He leaves them and departs.

5. But these Pharisees and Sadducees do not present an evil wholly outside of the circle of His disciples. We have all of us, alas, within us that which makes us from the side of nature but too much akin to them, and in our hearts that which offers itself as a ready and kindly soil for their most seemingly opposite errors. The Lord therefore, in that enigmatic way which He so much used, and which is so well adapted to awaken thought and searching of heart, bids His disciples "beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees." They can think only that it is because they have taken no bread; although it would be enigmatic enough how the ritualism or rationalism of these could affect their bread-making. But this manifested again the terrible unbelief of those who had twice so lately seen Him multiply the loaves so as to satisfy thousands. Yet they could think that He was troubled about the supply of bread! Nay, it was of the doctrine of the Jewish leaders He was speaking, and of its subtle pervasive working; by which indeed Christendom has been so largely corrupted since. We have already seen His own use of the figure in this way, and it might have prepared them to understand of what He was now speaking. They were slow to understand; but how slowly indeed does that which is .of God dawn upon us in general!

F. W. Grant, The Numerical Bible (4th ed., 1903) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

15:1-20 Jesus indicted the Pharisees for disobeying God’s law in their zeal to preserve traditions.

15:1 Jerusalem was the location of the Temple and thus the seat of authority in Judaism; this gave the ambassadors greater leverage in their arguments with Jesus.

Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Mat 15:1.[675] Οἱ ἀπὸ Ἱεροσολύμων, which were of Jerusalem) Who appeared to excel in authority and zeal, having come such a long way.[676]

[675] Τότε, then) By this particle, the narration of the events which had happened before and after the Passover is connected together: from which we may infer that Jesus, at that time, had not gone up to Jerusalem.—Harm., p. 340. It was at a time most unseasonable that the hypocrites made an oblique attack on Him, starting a question, high sounding, no doubt, but after all ending in mere minutiæ.—V. g.

[676] After the feast of the Passover had been celebrated at Jerusalem.—Harm., p. 340.

Bengel's Gnomon of the New Testament — English translation (T&T Clark, Edinburgh, 1860) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Mat_15:1. The three sections of ch. 15, having as their respective subjects the washing of hands (Mat_15:1-20), the woman of Canaan (Mat_15:21-31), and the feeding of the four thousand (Mat_15:32-39), occur elsewhere only in Mark (Mat_7:8), whom Matthew partly abridges and partly supplements.

τότε] when He was staying in the country of Gennesareth.

οἱ ἀπὸ Ἱερος. γρ. (see critical notes): the scribes who belonged to Jerusalem, and had come from that city (Mar_7:1). Well-known attraction of the preposition with the article. See Kühner, II. 1, p. 473 ff., and ad Xen. Mem. iii. 6. 11. Comp. Act_21:27; Col_4:16, al.

Meyer — Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament — English translation by Peter Christie, edited by Frederick Crombie (T&T Clark, 1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Mat 15:1-20 . Washing of hands (Mar 7:1-23 ).

Mat 15:1 . τότε connects naturally with immediately preceding narrative concerning the people of Gennesaret with unbounded faith in Jesus seeking healing by mere touch of His garment. Probably the one scene led to the other: growing popular enthusiasm deepening Pharisaic hostility. προσέρχονται ( οἱ ) ἀ . Ἱ . If οἱ be omitted, the sense is that certain persons came to Jesus from Jerusalem. If it be retained, the sense is: certain persons belonging to Jerusalem came from it, the preposition ἐν being changed into ἀπὸ by attraction of the verb. φαρ . καὶ γρ ., usually named in inverse order, as in T.R. Our evangelist makes the whole party come from Jerusalem; Mk., with more probability, the scribes only. The guardians of tradition in the Capital have their evil eye on Jesus and co-operate with the provincial rigorists.

The Expositor's Greek Testament, edited by W. Robertson Nicoll (1897–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Chap.

15:1-20.] Discourse concering eating with unwashed hands. Mar 7:1-23. From Mark it appears that these Scribes and Pharisees had come expressly from Jerusalem to watch our Lord: most probably after that Passover which was nigh at the time of feeding the five thousand, Joh 6:4.

Henry Alford, The Greek Testament (1849–1861) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

(M)

15:1. Then there come to Jesus from Jerusalem Pharisees and scribes, saying.] Mk. has: “And there gather together to Him the Pharisees, and certain of the scribes, who had come from Jerusalem.”—τότε] see on 2:7.—προσέρχονται] see on 4:3.

International Critical Commentary — older volumes (1896–1929), various authors — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

None commonly are more bold contemners of God, than they whom God appointeth keepers of his law.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

Evil manners, we say, beget good laws. The intemperate heat of the Jewish teachers for the support of their hierarchy, occasioned many excellent discourses of our Saviour's for the settling of the truth, as here.

I. Here, is the cavil of the scribes and Pharisees at Christ's disciples, for eating with unwashen hands. The scribes and Pharisees were the great men of the Jewish church, men whose gain was godliness, great enemies to the gospel of Christ, but colouring their opposition with a pretence of zeal for the law of Moses, when really nothing was intended but the support of their own tyranny over the consciences of men. They were men of learning and men of business. These scribes and Pharisees here introduced were of Jerusalem, the holy city, the head city, whither the tribes went up, and where were set the thrones of judgment; they should therefore have been better than others, but they were worse. Note, External privileges, if they be not duly improved, commonly swell men up the more with pride and malignity. Jerusalem, which should have been a pure spring, was now become a poisoned sink. How is the faithful city become a harlot!

Now if these great men be the accusers, pray what is the accusation? What articles do they exhibit against the disciples of Christ? Why, truly, the thing laid to their charge, is, nonconformity to the canons of their church (Mat 15:2); Why do thy disciples transgress the tradition of the elders? This charge they make good in a particular instance; They wash not their hands when they eat bread. A very high misdemeanor! It was a sign that Christ's disciples conducted themselves inoffensively, when this was the worst thing they could charge them with.

Observe, 1. What was the tradition of the elders - That people should often wash their hands, and always at meat. This they placed a great deal of religion in, supposing that the meat they touched with unwashen hands would be defiling to them. The Pharisees practiced this themselves, and with a great deal of strictness imposed it upon others, not under civil penalties, but as matter of conscience, and making it a sin against God if they did not do it. Rabbi Joses determined, "that to eat with unwashen hands is as great a sin as adultery." And Rabbi Akiba being kept a close prisoner, having water sent him both to wash his hands with, and to drink with his meat, the greatest part being accidentally shed, he washed his hands with the remainder, though he left himself none to drink, saying he would rather die than transgress the tradition of the elders. Nay, they would not eat meat with one that did not wash before meat. This mighty zeal in so small a matter would appear very strange, if we did not still see it incident to church-oppressors, not only to be fond of practising their own inventions, but to be furious in pressing their own impositions.

2. What was the transgression of this tradition or injunction by the disciples; it seems, they did not wash their hands when they ate bread, which was the more offensive to the Pharisees, because they were men who in other things were strict and conscientious. The custom was innocent enough, and had a decency in its civil use. We read of the water for purifying at the marriage where Christ was present (Joh 2:6), though Christ turned it into wine, and so put an end to that use of it. But when it came to be practised and imposed as a religious rite and ceremony, and such a stress laid upon it, the disciples, though weak in knowledge, yet were so well taught as not to comply with it, or observe it; no not when the scribes and Pharisees had their eye upon them. They had already learned St. Paul's lesson, All things are lawful for me; no doubt, it is lawful to wash before meat; but I will not be brought under the power of any; especially not those who said to their souls, Bow down, that we may go over. Co1 6:12.

3. What was the complaint of the scribes and Pharisees against them. They quarrel with Christ about it, supposing that he allowed them in it, as he did, no doubt, by his own example; "Why do thy disciples transgress the canons of the church? And why dost thou suffer them to do it?" It was well that the complaint was made to Christ; for the disciples themselves, though they knew their duty in this case, were perhaps not so well able to give a reason for what they did as were to be wished.

II. Here is Christ's answer to this cavil, and his justification of the disciples in that which was charged upon them as a transgression. Note, While we stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free, he will be sure to bear us out in it.

Two ways Christ replies upon them;

1. By way of recrimination, Mat 15:3-6. They were spying motes in the eyes of his disciples, but Christ shows them a beam in their own. But that which he charges upon them is not barely a recrimination, for it will be no vindication of ourselves to condemn our reprovers; but it is such a censure of their tradition (and the authority of that was what they built their charge upon) as makes not only a non-compliance lawful, but an opposition a duty. That human authority must never be submitted to, which sets up in competition with divine authority.

(1.) The charge in general is, You transgress the commandment of God by your tradition. They called it the tradition of the elders, laying stress upon the antiquity of the usage, and the authority of them that imposed it, as the church of Rome does upon fathers and councils; but Christ calls it their tradition. Note, Illegal impositions will be laid to the charge of those who support and maintain them, and keep them up, as well of those who first invented and enjoined them; Mic 6:16. You transgress the commandment of God. Note, Those who are most zealous of their own impositions, are commonly most careless of God's commands; which is a good reason why Christ's disciples should stand upon their guard against such impositions, lest, though at first they seem only to infringe the liberty of Christians, they come at length to confront the authority of Christ. Though the Pharisees, in this command of washing before meat, did not entrench upon any command of God; yet, because in other instances they did, he justifies his disciples' disobedience to this.

(2.) The proof of this charge is in particular instance, that of their transgressing the fifth commandment.

[1.] Let us see what the command of God is (Mat 15:4), what the precept, and what the sanction of the law is.

The precept is, Honour thy father and thy mother; this is enjoined by the common Father of mankind, and by paying respect to them whom Providence has made the instruments of our being, we give honour to him who is the Author of it, who has thereby, as to us, put some of his image upon them. The whole of children's duty to their parents is included in this of honouring them, which is the spring and foundation of all the rest, If I be a father, where is my honour? Our Saviour here supposes it to mean the duty of children's maintaining their parents, and ministering to their wants, if there be occasion, and being every way serviceable to their comfort. Honour widows, that is, maintain them, Ti1 5:3.

The sanction of this law in the fifth commandment, is, a promise, that thy days may be long; but our Saviour waives that, lest any should thence infer it to be only a thing commendable and profitable, and insists upon the penalty annexed to the breach of this commandment in another scripture, which denotes the duty to be highly and indispensably necessary; He that curseth father or mother, let him die the death: this law we have, Exo 21:17. 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 but like him that said, I go, Sir, and went not, Mat 21:30.

[2.] Let us see what was the contradiction which the tradition of the elders gave to this command. It was not direct and downright, but implicit; their casuists gave them such rules as furnished them with an easy evasion from the obligation of this command, Mat 15:5, Mat 15:6. You hear what God saith, but ye say so and so. Note, That which men say, even great men, and learned men, and men in authority, must be examined by that which God saith; and if it be found either contrary or inconsistent, it may and must be rejected, Act 4:19. Observe,

First, What their tradition was; That a man could not in any case bestow his worldly estate better than to give it to the priests, and devote it to the service of the temple: and that when any thing was so devoted, it was not only unlawful to alienate it, but all other obligations, though ever so just and sacred, were thereby superseded, and a man was thereby discharged from them. And this proceeded partly from their ceremoniousness, and the superstitious regard they had to the temple, and partly from their covetousness, and love of money: for what was given to the temple they were gainers by. The former was, in pretence, the latter was, in truth, at the bottom of this tradition.

Secondly, How they allowed the application of this to the case of children. When their parents' necessities called for their assistance, they pleaded, that all they could spare from themselves and their children, they had devoted to the treasury of the temple; It is a gift, by whatsoever thou mightest be profited by me, and therefore their parents must expect nothing from them; suggesting withal, that the spiritual advantage of what was so devoted, would redound to the parents, who must live upon that air. This, they taught, was a good and valid plea, and many undutiful, unnatural children made use of it, and they justified them in it, and said, He shall be free; so we supply the sense. Some go further, and supply it thus, "He doth well, his days shall be long in the land, and he shall be looked upon as having duly observed the fifth commandment." The pretence of religion would make his refusal to provide for his parents not only passable but plausible. But the absurdity and impiety of this tradition were very evident: for revealed religion was intended to improve, not to overthrow, natural religion; one of the fundamental laws of which is this of honouring our parents; and had they known what that meant, I will have justice, and mercy, and not sacrifice, they had not thus made the most arbitrary rituals destructive of the most necessary morals. This was making the command of God of no effect. Note, Whatever leads to, or countenances, disobedience, does, in effect, make void the command; and they that take upon them to dispense with God's law, do, in Christ's account, repeal and disannul it. To break the law is bad, but to teach men so, as the scribes and Pharisees did, is much worse, Mat 5:19. To what purpose is the command given, if it be not obeyed? The rule is, as to us, of none effect, if we be not ruled by it. It is time for thee, Lord, to work; high time for the great Reformer, the great Refiner, to appear; for they have made void thy law (Psa 119:126); not only sinned against the commandment, but, as far as in them lay, sinned away the commandment. But, thanks be to God, in spite of them and all their traditions, the command stands in full force, power, and virtue.

2. The other part of Christ's answer is by way of reprehension; and that which he here charges them with, is hypocrisy; Ye hypocrites, Mat 15:7. Note, It is the prerogative of him who searcheth the heart, and knows what is in man, to pronounce who are hypocrites. The eye of man can perceive open profaneness, but it is only the eye of Christ that can discern hypocrisy, Luk 16:15. And as it is a sin which his eye discovers, so it is a sin which of all others his soul hates.

Now Christ fetches his reproof from Isa 29:13. Well did Esaias prophesy of you. Isaiah spoke it of the men of that generation to which he prophesied, yet Christ applies it to these scribes and Pharisees. Note, The reproofs of sin and sinners, which we find in scripture, were designed to reach the like persons and practices to the end of the world; for they are not of private interpretation, Pe2 1:20. The sinners of the latter days are prophesied of, Ti1 4:1; Ti2 3:1; Pe2 3:3. Threatenings directed against others, belong to us, if we be guilty of the same sins. Isaiah prophesied not of them only, but of all other hypocrites, against whom that word of his is still levelled, and stands in force. The prophecies of scripture are every day in the fulfilling.

This prophecy exactly deciphers a hypocritical nation, Isa 9:17; Isa 10:6. Here is,

(1.) The description of hypocrites, in two things.

[1.] In their own performances of religious worship, Mat 15:8, when they draw nigh to God with their mouth, and honour him with their lips, their heart is far from him. Observe,

First, How far a hypocrite goes; he draws nigh to God, and honours him; he is, in profession, a worshipper of God. The Pharisee went up to the temple, to pray; he does not stand at that distance which those are at, who live without God in the world, but has a name among the people near unto him. They honour him; that is, they take on them to honour God, they join with those that do so. Some honour God has even from the services of hypocrites, as they help to keep up the face and form of godliness in the world, whence God fetches honour to himself, though they intend it not to him. When God's enemies submit themselves but feignedly, when they lie unto him, so the word is (Psa 66:3), it redounds to his honour, and he gets himself a name.

Secondly, Where he rests and takes up; this is done gut with his mouth and with his lips. It is piety but from the teeth outwards; he shows much love, and that is all, there is in his heart no true love; they make their voices to be heard (Isa 58:4), mention the name of the Lord, Isa 48:1. Hypocrites are those that only make a lip-labour of religion and religious worship. In word and tongue, the worst hypocrites may do as well as the best saints, and speak as fair with Jacob's voice.

Thirdly, What that is wherein he comes short; it is in the main matter; Their heart is far from me, habitually alienated and estranged (Eph 4:18), actually wandering and dwelling upon something else; no serious thoughts of God, no pious affections toward him, no concern about the soul and eternity, no thoughts agreeable to the service. God is near in their mouth, but far from their reins, Jer 12:2; Eze 33:31. The heart, with the fool's eyes, is in the ends of the earth. It is a silly dove that is without a heart, and so it is a silly duty, Hos 7:11. A hypocrite says one thing, but thinks another. The great thing that God looks at and requires is the heart (Pro 23:26); if that be far from him, it is not a reasonable service and therefore not an acceptable one; it is the sacrifice of fools, Ecc 5:1.

[2.] In their prescriptions to others. This is an instance of their hypocrisy, that they teach for doctrines the commandments of men. The Jews then, as the papists since, paid the same respect to oral tradition that they did to the word of God, receiving it pari pietatis affectu ac reverenti - with the same pious affection and reverence. Conc. Trident. Sess. 4. Decr. 1. When men's inventions are tacked to God's institutions, and imposed accordingly, this is hypocrisy, a mere human religion. The commandments of men are properly conversant about the things of men, but God will have his own work done by his own rules, and accepts not that which he did not himself appoint. That only cones to him, that comes from him.

(2.) The doom of hypocrites; it is put in a little compass; In vain do they worship me. Their worship does not attain the end for which it was appointed; it will neither please God, nor profit themselves. If it be not in spirit, it is not in truth, and so it is all nothing. That man who only seems to be religious, but is not so, his religion is vain (Jam 1:26); and if our religion be a vain oblation, a vain religion, how great is that vanity! How sad is it to live in an age of prayers and sermons, and sabbaths and sacraments, in vain, to beat the air in all these; it is so, if the heart be not with God in them. Lip-labour is lost labour, Isa 1:11. Hypocrites sow the wind and reap the whirlwind; they trust in vanity, and vanity will be their recompence.

Thus Christ justified his disciples in their disobedience to the traditions of the elders; and this the scribes and Pharisees got by their cavilling. We read not of any reply they made; if they were not satisfied, yet they were silenced, and could not resist the power wherewith Christ spake.

Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

CHAPTER XV.

The Pharisees accuse the disciples of eating with unwashed

hands, 1, 2.

Our Lord answers, and convicts them of gross hypocrisy, 3-9.

Teaches the people and the disciples what it is that renders

men unclean, 10-20.

Heals the daughter of a Canaanitish woman, 21-28.

Heals many diseased people on a mountain of Galilee, 29-31.

With seven loaves, and a few little fishes, he feeds 4,000 men,

besides women and children, 32-38.

Having dismissed the multitudes, he comes to the coast of

Magdala, 39

NOTES ON CHAP. XV.

Verse 1. The scribes and Pharisees - of Jerusalem] Our Lord was now in Galilee, Mt 14:34.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

XV.

(1) Scribes and Pharisees, which were of Jerusalem.—The presence of these actors on the scene is every way significant. They had been prominent in like accusations. It was by them that our Lord had been accused of blasphemy in forgiving sins (Mat_9:3), of eating and drinking with publicans and sinners (Mat_9:11), of disregarding fasts (Mat_9:14), of casting out devils by Beelzebub (Mat_12:24), of Sabbath-breaking (Mat_12:2; Mat_12:10). It was, we may believe, their presence in the synagogue of Capernaum which led our Lord to adopt (as in Joh_6:26-65) a form of teaching so unlike the usual tenor of that of His Galilean ministry. And now they return to the charge again with a new and characteristic accusation.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

1 Then came to Jesus scribes and Pharisees, which were of Jerusalem, saying,

Ver. 1. Then came to Jesus] Then, when the men of Gennesaret favoured and observed him. Satan stomacheth the prosperity of God’s kingdom in any place, and stirreth up his to oppose it. Esau began with Jacob in the womb, that no time might be lost. As soon as ever the Church’s child was born the devil sought to drown him, Rev 12:15

Scribes and Pharisees] Learned and lewd; these are Christ’s greatest enemies, hypocrites especially, those night birds that cannot bear the light of true religion, but, as bats, beat against it.

Which were of Jerusalem] That faithful city was now become a harlot, her silver was degenerated into dross, her wine mixed with water, Isa 1:22. The sweetest wine turns into the sourest vinegar, the whitest ivory burned, into the blackest coal. So about the year 1414, Theodoricus Urias, in Germany, an Augustine friar, complained, not without cause, Ecclesiam Romanam ex aurea factam argenteam, ex argentea ferream, ex ferrea terream, superesse ut in stercus abiret. Machiavel observed that there was nowhere less piety than in those that dwelt nearest to Rome. {a}

{a} Machiavel. Disput. de rep. lib. 1, cap. 12.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

See also Mar 7:1-9.

Then came to Jesus ... - Mark says that they saw the disciples of Jesus eating with unwashed hands.

Mat 15:2

Transgress the tradition of the elders - The world “elders” literally means “old men.” Here it means the “ancients,” or their “ancestors.” The “tradition of the elders” meant something handed down from one to another by memory; some precept or custom not commanded in the written law, but which scribes and Pharisees held themselves bound to observe.

They supposed that when Moses was on Mount Sinai two sets of laws were delivered to him: one, they said, was recorded, and is that contained in the Old Testament; the other was handed down from father to son, and kept uncorrupted to their day. They believed that Moses, before he died, delivered this law to Joshua; he to the Judges; they to the prophets; so that it was kept pure until it was recorded in the Talmuds. In these books these pretended laws are now contained. They are exceedingly numerous and very trifling. They are, however, regarded by the Jews as more important than either Moses or the prophets.

One point in which the Pharisees differed from the Sadducees was in holding to these traditions. It seems, however, that in the particular traditions mentioned here, all the Jews were united; for Mark adds Mar 7:3 that “the Pharisees and all the Jews, except they wash their hands oft, eat not, holding the tradition of the elders.” Mark has also added that this custom of washing extended not merely to their hands before eating, but in coming from the market; and also to cups, and pots, and brass vessels, and tables, Mar 7:3-4. They did this professedly for the sake of cleanliness. So far it was well. But they also made it a matter of superstition. They regarded external purity as of much more importance than the purity of the heart. They had many foolish rules about it respecting the quantity of water that was to be used, the way in which it should be applied, the number of times it should be changed, the number of those that might wash at a time, etc. Our Saviour did not think it proper to regard these rules, and this was the reason why they “found fault” with him.

Mat 15:3

But he answered ... - They accused him of violating their traditions, as though they were obligatory.

In his answer he implied that his disciples were not bound to obey their traditions - they were invented by human beings. He said, also, that those traditions could not be binding, as they violated the commandments of God. He proceeded to specify a case in which their tradition made void one of the plain laws of God; and if that was their character, then they could not blame him for not regarding them.

Mat 15:4

For God commanded ... - That is, in the fifth commandment Exo 20:12, and in Exo 21:17. To “honor” is to obey, to reverence, to speak kindly to, to speak and think well of. To “curse” is to disobey, to treat with irreverence, to swear at, to speak ill of, to think evil of in the heart, to meditate or do any evil to a parent. All this is included in the original word.

Let him die the death - This is a Hebrew phrase, the same as saying, “let him surely die.” The Jewish law punished this crime with death. This duty of honoring and obeying a parent was what Christ said they had violated by their traditions. He proceeds to state the way in which it was done.

Mat 15:5

It is a gift - In Mark it is “corban.” The word “corban” is a Hebrew word denoting a gift.

Here it means a thing dedicated to the service of God, and therefore not to be appropriated to any other use. The Jews were in the habit of making such dedications. They devoted their property to God for sacred uses, as they pleased. In doing this they used the word קרבן qaarbaan or κορβᾶν korban, or some similar word, saying, this thing is “corban,” i. e., it is a gift to God, or is sacred to him. The law required that when a dedication of this kind was made it should be fulfilled. “Vow and pay unto the Lord your God,” Psa 76:11. See Deu 23:21. The law of God required that a son should honor his parent; i. e., among other things, that he should provide for his needs when he was old and in distress. Yet the Jewish teachers said that it was more important for a man to dedicate his property to God than to provide for the needs of his parent.

If he had once devoted his property once said it was “corban,” or a gift to God - it could not be appropriated even to the support of a parent. If a parent was needy and poor, and if he should apply to a son for assistance, and the son should reply, though in anger, “It is devoted to God; this property which you need, and by which you might be profited by me, is “corban” - I have given it to God;” the Jews said the property could not be recalled, and the son was not under obligation to aid a parent with it. He had done a more important thing in giving it to God. The son was free. He could not be required to do anything for his father after that. Thus, he might, in a moment, free himself from the obligation to obey his father or mother. In a sense somewhat similar to this, the chiefs and priests of the Sandwich Islands had the power of devoting anything to the service of the gods by saying that it was “taboo,” or “tabooed;” that is, it became consecrated to the service of religion; and, no matter who had been the owner, it could then be appropriated for no other use. In this way they had complete power over all the possessions of the people, and could appropriate them for their own use under the pretence of devoting them to religion. Thus, they deprived the people of their property under the plea that it was consecrated to the gods. The Jewish son deprived his parents of a support under the plea that the property was devoted to the service of religion. The principle was the same, and both systems were equally a violation of the rights of others.

Besides, the law said that a man should die who cursed his father, i. e., that refused to obey him, or to provide for him, or spoke in anger to him. Yet the Jews said that, though in anger, and in real spite and hatred, a son said to his father, “All that I have which could profit you I have given to God,” he should be free from blame. Thus, the whole law was made void, or of no use, by what appeared to have the appearance of piety. “No man, according to their views, was bound to obey the fifth commandment and support an aged and needy parent, if, either from superstition or spite, he chose to give his property to God, that is, to devote it to some religious use.”

Our Saviour did not mean to condemn the practice of giving to God, or to religious and charitable objects. The law and the gospel equally required this. Jesus commended even a poor widow that gave all her living, Mar 12:44, but he condemned the practice of giving to God where it interfered with our duty to parents and relations; where it was done to get rid of the duty of aiding them; and where it was done out of a malignant and rebellious spirit, with the semblance of piety, to get clear of doing to earthly parents what God required.

Mat 15:7

Ye hypocrites! - See the notes at Mat 7:5. Hypocrisy is the concealment of some base principle under the pretence of religion. Never was there a clearer instance of it than this an attempt to get rid of the duty of providing for needy parents under an appearance of piety toward God.

Esaias - That is, Isaiah. This prophecy is found in Isa 29:13.

Prophesy of you - That is, he spoke of the people of his day of the Jews, as Jews - in terms that apply to the whole people. He properly characterized the nation in calling them hypocrites. The words are applicable to the nation at all times, and they apply, therefore, to you. He did not mean particularly to speak of the nation in the time of Christ, but he spoke of them as having a national character of hypocrisy. Compare the notes at Mat 1:22-23.

Mat 15:8

Draweth nigh unto me with their mouth ... - That is, they are regular in the forms of worship; they are strict in ceremonial observances, and keep the law outwardly; but God requires the heart, and that they have not rendered.

Mat 15:9

In vain do they worship me - That is, their attempts to worship are “vain,” or are not real worship - they are mere “forms.”

Teaching for doctrines ... - The word “doctrines,” here, means the requirements of religion - things to be believed and practiced in religion.

God only has a right to declare what shall be done in his service; but they held their traditions to be superior to the written word of God, and taught them as doctrines binding the conscience. See the notes at Isa 29:13.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

The Pharisees observed a rigid and simple mode life, disdaining all luxurious delicacies. They scrupulously followed the dicta of reason, and paid the greatest veneration and implicit obedience to the opinions and traditions of their seniors. All contingencies they ascribe to fate, but not to the exclusion of free-will. The immortality of the soul, and a future state of rewards and punishments, were favourite tenets with them, and their fame for wisdom, temperance, and integrity was proverbial. (Josephus, Antiq. Book xviii, chap. ii.)

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

Mark relates this piece of history more largely, Mar 7:1-5, Then came together unto him the Pharisees, and certain, of the scribes, which came from Jerusalem. And when they saw some of his disciples eat bread with defiled, that is to say, with unwashen, hands, they found fault. For the Pharisees, and all the Jews, except they wash their hands oft, eat not, holding the tradition of the elders. And when they come from the market, except they wash, they eat not. And many other things there be, which they have received to hold, as the washing of cups, and pots, brasen vessels, and of tables. Then the Pharisees and scribes asked him, Why walk not thy disciples according to the tradition of the elders, but eat bread with unwashen hands? This portion of Scripture cannot be well understood without understanding something of the Jewish government as to matters ecclesiastical; in which the high priest was the chief. God addeth seventy men more to Moses and Aaron, Num 11:25, to bear a share in the government; these were called the sanhedrim; and this was the supreme court of judicature amongst the Jews, as to all things which respected the laws of God, whether moral, judicial, or ceremonial, and every one was bound to abide by their determination. These sat in Jerusalem, but had their inferior courts in other places, from which they appealed to the sanhedrim, who finally determined, Deu 17:8-13. It was the great business of this court to take care that there should be no corruption in religion. These were they therefore that sent messengers to John, when he began to preach, to inquire what he was, and by what authority he baptized, Joh 1:19. The Pharisees (as we before heard) had charged our Saviour’s disciples with violation of the sabbath by plucking and rubbing ears of corn, and himself also with the same crime for healing the sick. It is very like these accusations were got to Jerusalem, and that these were emissaries sent from the sanhedrim to watch our Saviour, or possibly they came out of their own curiosity. They could find in our Saviour no guilt as to any violation of the law of God, but they pick a quarrel with him for some rites and ceremonies of their church, which he and his disciples were not so strict in the observation of. They say, Why do thy disciples transgress the traditions of the elders? The word traditions signifies only things delivered, and is as well applicable to the law of God as any thing else. Thus the whole law of God was but a tradition, a doctrine of life, delivered to the Jews by Moses from God: thus the apostle bids the Thessalonians, Hold the traditions which ye have been taught, whether by word, or our epistle, 2Th 2:15. But the term of the elders is that which restraineth it, for as the papists in our time hold that, besides what we have in the New Testament, the apostle delivered many things to the primitive church only by word of mouth, which have since that time been imparted to succeeding churches, to the observation of which Christians are as much obliged as to the written word, so the Jews did formerly. For though, for some tract of time, they kept to the Divine law, yet in process of time they abused that text, Deu 4:14, to found a new invention upon it: That while Moses was in the mount of God forty days and forty nights, God in the day time revealed to him the law written in the five books of Moses, and in the night he revealed to him several other things, as to which his will was they should not be written, for fear the heathens should transcribe them, but be delivered only by word of mouth to the sanhedrim, and be to them as much a rule of judgment as any part of the law which was written. By which means they gained themselves a liberty of making the law of God what they pleased, for their traditions were of several sorts. Some were determinations of what in the law seemed doubtful. Others were determinations of what the law left at liberty. Others they called sepimenta legis, rules they gave under pretence of a guard to the Divine law; for the more caution, that they might not transgress it. These things at first were not imposed as laws, but commended by way of advice and counsel, afterward they came to be looked upon as laws, and grew almost infinite. They tell us that Ezra was he who gathered those traditions together, and made the Cabbala in seventy-two books, which was kept by Gamaliel and others till the destruction of Jerusalem. A hundred and twenty years after, they tell us Rabbi Judas, the son of Simon, composed a book of them, called Misna. Three hundred years after this, they tell us R. Johanan found more, and he and others, his colleagues, collected them into a larger book, called the Jerusalem Talmud. A hundred years after this, another rabbi made a collection of the traditions amongst the Jews that remained in Babylon, which he called the Babylonish Talmud; by which two the Jews are governed in ecclesiastical matters, all the world over, at this day. Their whole Talmud is divided into six parts. The sixth is about purifications; it containeth twelve books, and every book hath twenty or thirty chapters, all treating about the purifying of houses, clothes, vessels, human bodies, and their several parts. The Jews after the destruction of Jerusalem were in such an afflicted state, that though their Talmud was not perfected of five hundred years and more after Christ, yet it is probable they added not much to what they had in use in Christ’s time. The Pharisees were very severe as to these traditions. The Sadducees kept more to the written law. But the Pharisees were in far greater credit with the Jews, therefore Paul called them the strictest sect of the Jewish religion, Act 26:5. The Jews have several ordinary sayings, that show in what esteem they had these traditions, as, If the scribes say our right hand is our left, and our left hand our right, we are to believe them. And, There is more in the words of the scribes than the words of the law, & c. These scribes and Pharisees accuse our Saviour’s disciples for the violation of one of these traditions. Mark saith, that the Pharisees, and all the Jews, ( that is, the major part of those that followed the Pharisees’ faction), except they wash their hands oft, eat not. They thought it sinful to eat unless they often washed their hands. The foundation of this tradition was doubtless in the Levitical law. God by that law had declared him unclean that should touch the carcass of any unclean thing, Lev 5:2,3. Upon this (as some think) they had superstructed a tradition of washing their hands, pots, cups, vessels, when they had been at the market, or almost any where, for fear they, or their pots, cups, &c., should have touched any unclean person or thing. In this they were guilty of several errors:

1. Extending the law to the touching of things and persons, of whom the law had said nothing.

2. In cases where such touches happened accidentally, and were not made on purpose.

3. In thinking that the stain of sin could be washed away by a ritual action, which God never commanded.

We must not think that they charge the disciples here with a neglect of a civil washing for cleanliness, but of a religious superstitious washing.

Mark saith, κοιναις χεπσι, that is, with common hands; we translate it, polluted: so Act 10:14; 11:8; hands not first separated to God by the religious rite of washings.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

The Traditions of the Elders. The Canaanitish Woman. Feeding the Four Thousand

1-20. Unwashed hands and the traditions of the elders (Mar_7:1). In this important controversy Jesus defined His position, (1) towards rabbinical traditions about the Law; (2) towards the Law itself. The first part of our Lord's discourse (Mat_15:3-9) is addressed to the Pharisees. In it He admits (or at least does not dispute) the binding character of the Law itself, but denies the authority of rabbinical tradition, and that on two grounds: (1) that it had no divine authority; (2) that instead of forming 'a hedge round the Law,' and assisting its observance, as it professed to do, it really abrogated it, by affording pretexts for its evasion. The second part of the discourse (Mat_15:10-20), addressed to the disciples and the multitude, carries the argument a step farther. Our Lord lays down the principle (Mar_7:15) that 'there is nothing from without a man, which entering in can defile him; but the things which come out of him, those are they that defile the man'; that is to say, that the whole ceremonial Law, with its distinctions of meats, its ablutions, its sacrifices, and its round of external observances, is no longer binding, and is about to be vabolished. At the time our Lord's line of argument was probably as distasteful to His own disciples as to the Pharisees. Long after this (Act_10:14) St. Peter was so far from accepting it that he resisted the divine voice that bade him eat 'unclean' food, and hold familiar intercourse with Gentiles. But the lesson was learnt at last. In the second Gospel there is a note, due either to Peter or to his secretary Mark, which correctly glosses our Lord's words: 'This he said, making all meats clean' (Mar_7:19 RV).

St. Mark's account of this incident is fuller than St. Matthew's, and contains notes upon such Jewish usages as would not be understood by Gentile readers. St. Matthew's account, however, though shorter, usefully supplements St. Mark's in several important particulars.

1. Were of Jerusalem] RV 'come from Jerusalem.' The active hostility of the hierarchy, strikingly manifested by the sending of these emissaries, is explained by the fact (known to us only from the Fourth Gospel) that Jesus had already preached in Jerusalem, and defied the authorities there.

2. The tradition of the elders] The 'elders' are mainly the scribes, but include also the old heroes of the nation, Moses, Joshua, and the prophets, to whom certain of the rabbinical ordinances were ascribed. The scribes regarded their traditions as equal or superior in authority to the Law of God. For instance, they said, 'The words of the scribes are lovely, above the words of the Law; for the words of the Law are weighty and light, but the words of the scribes are all weighty.'. 'The words of the elders are weightier than the words of the prophets.'. 'He that shall say, There are no phylacteries, transgressing the words of the Law, is not guilty. But he that shall say, There are five divisions in a phylactery, adding to the words of the scribes, is guilty': see on Mat_23:5.

They wash not their hands] The penalty for this neglect was excommunication by the Sanhedrin. Rabbi Eleazar ben Hazar was excommunicated, 'because he undervalued the washing of hands,' and dying unreconciled, was carried to the grave with a stone laid upon his bier, 'whence you may learn (say they) that the Sanhedrin stones the very coffin of every excommunicate person that dies in his excommunication.' The intricate details of the rabbinical ablutions are not worth describing, but a quotation from the Talmud will show the spirit in which they were performed: 'Whosoever hath his dwelling-place in the land of Israel, and eateth his common food in cleanness (i.e. with washed hands), and speaks the holy language (i.e. Hebrew), and recites his phylacteries morning and evening, let him be confident that he shall obtain the life of the world to come.' There was a special devil (Shibta), who was said to torment those who ate with unwashed hands.

4. See Exo_20:12; Deu_5:16.

5. But ye say, etc.] RV 'But ye say, Whoever shall say to his father or his mother, That wherewith thou mightest have been profited by me is given to God he shall not honour his father (or, his mother).' It is a gift] Mk 'it is Corban.' 'Corban,' meaning originally a sacrifice or a gift to God, was used in NT. times as a mere word of vowing, without implying that the thing vowed would actually be offered or given to God. Thus a man Would say, 'Corban to me is wine for such a time,' meaning that he took a vow to abstain from wine. Or a man would say to a friend, 'Corban to me for such a time is whatsoever I might be profited by thee,' meaning that for such a time he vowed that he would receive neither hospitality nor any other benefit from his friend. Similarly, if a son said to his father or mother, 'Corban is whatsoever thou mightest have profited by me,' he took a vow not to assist his father or mother in any way, however much they might require it. A vow of this kind was held by the scribes to excuse a man from the duty of supporting his parents, and thus by their tradition they made void the word of God.

6. Honour not his father] RV 'shall not honour his father,' i.e. shall not be obliged to support his father.

8. See Isa_29:13. The passage, which is paraphrased rather than quoted, appears in the same form in St. Mark.

11. See Mat_15:17-20, and prefatory remarks.

14. They be blind leaders] referring to the scribes and Pharisees. It is a proverbial expression occurring again Luk_6:39.

15. Peter] as usual he is spokesman of the Twelve. St. Mark (i.e. Peter), perhaps from modesty, does not mention Peter here.

17-20. Purity is to be sought in the soul, not in externals. See prefatory remarks.

21-28. The Canaanitish woman (Mar_7:24). The two accounts are, however, independent.

21. Departed] RV 'withdrew.' The withdrawal was due to the hostility of the Pharisees, and the alienation of friends caused by the speech in the synagogue of Capernaum (Joh_6:66). Celsus (the heathen opponent of Christianity, 170 a.d.) blamed Christ's policy of withdrawal from danger as cowardly. Origen well replied that it was part of Christ's education of the disciples, 'teaching them not at random, or unseasonably, or without sufficient object, to encounter dangers.'

Into the coasts (RV 'parts') of Tyre and Sidon] According to St. Mark (Mar_7:24, Mar_7:31), Jesus made a long sojourn on heathen soil, passing near Tyre, then along the coast to Sidon, through which He passed, then across country to the sources of the Jordan, then through Decapolis to the E. shore of the lake.

22. A woman of Canaan] RV 'a Canaanitish woman.' She was one of that nation which the Jews had been bidden to exterminate, and was therefore more hateful than an ordinary heathen. St. Mark calls her 'a Greek, a Syrophœnician by race'; i.e. she spoke Greek, but belonged by race to those Syrians who dwelt in Phœnicia. The Phœnicians were of Canaanite descent. Thou Son of David] How did she know that Jesus was descended from David? Not because she was a proselyte, for below she is called 'a dog,' i.e. a heathen. Probably because the fame of Jesus, and the popular title by which He was known, had spread far beyond the confines of Galilee: see on Mat_1:1; Mat_12:23.

23. Send her away] viz. by granting her request and healing her daughter.

26. The children are the Jews; the dogs are the Gentiles. Christ here speaks as a Jew, not yet revealing His true sentiments towards the Gentiles, for which see Mat_8:11; Joh_4:23; Act_10:28, etc. The rabbis often spoke of the Gentiles as dogs, e.g. 'He who eats with an idolater is like one who eats with a dog, for as a dog is uncircumcised, so also is an idolater.' 'The nations of the world are compared to dogs.' 'The holy convocation belongs to you, to yon, not to the dogs, to you, not to them that are without.' Yet Jesus, in adopting the contemptuous expression, slightly softens it. He says not 'dogs,' but 'little dogs,' i.e. household, favourite dogs, and the woman cleverly catches at the expression, arguing that if the Gentiles are household dogs, then it is only right that they should be fed with the crumbs that fall from their masters' table.

27. Truth, Lord; yet the dogs (RV 'Yea, Lord: for even the dogs') eat the crumbs, etc.] The ancients sometimes used, instead of a napkin, soft pieces of bread to wipe their hands upon. These fragments were then thrown to the dogs. Masters'] i.e. the Jews. The woman is humble. She is willing to be called a dog, and to acknowledge the Jews as masters.

28. O woman, great is thy faith, etc.] Why did Jesus speak to her so harshly, and wait so long before granting her request? (1) To test the strength of her faith; (2) to teach her the lesson that persistence and importunity in prayer will finally meet their reward; (3) to teach the disciples that greater faith was often to be found among the heathen than in Israel.

The miracle is interesting as one of the rare cases in which the ministrations of Christ were extended to a pure heathen. It is one of the few 'preludes of the larger mercy which was in store, first drops of that gracious shower which should one day water the whole earth.' In St. Mark's version our Lord gives a clear intimation of the future call of the Gentiles, by saying, 'Let the children first be filled.'

29-31. Various healings (Mar_7:31-37). St. Mark here inserts the healing of a deaf man with an impediment in his speech.

29. Unto the sea] According to St. Mark, to the E. side of it, where the population was mainly heathen. A mountain] RV 'the mountain.'

31. The God of Israel] implying that the multitudes were mainly heathen.

32-39. Feeding the four thousand (Mar_8:1). The multitudes in this case being heathen (see Mat_15:31), the miracle is no bare repetition of the feeding of the five thousand (Mat_14:13). That symbolised the communication of Christ to Israel, but this symbolised His communication to the Gentile world.

Several recent commentators regard this miracle as only another version of the feeding of the five thousand. They argue, (1) that Jesus would not have repeated a miracle; (2) that the apostles would not have said, 'Whence should we have so many loaves in a desert place, as to fill so great a multitude?' if Jesus had worked a similar miracle before. These arguments would be weighty if the two miracles occurred in different Gospels, or were derived from different sources. But this is not the case. The two miracles occur both in St. Matthew and St. Mark, the common matter of which Gospels is by general consent assigned to Peter himself. Peter's narrative also contains a saying of Jesus in which the two miracles are expressly distinguished: see Mat_16:9; Mar_8:19.

37. Seven baskets (Gk. spurides) full] In the other miracle there were 'twelve baskets (Gk. kophinoi) full.' The difference in the baskets is perhaps to be accounted for by the different nationality of the multitudes. The 'kophinos' was well known as the provision-basket of the Jews. Juvenal, the Roman poet (100-130 a.d.), speaks of the Jews going about in heathen countries carrying a 'kophinos' to hold their food, and a bundle of hay for their bed, to avoid the pollution of Gentile food and bedding. The capacity of the 'kophinos' was about two gallons. The 'spuris' was probably larger. In a 'spuris' St. Paul was let down from the wall of Damascus (Act_9:25), though St. Paul himself uses a different word (2Co_11:33).

39. Magdala] RV 'Magadan.' St. Mark says 'Dalmanutha.' Neither of these places can be located with certainty. According to Eusebius (4th cent.), Magadan was near Gerasa, i.e. on the E. side of the lake, and not, as might have been expected, on the W.

J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Vers. 1-20. Discourse concerning ceremonial pollution. (Mar_7:1-23)

Then. This is after the third Passover, which whether our Lord attended or not, has been a matter of some dispute. Moral considerations would make us infer that he was present, fulfilling all righteousness, though there is no direct statement in our narratives on the subject. Came to Jesus scribes and Pharisees, which were of Jerusalem, saying. The Sinaitic, B, and some other manuscripts read, Came to Jesus from Jerusalem scribes and Pharisees. This, which is virtually the reading of the Revised Version, whether original or not, seems to represent the fact correctly. The bigoted rabbis of the capital, aroused to fresh action by the news of Christ"s success in Galilee, send emissaries from Jerusalem to see if they cannot find some cause of offence in the words or actions of this rash Innovator which may give the desired opportunity of crushing him. An occasion offered itself, and was immediately seized.

Vers. 1-20. Unwashen hands.

I CONTROVERSY WITH SCRIBES AND PHARISEES.

1. They were of Jerusalem. It seems that a deputation had been sent by the leading inert in Jerusalem. The great discourse related in John 6 had probably been reported to them; they had heard that the scribes and Pharisees of Galilee were unable to cope with our Lord; and they now sent some of their own body to watch him and to find opportunity for accusing him. Mark the reception which he met with on his return from the eastern side of the lake. The people of Gennesaret knew his power and mercy. They brought their sick; they besought him that they might touch the hem of his garment. The poor and simple came in their simplicity, seeking help; the zealots, the learned students of the Scriptures, came, with malice and envy in their hearts, seeking to compass the ruin of the Saviour. The outward show of sanctity will not deceive God, will not save our souls. Let us see that we come to Christ in single-hearted earnestness, seeking only to know him who is the Saviour of the world.

2. Their question. They busied themselves, as formalists do, about the infinitely little. The Lord"s holiness, wisdom, power, were of no interest to them in comparison with the small matters of ceremonial observance enjoined in their traditions. They thought that it was enough to secure salvation if a man lived in the land of Israel, if he ate his food with duly washed bands, and spoke the holy language, and recited his phylacteries morning and evening. They regarded these traditions of theirs as more sacred than the written Law. The Lord"s disciples had, it seems, neglected these frequent washings. The Pharisees wished to fix the responsibility on him: "Why do thy disciples transgress the tradition of the elders?" Strange perversity, to insist on these trivialities in the presence of that unearthly holiness; to ask these petty ensnaring questions of him who could teach them the way to heaven!

3. The Lord"s answer.

(1) He answers as at other times, by another question, "Why do ye also transgress the commandment of God by your tradition?" His disciples had, indeed, transgressed the traditions of men; but their accusers had transgressed the commandments of God, and that, because of these traditions. They had dared to bring these traditions into direct opposition to the holy Law of God.

(2) The instance. They had contrived to evade the force of the fifth commandment. A man had only (they wickedly said) to pronounce the words, "It is a gift," to be freed from the duty of supporting his parents. It was good to give, and to give freely, for the service of the temple the Lord commended the poor widow for doing so but it was not right to neglect the nearer duty of caring for father or mother even for the temple"s sake. And these hypocrites, it seems, held that the pronunciation of the word "corban" absolved a man from the duty of supporting his nearest relatives, even if he did not really give the property so dedicated to the service of God. Thus they made the commandment of God of none effect. They put these miserable traditions above the eternal laws of morality, above the written Word of God. Well might the Lord denounce them as hypocrites.; they were acting the part of religious men, but they knew not what religion was; they had no love for God, no care for his glory; they loved the praise of men.

4. His quotation from Isaiah. The Lord applies to the Pharisees what the prophet had said of his contemporaries. Prophecy is for all time; it is fulfilled again and again in the history of the Church. God"s words spoken by Isaiah extended, in their prophetic range, to the scribes and Pharisees of our Lord"s days. They honoured God with their lips, but their heart was far from him. Such worship is in vain. It is no true worship; it is false, counterfeit. Worship is the adoration of the heart when it loses sight of self in the contemplation of the glory of God. The worship of the Pharisees was full of self; they sought not the glory of God; they put the commandments of men above his holy Word. In truth, they worshipped themselves, and not God; for it was their own profit, their own advancement, their own honour, which they loved with all their heart. And that which we love with the whole heart is the object of our worship. Let us take heed to ourselves.

II THE MULTITUDE.

1. The Lord called them. Perhaps they had stood aloof. They honoured the Lord; they had been taught to reverence the Pharisees; they were in perplexity. But now the Lord turned away from the Pharisees in holy indignation at their hypocrisy, their perversion of the truth of God. He called the multitude to come nearer; he would not have them lose the lesson. "Hear, and understand," he said. He bespoke their attention; for he was about to enunciate a great principle a principle which seems simple enough to us; but it was new and startling then; it was contrary to accepted doctrines. It struck at the minute observances of the scribes and Pharisees; it swept them away by the application of one wide-reaching rule. And it did more than this; it pointed to the coming abrogation of the ceremonial law.

2. His teaching. "Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man; but that which cometh out of the mouth, this defileth a man." The words might be understood, according to the well known Hebrew idiom, as meaning only that moral defilement was far more serious and important than ceremonial defilement (compare the twice-quoted passage of Hosea, "I will have mercy, and not sacrifice;" or our Lord"s words in Joh_6:27, "Labour not for the meat which perisheth, but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life"). But probably the Lord"s meaning went further. It was an anticipation of the coming change. According to the reading of the most ancient manuscripts, as explained by Chrysostom and several modern commentators, St. Mark represents our Lord as saying this, "cleansing all meats". (Mar_7:19) If this be correct, the Lord anticipates here the Divine announcement made afterwards to St. peter, "What God hath cleansed, that call not thou common". (Act_10:15) The Lord"s utterance was not so decided now. The Jews were not yet able to bear a peremptory declaration of the abolition of the laws respecting meats. The distinction between clean and unclean was to them of immense importance and significance, one of the marked characteristics of their religious life, one of the barriers between them and the Gentiles. They could not have endured to see all this elaborate system swept away at once; the disciples themselves were not ripe for such a change. Long afterwards St. Paul found it necessary to deal very tenderly with consciences that might be troubled by similar scruples. The Lord now indicates the coming abolition of the Levitical rules; he does not insist upon it; he returns to the original topic of discussion, "To eat with unwashen hands defileth not a man." It was one of those sayings which the apostles could not receive in their full meaning at once, but which remained in their memory, and afterwards were understood and brought forth fruit.

III THE DISCIPLES.

1. Their fears. The Pharisees were offended. The Lord"s words were a stumbling block to them; he had struck so hard at their prejudices, their traditions those traditions which were so deeply interwoven with their whole life; he had called them hypocrites, too; he had said that they were no better than actors of a part, and had applied to them the strong condemnation of Isaiah. Again, in his address to the multitude, reported doubtless to the Pharisees, perhaps heard by them, he seemed to set aside the plain teaching of the written Law. At all this the Pharisees stumbled; it was an offence to them; such teaching was in direct opposition to all that they esteemed most sacred. They thought it dangerous, heretical. They were offended, irritated, alienated. And evidently the Lord"s disciples had not wholly divested themselves of their old reverence for the rabbinical system, and for the received. teachers of the nation, the Pharisees. They were troubled at their increasing hostility; perhaps they were in their hearts somewhat vexed with the Lord himself; his words, it may be, seemed to them so stern, so needlessly strong. They apprehended difficulties, dangers; they feared for their Master and for themselves. And now they came to him privately, into the house; (Mar_7:17) they hinted at their anxieties; they sought to know what he would do. We must always come to Christ in our troubles; but we must trust him and yield up our wills to him; he doeth all things well.

2. The answer.

(1) The teaching of the Pharisees was not of God; it came from human tradition or from their own evil hearts. And all that is not of God must perish. The whole system of rabbinical teaching must pass away. It had wrought itself into the very nature of the Pharisees, as the good seed in the parable had filled the heart and determined the character of the true disciples. That system must perish, and its professors, alas! with it, if they would not receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved.

(2) "Let them alone," the Lord said. They stood high in popular estimation; they sat in Moses" seat; but they were blind guides. "Let them alone." Christ is the one Master; we must follow him. They are blind who see not Christ, for Christ is the Light of the world. They who see not the light walk in darkness; the darkness hath blinded their eyes. Guides who see not the Christ and follow not; the Christ themselves are no guides for the Christian; he must let them alone. Such men may sometimes be set in places of authority; Judas was an apostle. We may not speak of them as the Lord spoke of the Pharisees; we have not the right; we have not his knowledge, his holiness; we must not speak evil of dignities. But let them alone; be not dazzled by their rank, their popularity, their intellectual power. They are blind, and those who follow them are blind also. This blindness is wilful; it is the result of spiritual sloth, or pride, or indulged sin of some sort. The blind who follow the blind must fall into the ditch; spiritual blindness must lead to spiritual ruin. Come to Christ with the prayer, "Lord, that I might receive my sight!" Follow those who follow him the closest; who, seeing him themselves with the vision of faith, are enabled by his grace to lead others nearer to the true Light that shineth upon them.

3. The request of Peter. He spoke in the name of all the disciples. (Mar_7:17) But we know that long afterwards he clung to his old Jewish habits of life; (Gal_2:11-16) and at this time our Lord"s words in ver. 11 must have seemed a very hard saying to him. He called it a parable; it was very difficult for him with his Jewish training to receive it; he wanted to understand what was in our Lord"s thoughts, the spiritual meaning of his words.

4. The Lord"s reply. "Are ye also yet without understanding?" he said to the disciples. They had been with him long; they ought to have understood by this time the spiritual character of his teaching. But it was hard for them to throw aside the beliefs, the practices, of a lifetime; they needed the plainest teaching on a subject like this. And Christ gave it them. It is the inner life of thought and feeling which determines the true cleanliness or uncleanliness of a man, not the quality of his food. "The kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost." "All things indeed are pure;" there may be good and holy reasons for abstaining from certain things under certain circumstances; but "there is nothing unclean of itself." Such was the teaching of St. Paul, inspired, as he tells us, by the Lord Jesus; the same Lord anticipates that teaching here. It is that which cometh out of the mouth which defileth a man; for out of the mouth come evil words, and evil words issue from the evil treasure of the heart. Evil words imply evil thoughts, and evil thoughts are wrought into the inner moral being of the man, into the very centre of his personality. The man, the true self, is defiled, not by things external, not by meats or by unwashen hands; these and such like matters have to do only with his bodily frame. Cleanliness is good; it may be next to godliness; there is, as a rule, a certain connection between them; there must be a certain connection between the outward life and the inward, as long as we remain in the flesh. But cleanliness is not godliness; the body may be clean, but the heart within full of all uncleanness. It was so with these Pharisees who blamed the Lord; they took the greatest pains to secure the exactest external cleanness; but the Lord said to them, "Your inward part is full of ravening and wickedness". (Luk_11:39) Let us remember the words of the wise man, "Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life." Let us labour for that inner purification of the heart which is granted unto those who walk in the light, whom the blood of Jesus Christ is cleansing from all sin.

LESSONS.

1. The Pharisees found fault with our Lord; men will find fault with the holiest of his servants. Remember the eighth Beatitude; be patient.

2. God is our King; he is to be obeyed; not men, when they would draw us from his commandments.

3. Follow those who follow Christ. There are blind guides; let them alone.

4. The pure in heart shall see God; seek earnestly that precious grace of purity.

HOMILIES BY MARCUS DODS Vers. 1-20. On hand washing.

The omission with which the Pharisees here charge the disciples was that of a ceremonial observance on which they laid immense stress. Certain washings for purification had been commanded by the Law of Moses, but to these countless additions of a minute and vexatious kind had been added by the rabbis. Even when no defilement had been consciously contracted, the washings must be observed because, unwittingly, a man might touch what would defile him. Wherever in religion such human inventions are accepted as binding, they tend to become more prominent than the fundamental moral law. It was so in this case, and it is to this our Lord"s words point. "By your tradition," he says, "ye make the Word of God of none effect. You put aside his commandment that you may keep your own tradition. You accept as the important things such trifles as these, while the truly great things of the Law you utterly neglect." But the evil of Pharisaism lay even deeper than this. The Pharisees were not mere formalists; those of Paul"s type could honestly say that, touching the Law, they were blameless. Their mistake was that they thought their good actions made them good men. Our Lord came to give men clear perception and hold of the real distinction between good and evil. Men were not to be allowed to suppose the distinction between good men and bad was a slight one, that could be bridged over by a few acquired habits or formal observances. They were to be made to see that the distinction was deep as humanity itself; that their goodness must be one that would be eternal; not being the result of a superficial imitation, or attempt to satisfy the expectations or win the applause of men, but springing from.the man"s inmost self. To illustrate the principle that respect to human tradition tends to disrespect of God"s Law, our Lord cites an instance well known to them. Under the guise of extra devotion to God, a man could evade the first of human duties by merely saying over anything he wished to keep, "Corban is devoted." This was monstrous, and the system which encouraged it manifestly "a plant which his Father had not planted." The principle which lies at the root of our Lord"s teaching here he enounces in the words, "There is nothing from without a man that, entering into him, can defile him; but the things which come out of him, those are they that defile a man." We may apply this in two ways.

1. To those who, under the guise of greater religiousness than that of other men, evade the common duties of life; who, in defending some trifle that hangs to the skirt of religion, do not scruple to transgress the broad laws of justice, truth, and charity which form its life. Every age has had its representatives of the Pharisees, the defenders of traditional religion, who have shown the same unscrupulousness and intolerance in defence of what they suppose to be religious truth. And when we consider the damage done to religion by such persons, and the difficulty of convincing them of their error, we do not wonder that no class was so frequently and so unsparingly denounced by our Lord. In every religious community there is a tendency to place the keeping of certain observances that are added to the Law above the Law itself; to consider these extra things as the marks of a religious man, and to call a man religious or irreligious according as he does or does not things that have as little to do with fundamental morality as the washing of hands before eating. We are apt, all of us, to pay attention to the means rather than to what is the great end of all religion; to wash our hands instead of our hearts. "These things ye ought to have done, but not to have left the others undone." All these things that are peculiar marks of religious people are good, but become enormous evils when out of proportion to the essential matters of the Law of morality, of justice and truth between man and man, of love to God and to our fellows. Or:

2. We may consider the principle as enouncing the general truth that man@"s life is determined in all respects by what is within, not by what is without. Our Lord was sinless, not because he was not in circumstances of temptation, but because there was nothing on which temptation could fix. We lay the blame of our low spiritual condition, our actual fails, on our circumstances. But why is it these circumstances tempt us? Others pass through them without peril. The blame is within. We must seek for the remedy, also, within. The change that determines our destiny is a change in ourselves. D.

HOMILIES BY J.A. MACDONALD Vers. 1-20. Casuistry reproved.

The fame of the miracles and ministry of Jesus passed from Galilee to Jerusalem, whence came certain Pharisees and scribes, who were probably sent to watch him, and find matter of accusation against him. (cf. Mat_22:15, Mat_22:16) "Jerusalem the high school of hypocrisy. Rabbi Nathan says, "If the hypocrites were divided into ten parts, nine would be found in Jerusalem, and one in the world beside (Stier). These zealots set up the traditions of the elders against the character and claims of Jesus. Their accusation is contained in the question, "Why do thy disciples," etc. 7 (ver. 2). The reply takes the form of a retort, an admonition, and an exposition; the former being hurled at the accusers, and the latter given for the edification of disciples and the people.

I THE RETORT. "Why do ye transgress the commandment of God because of your tradition?

1. The appeal was followed up by an example.

(1) The instance cited is their violation of the fifth commandment. This enjoined, under the terra "honour," a dutiful respect to parents in taking care of and supporting them. (cf. Pro_3:9 Num_23:17 1Ti_5:3, 1Ti_5:17) The neglect of parents is included under the expression cursing them, and was, according to the Law, a crime so heinous as to be punishable with death. (cf. ver. 4 Exo_21:17) Let our youth remember this.

(2) Under pretext of zeal for God the casuists managed to release themselves from this obligation. The device was to make a vow to devote to the temple treasury that which their parents might otherwise claim from them. (see Mar_7:11) In this wickedness they sheltered themselves under the authority of their traditions, and thus made void the Law of God.

2. This was a triumphant defence of the disciples.

(1) It showed that the traditions in question were vicious, and therefore that no blame could justly be laid to the account of the disciples for disregarding them. It showed that they were, on the contrary, to be commended for protesting against them. If this was the worst thing alleged against them, they must have conducted themselves inoffensively.

(2) It was all the more incumbent upon the disciples to protest, since the Jewish doctors affirmed that the matter of their traditions had been originally delivered by God himself to Moses, and from him orally transmitted; that they are more excellent than, and consequently of superior obligation to, the Law itself.

(3) Note: The Council of Trent claims for the Romish traditions that "they are to be held with the same pious affection and reverence" as the Holy Scriptures (sess. 4, decr. 1). Brooks compares this addition of tradition to Scripture to putting paint upon a diamond. Luther likens the interpretation of Scripture by tradition to the straining of milk through a coal sack.

3. It was a heavy impeachment of the accusers.

(1) It put them to the worse. Whether or not the disciples had transgressed, their accusers are accused of being the chief transgressors. Those who have the beam in their own eye are not the persons to take the mote out of their brother"s eye. Those who live in glass houses should not throw stones. The Pharisees of every religious community take more pleasure in blaming others than in amending themselves.

(2) It branded them as hypocrites. What else are they who, under pretence of zeal for God, transgress his holy Law? They honoured him with the lip while their heart was far from him. Their heartless worship was "vain such as God could not approve. What vanity there is in the major portion of the religion of every age and clime! (see Jam_1:26)

II THE ADMONITION. This was addressed to the disciples. "Then came the disciples," etc. (vers. 12-14).

1. The doom of the hypocrite is declared.

(1) They were offended at the truth. This was obvious to the disciples. Their pride was mortified. They were silenced. They had no reply. They nursed their wrath. Plain speaking never fails to offend the sinner who is unwilling to repent.

(2) They were blinded by the light. Their blindness was not involuntary ignorance, but voluntary error. They shut their eyes against the Light of the world, and were in consequence judicially blinded. So it fell out according to the prediction in Isaiah. (see context in the prophet, Isa_29:14)

(3) They were doomed to be rooted out of the Church of God. He would not own them as his planting. (cf. Isa_41:19 Joh_15:2) The sect of the Pharisees did not survive the destruction of Jerusalem. Every spurious plant will be rooted out of the Church in the judgment of the great day. (see Mat_13:30)

(4) Their membership will be transferred to the Church of the devil. The blind guides will fall into a pit. (see Joh_9:40 Rom_2:19, Rom_2:20) The well in the figure represents Gehenna. The pit of falsehood is the prelude to the pit of perdition.

2. Their dupes will share their doom.

(1) So it proved. The blinded nation were led on to crucify their King, and to blaspheme the Holy Ghost, and were, together with their guides, rooted out by the Romans. (cf. Jer_14:15, 16 20:6) "How many men have ruined their estates by suretyship for others! But of all suretyship none is so dangerous as spiritual suretyship. He that pins his faith upon another man"s sleeve knows not whither he will carry it" (Flavel).

(2) The crime and consequences of illegal impositions will be charged upon those who maintain as well as upon those who invent them. (see Mic_6:16) God suffers one man to lead many to ruin.

(a) A rich profligate.

(b) An infidel.

(c) A man of learning.

(d) A politician.

(e) A teacher of heresy or of levity.

"If both fall together into the ditch, the blind leaders will fall undermost, and have the worst of it" (Henry). But that will be slender comfort to the sufferers in the crush that will follow.

(3) The moral, then, is, "Let them alone." Avoid false teachers. Have no communion with them. A literal attention to these words of Christ produced the Reformation . (see Hos_4:17 1Th_2:14, 1Th_2:15) Be not satisfied with attending a place of worship. See that the teaching is of God. (cf. 1Jn_4:1) None but the blind will submit to be led by the blind.

III THE EXPOSITION. This was given alike to the disciples and the people (vers. 10, 11, 15-20).

1. It distinguishes between Moses and the elders.

(1) The traditions were human. "The precepts of men," not to be confounded with the "doctrines" of God. Moses made a distinction in meats the clean and unclean but prescribed nothing respecting the eating with unwashen hands. This was a refinement of the elders. The ground of it was the possibility of the hands having touched something that might communicate legal uncleanness, and the contention that, since the Jews, like other Orientals, made great use of their fingers in eating, the uncleanness would be communicated to the food; then the food, taken into the system and assimilated, would defile the whole body. Hence such precepts as this of the Rabbi Akiba: "He that takes meat with unwashen hands is worthy of death.

(2) With these refinements the disciples had no sympathy. They rejected the casuistry that would make void the law of the fifth commandment. They did not scruple to eat with unwashen hands.

(3) But the multitude still needed enlightenment on this point. And how many nowadays scruple to communicate with unwashed hands, but scruple not to communicate with unwashed consciences! (Quesnel).

2. It distinguishes between the letter and the spirit of the Law.

(1) In the letter those who ate of unclean meat were unclean; but then the uncleanness was that of the meat; not moral, but ceremonial. Moreover, the Mosaic distinction of meats was not instituted for its own sake, but to point out the distinction between morn good and evil. Hence, when the ceremonial law ceased to serve this purpose, it became useless.

(2) These principles were now enunciated by Christ, and so commenced that spiritual teaching respecting the war between the flesh and Spirit unfolded in the writings of Paul. (cf. Rom_7:18, 19 8:1, 2 Gal_5:16-21)

(3) This was what Peter could not understand when he "answered and said, Declare unto us this parable" (ver. 15). He could scarcely believe his ears that a distinction in meats, in the abstract, availed nothing. His prejudices darkened his understanding; nor were they dispersed until nine years later, when he received the vision of the sheet. (see Act_10:15, Act_10:28)

(4) The spirit of the Law, then, is the all-important matter. Not that which goeth into the mouth, but that which cometh out of the heart. In religion the heart is everything. Religion is the union of the heart with God. The teaching of Christ here

(a) recognizes original sin. "Temptations and occasions put nothing into a man, but only draw out what is in him before" (Dr. Owen).

(b) Before evil becomes sin it must have the sanction of the understanding. J.A.M. (see 1Jn_3:4)

HOMILIES BY R. TUCK Vers. 1, 2. The right to reproach others.

Though the address of these visitors is put in the form of a question, it is not really an inquiry, it is a reproach. Therefore it was properly met, not by an explanation, but by another question, which brought to others" view, if not to their own, their bad mind and intent. These Pharisees could see clearly enough what they thought was a "mote" in the eye of Jesus. They must be made to feel the "beam" that was in their own eye. Who were these men, and what right had they to reproach Jesus? The Sanhedrin at Jerusalem regarded itself as the supreme ecclesiastical authority in the land, whose approval every teacher should secure, and whose inquiries every would be teacher must look for. Both John Baptist and Jesus acted in perfect independence of this central authority. Both were subject to its official inquiries. Of John we are told, (Joh_1:19) "The Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, Who art thou?" John answered their inquiries in a very patient fashion. Jesus was sterner in his dealings with them, and denied their right, or their fitness, to make any such inquiries, which were but veiled reproaches.

I AUTHORITY MAY GIVE A RIGHT TO REPROACH. The natural authority of the parent; and the social authority of the master and the king. But the authority must be rightly grounded. It must not rest on mere self-assertion, and it must be duly recognized and accepted. What authority could such a council as the Sanhedrin have over one who was a Prophet, a heaven sent Messenger? By all Israelite principles, he had the authority, and they should have heeded him.

II SUPERIORITY MAY GIVE A RIGHT TO REPROACH. Superior knowledge; superior character. The competent man may reproach us, the saintly man may reproach us. Then had these visitors from Jerusalem either of these forms of right to reproach? Were they superiors of Christ in the knowledge of Divine things? Were they superiors of Christ in holy living? This at least may at once be tested. If they were really holy they would be jealous of God"s honour and God"s claims. That they were only sham holy, our Lord made clear enough by his searching question to them. They cared for forms and ceremonies, they cared little or nothing for truth, or righteousness, or charity. They would reproach another; they should have reproached themselves.

III LOVE MAY GIVE A RIGHT TO REPROACH. No man rightly reproaches unless he loves. No man well receives reproach save from those whom he is sure are full of love to him. The vital wrong in the reproach of the text is this there is no love in it. R.T.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Mark vii, 1.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

A Lesson Concerning Defilement.

The Pharisees voice an objection:

v. 1. Then came to Jesus scribes and Pharisees, which were of Jerusalem, saying,

v. 2. Why do Thy disciples transgress the tradition of the elders? for they wash not their hands when they eat bread.

Then, when the Pharisees were becoming so wrought up that they were holding councils to destroy Him. The movement was extending beyond their control, the popular enthusiasm was still growing. They were beginning to realize that they had no ordinary person to deal with. And so their hostility caused them to reinforce the Pharisees of Galilee with the learned men from the metropolis, for Jerusalem was the stronghold of the strictest legalism among the Jews. The purpose of the deputation was to discredit Jesus as being careless and lax toward His disciples in His insistence upon keeping the regulations of the Jewish elders. Even during the Babylonian captivity, but especially since the time of Ezra, the interpretation or explanation of the Law, as made by the great rabbis of the Jews, had gradually grown into a large body of precepts, additional to the books of the Old Testament. This Mishna, as it was called, in later years received further additions in the so-called Gemara, all of which were incorporated in the Talmud, the religious book of the present-day Jews. These additional laws and precepts governed even the minutest details of everyday life, thus laying upon the average Jew an intolerable burden. The local rabbis and elders of the synagogues were supposed to teach all these precepts and insist upon their being observed most rigidly. A breach of these rabbinical rules was placed on a level with breaking the greatest moral laws. The tradition was as yet unwritten, it was the "law upon the lip," but its authority was the greater, the more remote in the past was the elder that had first spoken it. Note: Not the unhygienic or unaesthetic feature of coming to meals with dirty hands is attacked. It is an act of monstrous impiety, a breaking of sacred religious traditions that the disciples were guilty of in the opinion of the Pharisees. For such an act they excommunicated people from the synagogue. Their question implied also that Jesus was guilty for permitting such a sacrilege.

Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

The former part of this chapter acquaints us with a great contest between our Saviour and the Pharisees, about their traditions and old customs, which they valued more than the commandments of God; they accused the disciples with eating bread with unwashed hands, which, though it were in itself but a decent custom, the Pharisees made it a religious rite; for which reason our Saviour and his disciples would not observe it.

Whence we learn, that what is in itself and may without offence be done as a civil custom, ought to be discountenanced and opposed when men require it of us as a religious act, or place religion in it. The Pharisees placed so much religion in washing their hands before meat, that they looked upon it as highly criminal to neglect it as to lie with a whore. One of them being in prison, and not having water enough to drink and to wash his hands too, chose rather to die with thirst, than to trangress the tradition of the elders.

William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

J. W. McGarvey's The Fourfold Gospel [LXV. Jesus Disregards Tradition].

P A R T S I X T H. FROM THE THIRD PASSOVER UNTIL OUR LORD'S ARRIVAL AT BETHANY. (Time: One Year Less One Week.)

LXV. JESUS FAILS TO ATTEND THE THIRD PASSOVER. SCRIBES REPROACH HIM FOR DISREGARDING TRADITION. (Galilee, probably Capernaum, Spring A. D. 29.) aMATT. XV. 1-20; bMARK VII. 1-23; dJOHN VII. 1.

d1 And after these things Jesus walked in Galilee: for he would not walk in Judæa, because the Jews sought to kill him. [John told us in his last chapter that the passover was near at hand. He here makes a general statement which shows that Jesus did not attend this passover. The reason for his absence is given at Joh_5:18.] a1 Then there come to Jesus from Jerusalem b1 And there are gathered together unto him the Pharisees, and certain of the scribes, who had come from Jerusalem, 2 and had seen that some of his disciples ate their bread with defiled, that is, with unwashen, hands. [Evidently several days intervened between the address of Joh_6:22-40. and the events recorded here, for the Pharisees and scribes would not be likely to leave Jerusalem until after the passover. Isa_29:13], asaying, bas it is written, This people [394] honoreth me with their lips, But their heart is far from me. 7 But in vain do they worship me, Teaching i as their doctrines the precepts of men. 8 Ye leave the commandment of God, and hold fast the tradition of men. 9 And he said unto them, Full well do ye reject the commandment of God, that ye may keep your tradition. [These Pharisees coming from Jerusalem could find nothing wherein Jesus or his disciples transgressed the law, so they eagerly grasped this transgression of the tradition as affording ground for an accusation. Jesus does not deny their charge, but justifies his disciples by attacking the whole traditional system, basing his attack upon a pointed prophecy which condemns it. It is hard for us to learn and apply the distinction between serving God as God wishes to be served, and serving him according to our own wishes and notions.] a4 For God bMoses said [that is, God said it through Moses], Honor thy father and thy mother; and, He that speaketh evil of father or mother, let him die the death [see Exo_20:12, Deu_5:16, Exo_21:17, Lev_20:9]: 11 but ye say, If a man { aWhosoever shall say to his father or his mother, That wherewith thou mightest have been profited by me bis Corban, that is to say, Given to God; a6 he shall not honor his father. b12 ye no longer suffer him to do ought for his father or his mother; aAnd ye have made b13 making void the word of God by abecause of your tradition. bwhich ye have delivered: and many such like things ye do. [Leaving for a moment the main question concerning uncleanness and washing, Jesus makes good his indictment against their tradition by giving an example of the mischievous way in which it set aside God's commandments. The law required the honoring of parents, and for any one to cast off his parents in their old age, thus subjecting them to beggary or starvation, was to do more than to speak evil of them. Such conduct was practically to curse them, and to incur the death penalty for so doing. But at this point the Pharisees interfered with their tradition, which taught that [395] a son could say of that part of his estate by which his parents might be profited, It is a gift; that is, a gift to God, and by thus dedicating that part to God, he would free himself from his obligation to his parents. Thus tradition undid the law. God's law leads to pure and acceptable worship, while human additions and amendments make worship vain, if not abominable. There is probably not one such addition or amendment which does not to a greater or less degree make some commandment void.] 14 And he called to him the multitude again, and said unto them [Having been accused by the scribes and Pharisees of a breach of their tradition, Jesus points out to them generally the iniquity of tradition, for it lay within their power as leaders to remedy the whole system of things. Having done this, he turns to the multitude and answers before them as to the offense with which he is specifically charged. Thus he gives to the leaders general principles, and to the common people the single instance], Hear me all of you, and understand: a11 Not that which entereth into the mouth defileth a man; but that which proceedeth out of the mouth, this defileth a man. b15 there is nothing from without a man, that going into him can defile him: but the things which proceed out of the man are those that defile the man. 17 And when he was entered into the house from the multitude, a12 Then came the disciples, and said unto him, Knowest thou that the Pharisees were offended, when they heard this saying? [The entire speech offended them. He charged them with hypocrisy. He showed that their tradition, which they reverenced as a revelation from God, led them into sin, and he disturbed their self-complacency by showing that the ceremonial cleanness, which was founded on tradition, and in which they prided themselves, was worthless in comparison with the moral cleanness required by God's law, which they had ignored. It grieved the disciples to see Jesus offend these reverend gentlemen from Jerusalem. Like many modern disciples their respect for men counteracted their zeal for truth.] 13 But he answered and said, Every [396] plant which my heavenly Father hath planted not, shall be up rooted up. [God had planted the law with its doctrine: he had planted the Hebrew religion as given by Moses. He had not planted the tradition of the elders; so it, and the religion founded upon it, was doomed to be rooted up.] 14 Let them alone: they are blind guides. And if the blind guide the blind, both shall fall into a pit. [This proverbial expression is found in the Sermon on the Mount. See Psa_37:1, Psa_37:2). The words of Jesus are full of encouragement to those who adhere to the simple teachings of God; for they show that God guarantees that every error shall be uprooted, and that every teacher of error or false religion shall participate in the judgment which uproots, and shall fall into the pit of ruin; and his disciples, no matter how numerous, shall share his fate. In this particular instance, the destruction of Jerusalem was the pit. The Jewish leaders led their disciples into it, and God uprooted their system of tradition, that the pure gospel might be sowed in the room which they occupied.] 15 And Peter answered and said unto him, Declare unto us the parable. [The word "parable" is used here in its looser sense to indicate an obscure saying.] bhis disciples asked of him the parable. [They asked what he meant by the words contained in the Mat_15:11. 18 And he saith { asaid, bunto them, aAre ye even yet bso without understanding also? [It was to be expected that the multitude, swayed by the teaching of the Pharisees, would be slow to grasp what Jesus said about uncleanness; but the disciples, having been so long taught of him, and having felt free to eat with unwashed hands, should have been more quick of understanding.] Perceive ye not, that whatsoever from without goeth into the man, i it cannot defile him; 19 because it goeth not into his heart, but apasseth into the bhis belly, and goeth out into aand is cast out into the [397] draught? bThis he said, making all meats clean. 20 And he said, a18 But the things which proceed out of the mouth come forth out of the heart; and they defile the man. bThat which proceedeth out of the man, that defileth the man. 21 For from within, out of the heart of men, acome forth bproceed, aevil thoughts, bfornications, thefts, murders, adulteries, 22; covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye [an envious eye] afalse witness, railings: brailing, pride, foolishness: 23 all these evil things proceed from within, and a20 these are the things which defile the man; but to eat with unwashen hands, defileth not the man. [Thus Jesus sets forth the simple doctrine that a man's moral and spiritual state is not dependent upon the symbolic cleanness of his physical diet, much less is it dependent on ceremonial observances in regard to things eaten, or the dishes from which they are eaten. Of course, Jesus did not mean at this time to abrogate the Mosaic law of legal uncleanness. These uncleannesses worked no spiritual defilement, but were merely typical of such; for the food in no way touched or affected the mind or soul, the fountains of spiritual life, but only the corporeal organs, which have no moral susceptibility. The Pharisees had erred in confusing legal and spiritual defilement, and had added error to error by multiplying the causes of defilement in their tradition. By thus showing that legal defilement was merely symbolic, Jesus classed it with all the other symbolism which was to be done away with when the gospel reality was fully ushered in ( Col_2:16, Col_2:17). In saying, therefore, that Jesus made all meats clean, Mark does not mean that Jesus then and there repealed the law. The declaration of such repeal came later ( Act_10:14, Act_10:15). He means that he there drew those distinctions and laid down those principles which supplanted the Mosaic law when the kingdom of God was ushered in on the day of Pentecost. Here was the fountain whence Paul drew all his teaching concerning things clean and unclean.] [398]

* It was a whole year.--J. W. McG.

[FFG 393-398]

J. W. McGarvey (with Philip Y. Pendleton), Commentaries on the New Testament (The Fourfold Gospel, 1914; Acts; and the epistles) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Matthew Chapter 15

Chapter 15 displays man and God, the moral contrast between the doctrine of Christ and that of the Jews; and thus the Jewish system is rejected morally by God. When I speak of the system, I speak of their whole moral condition, systematised by the hypocrisy that sought to conceal iniquity, while increasing it in the sight of God, before whom they presented themselves. They made use of His name in order to sink lower, under the pretence of piety, than the laws of natural conscience. It is thus that a religious system becomes the great instrument of the power of the enemy, and more especially when that, of which it still bears the name, was instituted by God. But then man is judged, for Judaism was man with God’s law and God’s culture.

The judgment which the Lord pronounces on this system of hypocrisy, while manifesting the consequent rejection of Israel, gives rise to instruction that goes thus much farther; and which, searching the heart of man, and judging man according to that which proceeds from it, proves the heart to be a spring of all iniquity; and thus makes it evident that all true morality has its basis in the conviction and confession of sin. For, without this, the heart is always false and flatters itself in vain. Thus also Jesus goes to the root of everything, and comes out of the special and temporary relations of the Jewish nation, to enter on the true morality which belongs to all ages. The disciples did not observe the traditions of the elders; about these the Lord did not concern Himself. He avails Himself of the accusation, to lay it upon the conscience of their accusers, that the judgment occasioned by the rejection of the Son of God was authorised also on the ground of those relationships that already existed between God and Israel. They made the commandment of God of none effect through their traditions; and that in a most important point, and one even on which all earthly blessings depended for the children of Israel. By their own ordinances also Jesus exposes the consummate hypocrisy, the selfishness and avarice, of those who pretended to guide the people, and to form their heart to morality and to the worship of Jehovah. Isaiah had already pronounced their judgment.

Afterwards He shews the multitude that it was a question of what man was, of what proceeded from his heart, from within him; and points out the sad streams that flow from that corrupt spring. But it was the simple truth with respect to the heart of man, as known by God, which scandalised the self-righteous men of the world, which was unintelligible even to the disciples. Nothing so simple as the truth when it is known; nothing so difficult, so obscure, when a judgment is to be formed respecting it by the heart of man, who does not possess the truth; for he judges after his own thoughts, and the truth is not in them. In short, Israel, and specially religious Israel, and true morality are set in contrast: man is set in his proper responsibility, and in his real colours before God.

Jesus searches the heart; but, acting in grace, He acts according to the heart of God, and manifests it by coming out, both for the one and for the other, of the conventional terms of God’s relationship with Israel. A divine Person, God, may walk in the covenant He has given, but cannot be confined to it. And the unfaithfulness of His people to it is the occasion of the revelation of Him passing out beyond that place. And note, here, the effect of traditional religion in blinding moral judgment. What clearer or plainer than that what came out of the mouth and heart defiled a man, not what he ate? But the disciples through the vile influence of Pharisaic teaching, putting outside forms for inward purity, could not understand it.

Christ now leaves the borders of Israel, and His disputes with the learned men of Jerusalem, to visit those places which were farthest off from Jewish privileges. He departs into the coasts of Tyre and Sidon, the cities which He had Himself used as examples of that which was farthest from repentance; see chapter 11, where He classes them with Sodom and Gomorrah as more hardened than they. A woman comes out of these countries. She was one of the accursed race, according to the principles that distinguished Israel. She was a Canaanite. She comes to beg the interposition of Jesus on behalf of her daughter, who was possessed by a devil.

In begging this favour, she addresses Jesus by the title, which faith knew to be His connection with the Jews-”Son of David.” This gives rise to a full development of the Lord’s position, and, at the same time, of the conditions under which man might hope to share the effect of His goodness, yea, to the revelation of God Himself.

As the Son of David, He has nothing to do with a Canaanite. He makes her no answer. The disciples desired to get rid of her by granting her request, in order to have done with her importunity. The Lord answers them, that He was not sent but to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. This was indeed the truth. Whatever may have been the counsels of God manifested on occasion of His rejection (see Isa 49:1-26), He was the minister of the circumcision for the truth of God, to fulfil His promises made to the fathers.

The woman, in more simple and direct language, the more natural expression of her feelings, begs for the merciful interposition of Him in whose power she trusted. The Lord answers her, that it is not meet to take the children’s bread and give it to dogs. We see here His true position, as come to Israel; the promises were for the children of the kingdom. The Son of David was the minister of these promises. Could He as such blot out the distinction of the people of God?

But that faith which derives strength from necessity, and which finds no resource but in the Lord Himself, accepts the humiliation of its position, and deems that with Him there is bread for the hunger of those who have no right to it. It perseveres, too, because there is a felt want, and faith in the power of Him who is come in grace.

What had the Lord done by His apparent harshness? He had brought the poor woman to the expression, to the sense, of her real place before God, that is to say, to the truth as to herself. But, then, was it the truth to say that God was less good than she believed, less rich in mercy towards the destitute, whose only hope and trust was in that mercy? This would have been to deny the character and the nature of God, of which He was the expression, the truth, and the witness, on earth; it would have been to deny Himself, and the object of His mission. He could not say, “God has not a crumb for such.” He answers, in fulness of heart, “O woman, great is thy faith; be it unto thee even as thou wilt.” God comes out of the narrow limits of His covenant with the Jews, to act in His sovereign goodness according to His own nature. He comes out to be God in goodness, and not merely Jehovah in Israel.

But this goodness is exercised towards one who is brought, in the presence of that goodness, to know that she has no right to it. To this point the seeming harshness of the Lord had been leading her. She received all from grace, while in herself unworthy of all. It is thus, and thus only, that every soul obtains blessing. It is not merely the sense of need-the woman had that from the beginning, it was that which brought her there. It is not sufficient merely to own that the Lord Jesus can meet that need-the woman came with that acknowledgment; we must be in the presence of the only source of blessing, and be brought to feel that, although we are there, we have no right to avail ourselves of it. And this is a terrible position. When it comes to this, all is grace. God can then act according to His own goodness, and He answers every desire which the heart can form for its happiness.

Thus we see Christ here as a minister of the circumcision for the truth of God, to fulfil the promises made to the fathers, and that the Gentiles also might glorify God for His mercy, as it is written. At the same time this last truth makes manifest the real condition of man, and the full and perfect grace of God. On this He acts, while still faithful to His promises; and the wisdom of God is displayed in a manner that calls forth our admiration.

We see how much the introduction, in this place, of the story of the Syro-Phenician woman develops and illustrates this part of our Gospel. The beginning of the chapter shews forth the moral condition of the Jews, the falseness of Pharisaic and sacerdotal religiousness; brings out the real state of man as man, what the heart of man was the source of; and then reveals the heart of God as manifested in Jesus. His dealings with this woman display the faithfulness of God to His promises; and the blessing finally granted exhibits the full grace of God, in connection with the manifestation of the real condition of man, acknowledged by conscience-grace rising above the curse which lay upon the object of this grace-rising above everything to make itself a way to the need which faith presented to it.

The Lord now departs thence and goes into Galilee, the place where He was in connection with the despised remnant of the Jews. It was neither Zion, nor the temple, nor Jerusalem, but the poor of the flock, where the people were sitting in gross darkness (Isa 8:1-22, Isa 9:1-21). Thither His compassions follow this poor remnant, and are again exercised in their behalf. He renews the evidences, not only of His tender mercies, but of His presence who satisfied the poor of His people with bread. Here however it is not in the administrative power which He could bestow on His disciples, but according to His own perfection and acting from Himself. He provides for the remnant of His people. Accordingly it is the fulness of seven baskets of fragments that is gathered up. He departs also without anything else taking place.

We have seen eternal morality, and truth in the inward parts, substituted for the hypocrisy of forms, man’s use of legal religion and man’s heart shewn to be a source of evil and nought else, God’s heart fully revealed that rises above all dispensation to shew full grace in Christ. Thus dispensations are set aside though fully owned, and man and God fully shewn out in doing so. It is a wonderful chapter as to what is everlasting in truth as to God, and as to what the revelation of God shews man to be. And this, note, gives occasion to the revelation of the assembly in the next chapter, which is not a dispensation but founded on what Christ is, Son of the living God. In chapter 12 Christ was dispensationally rejected, and the kingdom of heaven substituted in chapter 13. Here man is set aside and what he had made of law, and God acts in His own grace above all dispensations. Then come the assembly and the kingdom in glory.

John Nelson Darby — Synopsis of the Books of the Bible: the New Testament (c. 1857–1862) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

1. Scribes and Pharisees … of Jerusalem. Representatives of these bodies, sent, no doubt to counteract the influence of Christ. Compare Mark 7:1–13. These were always bitter opposers of Jesus.

B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.

General Information:

The scene shifts to events that occurred some time after events of the previous chapter. Here Jesus responds to the criticisms of the Pharisees. (See: Introduction of a New Event)

Why do your disciples violate the traditions of the elders?

The Pharisees and scribes use this question to criticize Jesus and his disciples. AT: "Your disciples do not respect the rules that our ancestors have given us." (See: Rhetorical Question)

traditions of the elders

This is not the same as the law of Moses. This refers to later teachings and interpretations of the law given by religious leaders after Moses.

they do not wash their hands

This washing is not only to clean hands. This refers to a ceremonial washing according to the tradition of the elders. AT: "they do not wash their hands properly" (See: Assumed Knowledge and Implicit Information)

Then why do you violate the commandment of God for the sake of your traditions?

Jesus answers with a question to criticize what the religious leaders do. AT: "And I see that you refuse to obey God's commands just so that you can follow what your ancestors taught you!" (See: Rhetorical Question)

translationWords

Pharisee

scribe

Jesus

Jerusalem

disciple

tradition

elder

command

God

unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.

1–20. THE TRUE RELIGION AND THE FALSE. A DISCOURSE TO THE PHARISEES, THE PEOPLE, AND THE DISCIPLES

Mar 7:1-23

These twenty verses sum up the great controversy of the N.T., that between the religion of the letter and external observances and the religion of the heart, between what St Paul calls ‘the righteousness which is of the law and the righteousness which is of God by (or grounded upon) faith,’ Php 3:9.

1. ἀπὸ Ἱεροσολύμων Φαρισαῖοι καὶ γραμματεῖς. Probably a deputation from the Sanhedrin, such as was commissioned to question John the Baptist. Cp. Joh 1:19.

Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge University Press, 1896; 21 vols, various authors incl. Carr, Maclear, Plummer, Farrar, Lumby, Moule, M. R. James, Simcox) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Transgress [παραβαινουσιν] . Lit., to step on one side.

Marvin R. Vincent, Word Studies in the New Testament (1887–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.