How to Get to the Heart of the Matter (Matthew 15: 1-10)

Have you ever been criticized? 

Who hasn’t? I imagine that when we when we think of somebody being criticized, we automatically assume that something was wrong. However, let me tell you that the criticism is not always even remotely justified, and I am sure all of us have felt on the wrong side of that  type of unjust critical attitude at some point in our life. Maybe it helps to know that there was a time in the life of Christ when he was severely criticized in that way, as matter fact that happened on more than one occasion, but on one particular incident he was criticized by his enemies for what he allowed his disciples to do.

We know that the Bible teaches that Jesus was the perfect man, without sin, literally God in the flesh, so the criticism wasn’t at all legitimate, however what came out of that incident is still extremely important. As a matter of fact, the passage that records it has been called one of the most important passages in all of the gospels because it shows a collision of two views of religion and two views of the requirement of God in our lives. Two views that still divide the worlds’ view on who we can live a life that is right before God even to this day. Jesus will go on to show how there is no possibility of compromise or even a working agreement between these two views even today. Early in my Christian experience I stumbled upon this passage and realizing what it said has moulded my thinking ever since. This is an incredibly important truth which arose of this situation where Jesus faced and his disciple’s faced opposition and criticism. So, what is the truth, and what was the criticism they face? To answer those questions would you turn with me to Matthew chapter 15 and I’m going to begin reading with verse one. 

1 Then the scribes and Pharisees who were from Jerusalem came to Jesus, saying, 2 “Why do Your disciples transgress the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands when they eat bread.” 3 He answered and said to them, “Why do you also transgress the commandment of God because of your tradition? 4 For God commanded, saying, ‘Honour your father and your mother’; and, ‘He who curses father or mother, let him be put to death.’ 5 But you say, ‘Whoever says to his father or mother, “Whatever profit you might have received from me is a gift to God”— 6 then he need not honour his father or mother.’ Thus you have made the commandment of God of no effect by your tradition. 7 Hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy about you, saying:

 8 ‘These people draw near to Me with their mouth,
 And honour Me with their lips,
 But their heart is far from Me.
 9 And in vain they worship Me,
 Teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’ ”

A Complicated Passage.

This is a rather complicated passage it sort of moves from one subject to another, so let’s see if we can isolate the various elements and keep clear in mind exactly what Jesus is doing here. One way to look at this passage is that it involves Jesus speaking to three different groups of people, it involves the religious leadership, the Scribes and the Pharisees, but then later he will address the crowd standing by, and of course the disciples themselves. The complexity of this passage is the fact that if you look at what’s being said carefully you will see that the subject seems to change between what happens between the scribes and the Pharisees and what happens to the crowd, and then changes again later when he addresses the disciples. So, what I would like to do is walk through the passage and see if I can explain what’s going on and then when I get to the end I’ll try and tie it all together, probably tomorrow. We need to  go back and start at the beginning the passage says to us in verse one.

Then the scribes and the Pharisees who were from Jerusalem came to Jesus saying why do your disciples transgress the tradition of the elders” For they do not wash.

(Matthew 15: 1-2)

In order to understand what's going on we need to begin with that little phrase “transgress tradition of the elders”. This is a reference to something called the oral law and that’s going to take a little bit of explanation, so bear with me for a minute. Many of us will be familiar with what is called the Mosaic law, but what happened was over the centuries after that law Moses was delivered and written down, other laws got added to the pile, they were man made laws, laws that were not inspired by God, nor were they written by Moses but and they became part of what became known as an oral tradition. At one point in Israel’s history, it was said that these oral laws were even more important than the written laws, their reasoning was that God spoke the hidden laws before it was written and therefore oral law took precedent over written law. Furthermore, they said that these oral laws put a fence around the written law, so if you kept these man-made oral laws, it would ensure that you not break the God ordained written law. However, the focus became the tradition of the elders and this body of oral law to the point where the original commandments where being ignored or overlooked. 

Let’s give an example of an illustration of an oral law, the one in fact that is mentioned here in this verse by the scribes and the Pharisees who remembered fancied themselves as defenders of this oral law. They come to Jesus and say, why do your disciples transgress the tradition of the elders. Look at what he says in verse two, for they do not wash their hands when they eat bread.  This has nothing to do with hygiene this has nothing to do with washing your hands before you eat, but it has everything to do with an elaborate long religious routine about achieving ritualised cleanliness that was part of this extra oral law.

In the mosaic law there were some instructions about the priest washing before they went into the Tabernacle property. What got added to that was, if the priests have to wash their hands and feet before they go into the Tabernacle then maybe everybody should wash as well and everyone should wash before they eat meals, and then it was said they should also do it before they go into the market, and thereby an elaborate system of washing their hands in a  prescribed way was developed. The disciples of Jesus Christ just didn’t seem compelled to do these things.  So how does Jesus answer that attack, how does he answer that kind of criticism one that wasn’t even remotely connected to the scripture or God’s commandment.

3 He answered and said to them, “Why do you also transgress the commandment of God because of your tradition? 4 For God commanded, saying, ‘Honour your father and your mother’; and, ‘He who curses father or mother, let him be put to death.5 But you say, ‘Whoever says to his father or mother, “Whatever profit you might have received from me is a gift to God”— 6 then he need not honour his father or mother.’ Thus you have made the commandment of God of no effect by your tradition

(Matthew 15: 3-6)

Notice he doesn’t even bother in this passage to answer why the disciples don’t practice that ritual; he just doesn’t even go there. He ignores there false accusation and instead goes on the offensive. I suppose you could say that at least they went to Jesus with their criticism, it often worse and harder to deal with criticism when it is behind your back. At least they went to his face, but Jesus doesn’t even dignify this with an answer, rather he says, “I’m glad you brought this up let’s talk about all of this” and this is where it starts getting complex. His answer is in verse 3, “why do you also transgress the commandment of God because of your traditions”. Forget my disciples, he says, you guys have got a bigger problem, and that is you transgress the commandments of God by these very traditions of yours, and then he gives an illustration of this, which may take some explanation. He says Moses wrote down God’s law on tablets of stone which said amongst other things, honour your father and Mother.

Among other things that obviously meant that if they needed your help, you would give it to them, even perhaps in their old age you should take care of them. Well, these Jews laid down something new in the oral law, they came up with a little law device it was called Quora which is the Hebrew word for gift. They believed by following the oral tradition they could take all of their possessions and they could symbolically gift them to God meaning that all their worldly resources could be in a sense ring-fenced as being in the service of God. In other words, their lives, their goods and money were now said to be supporting the work of the religious system and the temple. In the meantime, of course they would mean they were able to say to their parents, or anyone else for that matter, “I’m sorry I can’t help you because I’m giving everything to God”. So, Jesus said you’re worried about my disciples washing their hands let me tell you something it's your traditions that have prevented you from keeping the core commandment of God of honouring you mother and father. Which is why he says in verse 7,

7 Hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy about you, saying:8 ‘These people draw near to Me with their mouth,
 And honour Me with their lips,
 But their heart is far from Me.
 9 And in vain they worship Me,
 Teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’ ”

Hypocrites.

They come criticizing the disciples of Jesus and for not washing their hands, the idea being they are not keeping their traditions and Jesus moves from that to you’re not keeping the core commandments of God.

Let’s pause here and sum this up in this part of the passage. The issue is tradition of men versus the commandments of God. That’s the cause of the conflict with Jesus, and Jesus responds to their criticism by asking the Pharisees back, are you going to put tradition over the commandments of God. Are you going to put the man-made mandates of man over the clear written word of God. 

Even today conflict between religious groups and even sometimes within church can often be about tradition versus commandments. That is often  the clash even down to this day. His has happened a lot down the ages. Perhaps the classic illustration of this occurred after the Protestant Reformation when there was a counter reformation the counter reformation was cantered in something called the council of Trent and at Trent which was a city in northern Italy where those of the catholic persuasion got together and one of the decrees in the council of Trent was this and I’m going to quote it

“Traditions” I quote, “traditions  are to be held with pious affection and reverence as holy scripture”.

(Council of Trent 1563)

That’s the whole doctrinal issue in a nutshell. When tradition is on the same par with scripture anything is possible. But let me just go one step further and tell you there are other groups that do that kind of thing that they have their book that they put their books alongside the Bible they have their doctrines and they put those alongside and with equal authority to scripture.  In my experience in talking with these religious groups it's not just that they're traditions become equal with scripture, they often superseded scripture. What comes out of their mouth is their tradition, and their doctrine becomes above the scripture and actually sometimes even goes so far as to lead people away from the scripture, well they end up obeying the commandments of men instead of the commandments of God. Just like the Pharisee’s did in Jesus’ day. That’s what started this discussion, but as I said at the beginning this passage divides into three parts. Jesus has this conversation with the Pharisees and that is about tradition versus commandments of God, but its time to take the next step, when he will address the crowd. But we shall look at what he says, next time.