MATTHEW 14:34—15:20
IN SEVENTH GRADE Kevin Koplowski had the coolest science fair project ever. His project earned him a place in the State Fair, where he did not place. It was not for lack of genius of mind or coolness of project that it didn’t place, but rather because he didn’t carefully follow directions. His project was technically not an experiment. Unlike my experiment, which proved through carefully, rigorous, repeated testing which paper towel was the most absorbent, Kevin’s display, report, or whatever it should be called merely showed the existence of blind spots in the human eye.
Here’s how it worked. You would come up to his booth, stand on a certain X on the door in front of it, place your head wherever you were supposed to place your head, and then try to view certain objects at various points around you. The fact that you couldn’t see all the points proved the existence of blind spots.
Blind Spots
It is one thing to be blind physically. We all are blind to a certain extent. We all have blind spots. But it is quite another thing to be blind spiritually. The disciples had spiritual blind spots. They couldn’t perfectly see who Jesus was and understand what he was up to. But overall they could see, and their sight, as the life of Jesus unfolded before their eyes, sharpened and broadened. However, the scribes and Pharisees, those Jewish religious leaders we encounter here again in 15:1, were completely blind spiritually. And it’s not just that they were blind, but they were attempting to lead other blind people.
This is what Jesus says of them in verse 14: “They are blind guides.” Then he addresses their dark, dangerous, damning activity: “And if the blind lead the blind, both will fall into a pit.”
In this chapter we are going to look at the damning effects of spiritual blindness. I say “damning” because spiritual blindness has consequences, which Jesus speaks of metaphorically in verse 13, 14: “Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be rooted up. Let them alone...” It is not a good thing to be “let alone” from hearing/understanding the gospel (cp. 25:41). And it is certainly not a good thing to be rooted up and (if the metaphor is connected to what is said earlier in 3:10-12) to be thrown into the fire—i.e., to be judged eternally.
In this chapter we will look at the scribes and Pharisees and the effects of their spiritual blindness. We will do so for two reasons. First, so we might recognize them as false teachers and thus not follow their lead. Second, so we might correct, if necessary, our own vision.
What I see in them are three big blind spots. Collectively these blind spots are large enough to blind them completely. And I see these three blind spots to be characteristic of every spiritually blind person—then (in the days of Jesus) and now (in our day).
The Spiritually Blind Ask the Wrong Religious Questions
First, the spiritually blind always ask the wrong religious questions. Their question to Jesus comes in 15:2: “Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders?”
What comes before that question in Matthew’s Gospel? As we saw in the last two chapters, we have Jesus’ look-at-me miracles—the feeding of the 5,000 and the walking on the sea. Those two miracles scream to us, “This must be God’s Son!” And that’s what the disciples on the boat finally saw. The previous tracts miracle centers on Jesus’ claim. “Don’t fear; I AM is here,” and it ends and culminates with the disciples’ adoration and confession, with worship and then those words, “Truly you are the Son of God” (14:33).
So before the scribes and Pharisees ask their question, we have the disciples’ eyes widening to the person of Jesus through the miracles of Jesus. But we also have a group from Gennesaret and how they react to Jesus. Just run your eyes through 14:34-36. What is significant about this seemingly insignificant summary section?
Two things are significant. First, Gennesaret is no Jerusalem. Jerusalem is the religious center of the Jewish world. It’s where these important Jewish religious leaders come from (15:1). In our Christian context, it's no Rome, Geneva, or Canterbury. It’s as significant a city as Evaz, Iran is to Christianity. Where? Exactly. Second, look at how this town responds to Jesus. The verbs tell the story. “And when the men of that place recognized him, they sent around to all that region and brought to him all who were sick and implored him that they might only touch the fringe of his garment. And as many as touched it (just the fringe) were made well” (14:35, 36).
That’s the context. That’s what comes before the scribes and Pharisees’ question. Jesus is a man who can feed thousands of people with five loaves and two fishes. Jesus is a man who can walk on water and calm the sea. Jesus is a man who has such power that if you just touch the fringe of his garment in faith you can be cured of whatever ails you. Completely cured! So what kind of a question should you ask such a man? How about “Who are you?” How about “What must I do to follow you?”
But what do they ask? They ask nothing about Jesus. Instead they ask, “Why do your disciples [not even Jesus] break the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands when they eat” (15:2). They ask a very serious and seemingly important religious question. However, it is the wrong question. It’s like a reporter asking a firefighter just after he has rescued a baby from a burning building, “Now, sir. I’ve heard that your brother eats meat on Fridays during Lent. Is that true?” What? Meat? Lent? My brother? What kind of a question is that? Considering all Jesus has done and taught, they could have (should have) come up with a better question than that. But that’s just part of the disease. Spiritually blind people—then and now—are always asking the wrong questions.
Have you ever had this happen to you? You’re sharing the gospel with someone, thinking they are listening quite intently, and when you are done, they ask a question that has nothing to do with the death and resurrection of Christ, sin and forgiveness, Heaven and Hell. They don’t ask, “Is it true that Jesus rose from the dead?” or “How can I be sure that what you’ve shared with me is true?” Instead they want to know if Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene. They want to know if you’re pro-choice. They want to know if you think we evolved from monkeys. They want to know how many angels can dance on the head of a needle.
The scribes and Pharisees come all the way from Jerusalem. They are on some top-level official business. They have heard and seen Jesus. Surely now they will ask him an important question. Instead they come to ask Jesus about his disciples and their new eating habits. What “blind fools” (23:17)!
The Spiritually Blind Trust in Un-Scriptural Traditions
The second blind spot is that the spiritually blind trust in un-Scriptural traditions. Before we examine verses 3 to 9—Jesus’ right response to their wrong question—let me first make clear that I know that Jesus knows where these men are coming from with their question. He knows that they are not the Jewish germ police, out to serve and protect Israel from poor hygiene. He knows this is an issue of ritual purity to them. He knows that before they reclined to eat they first washed themselves and everything else—the cups and pots and copper vessels and even their dining couches (see Mark 7:3,4). He also knows that their rules and regulations concerning ceremonial cleanliness don’t come from Scripture. According to the written law (in Exodus 30 and Leviticus 22) only Aaron, his sons, and their offspring (the priests), in or before their temple service, are to make themselves clean, not everybody before every meal. Jesus also knows that their rules and regulations come from oral tradition, the oral tradition of the elders that prescribed the precise way to wash, when to wash, how often to wash, with what to wash, and why if you don’t wash when and where and with what you are terribly offensive to God.
Knowing all that, how does Jesus respond? The one who has been breaking one oral tradition of theirs after another—touching lepers, dead bodies, and menstruating woman (yikes!), associating with tax collectors and Gentile sinners (double yikes!), and breaking bread in public without any mention of washing hands (triple yikes!) answers with a one-two punch from the written Word of God. First, he gives an upper cut from the Law (from Moses) that makes them stagger and stumble backwards. Then he lands a short, quick jab, the knock-out punch from the prophets (from Isaiah). A one-two punch: It is written; it is written. And down they go.
Let’s start with the knockout punch, the quick jab from Isaiah 29:13. Our Lord says:
You hypocrites, well did Isaiah prophesy of you, when he said: "This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men." (15:7, 8)
Three times in Jesus’ answer he charges them with supplanting the Scriptures. In verse 3 he says, “you break the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition.” In verse 6 he says, “So for the sake of your tradition you have made void the word of God.” Finally in verse 9 he speaks of them as “teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.” Jesus accuses them of holding hostage the divine commandment. He accuses them of gagging God’s voice with the tattered rag of their traditions. He says, in essence, that the spiritually blind trust in un-Scriptural traditions.
He doesn’t just say this. He substantiates it with an illustration from but one of their many lawless traditions. Jesus answered them:
And why do you break the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition? For God commanded, “Honor your father and your mother” [Exodus 20:12], and, “Whoever reviles father or mother must surely die” [Exodus 21:17], But you say, “If anyone tells his father or his mother, ‘What you would have gained from me is given to God,’ he need not honor his father.” So for the sake of your tradition you have made void the word of God. (15:3-6)
Jesus sets up what they say (“but you say,” v. 5) against what God said (“for God commanded,” v. 4), showing how they set aside even one of the Ten Commandments (the fifth commandment) for the man-made and man-centered tradition of “Corban” (Mark 7:11).
Let me explain this tradition, so you feel the sting of Jesus’ hit. Corban was the practice of pledging money to the temple to be paid upon one’s death. That sounds fine, right? It’s like willing some resources to a church or charity. Well, here’s where the religious tomfoolery and trickery comes in. These funds, since they were set aside for “religious” purposes, could not be used or given to one’s parents in their hour of need. So here is what happened in Jesus’ day. If you wanted to get out of helping your parents in their old age, you could simply declare your goods “given to God.” The sanctified selfishness would be excusable: “Sorry, Mom and Dad, I’d love to help you out. But, you know, all this money I have is ‘Corban.’ I can use it for myself, but whatever is left is going to God. You understand.”
Oh, Jesus understood. To him Corban broke the law of love. It broke not just the fifth commandment. It broke both tables of the Law—the love of God and the love of neighbor. To him Corban killed compassion. Only someone spiritually blind wouldn’t see this. Only someone very spiritually blind would practice this and teach others to practice it.
The spiritually blind trust in un-Scriptural traditions and trusting in un-Scriptural traditions is dangerous. It harms real people. It’s dangerous, and it’s damning. It has real effects upon those who practice it.
Now, to clarify this section (15:3-9) Jesus does not demonize tradition. Jesus is not saying to the Pharisees, “The reason I disagree with you is because I don’t believe in tradition. In fact, I have never believed in tradition. Why? Well, because the founders of our faith—Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—didn’t believe in tradition. And Moses didn’t believe in tradition. So we can’t start following some tradition now, especially in light of the history of our rich tradition of not following any tradition whatsoever.” Jesus was not saying here that it is his tradition not to follow tradition. Human experience and history tell us that society cannot function without some set traditions in place. The Ecclesia is no different, for every Christian “community has to apply the word of God to situations in real life, and [thus] traditions inevitably develop from this undertaking.”
My Ecclesia, as is true of every Ecclesia, has its traditions. Here are some traditions from our regular Sunday morning service. We take a public offering with silky crimson bags. We have a benediction at the end of the service. The speakers wear suit jackets as part of our vestments. We offer something called Sunday school for both adults and children. We sing hymns almost exclusively written by dead Englishmen. We sing choruses composed by mostly living Caucasians. These are all traditions that are not found in the Word of God. However, there is a significant difference between our traditions and the Pharisees’ traditions. Our traditions are traditions (Lord willing, they must always be tested) that have been put in place as servants of the Word—that is, traditions that do not nullify the Word of God but uplift, clarify, or apply it.
The question for us is not, does this Ecclesia hold to certain traditions or not? Rather, the question is, does this Ecclesia hold to certain traditions that contradict Scripture or depose the authority of the Word of God? Does our Ecclesia, and do we as individuals, hold certain faulty and misleading traditions that are far removed from God’s original intention?
Here Jesus is teaching against the enthronement of tradition and the dethronement of the Word of God. He is addressing traditions that immediately or inevitably force God’s people to leave, reject, or nullify the written Scriptures. Thus we are taught here that those very traditions—if we are to see as we should see—are to be left, rejected, and nullified. The spiritually blind trust in un-Scriptural traditions, but those with spiritual sight trust in the Word of God for the proper worship of God.
The Spiritually Blind Don't See That Spiritual Defilement Is a Matter of the Heart
The first blind spot is that the spiritually blind ask the wrong religious questions. The second blind spot is that the spiritually blind trust in un-Scriptural traditions. The third and final blind spot is that the spiritually blind underestimate, in Jeremiah’s words, how desperately wicked the human heart is, or in Jesus’ words, how unclean it is. The spiritually blind don’t see that spiritual defilement is first, foremost, and foundationally a matter of the heart.
In 15:1 Off. our Lord calls the crowd and gives his own Shema, "Hear and understand.” He says, “It is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out of the mouth [which comes out of the heart, v. 18]; this defiles a person.”
That (vv. 10, 11) is Jesus’ little “parable” as Peter calls it in verse 15. And what does this parable mean? Jesus explains it in verses 17-20:
Do you not see that whatever goes into the mouth passes into the stomach and is expelled? But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a person. For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a person. But to eat with unwashed hands does not defile anyone.
Jesus teaches there are two places to look for spiritual purity or impurity—the heart and the mouth (not the hands or stomach). But notice that Jesus isn’t high on either. He doesn’t speak of “the good things that come up out of human hearts”—sympathy, kindness, artistry, creativity, love. Instead he speaks only of the bad things—“evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander.” Here he actually uses the second table of the Ten Commandments. He used the fifth commandment earlier. Now he brings out commandments six, seven, eight, nine, and maybe ten. Here he takes God’s perfect Law and uses it as a spotlight on the human heart. It’s similar to what he did in the Sermon on the Mount. “Let’s look at the human heart,” Jesus says in essence. “Oh, let’s look very carefully and closely. Now, what do we see? It is beating but diseased.” The human heart is indeed diseased. We all suffer from heart disease. Our heart pumps evil through our arteries—go ahead and hate, go ahead and lust, go ahead and curse and covet and lie and steal.
Here our Lord gives no optimistic anthropology. According to Jesus, as Bruner notes, “The filth of the [toilet] is not so great as that of a human heart not yet cleansed’ (emphasis mine). Bruner continues with this question... who thoroughly weighs this?” Good question.
“How’s your heart?” is how I might phrase it. And you might say, “How do I know? Listen, I get all that about washing hands, cups, and pots, eating kosher food, keeping the Sabbath, and so on. I get that all that stuff doesn’t get me right with God, but this old ticker, how do I know what’s in it? How do I know if Jesus is shooting straight here or just exaggerating to make a point?”
Jesus solves the riddle. He is shooting straight. He is telling the truth about the human heart. How do you know what's in your heart? Easy; just look at what comes out of your mouth: “What comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart” (v. 18).
We all know that how you talk to and about your spouse tells you (and everyone in earshot) about the quality of your marriage. The same is true of father-son, boss-employee relationships. The same is true of every relationship. The same is true of our relationship with God. “I tell you,” Jesus told us already in 12:36, 37, “on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak, for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.” Our words speak volumes. Our words are the window to our hearts.
How clean is your heart? It’s as clean as your tongue. And who of us has never sworn or gossiped or spoken in unholy anger or given unjust criticism or taken the name of the Lord our God in vain? Lay down your stone, O sinner. Cover your mouths, for we are a people with unclean lips. Yes, the world is full of dirty words. And it will take a lot more than the efforts of the EPA to clean it up. Our world is filthy, and the world’s “major pollutant” is words. Words are the great human impurity. Words are the toxin of today. Our bad words show our bad hearts.
Jesus’ “Parable of the Mouth” teaches that we are not clean enough on the inside to be right with God through washing our hands before we eat. Put differently, clean hands are not the mediator between God and man. Jesus is. Through the Holy Spirit we need Jesus to give us broken and contrite hearts (Psalm 51:17), circumcised hearts (Romans 2:29), clean hearts (Hebrews 10:22), pure hearts (1 Peter 1:22), new hearts (Ezekiel 36:26), sincere hearts (Ephesians 6:5), so that we might believe from the heart (Ephesians 3:17) and obey from the heart (Deuteronomy 11:13), so we might have Christ dwell in our hearts through faith (Ephesians 3:17).
Yes, “The filth of the [toilet] is not so great as that of a human heart not yet cleansed” But Christ—his righteousness, his purity, his perfectly clean hands and head and heart—dwelling in our hearts through faith changes everything. What can cure a sin-diseased heart? Faith. Faith in Jesus. What can wash away all those unclean words? Faith. Faith in Jesus. Faith in Christ and him crucified, dying upon the cross for all our sins—the blasphemies, the backtalk, every careless thought and deed and word.
The scribes and the Pharisees were blind to this. They were blind to Jesus. That’s why they asked the wrong question, trusted in their un-Scriplural traditions, and thought purity was just an outside, not an inside, deal. But here Jesus has taught us, as he tried to teach them, that “the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking but of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit” (Romans 14:17), that the Father is seeking “true worshippers” who will worship him “in spirit and truth” (John 4:23), and that only the pure in heart shall see God (5:8).
That is what is he has taught here—that only the pure in heart shall see God. So how’s your heart? How’s your mouth? How’s your sight? Are you seeing as you should see? Or are you still blind?
(R. Kent Hughes. and Douglas Sean O'Donnell., 2013; edited Carl Hinton., 2020)