FALSE LIP SERVICE
"You
hypocrites, rightly did Isaiah prophesy of you, saying….” Matt. 15:7
Christ's
charge was that it is possible to honor God with the lip while the heart is far
from Him.
After saying this He turned to the multitudes, and, calling them
to Him, He rebuked the Pharisees. In the words He uttered to the multitudes we
find His condemnation of external religion, and His affirmation of the
importance of heart relationship.
Now He took up their own illustration, as He said; the things
that enter a man as to his body never defile a man, but the things that come
from the center of a man's essential life are the things that defile. The
Pharisees told them what to eat, and what not to eat; what to wear, and what
not to wear; what to do and what not to do; these were trivialities which had
become highest matters in the influence and the teaching of scribes and
Pharisees. In correction the King declared; it is not the thing that a man
touches in his physical life that pollutes him. Not that Jesus meant to say
that there is no relationship between the physical and spiritual. There is the
closest relationship between spirit, mind, and body; and this is taught
throughout the old and new testaments. But when a man thinks he makes himself
religious by observing rules which deal only with the physical, he has missed
the heart and center of religion; and therefore the King acknowledged in the
hearing of the multitudes, that it was not the physical thing that entered into
the man that defiled him, but the things that came from his heart, the seat of
intelligence, and emotion, and will, the spiritual center of a man. Christ said
that from that spiritual center spring all the forces that defile. So that a
man may wash his hands not only before meals, but as the Pharisees did,
between the courses, a man may be ceremonially clean by the observance of all
the traditions of the elders, and yet his heart may be a veritable sink of
iniquity, a flowing stream and a river, not polluting himself only, but also
the life of family, friends, of the city and the nation. This was the King's
protest against any religion that consists in the observance of externalities;
and His affirmation of the fact that nothing makes life pure but inward purity
which will influence all the externalities.
After this teaching the disciples came to Jesus, filled with
concern. They said, do you know that the Pharisees are offended? They seemed to
say, The deputation was from Jerusalem, a deputation of elders; they were men
of light and learning, and You have offended these men? Observe what we may
describe as the ruthlessness of Christ's answer. There is no pity in the word
of Jesus for error, no matter by whomsoever the error may be taught. Men who
were violating the commandment of God by insisting upon the tradition, men who
were hiding that commandment underneath tradition had no place in His pity.
Our Lord said, "Every plant which My
heavenly Father planted not, shall be rooted up." He was not referring
to the men, but to the system for which they stood; and in effect He said to
His disciples, when they told Him the Pharisees were offended, that He had
nothing to do with these Pharisees. He never descended to the level of dealing
with men personally in order to hurt and harm them. The plant of traditional
religion God had not planted, and it was His indication of His method with His
disciples when He told them that the plants which were not of God's planting
must be rooted up Therefore He said, "Let
them alone: they are blind guides." That explained what He had done.
He had not attacked them; He was not dealing with them as individuals; but with
the evil thing in their system and teaching. He came, the Truth, to correct
error; He came, God's own great Vine of life, and light, and love, to destroy
the false fungus growths upon religious thinking which were sapping the very
life of men and ruining them. When Peter came and inquired the meaning of the
parable, showing how they were astonished at the radical thing Jesus had said,
He repeated what He had already said as to the sources of defilement.
Now notice teaching for ourselves. First, in His dealing with the
tradition of the scribes and Pharisees, Christ revealed the perpetual conflict
between divine and human religion. Human religion is conditioned in
externalities, and therefore fails to touch essential life. Divine religion
begins in essential life, and from that center governs the last externality.
There is perpetual difference. It is manifest all through the New Testament,
and when we come to the teaching of the Epistles we find it specially
emphasized. If we take the Galatian Epistle, the charter of Christian liberty,
it sets at naught the idea that any man may be made spiritual by fleshly
observance; and insists upon the necessity for spiritual relationship, if there
is to be spiritual purity. The difference between human and divine religion is
always seen in this respect. In all heathen religions, religion and morality
are divorced. This is the ultimate test of religion. Is our religion a thing of
the heart, a communion between our inner life and God, a force that drives us
to the watch-tower in the morning to catch the gleam of the glory of the
pathway of His feet, a passion that sends us back to Him with shame and disgust
when we have sinned? That is the true religion. If Jesus in all the virtue of
His life and love sits sentinel in our heart we shall guard our lips, and be
careful as to what we eat or drink; but it is not the things that enter in, but
the things that come out of the center which defile the man and reveals his
hypocrisy. That must be our evaluation of tradition which could be dealing with
external issues. All religions (plants) which God has not planted must be
rooted up.
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