What comes to mind when we think about something being pure? One definition is freedom from adulteration or contamination. From a biblical perspective, to be pure is to be morally clean, without blemish.

From today’s text we find the Pharisees and some teachers of the law questioning Jesus about his disciples eating with unwashed hands. These religious leaders have decided to stake Jesus out. I can visualize them standing in the shadows, watching and waiting for Jesus or his disciples to break one of their traditions, then jump out and question him why, trying to discredit Him.

Hygiene is the main reason we wash our hands multiple times throughout the day. In addition, we wash our bodies and our clothes to kill the germs that are waiting to attack our bodies. We have hand sanitizers and sprays we use to supplement our washing. In my home we add a Lysol disinfectant to our wash loads as an additional precaution.

“It is important to understand that for the Jew “cleanliness” was not limited to or even primarily concerned with matters of hygiene, nor are distinctions between clean and unclean entirely understandable on the basis of rational explanation alone.”¹

As the Jews encountered the Gentile culture more and more during the postexilic period, the question of ritual cleanliness took on a new significance for the Jew. By practicing the rituals of cleanliness, the Jews were able to establish a separation from Gentile culture. Here’s a list of things Pharisaic rabbis consider uncleanness?

• Any form of human excretion (saliva, semen, menstruation)
• Women after childbirth
• Corpses
• The decaying flesh of dead animals
• Creeping, crawling things
• Idols
• Certain classes of people

So, rather than building bridges to other cultures, the Jews were building barriers. The Apostle Paul was the Apostle to the Gentiles. He tells us in Ephesians 2:11-18:

11 Therefore, remember that formerly you who are Gentiles by birth and called “uncircumcised” by those who call themselves “the circumcision” (that done in the body by the hands of men)–

12 remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world.

13 But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ.

14 For he himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility,

15 by abolishing in his flesh the law with its commandments and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new man out of the two, thus making peace,

16 and in this one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility.

17 He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near.

18 For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit.

The ultimate plan of God was for us to become one body with Jesus as the head. It appears the Jews had a hard time embracing God’s will when it came to Gentiles.

We can divide Jesus’ encounter with the Pharisees from today’s text into three stages. Stage one is the accusation stage. I’ve already shared the Jewish leaders were staking out Jesus looking for any tradition He might break. The accusation was the failure of Jesus’ disciples to ceremonially wash their hands before eating. In reality, it was the priests that were required to wash their hands. These washings were part of the tradition that the scribes and Pharisees had given to the people to add to their burdens.

Mt 23:1-4

1 Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples:

2 “The teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat.

3 So you must obey them and do everything they tell you. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach.

4 They tie up heavy loads and put them on men’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them.

Why would something as trivial as washing your hands upset the religious leaders?

• They resented Jesus opposing their authority. (Mt 23:13: “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the kingdom of heaven in men’s faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to.)
• They felt the washings set themselves apart from non-Jews labeling them as unclean.
• “These washings indicated a wrong attitude toward people but also conveyed a wrong idea of the nature of sin and personal holiness. The pious Pharisees thought they were holy because they obeyed the law and avoided external defilement. Jesus taught that a person who obeys the law externally can still break the law in his heart, and that external defilement has little connection with the condition of the inner person.”²
• The conflict was between God’s truth and man’s traditions.

The second stage can be labeled condemnation. Jesus condemned these religious leaders by quoting the prophet Isaiah and He brought in the law of Moses.

“Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you hypocrites; as it is written: “‘These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain; their teachings are but rules taught by men.’ You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to the traditions of men.”

For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and your mother,’ and ‘Anyone who curses his father or mother must be put to death.’ But you say that if a man says to his father or mother: ‘Whatever help you might otherwise have received from me is Corban’ (that is, a gift devoted to God), then you no longer let him do anything for his father or mother. Thus, you nullify the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And you do many things like that.”

“In defending their traditions, the Pharisees eroded their own characters and also the character of the Word of God. They were hypocrites, “playactors” whose religious worship was practiced in vain. True worship must come from the heart, and it must be directed by God’s truth, not man’s personal ideas. What a tragedy that religious people would ignorantly practice their religion and become worse for it.”³ If you come to this church or any church and after a while you are in worse shape spiritually than when you started coming, how does that happen? It happens because what you are being taught is not God’s Word, it’s a watered-down version of what I think will keep you coming without offending you in the process.

History has shown that Jewish religious leaders honored their traditions above the Word of God. “The Mishnah, a collection of Jewish traditions in the Talmud, records, “It is a greater offense to teach anything contrary to the voice of the Rabbis than to contradict Scripture itself.”⁴

Are you shocked by these revelations? In some respects, the same accusations can be leveled at our Christian church fathers, the replacing of God’s truth with the traditions of man.

The third stage is declaration.

Mark 7:14-15

14 Again Jesus called the crowd to him and said, “Listen to me, everyone, and understand this.

15 Nothing outside a man can make him ‘unclean’ by going into him. Rather, it is what comes out of a man that makes him ‘unclean.'”

In Jesus’ declaration, He broke down one of the walls that separated Jews and Gentiles, what makes a person clean or unclean? “In every period of history, true holiness has always been a matter of the heart, a right relationship with God by faith. Moses made it clear in Deuteronomy that God wanted love and obedience to come from the heart, and not merely outward obedience to rules. (Note Deut. 6:4-5; 10:12; 30:6, 20)”⁵

The disciples didn’t understand the parable Jesus had shared with the crowd, so they asked Him to explain it to them.

Mark 7:18-23

18 “Are you so dull?” he asked. “Don’t you see that nothing that enters a man from the outside can make him ‘unclean’?

19 For it doesn’t go into his heart but into his stomach, and then out of his body.” (In saying this, Jesus declared all foods “clean.”)

20 He went on: “What comes out of a man is what makes him ‘unclean.’

21 For from within, out of men’s hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery,

22 greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly.

23 All these evils come from inside and make a man ‘unclean.'”

“Because of their dietary laws, the Jews believed they could be clean before God because of what they refused to eat. Jesus pointed out that sin begins in the attitudes and intentions of the inner person. Jesus did not degrade the law, but He paved the way for the change made clear in Acts 10:25-28: when God removed the cultural restrictions regarding food.

25 As Peter entered the house, Cornelius met him and fell at his feet in reverence.

26 But Peter made him get up. “Stand up,” he said, “I am only a man myself.”

27 Talking with him, Peter went inside and found a large gathering of people.

28 He said to them: “You are well aware that it is against our law for a Jew to associate with a Gentile or visit him. But God has shown me that I should not call any man impure or unclean.

Jesus was more concerned about mind-sets and thought processes than about food laws.”⁶

How is your heart? Is it a place of inner purity or not. What comes out of your mouth and your actions reveal who is in control of your life.

James 3:9-12

9 With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in God’s likeness.

10 Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers, this should not be.

11 Can both fresh water and saltwater flow from the same spring?

12 My brothers, can a fig tree bear olives, or a grapevine bear figs? Neither can a salt spring produce fresh water.

I’m not omniscient, but God is. You can fool me sometimes, but you can never fool God. Galatians 5:16 says, “live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature.”

Study Questions

1. How would you define purity?
2. How do you feel when you know somebody is watching you trying to catch you in a mistake?
3. How were Jewish traditions impacting their interaction with other cultures?
4. What is the ultimate plan of God as found in Ephesians 2:11-18?
5. What have you been accused of and were you guilty?
6. Do we have traditions that are a burden for us?
7. Have you ever condemned an action because of biblical reasons?
8. What would cause you to continue going to a church that wasn’t helping you grow in your knowledge of God?
9. What do you do when you hear me say something and you don’t understand what I said?
10. What makes you clean?