Hypocrisy - Gospel of Matthew - Part 42
Hypocrisy
Matthew 15:1-20
Immanuel – 9/1/24
We spent most of August in a flashback. Since Matthew 14:3, Matthew has taken us back in time, back to when John the Baptist was martyred by Herod Antipas. We then saw Jesus’ response to the news of His cousin’s death, His miraculous feeding of an enormous crowd, and He and Peter walk on water. It was a remarkable 48 hours in the life of Jesus.
When we come to chapter 15, things snap forward into the overarching timeline as Matthew is presenting it. By way of reminder, and for the most part, Matthew has not arranged his Gospel in chronological order. He has arranged the book as a travel narrative: Jesus begins in Galilee, journeys through Judea, and ends in Jerusalem.
Already we have seen the beginning of the end for Jesus’ ministry in Galilee. So many of the towns of Galilee have refused to repent, the people of His hometown have violently rejected Him, the religious establishment opposes Him, and Herod – the ruler of Galilee – looks on Jesus with dangerous suspicion.
Capernaum had been Jesus’ homebase of operations. But now He abandons the city, becoming a homeless wanderer. He will pass through again, but only on His way to other places, often non-Jewish places. It is as if He is not welcome among the majority of Galilean Jews – that is, unless they want to get some miracles out of Him.
As we see today, opposition to Jesus is only mounting. And before Jesus can travel to Jerusalem, Jerusalem comes to Jesus. It is not a happy meeting.
Read vs 1
The Jerusalem Delegation
The most authoritative Jewish religious leaders were in Jerusalem – the holy city. The delegation they sent to rustic Galilee was an extension of their authority, a representation of their elite status and power. And they do not extend this authoritative arm with an open mind; it seems they have already drawn some conclusions about Jesus.
Jesus’ fame had indeed grown. Herod looks suspiciously on Him, and now Jerusalem has come to Jesus looking to pick a fight. There are no pleasantries, no warmth at all. Jerusalem’s delegates ask a question filled with oppositional force.
Read vs 2
The religious leaders question Jesus’ disciples, but in reality, they are confronting Jesus. Disciples, by definition, follow their teacher. If the disciples are not washing their hands, it is because Jesus has taught them to do so. In other words, the Pharisees are assessing whether or not Jesus is a false teacher, though it seems like they’ve already made up their minds.
They see Jesus’ teaching run contrary to the tradition of the elders – on a number of levels – but here they cite the washing of hands. To us it may seem like hand washing is a minor issue, but we can hardly overstate how important it was to religious Jews in those days.
Let me provide a bit of context surrounding handwashing. In the books of law, God said to Israel,
“I am the Lord your God. Consecrate yourselves therefore, and be holy, for I am holy.” -Leviticus 11:44
As God is set apart, altogether different in His pure holiness; so He was setting His people apart, to be holy and pure. Thus, the people of God were to avoid becoming unclean. This had a spiritual side and a physical side, a moral aspect and a bodily aspect. On the physical/bodily side, the ceremonial law dictated what was clean and unclean.
For instance, the ceremonial law of God says that the following things are unclean: dead bodies (human or animal), blood, people with infectious diseases (like leprosy), pigs, and many more. Then, anything that came in contact with these unclean things also became unclean. Thus, if you touched an unclean thing, you became unclean.
Likely, you can see the merit in all of this. God was teaching His people to be hygienic. But, unless you were a temple priest, God did not require His people to wash regularly; only when obvious contact was made with something unclean. Then there were the Gentiles, who didn’t follow Jewish ceremonial laws. Without adherence to the law, they were also unclean.
And yet, a funny thing happened. What if you touched something unclean, but you did not realize it. What if a person with a discharge of blood had sat on a bench, and then later you sat on that same bench. Had you become accidentally unclean? What if an unclean Gentile brushed up against you as you passed through a crowded street?
An oral tradition arose starting with the assumption that everything was unclean. The religious leaders created endless regulations going wildly above and beyond the ceremonial laws of God. Important requirements developed surrounding handwashing – especially handwashing before you eat.
Through the centuries, these traditions grew, eventually got put into books, and embedded themselves in the Jewish identity. What began in good intentions, desiring to be holy as God is holy, mutated and corrupted. By Jesus’ day the “traditions of the elders” were so numerous that only the scribes could keep track of them, the common people were terribly burdened by them, and the poor and uneducated could never hope to keep them.
In the minds of Jerusalem’s religious elite, if Jesus was teaching His disciples, they didn’t need to wash their hands before they ate, it was an assault on the very identity of the Jewish people. It was an assault on them who so rigorously upheld the traditions. And Jesus called Himself a religious leader? Outrageous!
But they could not see that they could not see. Like the Proverbs teach, a fool does not know he is a fool, but thinks himself wise. Speaking words charged with divine authority, Jesus rebukes centuries of corrupt, unjust, overbearing, traditions of man.
Read vs 3-6
Jesus addresses three groups of people: first the religious leaders, then the crowd in general, and then His disciples privately. Notice how Jesus does not directly address the Pharisee’s question at all. He does not defend Himself nor the practice of the disciples. These scribes and Pharisees, who loved the art of debate, were probably hoping that Jesus would try to defend Himself. Instead, Jesus attacks another tradition of the elders.
Jesus does this by first posing a counter question: “Why do you break the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition?” He has just taken the Pharisee’s question and eviscerated it. The traditions of man must never supersede what God has spoken. And do not miss what Jesus is getting at. He is not saying that despite their traditions they break the law of God. Rather, Jesus is saying that it is precisely because of their traditions that they break God’s law.
Jesus then gives a condemning example: a tradition of the elders commonly called “Korban.”
Jesus quotes two commandments of God (Exodus 20:12 and Exodus 21:17). Many of you will know that in the 10 Commandments, “honor your father and mother” is the 5th commandment. But for the sake of Korban, the tradition of the elders made provision for the people to dishonor their father and mother.
Korban was the practice of vowing, or promising, to give food, money, or property over to the temple treasury. The tradition presented korban as a way to please God; but the temple leaders lived off of the temple treasury. Turns out, they were pleased too.
It was not uncommon for a young man to get caught up in a religious fervor and make a rash vow, pledging large amounts of money or significant portions of land to the temple; and the sly religious leaders did not question the appropriateness of such an oath. Money that should have been used to support aging parents was swallowed up by the temple leaders. This is one reason why, in Luke 21:47, Jesus said the scribes “devour widows’ houses.”
As Jesus says in verse 6, Jerusalem’s religious establishment, and their copious traditions, were making void the word of God. Pharisees were welcoming people to dishonor their father and mother, calling it a good thing, and then profiting from it.
Read vs 7-9
Hypocrites! Jesus perfectly describes the hypocrisy of the Pharisees later on in the Gospel of Matthew.
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people’s bones and all uncleanness. So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but inwardly you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.” -Matthew 23:27-28
That’s the sort of hypocrisy Jesus sees in these religious leaders, these leaders of the Jews. Back in our passage, Jesus says the religious leaders are as wicked as the religious leaders in the days of the prophet Isaiah. Their worship is superficial, empty, meaningless, self-righteous. It’s just a show. They talk the talk, but they do not walk the walk.
This is “exhibit A” in how religion is not the same as relationship with God! The scribes and Pharisees were deeply religious, rigorously committed to their beliefs. But their hearts were far from God, they had no relationship with Him.
Paul wrote to the Romans about this:
They have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. For being ignorant of the righteousness of God, and seeking to establish their own, they did not submit to God’s righteousness. -Romans 10:2-3
In other words, the scribes and Pharisees, and all of earth’s practitioners of religion, can be overflowing with passion for their god/s. But they do not know the True and Living God. They have no relationship with Him. And consequently, they are far from God’s righteousness and lost in their own self-righteous works of wickedness.
And then, for the scribes and Pharisees that confront Jesus, what is even more damning is that they teach other people to do the very same thing: teaching as doctrines the commandments of men. They teach people to nullify God’s word so they can uphold their superficial, empty, self-righteous traditions. Jesus is effectively saying that by placing their traditions above God’s word, they place themselves above God, and then teach others to do the same.
Make no mistake, Jesus is angry. In Matthew 23 He will pronounce seven woes over the scribes and Pharisees and call them children of hell. But here His anger is more muted. None-the-less, the lines have been drawn. One commentator writes, “After this dialogue the breach between Jesus and the scribal establishment is irreparable.”1
Then Jesus turns His attention to the crowds, to the very people the scribes and Pharisees had been foisting their unbearable and wicked traditions upon. Jesus directs no anger toward them, but instead offers a path to freedom.
Read vs 10-11
Internal, Not External
If the scribes and Pharisees were upset with what Jesus was teaching His disciples, verse 12 informs us that they were fuming as He instructs the crowds; a fact that Jesus would not have been oblivious to.
He says, “Hear and understand.” From the highest to the lowest, elite religious leader to poor beggars, Jesus is calling the people to think – to think deeply.
I’ve said it before and I will say it again, following Jesus is not a mindless endeavor. Jesus calls us to be thinkers, to follow Him with our minds as well as our hearts. Just as we can be lazy in our deeds, so can we be lazy in our thinking. If a fool does not know he is a fool, how can he come to know his condition? One way to answer: think deeply upon the words of Christ.
“Hear and understand: it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out of the mouth; this defiles a person.”
Jesus gives no explanation to the crowd. His words carried all the truth the people needed, if only they applied their minds to hear and then understand. But to the disciples, Jesus does provide explanation. This is an example of “to those who have, more will be given” (Matthew 13:12).
Read vs 12
Last week we saw Peter walk on water. Now he is speaking as a representative of the 12 disciples. We know this because Jesus’ answers are not just for Peter, but for the group. Peter has now emerged as the leader of the disciples.
And, on behalf of the disciples, he wants to make sure that Jesus knows about the insulted religious leaders. Did the disciples think that Jesus had pushed a little too hard? Did they think He needed to go smooth things over?
Jesus does not think so.
Read vs 13-14
The scribes and Pharisees peacock around in their robes of authority, but their authority is neither given by God nor founded in God’s word. Like a parasitic weed in a garden, God will rip them from His good soil. Take note, this is a word of judgment; and it is not spoken about future religious leaders. It is spoken about the religious establishment of that generation, leading the people like blind guides.
Blind guides indeed. They could not see the way to God, they could not see the righteousness of God. They thought their freshly washed hands were enough, but they could not see – would not see – that they were filthy with unrighteousness.
“Leave them alone.” With these three words, Jesus sidelines the scribes and Pharisees in the kingdom of God. They make themselves prominent, but they are nothing in the kingdom of heaven. Let them flaunt. Just leave them alone. Let them be. Their day is coming. For without repentance, the pit these blind guides will fall into burns with eternal flame. Anyone that would follow them falls endlessly in with them.
Read vs 15
In the sense that we understand it, Jesus has not just told a parable. But in the Greek sense of the word, a proverb – or wise saying – can also be called a parable. This is what Peter refers to when he asks for clarity on behalf of the disciples.
Read vs 16
Jesus is angry with the religious leaders, but He is frustrated with the disciples. They should know by now. They should know that it’s not about all these exterior things, it’s not about religious performance, but God seeks relationship with His people.
They heard Jesus teach all these principles in the Sermon on the Mount and the Parable Discourse. They watched as Jesus touched lepers, demon possessed people, a woman with a discharge of blood, and dead bodies. He did not become unclean, but they became clean. Nearness to Jesus is what was making people clean. But those closest to Jesus, the disciples, are still not getting it.
Have you ever had to tell your kids, or a student, or an employee, the same thing over and over and over again and still they don’t seem to understand. So it was with Jesus and the disciples. So the next time you get frustrated because they still don’t get it, know that you have a share in Jesus’ sufferings, and He in yours.
But despite His frustration, Jesus patiently explains:
Read vs 17-20
What you eat and drink is simply that, they do not render a person unclean. The things that come out of the mouth, these betray the condition of the heart. This is very much like what James writes:
If anyone thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his heart, this person’s religion is worthless. -James 1:26
With your mouth you can speak gossip, or cut someone down with sharp words, or be condescending, or lie. All of these betray evil in the heart. Though sarcasm has its place, I know my sarcastic tongue has hurt too many people. There is sin in my heart, and I have to work to bridle my tongue. And part of that work is to repeatedly ask for forgiveness – from God and from those I’ve offended – and then pray that God give me grace for self-control.
Jesus mentions evil thoughts in verse 19. Evil thoughts come from an evil heart. As Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount, hatred betrays a murderous heart. Lust betrays an adulterous and sexually immoral heart. Additionally, covetousness betrays a thieving heart; envy, a slanderous heart; arrogance, a deceitful heart.
“These are what defile a person.” Eating with unwashed hands has no moral bearing on a person. Contact with external things, like food and drink, does not render a person morally defiled.
With words like these, Jesus has flipped the religious world upside down, stripping it of its superficial and self-righteous traditions. Indeed, the reality of Jesus would forever change the identity of the people of God; no longer marked by their strict adherence to rules and traditions but marked by their relationship with Him: where His disciples think deeply on what He has said and allow their lives to be transformed by them, where disciples are washed clean through nearness to Him.
Brothers and sisters, following Jesus is not about living by a strict set of regulations: do this, don’t do that. Don’t be a hypocrite, no one can live under such burdens, not even you! Following Jesus is about loving Jesus because He has loved you, because He emptied Himself as He gave Himself for you.
God’s word tells us that we are all born with hearts that are diseased with sinful desires, hearts that are spiritually dead. Diseased and dead hearts: unclean! Right down at the deepest part of who we are, in our inmost being, we are unclean.
But by faith, all of your uncleanness was placed upon Jesus at the cross. The moral filth of God’s people was placed upon Him and He became sin who knew no sin. He was crushed for our iniquity, pierced for our transgressions. But on the third day, when Jesus defeated death, He was raised in blinding light, whiter than white, perfectly spotless and infinitely clean: holy, holy, holy!
And to all who trust in this truth, He pours His Holy Spirit upon you, and you are cleansed! Listen carefully to God’s word.
Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. -1 Corinthians 6:9-11
What freedom we have in Christ! Indeed, where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom (1 Corinthians 3:17)! You are free to eat what you like and drink what you like, you are free to touch what you like, you are free. But because you live in relationship to Jesus, whatever you do, do unto the Lord (Colossians 3:23-24)! Or, as St. Augustine put in different words: “Love God, and do whatever you please: for the soul trained in love of God will do nothing to offend the One who is Beloved.”
I leave you with a psalm of David.
Who shall ascend the hill of the Lord? And who shall stand in His holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not lift up his soul to what is false and does not swear deceitfully. He will receive blessing from the Lord and righteousness from the God of his salvation. Such is the generation of those who seek him, who seek the face of the God of Jacob. -Psalm 24:3-4
1France, R.T. (2007). The Gospel of Matthew. Pg 575. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.
