Ryle on Mark 7:1-13

Imported boundary: J. C. Ryle's Expository Thoughts on Mark from the Internet Archive DjVu OCR for the 1858 Robert Carter St. Mark volume. Title pages, preface, contents, running heads, page numbers, OCR boilerplate, and indexes are not mirrored. The source includes Ryle's printed Scripture text and exposition; this scan-derived text remains needs-verification.

Primary passage: Mark 7:1-13.

Source Text

1 Then came together unto him the Pharisees, and certain of the Scribes, which came from Jerusalem. 2 And when they saw some of his disciples eat bread with defiled, that is to say, with unwashen hands, they found fault. 3 For the Pharisees, and all tho Jews, except they wash their hands oft, eat not, holding the tradition of the elders. 4 And tvhen they come from the market, except they wash, they cut not. Aud many other things there be, •which they have received to hold, as the washing of cups, and pots, brasen vessels, and of tables. 5 Then the Pharisees and Scribes asked him, Why walk not thy disci- ples according to the traditions of the elders, but eat bread with unwashen hands 2 6 He answered and said unto them, Well hath Esaias prophesied of you hypocrites, as it is written, This peo- ple honoreth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. 7 Howbeit in vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the com- mandments of men. 8 For laying aside the command- ment of God, ye hold the tradition of men, as the washing of pots and cups : and many other suchlike things ye do. 9 And he said unto them, Full well ye reject the commandment of God, that ye may keep your own traditions. 10 For Moses said, Honor thy fa- ther and thy mother ; and. Whoso curseth father or mother, let' him die the death : 11 But ye say, If a man shall say to his father or mother, It is Corban, that is to say, a gift, by whatsoever thou mightest be profited by me ; he shall be free. 12 And ye suffer him no more to do ought for his father or his mother ; 13 Making the word of God of none effect through your tradition, which ye have delivered : and many such like things do ye. This passage contains a humbling picture of what hurnan nature is capable of doing in religion. It is one of those Scriptures which ought to be frequently and diligently studied by all who desire the prosperity of the Church of Christ.

The first thing which demands oar attention in these verses, is the low and degraded condition of Jewish religion, when our Lord was upon earth. What can be more de- plorable than the statement now before us ? We find the principal teachers of the Jewish nation finding fault, " because our Lord's disciples ate bread with unwashen hands !" We are told that they attached great import- ance to the washing of cups, and pots, and brazen ves- sels, and tables \" In short, the man who paid most rigid attention to mere external observances of human invention was reckoned the holiest man ! The nation, be it remembered, in which this state of things existed, was the most highly favored in the world. To it was given the law on Mount Sinai, the service of God, the priesthood, the covenants, and the promises. 135 Moses, and Samuel, and David, and the prophets, lived and died among its people. No nation upon earth ever had so many spiritual privileges. No nation ever mis- used its privileges so fearfully, and so thoroughly forsook its own mercies. Never did fine gold become so dim S From the religion of the books of Deuteronomy and Psalms, to the religion of washing hands, and pots, and cups, how great was the fall ! No wonder that in the time of our Lord's earthly ministry, He found the people like sheep without a shepherd. External observances alone feed no consciences and sanctify no hearts. Let the history of the Jewish church be a warning to us never to trifle with false doctrine. If we once tolerate it we never know how far it may go, or into what de- graded state of religion we may at last fall. Once leave the King's highway of truth, and we may end with wash- ing pots and cups, like Pharisees and Scribes. There is nothing too mean, trifling, or irrational for a man, if he once turns his back on God's word. There are branches of the Church of Christ at this day in which the Scrip- tures are never read, and the Gospel never preached - ■ branches in which the only religion now remaining con- sists in using a few unmeaning forms and keeping certain man-made fasts and feasts - branches which began well, like the Jewish church, and, like the Jewish church, have now fallen into utter barrenness and decay. We can never be too jealous about false doctrine. A little leaven leaven eth the whole lump. Let us earnestly contend for the whole faith once delivered to the saints.*

* Absurd and ridiculous as the customs and traditions of the Phari- sees appear at first sight, it id a humbling fact that the Pharisees have

The second thing, that demands our attention, is the uselessness of mere lip-service in the worship of God. Our Lord enforces this lesson by a quotation from the Old Testament : " Well hath Esaias prophesied of you hypo- crites, This people honoreth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me." The heart is the part of man which God chiefly notices in religion. The bowed head, and the bended knee - the grave face and the rigid posture - the regular re- sponse, and the formal amen - all these together do not make up a spiritual worshipper. The eyes of God look further and deeper. He requires the worship of the heart. " My son," he says to every one of us, " Give me thy heart."

Let us remember this in the public congregation. It must not content us to take our bodies to church, if we leave our hearts at home. The eye of man may detect no flaw in our service. Our minister may look at us with approbation. Our neighbors may think us patterns of never wanted imitators and successors. Zeal about washing pots, and cups, and tables, may seem almost ludicrous, and worthy of none but children ; but we need not look far to find an exact parallel near home. What can we say to the gravity and seriousness with which men argue on behalf of chasubles, albs, tunicles, piscinas, sedilia, credence-tables, rood-screens, and the like, in the present day ? What can we say to the exaggerated attention paid by many to ceremonies, ornaments, gestures, and postures, in the worship of God, about which it is enough to say that Scripture is totally silent ? What is it all but Pharisaism over again ? What is it but a melancholy repetition of disproportioned zeal about men's traditional usages ? What single argument can be used in defence of these things that the Pharisees might not have used with equal force ? Eighteen hundred years have passed away, and yet the generation that made so much ado about washing pots, cups, and tables, is still amongst us. The succession of the Pharisees has never ceased. 13T what a Christian ought to be. Our voice may be heard foremost in the praise and prayer. But it is all worse than nothing in God's sight, if our hearts are far away. It is only wood, hay, and stubble before Him who dis- cerns thoughts, and reads the secrets of the inward man.

Let us remember this in our private devotions. It must not satisfy us to say good words, if our heart and our lips do not go together. What does it profit us to be fluent and lengthy, if our imaginations are roving far away, while we are upon our knees ? It profits us nothing at all. God sees what we are about, and rejects our offering. Heart- prayers are the prayers He loves to hear. Heart-prayers are the only prayers that He will answer. Our petitions may be weak, and stammering, and mean in our eyes. They may be presented with no fine words, or well-chosen language, and might seem almost unintelligible, if they were written clown. But if they come from a right heart, God understands them. Such prayers are His delight.

The last thing that demands our attention in these verses, is the tendency of man's inventions in religion to supplant God's word. Three times we find this charge brought forward by our Lord against the Pharisees. " Laying aside the commandments of God, ye hold the traditions of men." " Full well ye reject the command- ment of God, that ye may keep your own traditions." " Making the Word of God of none effect through your traditions." The first step of the Pharisees, was to add their traditions to the Scriptures, as useful supplements. The second was to place them on a level with the Word of God, and give them equal authority. The last was to honor them above the Scripture, and to degrade Scripture from its lawful position. This was the state of things which our Lord found when he was upon earth. Practically, the traditions of man were everything, and the Word of God was nothing at all. Obedience to the traditions constituted true religion. Obedience to the Scriptures was lost sight of altogether. It is a mournful fact, that Christians have far too often walked in the steps of Pharisees in this matter. The very same process has taken place over and over again. The very same consequences have resulted. Keligious observances of man's invention, have been pressed on the acceptance of Christians- observances to all appearance useful, and at all events well-meant, but observances nowhere commanded in the word of God. These very observances have by and by been enjoined with more vigor than God's own commandments, and defended with more zeal than the authority of God's own word. We need not look far for examples. The history of our own church will supply them.*

Let us beware of attempting to add anything to the word of God, as necessary to salvation. It provokes

* The persecution of the Puritans in the time of the Stuarts, on account of canons and rubrics was, in too many cases, neither more nor less than zeal for traditions. An enormous amount of zeal was expended in enforcing ronformity to the Church of England, while drunkenness, swearing, and open sin were comparatively let alone. Obedience to man-made eoclesiastical rules was required, on pain of fine or imprisonment, while open disobedience to God's ten com- mandments was overlooked. Experience supplies painful proof, that traditions once called into being are first called useful. Then they become necessary. At last they are too often made idols, and all must bow down to them, or be punished. 139 God to give us over to judicial blindness. It is as good as saying that His Bible is not perfect, and that we know better than He does what is necessary for man's salvation. It is just as easy to destroy the authority of God's word by addition as by subtraction, by burying it under man's inventions as by denying its truth. The whole Bible, and nothing but the Bible, must be our rule of faith - nothing added and nothing taken away.

Finally, let us draw a broad line of distinction between those things in religion which have been devised by man, and those which are plainly commanded in God's word. What God commands is necessary to salvation. What man commands is not. What man devises may be useful and expedient for the times ; but salvation does not hinge on obedience to it. What God requires is essential to life eternal. He that wilfully disobeys it ruins his own soul.*

* The subtle way in which the Pharisees evaded the requirements of the fifth commandment, to which our Lord refers in this passage, calls for a few words of explanation.

We must remember that the Pharisees did not openly deny the obligation of the fifth commandment. In all probability they pro- fessed to attach as much importance to it as any men. And yet they contrived to make it void ! How did they effect this ? They taught that a man might dedicate to God's service, as sacred, any part of his property which might be applied to the relief of his parents, and so discharge himself from any further expense about them. He had only to say that all his money was " corban" - that is, given over to holy purposes - and do further claim could be made upon him for his father's or mother's support. Under pretence of giving God a prior claim, he set himself free from the burden of main- taining them for ever. He did not flatly deny his duty to minister of his worldly substance to his parents' necessities. But he evaded it by setting up a human tradition, and asserting a higher call of duty, even duty to God. The likeness between the traditions and sophistries of the Phari- sees, making void God's word under a pretended zeal for God's glory,