“Properly Distinguish between Divine Commands & Human Traditions”
In the name of the Father and of the X Son and of the Holy Spirit.
[Amen.]
Dear fellow saints redeemed with Immanuel’s holy precious blood
and innocent suffering and death, grace, mercy, and peace from God the
Father and Christ Jesus our Lord [Amen.]
“God said to His beloved Son:
‘It’s time to have compassion.
Then go, bright jewel of My crown,
And bring to all salvation.
From sin and sorrow set them free;
Slay bitter death for them that they
May live with You forever
“To me He said: ‘Stay close to Me,
I am your rock and castle.
Your ransom I Myself will be;
For you I strive and wrestle.
For I am yours, and you are Mine,
And where I am you may remain;
The foe shall not divide us.’”
(Lutheran Service Book, © 2006 Concordia Publishing House, St. Louis, MO.
556:5 & 7)
Gospel
Reading..........................................................................
St. Mark 7:1-13 (esp. 6-9)
6And he said to them, “Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is
written, ‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from
me; 7in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of
men.’ 8You leave the commandment of God and hold to the tradition of men.”
9And he said to them, “You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of
God in order to establish your tradition!”
Prologue: Let’s correctly understand something very important
right here at the beginning of this sermon. Manmade rules, regulations, and
traditions are good, right, and salutary for maintaining decency and order
thereby guarding against and preventing chaos. Some people wrongly say that
manmade rules, regulations, and traditions are “legalism” and should be
avoided at all costs … especially in the Christian environment. The
misunderstanding is in what “legalism” means and doesn’t mean. It doesn’t
mean manmade rules, regulations, and traditions in and of themselves.
Rather, it means requiring manmade rules, regulations, and traditions as a
way to gain God’s merciful and gracious gifts of forgiveness of sins,
salvation, and eternal life.
That’s how the Pharisees of Jesus’ day went wrong and all
religions other than orthodox Christianity today still go wrong. All
religions other than orthodox Christianity impose manmade rules,
regulations, and traditions in order to gain God’s good pleasure and
acceptance. Sadly, even some Christian denominations fall into that same
Satanic trap of placing conditions on what God has freely given. It’s not
that they deny His grace; but they don’t let His grace stand alone. They
add manmade rules, regulations, and traditions as requirements for making
people worthy of God’s grace. And that’s why today’s Gospel Reading so
strongly reminds us to …
“Properly Distinguish between Divine Commands & Human Traditions.”
Divine commands as summarized by the God-given Ten Commandments
are His way of loving us and us loving Him and one another. He does so by
using His divine commands to prevent us from sinning, to show us our sin and
resultant need for a Savior, and to guide us in thanking and praising Him
for His precious gifts of forgiveness, salvation, and eternal life. We then
love God by loving one another when we treat each other with kindness that’s
shaped, molded, and guided by the Fourth through Tenth Commandments.
Now in order to properly grasp what’s going on in this text it’s
also necessary to review the three kinds of law that were present in the Old
Testament era. They were “the moral law, which tells people their duty
toward God and other people; the ceremonial law, which regulated the
religious practices in the Old Testament; and the political law, which was
the state law of the Israelites.” (Luther’s Small Catechism with Explanation
[ESV]. Copyright © 1986, 1991 Concordia Publishing House, St. Louis, MO.
Page 55.) With that distinction briefly reviewed and, hopefully,
understood, let’s turn our attention to …
I. An Accusatory Question of Ceremonial (or Traditional) Cleanliness.
(1-5)
1When the Pharisees gathered to [Jesus], with some of the scribes who had
come from Jerusalem, 2they saw that some of his disciples ate with hands
that were defiled, that is, unwashed. 3(For the Pharisees and all the Jews
do not eat unless they wash their hands, holding to the tradition of the
elders, 4and when they come from the marketplace, they do not eat unless
they wash. And there are many other traditions that they observe, such as
the washing of cups and pots and copper vessels and dining couches.) 5And
the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, “Why do your disciples not walk
according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?”
What’s going on here is that “The failure to observe this ritual
cleansing by some of the disciples of Jesus constituted a serious
transgression in the eyes of the Pharisees.” That is, “breaches of ritual
requirements were regarded as serious.” (Donald Guthrie in Jesus the
Messiah: An Illustrated Life of Christ. Copyright © 1972 by The Zondervan
Corporation, Grand Rapids, MI. Page 147.)
Furthermore, over the years from when God gave His moral law
through the Ten Commandments to His chosen people, the Israelites, and “gave
the nation numerous ceremonial laws that would set it apart from the other
[heathen] nations” to the then present time of Jesus, a critical violation
occurred. As the people increasingly ignored God’s Word, “Many forgot the
promise and zeroed in on the commandments of God as the way to heaven.
Still, there were always those who clung to the promise and recognized the
commandments as a way to safeguard the existence of the gospel promise.”
Sadly … and tragically, “there were those who considered the moral law and
the ceremonial laws God had given them as insufficient. So they [increased]
them and finally came up with 613 rules regulating the Israelites’ lives
down to the smallest details. The gospel promise was ignored, and salvation
became something to be earned by one’s own righteousness.” (Harold E. Wicke
in People’s Bible Commentary: Mark. Copyright © 1992 Concordia Publishing
House, St. Louis, MO. Page 101.)
Hundreds of years before the incarnate Christ walked on the face
of the earth that He participated in creating, the prophet Isaiah wrote in
today’s Old Testament Reading: “And the Lord said: ‘Because this people draw
near with their mouth and honor me with their lips, while their hearts are
far from me, and their fear of me is a commandment taught by men,
therefore, … the wisdom of their wise men shall perish, and the discernment
of their discerning men shall be hidden.’” (Isa 29:13-14 ESV) The Pharisees
and scribes placed greater emphasis on manmade rules, regulations, and
traditions as the way to gain God’s favor—to get right with Him—instead of
clinging by Spirit-given faith to the gospel promise prophecies about the
Messiah, Jesus, who would (and did) atone for mankind’s sins.
The very Savior of all people, the Christ sent by God to redeem
all people from their sins, was right in front of the Pharisees and scribes
but, blinded by their own self-righteous beliefs, they ignored, denied, and
scorned Him because He did not demand that His disciples carry out the
ceremonial washing of their hands before eating. In the face of their evil
religious error, Jesus reprimanded them for their wrong teaching, telling
them that their …
II. Self-Righteous Minds Hypocritically Confuse Ceremonial and Moral
Law. (10-13)
10For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and your mother’; and, ‘Whoever reviles
father or mother must surely die.’ 11But you say, ‘If a man tells his
father or his mother, Whatever you would have gained from me is Corban’
(that is, given to God)—12then you no longer permit him to do anything for
his father or mother, 13thus making void the word of God by your tradition
that you have handed down. And many such things you do.”
Realize that “God’s moral law still stands. We know, of course,
that it cannot save us. Only Christ and his gospel can do that. The Old
Testament ceremonial laws, however, no longer apply today. The Father
himself indicated that when at the death of Christ on Calvary, he caused the
curtain in the temple to be ‘torn in two from top to bottom’ (15:38), thus
giving free access to God. That’s why Paul in Colossians 2:17 says that the
ceremonial laws ‘are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality,
however, is found in Christ.’” (Donald Guthrie. Page 102.)
After all, with His holy life, innocent suffering, and crucifixion
death as the atoning sacrifice for the sins of all people of all time, Jesus
fulfilled the ceremonial laws. Its bloody sacrifices of animals are no
longer necessary. Its intent and purpose was to point people’s attention to
Himself, that is, His Messianic arrival and redemptive work. His coming
into this sin-ravaged world that’s flooded with devilish attitudes, desires,
and deeds to defeat them all for us with His death and validate such with
His resurrection from the dead gives sanctified significance to today’s
Gradual: “Fear the Lord, you his saints, for those who fear him lack
nothing! Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers
him out of them all.” (Ps 34:9, 19, alt. ESV)
In addition, King David identified a higher and more sacred hand
washing in today’s Introit: “Vindicate me, O Lord, for I have walked in my
integrity, and I have trusted in the Lord without wavering. Prove me, O
Lord, and try me; test my heart and my mind. I wash my hands in innocence
and go around your altar, O Lord, proclaiming thanksgiving aloud, and
telling all your wondrous deeds. O Lord, I love the habitation of your
house and the place where your glory dwells.” (Ps 26:1-2, 6-8 ESV)
That’s the hand washing of repentance, namely, confessing sins,
celebrating the forgiveness that ushers in salvation and eternal life, and
striving to live a God-pleasing life by the Holy Spirit’s power that he
gives in reading and hearing God’s Holy Word, Baptismal regeneration,
declaration of Absolution, properly partaking of the Lord’s Supper, and
faithfully gathering together with fellow Believers in the divine services
where God serves us His mercy and grace freely and generously.
In conclusion, therefore, be always seeking to …
“Properly Distinguish between Divine Commands & Human Traditions”
with the ever-present realization that God designed and gives us divine
commands to safeguard, guide, and protect us through the course of our
earthly sojourn and human traditions, while often serving good purposes,
must never be imposed on us as conditions for salvation. In fact, today’s
Collect provides a wonderful prayer for our daily struggle with those
challenges: “Almighty and merciful God, defend Your Church from all false
teaching and error that Your faithful people may confess You to be the only
true God and rejoice in Your good gifts of life and salvation.”
In light of all that, be ever vigilantly alert to and on guard
against …
I. An Accusatory Question of Ceremonial (or Traditional) Cleanliness.
(1-5)
At the same time, recognize that …
II. Self-Righteous Minds Hypocritically Confuse Ceremonial and Moral
Law. (10-13) … and avoid such. Do so especially in your marital
relationship by following the Spirit-inspired counsel of Saint Paul in today’s
Epistle Reading: “Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord.
Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up
for her … . This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to
Christ and the church. However, let each one of you love his wife as
himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.” (Eph 5:22, 25,
32-33 ESV)
God grant it all for the sake of Jesus Christ, His humble Son, our
holy Savior. [Amen.]
In the name of the Father and of the X Son and of the Holy Spirit.
[Amen.]
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