“So how shall we live in a world that is filled with evil? How can we protect ourselves and our families? We will start with the instruction that was given us but we will improve it. We will build a wall that is high and thick. We will dig a moat that is deep and overflowing. This will keep the evil away.” However, what they couldn’t see was that the one who handed them the improvement to God’s instructions was the evil one they were trying to combat.
The Pharisees and some of the Scribes approached Jesus ready to do battle. They had already determined that they would destroy him, and so they began their attack by aiming at Jesus’ disciples. “Why don’t your disciples live according to the tradition of the elders, instead of eating bread with unwashed hands?” It wasn’t that their hands were dirty, the problem was that they were not following the traditional cleansing. By the time these traditions began to be written in the Mishnah there were over 35 pages devoted to washing alone! If you could measure righteousness by laws of cleansing, all I can say is, they won!
Jesus, however, was not impressed with their traditions. With his piercing eyes he saw their hearts and proclaimed them hypocrites. He quoted Isaiah, “These people honor me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me. They worship Me in vain, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men” (Mark 7:6,7). Then Jesus went on to show how they had invalidated God’s commandment by elevating their own traditions above God’s word. Behind the mask was the ancient foe seeking once more, through the guise of the commandments of men, to raise his throne of judgment above the throne of God.
The simplicity of the words Jesus spoke next are still rocking the world to this day. “Listen to me, all of you, and understand. Nothing that goes into a person from the outside can defile him, but the things that come out of a person are what defile him. If anyone has ears to hear, he should hear” (Mark 7:14-16)! Yet, even his disciples didn’t understand. He had to explain that the heart of the problem was the problem of the heart.
The purpose of the commandments and law of God was to expose the heart. Jesus told his disciples that it was from within people’s hearts that came evil thoughts, sexual immoralities, thefts, murders, adulteries, greed, evil actions, deceit, lewdness, stinginess, blasphemy, pride, and foolishness. There is no wall that is high or wide enough nor moat deep enough to keep us away from evil when the evil is from our own hearts. The purpose of the law was to point out the need for a Savior.
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