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April 19, 2015 |
| Clean Unclean | ||
To be holy is to be set apart for Godly purposes. At various places in the Bible God declared certain things to be holy. He told Moses that the ground that he was standing on was holy. He also declared all the worship items in the temple to be holy. We too, as individuals are called to be holy - which means that we should live lives that are set apart for Godly purposes. Set apart from what? Set apart from what is common. Everything that is not holy is common.
Of those things that are common, some things were declared to be unclean. For example certain kinds of animals were not to be eaten because they were unclean. We in our time and the Jews in their time often misunderstand what is meant by unclean. We think of these animals as having a nature that makes them unclean. That there is something inherent in a horse or an eel that makes it forever unclean. But that isn't correct.
From reading the Old Testament we think of these unclean foods as being unclean in the sense that they should not be eaten, but that isn't the entire story. If we look at Noah we can get a better understanding of clean and unclean.
Remember that Noah was instructed by God to bring different numbers of the animals onto the ark based on whether they were clean or not. Also remember that Noah did not eat any animals. No one, neither man nor animal, ate any animals at that time. God did not give any animals to be food for man until after the flood. So the meaning of "clean and unclean" for Noah was not about food.
It was about worship. God, for his own reasons, had declared that some animals were unclean and were not to be used in sacrifices to him. After the flood, when Noah and his family emerged from the ark they made a sacrifice to God and only clean animals were used in that sacrifice.
The animals that God had declared to be unclean were unclean only because God had declared that they were unclean. With all the unclean things, God provided instructions on what could and could not be done with them.
In this lesson we will see that the Scribes and Pharisees of Jesus time also had this mistaken notion that there is something about the nature of the unclean animals that makes them unclean, something that is part of what they are. They had also taken it a step or two further. They had come to believe that this uncleanness can be passed around by handling unclean animals, or by handling things that have touched unclean animals. They had determined that this uncleanness could be eliminated by washing anything and everything.
The key word here is "They" - as in "They had determined". The Bible had not instructed them to do any of this. They had come up with these ideas on their own.
1 The Pharisees and the Scribes who had come from Jerusalem gathered around him. 2 And they saw some of his disciples eating bread when they had not washed their hands, and they found fault. 3 For all the Judeans and the Pharisees do not eat unless they wash their hands carefully because they keep the tradition of the Elders. 4 And coming from the marketplace, unless they bathe, they do not eat. And there are many other things which they had received to keep: washings of cups and pots and copper vessels and of beds.
Notice a few things here. The Pharisees knew that this was a tradition that was not founded on the Bible. Instead it had come from the elders, probably from earlier times. This tradition had become widespread among the people.
5 And the Scribes and Pharisees asked him, "Why do your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the Elders, but eat bread without having washed their hands?" 6 But he said to them, "Isaiah the Prophet prophesied beautifully of you phonies, just as it is written: 'This people honors me with its lips, but their heart is very far from Me. 7 And in vain they pay reverence to me as they teach doctrines of commandments of the sons of men.'
The Scribes and Pharisees asked it as a question but it was really an accusation that Jesus disciples were not following the tradition. The tradition was like law to them though not as high a law as God's law. Still, they found this to be a reason to find fault with the disciples and with Jesus.
Jesus quotes Isaiah saying something that we would now say as "lip service", saying the words because they must be said and not because they come from the heart. Jesus says they waste their time ("in vain") with their words of reverence for God while at the same time they teach commandments other than God's commandments.
This is very important to understand in our time. We can be easily fooled into this ourselves - believing that we are doing something wonderful for God when we are actually disobeying God. This was a specific problem in the previous lesson "Breakthrough".
8 "You forsake the commandments of God and you keep the traditions of the sons of men: washings of cups and pots and many such things like these." 9 He said to them, "Well you reject the commandment of God that you may establish your traditions."
Jesus continues on to say that not only are you teaching your traditions as commandments but you violate God's commandments in the process.
10 For Moses said, "Honor your father and your mother", and "Whoever reviles father and mother shall die the death." 11 But you say, "If a man shall say to his father or to his mother, 'My offering is anything that you shall gain from me.' 12 Then you do not allow him to do anything for his father or his mother. 13 And you reject the word of God for the traditions that you deliver, and many things like these you do."
Jesus gives them an example of how they break God's commandments to establish their traditions. The Pharisees were teaching that a person should pledge everything he had to the church. As a result of such a pledge a person would not be allowed to give anything to his parents because that would show his pledge to be false and would be stealing from the church.
This teaching in Jesus' time is not at all different from those churches in our time that squeeze people for more than they can afford to give and those people can no longer afford to care for themselves or meet their other obligations.
In the case that Jesus deals with here, the obligation that is not met is a commandment of God - the 5th Commandment - honor your father and mother. Therefore the Pharisees have created a tradition that has canceled out one of God's commandments.
14 And Yeshua called to all the crowds, and he said to them, "Hear me all of you and understand." 15 "There is nothing outside of a man that enters into him that can defile him; the thing that proceeds from him, that is what defiles the man. 16 Whoever has an ear to hear, let him hear."
So far this discussion between Jesus and the Pharisees has only involved a few people. Now Jesus brings the teaching at the heart of it to everyone. Notice carefully two things that he says "… and understand" and "Whoever has an ear to hear, let him hear." That last phrase especially is always a sign that there is more to what is being said than at first appears. But he doesn't give the people any more detail than that.
The word "defiles", in our context, means "to make unclean". His message is "nothing you eat or drink can make you unclean". We have this hint however that there is more to it than that. We'll come back to that.
17 But when Yeshua entered the house from the crowds, his disciples asked him about that parable. 18 He said to them, "Are you also stupid? Do you not know that nothing entering from outside a man can defile him? 19 Because it does not enter his heart, but his belly, and is discharged by excretion, which purifies all foods. 20 But the thing that proceeds from a man, that defiles the man."
As is sometimes necessary Jesus finds that his disciples have no more understanding than the people and he must give them a deeper understanding.
In some other translations you will see verse 19 this way "because it does not go into his heart, but into his stomach, and is eliminated? (Thus He declared all foods clean.)." Do you see the difference? The words "which purifies all foods" disappear and an entirely different phrase shows up in parenthesis. This is not an honest translation. They are substituting a completely different idea. Church doctrine is over-riding the Bible.
The NASB, NIV, ESV and others have this bad translation. The KJV does not and others do not, but more importantly the Greek and Aramaic sources do not have it.
Jesus was not declaring a change in the law - that all foods were forever after clean. He could not change the law. Galatians 4:4 says "God sent his Son and he was from a woman and was under the Written Law." Jesus was subject to the food laws of the Torah just as any other Jew was. Being subject to them, he could not change them.
In fact it was necessary for Jesus to obey them. He himself said "Everyone therefore who violates one of these small commandments and will teach thus to the children of men will be called small in the Kingdom of Heaven" (Matthew 5:19). If he were breaking these little food law commandments and teaching others to so the same, he would condemn himself with his own words.
So what is Jesus teaching here? The answer comes in the words Jesus uses both times immediately after saying food does not defile a person - "the thing that proceeds from a man, that defiles the man". Remember that the unclean animals are not unclean by their nature but they are unclean because God has said they are. Therefore eating an unclean animal defiles a man because he has disobeyed God and eaten what God said not to eat. This brings to mind Adam and Eve.
Taking this back to the Pharisees and their many washings of many things, we can now see how foolish that was. The uncleanness of unclean animals cannot spread to hands and cups and plates. So the Pharisees were trying to wash off an uncleanness that could not be there.
21 "For from within the heart of the children of men proceed evil ideas, adultery, fornication, theft, murder, 22 greed, wickedness, deceit, harlotry, an evil eye, blasphemy, boasting, senselessness. 23 All these evils proceed from within and defile a man."
The other items on this list of evils are familiar to us from other books and verses, but one is different, "evil ideas". Jesus is not only speaking about evil ideas generally but specifically this evil idea that the Pharisees had hatched to get more money for their church at the expense of causing people to violate God's commandment.
If Jesus wasn't declaring all foods clean in these verses, does that mean that Christians shouldn't be eating unclean foods? There are many Christians who say this but they are wrong.
Paul directly refers to eating foods in 1 Timothy 4:3-5 "They abstain from foods which God has created for use and thanksgiving for those who believe and know the truth. 4 For every creation is beautiful to God, and there is nothing to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, 5 for it is sanctified by the word of God and by prayer." The word sanctified means "made holy."
Paul also speaks about foods in Romans 14:14 "For I know and I am persuaded by the Lord Yahweh Yeshua that there is nothing that is defiled in his presence. But to the one who regards anything impure, it is impure to him alone."
There are many pieces we can take from this study