Purity of Heart: Overcoming Legalism and Tradition

He said to them, “All too well you reject the commandment of God, that you may keep your tradition. For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and your mother’; and ‘He who curses father or mother, let him be put to death.’ But you say, ‘If a man says to his father or mother, “Whatever profit you might have received from me is Corban”’—(that is, a gift to God), then you no longer let him do anything for his father or his mother, making the word of God of no effect through your tradition which you have handed down. And many such things you do.” [00:35:51]

When He had called all the multitude to Himself, He said to them, “Hear Me, everyone, and understand: There is nothing that enters a man from outside which can defile him; but the things which come out of him, those are the things that defile a man. If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear!” [00:84:16]

The first is perhaps the most devastating. That is that legalism by which we believe that we can be justified in the presence of God by doing the works of the law. That’s called legalism because it undermines the way of salvation that God declares so plainly in Scripture, that we are justified by faith and by faith alone, and that the only righteousness that can possibly avail for us is an alien righteousness, not our own. It is the righteousness of Jesus. And if you are trusting in any other righteousness than the righteousness of Jesus, then you have been caught in the snare of that type of legalism. [00:87:92]

The second type of legalism is the one we addressed the last time in this chapter where the traditions of men bind God’s people where God has left them free. It is adding to the law of God things that God does not command or forbid. And we’ve already, as I said, examined that. The third most frequent form of legalism that we encounter is the one that is in view in the text that I just read before you. It’s what I call loophole-ism. [00:337:76]

The legalist is the Philadelphia lawyer, who looks at the law of God and tries to discern a way to get around it. He’ll try somehow to adhere to the letter of the law but trample underfoot the whole point and spirit of the law. We remember, for example, the prohibitions in Israel about limiting one’s travel on the Sabbath to what was called a Sabbath Day journey, which was a very short distance. [00:378:72]

Corban had to do with the giving of gifts or the setting aside of private property or one’s personal wealth to the devotion to God, which was a good principle. But it was so twisted and distorted by the rabbis that they used the principle of Corban as a loophole to get around one of the most important laws of God, that commandment that required people to honor their father and their mother. [00:472:48]

Jesus says to them, “All too well you reject the commandment of God, that you may keep your tradition.” Notice that Jesus doesn’t say, “The problem with you is that you keep the law and the tradition.” Rather He said, “You get around the law and reject the law of God, and replace the law of God with your tradition. And in fact, what you’re doing is using your tradition as an excuse to keep from obeying the law of God.” [00:524:00]

There is a science in theology and in biblical studies that we call the science of hermeneutics. You’ve heard of hermeneutics. Herman Eutics is a plumber in Apopka. No, hermeneutics is the science of biblical interpretation. It teaches objective principles and rules that govern our treatment of the text, lest we turn the Bible into a wax nose, shaped and formed for our own desires, which is what the Pharisees did. [00:845:84]

At the heart of the biblical or the theological principle of hermeneutics in Reformed theology is the law that is called the “analogia fidei” or the law of faith, which says this quite simply: that no portion of Scripture must ever be set against another portion of Scripture. What’s the assumption here? The assumption is that all of the Scripture is the Word of God. The second assumption is that God does not speak with a forked tongue, that what God reveals in His truth is always coherent. [00:887:28]

Jesus, as it were, is now giving an oracle from God, and listen to what He says. “There’s nothing that enters a man from outside that can defile him, but the things which come out of him, those are the things that defile a man. If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear.” “Listen,” He says. It’s not what you eat, it’s not what you drink, it’s nothing from the outside that goes into you that defiles you or contaminates you. [00:1336:64]

We need to understand this because we all admit that we are sinners. Oh, to sin is human, to err is human, to forgive is divine. Nobody’s perfect. We say that, but we still have this idea that sin is something on the edge, tangential, peripheral to our existence. Jesus says, “No, the defilement comes from the very core of your being. Sin arises not from the stomach. It doesn’t come from your hands. It comes from your heart, from the very center of your being. [00:1405:76]

The cleansing of the heart is a lifelong pursuit, and that’s one of the reasons we come to the Table, to be strengthened, to be nurtured by our Redeemer, that our hearts may be made clean. [00:1576:00]