Doctrine, Dogma, and Defilement (Part 1)

Introduction

There is a wise saying which says, “Do not tear down a fence until you know why it is there.” In prideful individualism, thinking we know all there is to know, we may see a tradition, a rule, or a consensus of how things ought to be done and think, “I see no reason for this to be here.” and tear it down quickly, only to discover that there was an important purpose for that fence and tearing it down may have done unknown damage because we were ignorant of its purpose.

However, we may cautiously and humbly balance out this proverb with another, “a fence is only as legitimate as the one who put it there.”

It is the nature of human self-righteousness to equate the boundaries and warnings made by men with the command given by God; often preferring the former if they contradict. In the Garden of Eden, Eve had already equated the warning to not touch the forbidden fruit with the divine command that one should not eat of it.

The teachings of men are preferable to the commandments of God in our sinful nature because they give us a chance to set the bar of judgement in such a way that promotes our own self-righteousness.

John Calvin explains this propensity of the sinful heart well:

Commentary on a Harmony of the Evangelists Matthew, Mark, and Luke Matthew 15:1–9; Mark 7:1–13

The world cannot endure lawful authority, and most violently rebels against enduring the Lord’s yoke, and yet easily and willingly becomes entangled in the snares of vain traditions; nay, such bondage appears to be, in the case of many, an object of desire. Meanwhile, the worship of God is corrupted, of which the first and leading principle is obedience. The authority of men is preferred to the command of God.

In our text today, we see the way in which the self-righteous Pharisees indulged their pride when they discovered the freedom the disciples of Christ had in how they observe the traditions surrounding ceremonial washing. As we investigate this scene in Matthew’s Gospel, we will not only see how this same attitude has been a disease to the Church for so many hundreds of years, but also how each of us have this same tendency in our own lives. The point we will come to is this: while human teachings and traditions may be helpful in guiding our lives in a way that submits us to God’s will, they must always be questioned by and submitted to the Word of God. To obey God’s Word is a matter of worship from a heart of humble and submissive faith, but to elevate the opinions of men to a place of divine authority is idolatry rooted in pride.

Defiled Hands and the Traditions of Man

The Danger of Mixing the Unimportant with the Commands of God

The text begins with a group of Pharisees and scribes coming from Jerusalem. These are not the local religious leaders out in Galilee, these are the top leaders of the Jewish religion. The fame of Christ’s ministry had spread so as to catch the attention of the most important religious figures of the day.

Immediately, they notice the disciples “break the tradition of the elders” by eating without washing their hands.

It should be understood that washing hands was not done for sanitary reasons, but for religious and cultic ones. This “tradition of the elders” was based on a long-developed interpretation of the Law of Moses. In Exodus 30:17-21 God commands Moses to make a large basin, a bowl for the Priests to wash their hands so that they may be ceremonially clean before serving in the temple. Over time, Jewish scholars and teachers began to interpret this as a practice that should extend to all Jews before they give a blessing for the food. These rules could be observed more strictly or more leniently, depending on the specific tradition you were following, but this practice became widespread and was seen as an important way to keep yourself ceremonially clean for the Lord. While Matthew focuses on this tradition only, Mark’s account seems to extend Jesus’ words to all the traditions which had been passed down from the elders Hillel and Shammai.

As it is, these leaders see the hands of the disciples and defiled. They are coming before the Lord to thank him for the meal while they are unclean, and so they are greatly bothered that the disciples would not wash as was the custom. For them, to ignore the traditions of the elders was to not take the Law seriously, for although they are not breaking the Law they are ignoring the traditions which seek to take the law seriously and hold to it strictly. The charge is that Jesus himself, in allowing this, doesn’t take the Law of Moses seriously, and therefore does not take God seriously.

The error they commit is the elevation of their tradition to the place of the Scriptures given by God. They do not do this openly, since there is still some distinction between the commandment of God and the traditions of man, but they do this subtly by implication. Yes you may not be breaking the law of God technically, but you clearly don’t take the law very seriously if you don’t also keep the traditions. The implication is that those who really want to please God will follow the traditions, and so the traditions are elevated to the level of Scripture.

The Danger of Overthrowing the Commands of God with Tradition

Interestingly, Jesus does not address their problem, but rather points out how wicked their system of traditions is. The tradition of ceremonial washing before eating isn’t wrong, it may even have been developed with good intentions, but what Jesus has a problem with is the way the opinions and teachings of respected men have come to rival the Word of God. These men have no business lecturing those with unwashed hands when they themselves are breakers of the infinitely greater law of God.

Jesus now gives an example of how, when their traditions compete with the actual commandments of God, they will submit to the tradition, and so show that they themselves do not take the Word of God seriously.

Jesus mentions the fifth of the Ten Words (Commandments), which is to honour your father and mother. Jesus emphasizes his point by quoting Exodus 21:17 where it says those who fail to do this would be put to death. This isn’t a little detail in the law, it is a very serious offense. However, the traditions said that if you had an animal devoted to the Lord as a freewill offering, and your father or mother (who relied on their children for care; there was no such thing as pensions or social assistance) asked for the animal for their food or use, you could deny the parents their request on the basis that the animal was corban, that is, it is already devoted to God. The scribes also had ways in which a vow to devote and animal to the Lord could be made void. The result was, if you wanted to withhold an animal that your parents needed for yourself, you could simply devote it as a freewill offering and later revoke the oath. This was completely acceptable under the traditions of the elders.

Jesus directly points out their hypocrisy in verse 7, and he has clearly shown it. These scribes pretend to take the law seriously by observing these human traditions, and holding others up to them. However, when those traditions clearly contradict the clear and basic commandments of God, they will side with the traditions, which shows that they are really the ones who do not take what God says seriously.

Jesus quotes, with some modification, Isaiah 29:13

Isaiah 29:13 ESV

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,

The slight difference here is that Isaiah is saying that the people act like they fear God because they are told to by men, not because they actually do. Jesus’ paraphrase applies this to the current religious teachers. They honour God with their words, but they are tied to the religious traditions of men rather than what God revealed in his Word. The sin of the Pharisees here is not new, but finds its roots in how Israel had always acted in rebellion to God. The Pharisees are deeply offended by this because the whole idea around being a Pharisee was to live so strictly according to the law that God would smile again on Israel and turn his wrath away. Jesus’ words condemn them as being no better than the hypocrites of Isaiah’s day.

The Dangers of Elevating Human Tradition

This is the nature of the human heart. Instead of careful observance of God’s Word, our flesh is prone to create our own law, our own religious system, our own way to worship. People manipulate the Word of God to convince others than their interpretations, which go far beyond what is written, is the only way to read the Bible and so bind people not only to human commands which have no divine authority, but also lead people to disobey what is written through twisted traditions and dogmas. The history of the Church is so full of examples we could be here all day, but let us go through a few of them.

Human Traditions: The Ruined Legacy of Non-Protestant Denominations

The Roman Catholic Church is dominated by this sin, and has become so practiced in it that those who enforce its traditions are masters of manipulation. The Papists are like a domineering husband, who takes what the Bible says about submitting to your husband as a cudgel to do everything he says without question, even if it might mean disobeying God.

As it often is, these traditions began with good intentions. The early fathers wrote letters often in response to congregations that had become divisive and rebellious to the leadership. 1 Clement and many of the letter of Ignatius urged these congregations to be submissive to their leadership and so lead godly lives. These letters, however, became a foundation for an authoritarian view of church leadership. Not only was it mandatory to believe everything the leadership taught, even on minor issues, but those traditions were elevated to the place of equality with the Scriptures. In this way, there was no room for someone to question these doctrines with Scripture. The teaching is that the Bishops and the Pope are led and anointed by the Holy Spirit, so no matter how clearly wrong their position is biblically, they cannot be challenged since they hold that the Pope and church councils alone have the authority to interpret what the Scriptures say. This is not only what these Pharisees were doing, but it is far worse.

Examples are innumerable, but let me touch on one to make the point. The veneration of icons; the bowing to, praying to, and kissing of religious images, is one clear instance. This practice is not only unbiblical, but was rejected by the church entirely for the first 500 years of church history and still widely rejected beyond that.

In the 4th century, Epiphanius, who is considered a Saint in the Roman Catholic Church, speaks of a time where he went into a church and saw a banner with a picture of Christ at the front of the church to which people were bowing. He tore it up because, in his words, “(it was) contrary to the teachings of the Scriptures.” He than told the church to use the cloth as bandages for the sick. Again in the forth century, Eusebius, the first church historian, tells of a wealthy woman who asked him where she could get an image of Christ. He rebukes her for even asking such a thing and says, “Can it be that you have forgotten that passage in which God lays down the law that no likeness should be made either of what is in heaven or what is on the earth beneath? Are not such things excluded and banished from churches all over the world?” Even Roman Catholic historians have admitted that the early church was distinctly against the use of icons and images in worship. But in a late 8th century council, not only was icon veneration accepted by the church, it said that anyone who did not worship with icons was separated from God and will be condemned on the day of judgement. Their words, not mine. If you read the council, it literally says that if you do not kiss images and statues as part of your Christian worship you will go into outer darkness. In this way, they promoted an authority they did not have and condemned any who opposed their decision.

This satanic teaching clearly denies the way God, in his Word, seeks to be worshiped. Ex 20:4-5

Exodus 20:4–5 ESV

“You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me,

This does not just refer to pagan images, for when Israel made the Golden Calf they held a feast to YHWH. The calf was an image of YHWH, but God hated it. God doesn’t want to be worshiped in such ways.

The defense of this practice was the incarnation of Christ. Because Jesus, who is God, became an image-bearer by becoming human, so we should honour God by bowing down to images. You see how much of a leap they make from Jesus being the incarnate image of God to bowing down to images which is strictly forbidden by the Scriptures. There is a fine but firm line between what the Bible objectively says and the implications we force onto what it says.

In reality, the early church universally rejected the use of images and icons as tools of worship until about 500-600 years after Christ established the Church. They were not against Christian art, but they were against any kind of worship practice involving artistic representations.

Isn’t it clear that the Papists (I will not call that organization “Catholic”, for they are far from the meaning of that word), have done the same thing and to a far greater degree than the Pharisees did? The same can be said for the unbiblical doctrines concerning Mary, which are in direct conflict with Luke 11:27-28, the doctrine of purgatory, praying to saints, the mediatory nature of the priesthood, the papacy, and so on. Icons are not a lone example, none of these doctrines can be found in the Scriptures; not even a hint of them. The only way to find them is if you exalt the teachings of man to be equal to the revelation of God.

A Continued Problem Among Protestants (even Baptists)

But we are Protestants, we surely do not fall into such sins, do we? After all, didn’t the reformation reject all these things? No, we are just as prone to the lifting up human ideas and traditions.

The continuation of infant baptism by sprinkling is one example. If you read John Calvin’s Commentary, when he comes to the baptism of the Ethiopian Eunuch, he says that even though the man was clearly baptized by immersion, we don’t do it that way anymore.

An attitude towards the Confessions of the 17th century pervades many churches, so that to question any small point can be enough to question your faithfulness to Christ. I’ve even heard of a church that required members to homeschool their children, or else they would be under discipline. Although Protestants have left the toxic traditionalism of the Papacy, we are quick for form our own traditions and hold them up as equal with God’s Word.

But surely, we baptists don’t do it, right? After all, the whole point of being a baptist is getting our church policy strictly from the NT. No, we do it too. Ever heard of King James Onlyism? That is a tradition of man at times held up to such a degree that I’ve heard of Baptists burning NIV Bibles on a BBQ. What about the traditions we have here? How about churches that split because of fights that break out over the traditions of the church? We have traditions, you know. Are we so attached to a style of music in worship, a style of preaching, a way of doing church that if it were changed would disturb us?

A Personal Problem: Elevating Our Own Opinions

The thing is, we can be very quick to point out the obvious abuses of the Papists while we do the same thing in our hearts. For us it may not be traditions of elders that went before us. It can often be our own ideas; our own traditions and interpretations. We can think that our view of what Scripture says is obvious, but it may not be as obvious as you think. The issue here is a heart issue, its not really about the traditions. At the end of the day, the requirement of the Christian is the humility to submit to what God says without question, without adding or subtracting from it. The sin that remains in us will always resist this humility. When we add to Scripture, we give ourselves a place to stand over others in pride and issue a command with divine authority that we do not really have. To take away from Scripture is to think we know better than what is worded there, and we twist it around rather than submit to it.

Take alcohol for example: if a Christian concludes that they should abstain from all alcoholic beverages for the sake of their own conscience, they are humbled when they know other Christians may drink it lawfully with freedom of conscience when they may not because of personal conviction or weakness. This humility is a godly humility, and so the sinful heart is opposed to it. It cannot stand the idea of living under a yoke of abstinence while others may enjoy with no less godliness.

But if that person twists God’s Word and declares even moderate consumption of alcohol to be a sin for every Christian, they are now seated in a place of prideful judgement, for they now look down on those who drink in a clear conscience with a self-righteous attitude, thinking that they are more holy and faithful to God than their brothers and sisters. So we see, all of us have a prideful motivation to equate our own views with the commands of God so that, in exalting our own opinion, we may ourselves be artificially exalted.

This can, of course, be the case in any number of issues, not just alcohol. So you see the warning in our text today. Every time you pick up the Bible there is a danger in your heart. We tend to think that we think logically, be we are very easily manipulated by our biases, beliefs, and opinions. This is why humility from the Spirit is necessary for us to read and obey. This is why, when we read the Bible or hear a sermon, our first and primary question should be, “what is it that I am doing/believing/thinking/feeling that may be wrong and that I have to change in order to submit to God in this area?” This is why we should read the parts of the Bible that challenge our opinions. This is why we should have a submissive attitude towards other believers, looking to learn from them rather than always correct them, although there is a time for humble correction. At the end of the day, this is about whether we have a heart that is humbled and submissive, or one that is proud and opinionated.

Conclusion: Putting Human Tradition in its Proper Place

The doctrine of Sola Scriptura is the teaching that Scripture our final rule of faith, the only place we can, without error, draw conclusion about how to serve God. This teaching helps us keep a distinction between the rules of men and the declarations of God. However, this doctrine is not enough to keep us safe. Traditions are a good thing. We are employing several of them now. Meeting in a church building on Sunday, preaching from a pulpit, the kind of songs we sing, even how you dressed to go to church. Billy Graham had a rule that a pastor should never meet with a woman in private in order to avoid scandal and temptation. That is not a biblical command, but it is a good practice. These are all good things when they are subjected to God’s Word and not given equal authority with God’s Word.

Every church should be engaged in continuous self-reformation, scrutinizing its traditions in the light of Scripture and where necessary modifying them.

John Stott

However, we need to be careful here. It is easy for us to be anti-tradition but instead of being humbly biblical. In rejecting all traditions, we can quickly become bound to our own opinions. In general, if your church has a tradition you may not agree with but is not harmful, you should submit to it. This is part of “submitting to one another” as Paul advocates in Ephesians 5:21. I’ve heard many Christians abuse the term “conviction” or “conscience” to refer to what is really just a personal opinion. In so doing, they’ve escaped one opinion of man and become a slave to another, their own! A conviction is not a personal opinion. A conviction is something that, if you were to go against it, would be sin for you. A conviction is usually the result of spiritual weakness, not maturity (Rom 14:2). A recovering alcoholic is not bound by the Bible to refrain from alcohol, but for them it may be a sin because of a conviction due to their history with the substance and the weakness they still have. It would be wrong for others to pressure him or look down on him for this conviction, but it would also be wrong for him to lord his conviction over others. Leaving a church because you don’t like the style of music they use is not a conviction, it is personal opinion. You should seek to submit, not seek another church that does things the way you like it. Of course there is a time when one should leave a church, but we should always be very suspicious of our own hearts when we are confronted with a tradition we don’t personally like. Be careful that you are not a slave to your own opinions which may make you unable to submit to a church that doesn’t do things exactly like you think they should be done.

The heart of a faithful Christian is the heart of one who is teachable, discerning, open to other opinions, humble, submissive, and relying completely on the Lord for Grace. Our goal in reading the Bible should be to conform to Christ, not to confirm our opinions.

God has spoken to us through the Scriptures, and the Scriptures bring us to Jesus Christ. Nothing else can make that promise so consistently and clearly. Let us always see Christ and the simple faith of following him as the goal. Debates about doctrines and dogmas have their place, but let us fill our lives with the simple trust that Jesus died for my sins and rose from the dead, that by believing upon Him I have eternal life and am forever God’s child. In all things, if we cling to this and obey his Word as best as we know how, with this simple and humble trust that he is leading us to something better than all we could ever ask or imagine, we will be blessed.