DefilementMatt. 15:1-20 sermon outline

I have a unique and personal understanding of defilement. I’m going to share with you all the most embarrassing moment of my life, thus far. I can’t joke about it; after all these years, it’s still quite painful for me to remember. I’m going to share this story because I think it well help you understand why defilement is such a big deal in the Bible, and ultimately I hope it will help you understand why Jesus had to die as the only proper solution to defilement.

I was 10 years old, playing right field in a little league baseball game. The inning was dragging on, as they sometimes do, and I was beginning to feel a familiar pain in my stomach. The aftershocks of the surgeries I had on my intestines when I was born included frequent and intense stomach cramps that meant I needed to get to a restroom immediately. Standing out there in right field, I began pacing a bit, trying to decide what to do. My coaches were tucked away in the dugout; the nearest umpire was far away, standing a little behind second base. And the restroom was even further away, near the concession stand. Rather than call out for help, I froze. And it was too late. To put the matter delicately, I had an accident. Not the first time, nor would it be the last time. But here I was standing on a baseball field with my peers on the field and in dugouts nearby, and with their parents and my grandparents sitting out in the bleachers, watching the game, completely oblivious to the misery the young right fielder was experiencing. And then the inning ended.

I walked slowly toward the dugout, summoned my coach to the side, and told him I was going to have to leave. I then had to walk behind the dugout and to the stands to get my grandparents, and then walk what felt like a million miles to the parking lot, passing several other baseball fields full of players and parents, to get to the truck, where I had to get in the back seat and lie face down, so as not to ruin the upholstery.

That is defilement. I was dirty, smelly, ashamed. My peers at school knew I had issues, and I got made fun of a lot. But I’m certainly glad this was prior to the invention of social media. It was easier for people to forget events like this. But I’ve never forgotten. I’ve never forgotten the feeling of shame; I’ve never forgotten the fear of contamination, that I was dirty and could get others dirty, that my condition would repel people. Because of this, I saw myself as utterly defiled. Defilement defined me as a child. In an attempt to overcome the overwhelming shame, I hardened on the inside. I refused to allow other kids to make fun of me; so, I learned to use my words and my fists to intimidate my peers. Defiled on the outside; defiled on the inside.

In Jesus’s day, defilement carried a similar social stigma, but the question of what defiles a person was an open debate. The Old Testament Scriptures provide enough discussion of this topic that it’s remarkable that religious leaders had to debate it. Eating certain foods, touching certain things, going to certain places, and doing certain things would render a person “unclean,” defiled. Usually, the defilement could be remedied easily enough; a bath and time and, in some cases, a sacrifice brought to the temple would take care of it. Famously, Leviticus 11 provides a catalog of which kinds of animals could be touched or eaten and which kinds of animals could not be touched or eaten. What was the purpose of this list, of this categorization of some animals as clean and others as unclean? God was teaching the people of Israel about holiness. Every time

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they sat down to eat a meal they could be reminded that this animal is clean, separated from other animals and given to me by God to satisfy my hunger. Or, traveling between cities, they’d see an unclean animal and pull their children close and tell them, “God has said this animal is unclean; it is not given to us to eat or even to touch.” Holiness is about recognizing and maintaining God-ordained distinctions. The Bible never tells us that God had hygienic or health-related purposes to why some animals were labeled clean and others were labeled unclean. The Old Testament also never tells us that these clean/unclean distinctions were permanent; they were given as a teaching tool under the Old Covenant to help Israel understand holiness.1 Do you think they understood the lesson?

Apparently not. At least in Jesus’s day, some had definitely missed the point. Turn in a Bible to Matthew chapter 15. In Matthew 15:1-20, we read about a delegation from Jerusalem coming to hassle Jesus about his and his disciples’ apparent failure to avoid defilement. But what is the basis of their accusation? What Scripture do they quote to challenge Jesus’s behavior? None. They appeal to “the tradition of the elders.”2 Let’s see how this unfolds. Matthew 15:1-20:

Then Pharisees and scribes came to Jesus from Jerusalem and said, “Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands when they eat.” He answered them, “And why do you break the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition? For God commanded, ‘Honor your father and your mother,’ and, ‘Whoever reviles father or mother must surely die.’ But you say, ‘If anyone tells his father or his mother, “What you would have gained from me is given to God,” he need not honor his father.’ So for the sake of your tradition you have made void the word of God. You hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy of you, when he said: ‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’”

And he called the people to him and said to them, “Hear and understand: it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out of the mouth; this defiles a person.” Then the disciples came and said to him, “Do you know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this saying?” He answered, “Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be rooted up. Let them alone; they are blind guides. And if the blind lead the blind, both will fall into a pit.” But Peter said to him, “Explain the parable to us.” And he said, “Are you also still without understanding? Do you not see that whatever goes into the mouth passes into the stomach and is expelled? But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a person. For out of the heart come evil

1 I am definitely over-simplifying a complex issue here. See the excellent and thorough article of Richard E. Averbeck, “Clean and Unclean,” in New International Dictionary of Old Testament Theology & Exegesis (edited by Willem VanGemeren; Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1997), vol. 4, pgs. 477-486.

2 Cf. J. C. Ryle, Matthew (orig. pub. in Expository Thoughts on the Gospels [New York: R. Carter, 1860]; edited by J. I. Packer; Crossway Classic Commentaries; Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 1993), pg. 124, who writes, “The complaint of the teachers of the law and Pharisees in this place is a striking case in point. They brought an accusation to our Lord against his disciples, but what was its nature? It was not that they were covetous or self-righteous. It was not that they were untruthful or uncharitable. It was not that they had broken any part of the law of God. But the disciples of Jesus ‘break the tradition of the elders. They don’t wash their hands before they eat!’ (verse 2). They did not observe a rule of merely human authority, which some old Jew had invented! This was the sum total of their offense!”

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thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a person. But to eat with unwashed hands does not defile anyone.”

So, Jesus has most recently healed a bunch of people, miraculously fed a crowd of thousands, took a stroll on the Sea of Galilee, and healed a bunch more people. Now, here comes a group of Pharisees and scribes from Jerusalem, who probably had heard about some of these things, and they want to ask Jesus a question. But, of course, they’re not interested in asking about any of Jesus’s miracles; they’re not even interested in asking, “Who do you think you are?” They want to know why his disciples aren’t washing their hands before they eat!3

Why is this important? The Pharisees say that the disciples are “breaking” “the tradition of the elders.” They are claiming that washing hands before eating is a tradition passed down from ancient times.4 The concern was that a person’s hands might have contracted some uncleanness by accidentally touching something unclean. Then, when you sit down to eat and pick up your food, the uncleanness in your hand would transmit to the food, so that the food would then be defiled. Then, unwittingly, as you put the defiled food in your mouth, the defiled food has defiled you! Your whole person would then be unclean.5 You’ve heard of hand-foot-and-mouth disease? This is hand-food-and-mouth defilement!

So, as a protective measure, somebody in the olden days figured out that if you washed your hands prior to eating, then your hands would be clean, and your food wouldn’t get defiled. The Pharisees in Jerusalem have somehow heard that Jesus’s disciples don’t seem to care about this. What a piece of juicy gossip! Can you imagine the whisperings? “Oh, I saw Peter out at Taco Bell today. He just ordered his food, sat down, and ate it. He didn’t even go to the bathroom to pretend to wash his hands! How disgusting! I bet Jesus taught him that!” All the way from Galilee to Jerusalem! This whole scenario seems so comical to me at first. It’s as though this scene at Taco Bell played out, and the word traveled from Kilgore to Washington, D.C., all the way to President Trump’s office, and he immediately sent a delegation all the way to Kilgore to ascertain the validity of the accusations!6

But then, I realized that, for the Pharisees, this is a serious issue. Let’s try to see it from their vantage point for just a moment. Where did this tradition come from? Well, it seems that the Pharisees have essentially taken the purity requirements laid out for the priests in Exodus and

3 For elaboration of this point, see Douglas Sean O’Donnell, Matthew: All Authority in Heaven and on Earth (Preaching the Word series; Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2013), pg. 419.

4 Cf. Michael J. Wilkins, Matthew (The NIV Application Commentary; Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2004), pg. 534, who writes, “This phrase became a technical expression to refer to interpretations of Scripture made by past esteemed rabbis and passed on orally to later generations.”

5 Cf. the summary of Leon Morris, The Gospel according to Matthew (The Pillar New Testament Commentary; Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1992), pg. 391: “The Pharisees discerned a great number of ‘unclean’ things that one might encounter in the ordinary course of life and that might easily be touched with the hands. The contact made the hands unclean, and if unclean hands touched food, that, too, became unclean. When it was eaten the whole person was made unclean.” For a fuller explanation, see the excursus by John Nolland, The Gospel of Matthew (New International Greek Testament Commentary; Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2005), pgs. 611-615.

6 Cf. Morris, Matthew, pg. 389, who writes, “Matthew’s word order, moreover, puts some emphasis on Jerusalem: there came to Jesus ‘from Jerusalem Pharisees and scribes.’ Coming from the capital, the holy city, into this rural area, they would have been regarded as especially authoritative. It was not to be expected that people from the great city would make their appearance in such a remote area.”

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Leviticus and said basically, “Well, if the priests are commanded to wash their hands before they eat in the temple in order to maintain their holiness in the presence of God, then why shouldn’t all of us do the same thing?”7 And then you read these words concerning the priests in Leviticus 7:21: And if anyone touches an unclean thing, whether human uncleanness or an unclean beast or any unclean detestable creature, and then eats some flesh from the sacrifice of Yahweh’s peace offerings, that person shall be cut off from his people. That “shall be cut off from his people” probably means he is to be executed.8 Suddenly, avoiding defilement becomes a life or death issue. So, to give the Pharisees the benefit of the doubt for a moment, I can see how their concern for purity might lead them to this serious concern about washing hands before you eat. And, if they’re trying to be “the purity police,” then they’re already looking for reasons to have Jesus executed as a criminal.9

However, Jesus doesn’t really give them the benefit of the doubt. In fact, as he responds to their question in verses 3-9, he doesn’t directly answer them. Instead, he goes on the offensive.10 They accused his disciples of breaking the tradition of the elders; Jesus accuses them of breaking God’s Law. Which do you suppose is a worse offense?

Completely sidestepping the issue they’ve brought up, Jesus points to a much more serious matter in their practice. He quotes the fifth commandment, Honor your father and your mother, and then he quotes a related law from Exodus 21:17, which says, Whoever reviles father or mother must surely die. To speak poorly of your parents was a capital offense. The Pharisees had developed a certain kind of vow. A person could say, “I vow to pay $25,000 to the Lord, to be paid to the temple at my death.” Nothing happens immediately; it’s just a vow or a promise that, upon my death, I’ll leave $25,000 to the temple. The Pharisees made this vow unbreakable, even in a case where someone needs to take care of their parents. So, the scenario goes like this. I’ve made this vow and then 30 years pass, and my parents are getting much older, and they need me, their son, to take care of them, pay their expenses. Back then, they didn’t have the kind of retirement practices that we do today. Instead, it was the biblical responsibility of

7 Cf. Nolland, Matthew, pg. 615, who writes, “[I]f ritual purity is important for certain holy occasions of ritual encounter with God, then surely God is being more honoured if this state of ritual purity is maintained more generally; if the priest needs to be in a state of ritual purity for carrying out his duties, then surely everyone must show greater piety if they would emulate his state of purity.” Cf. also Donald A. Hagner, Matthew 14-28 (Word Biblical Commentary 33B; Dallas: Word, 1995), pg. 430, who writes, “There is no OT commandment concerning the ceremonial washing of hands before the eating of ordinary meals. The Pharisees, however, had as their main project the reapplication of the ritual purity required of priests in connection with their temple duties to the table conduct of the ordinary family at home. The Pharisees in this instance had taken the commandment to priests concerning the washing of hands (and feet) before performing their temple duties (cf. Exod 30:17–21; for hand-washing as a protection against ritual impurity, cf. Lev 15:11) and had applied it to all Jews in the blessing preceding the eating of meals (see m Ber. 8:2–4; y. Šabb. 1.3d; cf. Mark 7:3–4).”

8 So argues, among others, Gordon J. Wenham, The Book of Leviticus (The New International Commentary on the Old Testament; Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1979), pg. 125, who writes of Lev. 7:20-21, “More severe punishment is allotted to those who are unclean themselves yet presume to eat of the sacrificial offering. He will be cut off from his people (vv. 20–21). This phrase indicates direct divine judgment, usually death.”

9 Cf. David E. Garland, Reading Matthew: A Literary and Theological Commentary on the First Gospel (Reading the New Testament Series; Macon, GA: Smyth & Helwys, 2001), pg. 161, who writes, “As if on religious patrol from Jerusalem they question why Jesus’ disciples transgress the traditions of the elders by eating bread with unwashed hands (15:2).”

10 Cf. D. A. Carson, “Matthew,” in The Expositor’s Bible Commentary: Matthew, Mark, Luke (vol. 8; edited by Frank E. Gæbelein; Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1984), pg. 349, who refers to Jesus’s words here as “less a response than a counterattack.”

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adult sons and daughters to provide for their parents in old age. This is implied in the fifth commandment.11 The Pharisees said that, since I’ve made this vow, I can’t use money that would reduce my ability to pay $25,000 at my death to the temple, even to take care of my parents.12

Now, perhaps you can see the problems here. First, as Jesus says in verse 6, So for the sake of your tradition you have made void the word of God. When one of their traditional practices comes into conflict with one of God’s commands in Scripture, their traditional practice trumps the Scripture! Notice that he calls it “your tradition,” whereas they had called it “the tradition of the elders.” Jesus doesn’t give the practice the dignity of an ancient and respected tradition, passed on from generation to generation, and places the responsibility of the practice squarely on their shoulders.13 They can’t make the excuse, “This is what we were taught.” Secondly, you can probably imagine that this kind of thing would have been abused by people. Out of spite toward their parents, when their parents ask for help in old age, people could say, rather disingenuously, “Oh, I’m so sorry, but I’ve made a vow to God, and helping you would hinder me from fulfilling my vow. I can’t help you.”

Jesus doesn’t show any respect for these Pharisees from Jerusalem. They come in on their high horses, ready to condemn Jesus and his disciples, and Jesus immediately knocks them off their horses, unmasks them for the hypocrites they are,14 and then presses home their biblical condemnation. Not only do they break God’s Law, but they also fulfill prophecy. Jesus quotes Isa. 29:13, which was originally directed toward Isaiah’s listeners, Jews of the 700s BC, and Jesus says that Isaiah was also prophesying about these Pharisees.15 The Pharisees are just like those 8th century BC Jews, especially the leaders: rebellious, idolatrous, and hypocritical.16

11 So recognize most students of Scripture. See, for example, Hagner, Matthew, pg. 431: “τίμα, ‘honor,’ means to look after and hence to support one’s parents financially and not simply to revere them (cf. 1 Tim 5:3).”

12 For this understanding of the practice Jesus is referring to, see especially Grant R. Osborne, Matthew (Zondervan Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament 1; Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2010), pg. 586, who summarizes, “This was property or money pledged to the temple, to be given after a person died. That money could no longer be used for outside things like caring for parents, but it was available for one’s own use until death. ‘Benefited from me’ refers to the parental right to receive support from their children. This tradition allowed children to escape their biblical obligation of taking care of their parents by dedicating their money as a gift to God upon their death.”

13 So argues Nolland, Matthew, pgs. 615-616.14 Cf. N. T. Wright, Matthew for Everyone, Part 1: Chapters 1-15 (London: SPCK, 2004), pg. 194, who

writes, “The word ‘hypocrite’ literally means someone who puts on a mask to play a part. The mask, says Jesus, is the words the Pharisees use. Behind their words of piety, their hearts have no intention of really discovering what God desired.”

15 Cf. Carson, “Matthew,” pg. 349, who elaborates, “In referring to Isaiah 29:13, Jesus did not say, Isaiah was right when he said…and now I make a secondary application, but, ‘Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you.’ Yet Isaiah 29:13 is addressed to men of Isaiah’s day. What then did Jesus mean? There are three points of contact: (1) in each case those warned were Jews, (2) from Jerusalem, (3) with a religion characterized by externals that sometimes vitiated principle. Moreover the Jews of Jesus’ day thought of themselves as preserving ancient traditions; but Jesus said that what they were actually preserving was the spirit of those whom Isaiah criticized long before.”

16 Cf. Craig L. Blomberg, “Matthew,” in Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament (edited by G. K. Beale and D. A. Carson; Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2007), pg. 54, who writes, “Jesus and the Gospel writers who quote him recognize that the reaction of the Jewish leaders in their day was an additional stage of the fulfillment of Isaiah’s description of his generation’s sins, which would continue in various fashions until the fullness of the messianic age.”

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Jesus uses Isaiah’s words to focus the issues. The Pharisees have developed these oral traditions, these teachings, claiming with their mouths to honor God, but, ironically, these very traditions prevent God’s people from honoring their parents! The Pharisees had a reputation with the people for being those who honor God the most, but Jesus is going to turn to the people in just a moment to correct the things they’ve learned from the Pharisees. As it turns out, what comes out of their mouths reveals that their hearts are far from God. They claim intimacy with God; they claim to be the experts on God’s Word and God’s ways; but Jesus will help the people see them through the proper lens: the Pharisees are further away from God than the vilest pagan, and all their religious practices are not accepted by God as acts of worship.

Not all tradition is bad or harmful. The gospel message itself is a kind of tradition, as Paul refers to it multiple times.17 But it’s important that we evaluate our traditions periodically, test them to ensure that they aren’t bypassing or contravening the Scriptures, or, as in this case with the Pharisees, causing people to miss the bigger picture of what Jesus has done. Each of us enjoys the experience of “coming to church” for different reasons. We need to be careful and examine ourselves to make sure that our enjoyment is not merely based on our preferences for a particular style of music, or a particular expression of worship to the exclusion of others. We have to make sure that we are not elevating traditions not taught explicitly in Scripture above the Scriptures themselves. As J.C. Ryle puts it, “Whenever a man takes upon him to make additions to the Scriptures, he is likely to end with valuing his own additions above Scripture itself.”18 Valuing these things that are merely human traditions above what is actually given to us in the Scriptures runs the danger of invalidating all of our worship to God.19 Don’t miss that warning here.

In verses 10-11, Jesus turns to the listening crowd and tells them the truth that the Pharisees have hidden from them: it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out of the mouth; this defiles a person. This statement is ridiculously radical!20 Not only does it put the Pharisees’ concern about defilement at mealtime in the garbage can, it also suggests that the Old Testament distinctions between clean animals and unclean animals is somehow no longer valid. As happens often, Mark makes explicit what Matthew chooses to leave merely implied. Mark adds a parenthetical comment in Mark 7:19: Thus he declared all foods clean. Do you get what Jesus is saying? The Jewish people could eat pork and not be defiled! They shouldn’t be worried about contracting defilement from food. Did Jesus just “abolish” some of the Law? Didn’t he say that he didn’t come to abolish but to fulfill the Law? That is exactly what is happening before their eyes. The elaborate system spelled out in the Old Testament for separating clean and unclean things and animals was designed to teach God’s people about

17 Probably in 2 Thess. 2:15. The noun translated “tradition” comes from a verb that Paul also uses to refer to the gospel message in Rom. 6:17 (“standard of teaching to which you were committed”) and 1 Cor. 15:3 (“I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance to the Scriptures…”).

18 Ryle, Matthew, pg. 125.19 Cf. Ryle, Matthew, pg. 127, who writes, “The bent knee, the bowed head, the loud Amen, the daily

chapter, the regular attendance at the Lord’s table, are all useless and unprofitable so long as our affections are nailed to sin, or pleasure, or money, or the world.”

20 Cf. Morris, Matthew, pg. 395, who writes, “That would have been a revolutionary statement for pious Jews of the time; for them careful ritual washing as a preliminary to eating was part of life. How else could one avoid eating something that had been defiled by contact with unclean hands? To say that nothing that goes into the mouth defiles a man cut across all the rules of defilement to which they had been accustomed all their lives; it challenged the accepted religious way of looking at a wide range of practices.”

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holiness, to help them embody holiness in their own everyday practices and lives. But now, the situation has changed. Jesus himself embodies the holiness of God. He fulfills this aspect of the Law, too. Now that Jesus has come, holiness can no longer be defined simply by what people avoid; instead, holiness must be defined by people’s relationship to him, to the Holy One of God. No longer do God’s people need to worry about the possibility of food defiling them. As David Turner writes, “Jesus…teaches them that true purity is not participation in a ritual that protects one from what may enter one’s mouth from outside. Rather, true purity is a matter of how the heart influences what comes out of one’s mouth.”21

Now, in verse 12, we might’ve expected to find out if the disciples were tracking with what Jesus had just said. Or, we might’ve expected some retaliation from the Pharisees. Or, we might’ve expected to find out the crowds’ reaction to Jesus’s words. But instead, we get a report from the disciples about the Pharisees’ reaction; they were offended, scandalized, shocked. Jesus’s words tripped them up, caused them to stumble. And the disciples report this in the form of a question that suggests that they were somewhat worried that Jesus shouldn’t have done that. It seems that the disciples have some respect for these Jerusalem Pharisees, and they can’t fathom why Jesus wouldn’t express a little more tact in conversing with these honored delegates from the capital.22

Jesus tells the disciples what he thinks about these “honored delegates” in verses 13-14. First, he implies that they are plants not planted by his heavenly Father. That is to say, these Pharisees are weeds. Surely, Jesus is intending that his disciples would remember the parable of the wheat and the weeds. He assures his disciples that any plant not planted by his Father will be rooted up. If they’re not planted by his Father, then, according to the parable, they are weeds planted by Satan. And, in the parable, the servants ask the master if they should pull up these weeds, and the master says that they should remain until the harvest. Then, at the harvest, the weeds will be uprooted, separated from the wheat, and burned in the fire. When Jesus explains the parable, he makes it clear that these weeds are sons of the evil one, and at the end of the age, these plants not planted by his Father will be cast into hell for eternal punishment. Thus, here, Jesus is pronouncing eternal judgment against these Pharisees.23 As long as they remain in their hostility and rebellion against Jesus, they are headed for destruction.24

21 David L. Turner, Matthew (Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament; Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2008), pg. 381.

22 Cf. Stanley Hauerwas, Matthew (SCM Theological Commentary on the Bible; London: SCM, 2006), pgs. 142-143, who writes, “For some reason the disciples seem to think they need to be diplomats, but Jesus is no diplomat when he deals with hypocrites.”

23 Cf. James Montgomery Boice, The Gospel of Matthew: The King and His Kingdom (Matthew 1-17) (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2001), pgs. 280-281, who writes most plainly, “In light of the recent parables of chapter 13, this can only mean that the Pharisees were plantings of Satan and would be destroyed by fire at the last judgment.”

24 Cf. Garland, Reading Matthew, pg. 163, who writes, “They are plants not planted by the heavenly Father that will be rooted up (15:13). This statement looks back to the parable of the tares. The tares sown by the evil one will also be rooted up (13:29). Just as the master tells his servants to ‘leave’ the tares for the harvest (13:30), Jesus tells his disciples to ‘leave’ the Pharisees (15:14). This connection to the imagery of the parable essentially writes the Pharisees off as sons of the evil one as well as repudiating them as a part of the true Israel.”

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Thus, as in the parable, he tells the disciples to leave them alone,25 ignore them, don’t worry about them. And then, Jesus directly refers to them as “blind guides.” The official leadership of Israel, these self-proclaimed experts in the Scriptures, experts in holy living before God, were utterly blind, and, in their blindness, they presumed to lead others. Jesus warns his disciples about the danger of following these blind guides; both leader and follower will fall into a pit, fall into calamity and destruction. If the leaders are headed toward destruction on Judgment Day, then where do you think their followers will end up?

This warning presses home to us today. We must be careful who we follow, who we allow to influence our thinking, especially when it comes to what we think about Jesus. The people who have the greatest influence on the radio and on television need to be held to the highest accountability to the Word of God. Is the Bible clearly and consistently the authority for what a teacher teaches? The answer to this question is not simply determined by seeing whether they hold a Bible in their hand while they teach, or whether they quote lots of Scripture. They wouldn’t have a platform if they didn’t at least give lip service to the Scriptures. But, do their conclusions, do their applications clearly come from a contextual understanding of what the Scriptures mean? We can’t only be pragmatic here; we can’t settle to say, “Well, their advice works. It actually helps people.”26

I agree that even a pagan nonbeliever can occasionally speak the truth. Even a clock without batteries is right twice a day. But, if a teacher or preacher is not clearly drawing their teaching from the contextual meaning of the Scriptures, then, to echo Jesus’s words here, leave them alone! Don’t waste your time reading their books or listening to their messages. We have such a limited amount of time and energy; we should choose more carefully what we listen to and what we read. We don’t want to follow blind leaders, leaders who are blind to the truth and glory of Jesus Christ, leaders who can’t see the divinity of Jesus shining through his perfect humanity, leaders who can’t see his death on the cross as the answer to all of human sin and suffering, leaders who can’t see his resurrection from the dead as the real source of our hope. Blind leaders will point to other things besides Jesus, besides the cross, besides the resurrection, besides the gospel as the solutions to our problems. They will lead you to the pit. Leave them alone.

In verse 15, Peter reveals that even they didn’t understand what Jesus had said. He says, Explain the parable to us. Parable? What parable? Jesus had said, in verse 11, it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out of the mouth; this defiles a person. Is this not plain-speech? Is this in any way a parable?27 It seems that not only do the disciples not understand Jesus’s parables when he teaches in parables, but they often think what Jesus says plainly is a parable!

25 Cf. Turner, Matthew, pgs. 381-382, who writes, “Jesus’s command that the disciples leave the Pharisees alone (ἄφετε αὐτούς, aphete autous) echoes the command of the farmer about permitting the weeds to grow in the wheat until the harvest (Matt. 13:30).”

26 Cf. the warning of Wright, Matthew, pg. 194: “Jesus wasn’t just saying ‘tradition is dangerous—if in doubt, go for innovation!’ In fact, his own criticism of the Pharisees was that their more recent traditions had undermined the ancient and foundational word of God. That is why serious study of scripture remains at the heart of the church’s life and task, not least for leaders. Unless we are constantly being refreshed and challenged by scripture, we won’t have our wits about us to distinguish between healthy and hypocritical traditions—or, for that matter, between life-giving innovations and deadly ones.”

27 Cf. Hauerwas, Matthew, pg. 143, who writes, “Peter asks Jesus to explain this ‘parable,’ even though it is by no means clear that it is a parable.”

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Jesus responds with a hint of frustration: Are you also still without understanding? There was no symbolism, no figurative language in what Jesus said to the people in verse 11. He spoke plainly, and even his disciples still don’t get it!28 So, he elaborates in somewhat of an unexpected way. He uses what one preacher referred to as “locker room talk.”29 This is Jesus talking to “the boys,” and because they’re so dull at this point, he has to explain something that normally wouldn’t really be discussed in public discourse. Look at verse 17: Do you not see that whatever goes into the mouth passes into the stomach and is expelled? Literally, he says it is “expelled into the toilet”! How can something that simply passes through your body affect your status before and relationship with God?

So, if eating food can’t defile you, what can? Jesus had said in verse 11 that “what comes out of the mouth” defiles. Words defile. The things you say to people can defile you. Why? Verse 18: But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a person. It’s all about the heart. But, then we find that it’s not just words that come from the heart and defile. Verse 19 gives an interesting summary of the kinds of things that are sourced by the human heart. Let’s consider the list one item at a time. First, he mentions “evil thoughts.” For Jesus and the biblical writers more generally, your heart is the thinker. It’s the source of rationale, intelligence, reason, mental processing. And what you think is not morally neutral. You can think evil thoughts. Sometimes, we might like to think that it’s not sin until I actually do something. I can think about stealing a car, but as long as I don’t actually steal a car I haven’t done anything wrong. Jesus says that our thoughts need to be repented from. Repentance is not just a change of behavior; it’s a change of thinking. And when we think about sinning, we’ve already sinned. And that doesn’t mean, then, that we should just go on and do the sin we were thinking about! No way! When we catch ourselves thinking about doing something sinful, we need to confess our evil thoughts to our Father, enjoy his forgiveness, and then repent and change our thinking. This also applies to what we might call our thought patterns. We send a text message to someone; they don’t reply for a while; and we begin thinking, “She must be mad at me. I did something wrong. I’m such a terrible person.” These kinds of assumptions, filling in the gaps, concluding the worst about either ourselves or other people are evil thoughts that need to be repented of. Not dwelt on; not teased out; not expressed in words, necessarily. The thoughts need to be confessed and eliminated.

I’m dwelling on this one in a way that I won’t on the others because I think this is the root of all the others Jesus lists here. Everything else Jesus lists here we’d consider actions of some kind, and they follow the sequence of the Ten Commandments. Jesus already mentioned how the Pharisees treat the 5th commandment; now he mentions how the breaking of the 6th, 7th, 8th, and 9th commandments all come from the heart.30 In Greek, each of these words is plural, which I

28 Cf. Craig S. Keener, The Gospel of Matthew: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2009), pg. 413, who writes, “Jesus notes that his words demand little interpretation; they would be obvious if the disciples were not assuming that he could not mean what he had said (15:16–17)!”

29 Alistair Begg, “The Heart of the Matter,” sermon preached on Mark 7:14-23, at Parkside Church in Cleveland, OH, on February 18, 2010, https://www.truthforlife.org/resources/sermon/the-heart-of-the-matter/. I happened to hear this sermon last week on KBJS, 90.3 FM.

30 Cf. Blomberg, “Matthew,” pg. 50, who writes, “Jesus’ illustrations of the evil thoughts that the heart produces (15:18) echo violations of the sixth through the ninth commandments of the Decalogue (on murder, adultery, stealing, and false witness), in sequence.”

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think means we’re supposed to see these as category umbrellas that include a lot of different kinds of specific acts. Murders come from the heart; not just the actual act of taking a life is in view, but also the premeditation, the anger that turns to hatred, the mental assassination of someone’s character—all of these things simmer in the heart, and that’s where repentance needs to happen, far before any physical movement occurs to do someone physical harm. And these thoughts defile us. Even “crimes of passion,” supposedly committed without any premeditation, still stem from the heart; the impulse of desire comes straight from the heart.

Third, he mentions adulteries. There are many ways to break the 7th commandment. Jesus highlighted looking at someone lustfully in the Sermon on the Mount as a way of breaking the 7th

commandment. We imagine someone who is not our spouse without their clothes on, or we see someone who is not our spouse and we feel a desire to be with them—these things happen in our hearts, and they break the 7th commandment. And they defile us. Even without actually touching a person, we’ve been defiled by our thinking. And we must repent, stop thinking those thoughts, stop imagining that person.

Fourth, sexual immoralities. Jesus widens the net here. All forms of sexual immorality come from the heart. Our attraction to someone who is not our spouse, our physical attraction to someone of my same gender, our seeking pleasure from looking at someone who is not our spouse, even a selfish desire to please myself comes under this umbrella. All these things happen in the heart, come from the heart, and defile us.

Fifth, thefts. We imagine owning what other people have before we ever scheme to get it. Considering this item caused me to realize that Jesus doesn’t mention the 10th commandment here, “You shall not covet.” But, I suppose coveting underlies all of these, or at least coveting is an inherently internal sin, and Jesus is wanting to show how sins we typically see as solely external all come from within. In any case, all forms of theft come out of the heart. I accidentally stole two sponges from Wal-Mart the other day. I had used the self-checkout line, as I typically do, but I had several large items in the basket, which I scanned with the scan-gun, and the sponges had fallen behind and underneath these large items. So, I finished checking out, went to the car and began to load everything in the car. I found the sponges underneath the package of paper towels, let out a loud sigh, and for a brief moment considered not going back inside. They were only $0.67 each! That consideration in my heart was sinful. I repented and trotted back inside to pay for them.

Sixth, false witness. Again, it’s plural in Greek, and I think this widens the net again to include all forms of dishonesty. I want to press this home to everyone, especially the younger people in the building. I’m talking to you, teenagers; I’m talking to you, 8-12-year-olds. I’m talking to you particularly because dishonesty was characteristic of me and my peers when I was your age. Exaggeration to impress, bragging, is a defiling sin that comes from the heart. Omitting part of the story so you don’t get in trouble is a defiling sin that comes from the heart. Hiding your sin only compounds your sin. Followers of Jesus are to be people of integrity, through and through.

Finally, slanders, or, more literally, blasphemies. He ends with a focus on sinful words. How we speak comes out of our hearts. The Bible makes this point repeatedly; what you say reveals what’s in your heart. When you insult other people, when you gossip about people to other

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people, when you speak poorly of Jesus (like the way the Pharisees were maligning Jesus),31 these are defiling sins that come from a defiled heart. Again, I address the young people especially: ugly, hurtful words, whether spoken in anger or in jest, reveal an ugly, defiled heart. I mentioned at the beginning of this message that I was the victim of lots of hurtful words as a child, but instead of seeking healing from the Lord for those hurts, I retaliated. I became skilled at insults; I became vicious in verbiage. When that wasn’t enough to overcome my enemies, I became physical with fists. That was me, ages 9-14.

Jesus relates his point back to the Pharisees in verse 20; if these are the things that defile a person, the things that come out of the heart, then eating food without having washed our hands doesn’t bring defilement. The disciples do not seem to have gotten the larger implications of this. Recall that in Acts 10, God will send a vision to Peter, a vision where he sees a host of animals listed as unclean in Leviticus 11, and then a heavenly voice commands him to eat them. Peter remains resistant, and the voice instructs him, What God has made clean, do not call common. Peter had to see the vision three times, and even then he didn’t get the point until some Gentiles show up on his doorstep inviting him to come into the home of a Roman centurion. Then, and only then, Peter realized that, not only had Jesus declared all foods clean, he had also eliminated the possibility of contamination by people of other ethnicities. We, as readers of Matthew’s Gospel, can get this point better than Peter did, for the very next story Matthew tells is about Jesus entering Gentile territory and interacting with a Canaanite woman!32

As we close, I want you to despair at verse 19. Now, Jesus doesn’t say that good things can’t ever come from human hearts.33 As I said earlier, even a clock without batteries is right twice a day. Nevertheless, the Bible is consistently negative when it speaks about the human heart. When I look at this list of things that come from the heart, I have seen all of them up close and personal, in my own life. I want to cry out with Paul, at the end of Romans 7, Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? I have felt the pain and shame of defilement. Yes, as in the story at the beginning, I’ve known physical and social defilement, but, even more than that, I’ve known the pain and shame of a defiled heart.

So, the question is: how can my heart be cleansed of its defilement?34 What the Lord said to the defiled people of Israel through the prophet Ezekiel, he says also to all of us. Ezekiel 36:25-27: I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a

31 As noted by Turner, Matthew, pg. 382.32 Cf. Keener, Matthew, pg. 414, who writes, “Placed immediately after a discussion of purity in both

Matthew and Mark, Jesus’ encounter with this Gentile woman brings out the implications the evangelists find in his view of purity: Gentiles will no longer be separated from Israel (cf. Acts 10:15, 28; 11:9–18).”

33 So insists R. T. France, The Gospel of Matthew (The New International Commentary on the New Testament; Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2007), pg. 587, who writes, “The fact that all the items listed as coming from the heart are bad does not mean that human beings are capable only of evil. The context is a discussion of what produces ‘uncleanness,’ and so inevitably only the bad are mentioned here. The heart can also produce good: see 12:34-35, and cf. 5:8; 22:37.”

34 Cf. Wright, Matthew, pg. 198, who observes, “Jesus does not, in this passage, offer the remedy for the condition he has diagnosed. That will come through the developing story. Ultimately, he is himself the remedy, as in his death and resurrection, and the gift of the spirit [sic], he deals with the wickedness and uncleanness that infects the human race.”

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heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. What is needed? J.C. Ryle pulls together beautifully much of what the Bible says about what needs to happen to our heart: “What is the first thing we need in order to be Christians? A new heart. What is the sacrifice God asks us to bring to him? A broken and contrite heart (Psalm 51:17). What is the true circumcision? The circumcision of the heart (Romans 2:29). What is genuine obedience? To obey from the heart. What is saving faith? To believe with the heart. Where ought Christ to dwell? To dwell in our hearts through faith (Ephesians 3:17). What is the chief request that Wisdom makes to everyone? ‘My son, give me your heart’ (Proverbs 23:26).”35 To simplify Ryle’s expansive summary, I’d like to focus on four pieces from Ezekiel’s prophecy: we need to be cleansed; we need a new heart; we need to have our old heart removed; and we need God’s own Spirit living in us.

What cleanses us? 1 John 1:7 says that the blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sin. All sin. It’s very strange to think of blood as a cleansing agent. We know from experience that blood stains clothes. But it’s Jesus’s death that washes us clean from every form of defilement. God doesn’t look at us and see dirty children, stained by the guilt of our sin. He sees children wearing spotless white robes, made white “in the blood of the Lamb,” as Revelation 7:14 puts it.

How do we get rid of our sick, evil, deceitful, dead heart, and get a new heart? A heart transplant is needed, the replacement of our old, stone-dead heart with a heart that beats for God. Now, it is plain, whether we’re talking about a physical heart transplant or a spiritual one, that no one can perform heart surgery on himself or on herself. Right? What’s the point of that observation? You can’t do anything to remedy your own heart problem! You have these evil thoughts and desires; guess what? You can’t fix it on your own! Sometimes we fall into the trap of the Pharisees exactly at this point; we figure we can “make penance” for our dirty thoughts by doing good deeds, making an outward show of obedience to God by our church attendance or our generosity or our service to other people, and it will make up for all the bad stuff. When our hearts our hard, unclean, and evil, our outward actions, that might all appear good to any observer, turn out to be damnable hypocrisy. If that describes you, let me warn you gently: you are on a path of self-deception. You may see yourself as “okay” in the sight of God, but, friend, you are not seeing yourself very well. Indeed, you are in danger of becoming utterly blind to the gospel being presented to you, blind to your need for the Savior to provide your cleansing, and that road leads only to destruction.

God promises to do this heart surgery totally by his grace. He does this by sending his own Spirit to live within us. Jesus told the Pharisee Nicodemus, “You must be born again. You must be born of the Spirit.” You can’t cause this new birth, any more than you could cause your own physical birth. “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all.” But once he does give you life, once you receive the heart transplant you so desperately need, we are summoned to a lifetime of guarding our hearts. Proverbs 4:23, in the NIV, says, Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it. J.C. Ryle writes, “Finally, let it be a settled resolution with us to ‘guard’ our hearts above all else (Proverbs 4:23) all the days of our lives. Even after renewal they are weak: even after putting on the new man they are deceitful. Let us never forget that our chief danger is from within. The world and the devil combined, cannot do

35 Ryle, Matthew, pg. 126.

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us so much harm as our own hearts, if we do not watch and pray.”36 God promises to give us a new heart; God promises to send his Spirit to live in our hearts; and God promises to enable us to obey his commands by the power of the Holy Spirit. Nevertheless, we still falter; we still fail; we still disobey, and the great war between flesh and Spirit continues until we die or until Jesus returns, whichever comes first. Let us put our faith in these promises; let us trust the God who made these promises, that he who began this good work of salvation, this good work of eternal life in us, is fully capable of bringing it to its proper conclusion. And, in the meantime, let us pray for God’s ongoing work of protection for our hearts, and let us do the important work of tending our heart, taking responsibility to confess our sins and to repent of the evil things going on all the time inside us.

36 Ryle, Matthew, pg. 129.

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