“In vain do they worship Me teaching for doctrines the commandments of men... making the Word of God of none effect through your tradition” ―Mark 7:7, 13.
MAN is ever prone to suppose that formal religious observances will be acceptable to God as a means of procuring the divine favor. But religion as such has no saving value. If fonts and ceremonies could purchase a place in Heaven, there would have been no need for Christ’s redemptive work. And even on the part of those already regenerated, the only thing that gives value to outward observances is a right state of heart before God, who desires truth in the inward parts (Psa. 51:6). He has said, “To this man will I look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at My Word” (Isa. 66:2). Again and again He sought to impress upon Israel the importance of reality in their approach to Him (Deut. 10:12; Isa. 57:15; Micah 6:28) Yet they were persistently substituting the outward for the inward, supposing that God would be propitiated by sacramental observances, when all the time He was calling for repentance from dead works and a living faith in His promises.
Many today make the same mistake, a mistake fraught with sad and fearful consequences, for it involves the rejection of the only way of life and salvation and the substitution of a “way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death” (Pray. 14:12).
“One Priest alone can pardon me.
Or bid me ‘Go in peace;’
Can breathe that word ‘Absolvo te,
And make these heart-throbs cease:
My soul has heard His priestly voice;
It said, ‘I bore thy sins—Rejoice!’”