There are two great subjects in this chapter, and I do not think it is amiss to divide it under these two great heads; that is to say, we have everything upon man’s side exposed, and every- thing on God’s side in goodness and grace and kindness manifested. I think this chapter will bear division into these two parts, the entire exposing of all on man’s side, and the manifesting in grace and kindness by our Lord Jesus Christ of all on God’s side.
Let us look at the first division, the opening out and exposing of all that was connected with man. It is very solemn to see that it is not here man in what I might call his worst condition. When God is pleased to let in His light in scripture upon the state and condition in which man is by nature before Him, He takes up (and I think you will find it, not in one part of scripture only, but all through) what we might call the best kind of humanity, not the worst kind; He lets His light in upon that which might be considered best in man, to show what was really there, even when there were external advantages which He Himself was pleased to confer. And when I say the best kind of humanity, I mean what the Jew was. I think this will be found set forth in other parts of scripture in other connections: for instance, all through the Gospel of John we see what was old and what was connected with the Jew contrasted with that which is new and that which has come in our Lord Jesus Christ. The Jew is in every case taken up in that way as the great illustration and instance of mankind in his most favored circumstances and condition.
Now let us look at how it stands before us in this chapter. First of all, we have depicted in a very solemn way the terribly low and degraded condition in which the Jew was found. The people had sunk down to this, that religion with them consisted in hardly more than the lowest conceivable external washing of pots and cups and brazen pans, and so forth. It had come to the most degraded and lowest form of ritual; that is the way the chapter opens. And I think it is not going too far to say that in proportion to the excess of the external is the diminishing of the internal; that where there is great attention to what is outside, there is but little thought of what is within. We see that all around us at the present moment, and that is what meets us in the very first instance here. There was great thought for what was external, the washing of hands, and so forth, what is called in the Epistle to the Galatians, “beggarly elements,” and in the degradation to which they had fallen, that is what their life of religion consisted in.
But along with that, we find here that there was a system of religious fraud, it cannot be called anything else, built up upon the abuse of what was of God in the ritual of old—that is to say, the consecration of property, for that is the meaning of the word “Corban” here. “Ye say if a man shall say to his father or mother, Corban, that is to say, a gift, by whatsoever thou mightest be profited by me, he shall be free. And ye suffer him no more to do ought for his father or his mother; making the word of God of none effect through your tradition.” Now the meaning of it was simply this, a man was enabled, by this huge system of religious fraud, to so devote his property apparently to the service of God, under certain limitations, that he himself could avail himself of it whenever he pleased, but it was put out of his power to devote that property for the advantage and help of his poor relations. He, although he had consecrated his property in that way, was none the poorer for that consecration; all he had to say was “Corban,” when it was a question of his fulfilling the filial relationships of life to his father and mother, when it was a question of acting in the natural affection that is planted in the heart of man, and without which there is manifested one of the leading features of the last times. Instead of all that, a man could so retire from the need of even a father or mother that he could positively glorify God by neglecting the relationships of life. That was the meaning of “Corban,” and that was a great system of religious fraud; and the Lord exposes what I may call the inward thing in connection with that of which we have already treated. The washing of certain things was external, but this principle connected with the word “Corban” was what really came out from the heart; it was a deliberate intention, by fraud, to reserve to one’s self the right to use one’s property when one pleased, and yet to get the name of devotedness as having consecrated it to God. That is the first great element of the state of degradation in which this favored people of God were found here in this world.
But now there is another case, that not only was there all this external unreality, and this deep-seated determination to carry out the tradition of the elders, and the extinction of all that was correct and true with regard to the relationships of life, but there was also an empty system of mere lip service to God. “This people”—the Lord quotes from Isa. 29 in exposing the condition of man—“This people honoreth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.” Now how solemn it is to reflect on that. The lips were all in activity, the mouth was ready to attest its willing witness, but the heart, which is the real seat, the real source of all that God cares for and looks at, and that no other eye but His can penetrate, the heart was perfectly lifeless and distant as far as God was con- cerned. “This people honoreth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.” And you will find just as then so now, that the bowed head, the rigid posture, and the wretched face are all consistent with a heart distant from God, and that all that sort of external pietism, if I may so express it, has not got in it that which God accounts as the germ of that which is really true to Him. The root principle of this is unreality, and that is the root of all that prevails and asserts itself at the present moment. The crying need just now is a breakdown in the minds of men in what is called religion. That is the great need of the day. And let it not be supposed that any class or body so called can claim immunity from a system like that; let no one suppose that this has no voice for him or her. There is nothing that can so infect the heart even of a Christian, a real child of God and a true follower of our Lord Jesus Christ, nothing that so stealthily gets into the inner being and permeates it as unreality. I am assured that it is just one of the things that Christians have to be on their watch against at the present moment. We have to take heed lest we should be tinged and characterized by it. Thank God we do not need to go to human histories or human records to prove this. I often think what a mercy it is that it is not necessary for us to have to wade through the vileness of modern print and paper to find out what the true real condition of man away from God is: we have the record of it in the word of God. This abused, hated, slandered book has the whole record in it, not only of all that man is, and of all that man has done, but of what he will develop into.
Am I challenged as to development? I reply, I believe in the development of man, but in every kind of evil. I believe also in succession, but in succession of evil. Let those who will, grasp at both development and succession; I fully admit them; but that is the side on which they are. In the simple but very striking story that is told in the gospel history, and which we commonly speak of as the good Samaritan, do you observe the way in which that great truth is set forth by the Lord? “A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho.” That is man’s course; that is the development that is marked out in scripture, and that we can see in the world all round about us at the present moment. Man’s course has always been down; he never went from Jericho to Jerusalem, from curse to blessing; he always went the other way; and more than that, he always will go the other way. There is that in him by nature, call it by what name you please, that he always goes from blessing to curse. It matters not whether it is internal blessing or external privilege, that he is introduced into, that is his course; his way is ever to go down. “A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho.” And so in the passage before us, we have not only what we have already called attention to, this external attention to lip service and mouth homage, but the heart far from God.
And observe now one thing more which marked this terrible state and condition of man, viz., that there were certain inventions of man in connection with religion, which in their entirety set aside the word of God; and that is the reason why the Lord lays such stress upon it here. He says, You have made the word of God of no effect by your tradition. There were the traditions of the elders, human traditions, and inventions, which might be perhaps in themselves harmless, as we would say; but it is most solemn when we perceive how cleverly the devil works to get all these things in between the word of God and the soul. The first thing we shall find is, that these traditions of the elders or human traditions were at the commencement taken up as supplementary to scripture. You will never find that the devil in the first instance faces you with the thing he wants; he always has a bait, and you know what a bait is, a bait is something that covers a hook; and so the first thing here is that this tradition, useful in itself, said to be exceedingly helpful, and ancillary to the mind of God, was supplementary to scripture. That being admitted by any one, that these traditions of the elders spoken of here were supplementary, and had their place and were of value; then comes the next step, and the person that gives way to the first is prepared under a very clever process for this, that they are of equal value with the testimony of scripture. That is the next thing: it would not be the first; as such it would not succeed; the mind is persuaded to believe them very helpful and supplementary first, but as soon as ever it becomes accustomed to that, then comes the next step. I trust you will allow me to speak plainly, because I think these processes of departure are very solemn, the ways by which we become accustomed to things that perhaps at first we would shrink from. A person would at first reject the idea of a tradition of man at all; he would say, Not so, I cannot consent to aught but scripture. But the devil is very clever and very persuasive, and if you argue with him, he will master you before you know where you are. If you debate with him, presently he will deposit his seed; he will gain his point, and having vanquished you there he will use the vantage ground to work upon and he will bring you to his side without your intending to go, and with a kind of reserve and resistance in your heart at first, but overpowered by his skill, you will admit the very thing that at the first you shrank from. And lastly, observe, and that is the greatest form of it when it reaches its height, these traditions are put above scripture. Here then are the three steps first, supplementary, that is the bin edge of the wedge by which the position; eventually won; secondly, equality; thirdly, superiority. I think you will find all these steps in the way in which the word of God is set side; and thus this blessed book, this very lamp of life that is in our hands, this wonderful revelation that we have from God, is set aside practically, and when the things of man come in, the things of God go out. This then is the third great proof that the Lord gives here.
But there is one point more which I would call your attention to, and that is with regard to the question of defilement. I believe all these points are of the first importance, as bearing on the present moment. The Lord next deals with the question of defilement, about which they were all astray. They were wrong with regard to the external attention they paid to things, wrong with regard to the way in which they could traffic by religious fraud, wrong in the lip service which sprang from unreality, wrong in setting aside the word of God by human tradition, and they were wrong in regard to what defilement really was and where it came from; and therefore it is that the Lord shows here, in a very solemn way, that the heart of man is the real source and real fountain out of which the whole torrent of evil, as it was practiced by man in this world, came. The stream flowed from that fountain; what is false and empty would fain persuade you that it was something from without which defiles; and if you allow that principle, that something from without corrupts and defiles, then you deny that man is in the condition in which God has declared in His word that he is; you remove the source from where the source really is, namely, the heart, the seat of everything that is foul and filthy. And therefore what the Lord does here is to bring us face to face with this: He says, “Out of the heart.” You observe the difference; there is immense force in the words, “There is nothing entering in that can defile”; it is not from without, it is from within, “out of the heart,” out of this corrupt fountain, out of this filthy cesspool of the first Adam, out of all that is here, proceed the thirteen outgoings which he enumerates, thirteen symptoms of the vileness and pollution that is in man’s heart by nature.
Now I have noticed often that there is a sort of modern sentiment (and there is very little more in modern times than empty sentiment) that rejoices in such a description as this for instance, “a noble profligate,” or of a ruffian who is said to have “kindliness of heart,” but whose real inner being is as gentle as his hands are red—there is a kind of sentiment of that nature popular in this degenerate age but for all that, the solemn words of our Lord Jesus Christ which lie embedded in this unfailing guide that we have from Him, remain true, and are evidenced by testimony that cannot be broken: “Out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, covetousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness.” These are the things that defile. Dwell upon these words and see what an exposure they are, what a revelation they supply of all that man is in his own nature, even if he be in the most favored position on earth, externally blessed and privileged as the Jew was.
Let us now turn to the second which is a far brighter one. There are two instances given under this second head, of mercy and kindness, of the grace and goodness revealed in our Lord Jesus Christ, as in God’s heart, towards poor, wretched things here in this world: namely, the Syrophenician woman, and the poor deaf man with an impediment in his speech. Observe the way in which the Syrophenician woman is brought before us, the way we are introduced to this subject. First of all, the Lord, in consequence of the implacable hatred and deliberate refusal of His own countrymen, seeks retirement, and goes into the border country. But there is a little word added, “He could not be hid.” There is a preciousness, a divine sweetness about that word as regards our Lord Jesus Christ that is beyond all expression. I believe that is the doctrine of all scripture, Jesus never could be hid. I believe all scripture witnesses to that fact: the types, the promises, the prophecies of the Old Testament could not conceal Him, “He could not be hid”—blessed, precious words! As we stand now and look at them from the blessed vantage ground on which Christianity sets us, as we look back over these holy writings and survey their depths, that which meets us continually is how His Person runs like a golden thread through every part; and so here, literally and in fact, while He is in this world, though He retired, “He could not be hid.” And oh! there is something so interesting to the heart and its affections in the fact of this retirement. The activities of Christ and His withdrawals into the isolated places are all perfect in their place they give us an insight into who He was, and what He was, and what moved and actuated Him as the Servant Prophet, the character in which this gospel sets Him forth. Never did He press Himself into notice; withdrawal and retirement were what marked Him, specially in His service. Would to God it marked His people more in their Christian life and course! “He shall not strive nor cry, neither shall his voice be heard in the street”—lowly grace, lowly retirement. And yet there was a glory of goodness, a glory of kindness, and a glory of grace in His Person that burst out from all retirement; though He went away, “He could not be hid” I bless God for those words, and what they set forth to my heart as to our Lord Jesus Christ. Here “He could not be hid.” A poor wretched woman comes with one of the heaviest domestic trials that could bow down a human heart. His fame had reached her, she had built on what she had heard of Him; she had listened to the report with regard to Him, and on it she ventures to come. There are three things. said about her: I believe her creed and language are set before us in the fact that she was a Greek; and her nation comes before us in the fact that she was a Canaanite or Syrophenician, that is to say, a reprobate of reprobates, for that is really the meaning of it. Do you know that the Canaanite will be extinguished in the day when the Son of David is in power? And therefore this very striking case comes before us in order to bring out the wonderful mercy of God in our Lord Jesus Christ. A person that was unentitled in every sense of the word, and had no claim whatever; neither her race, or language, or creed, or origin entitled her in any sense to consideration. It is one of the strongest cases that could be brought before us in scripture to prove a little word in the fifth chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, “abundance of grace.” Ah! this the case to demonstrate “abundance of grace” for one that had no title, one who was externally and in every way repulsive.
Further, observe what is said about her; she came, and she besought Him, and she fell at His feet. Thank God for those words! A poor Canaanite, a poor creature that had no claim at all, can come and beseech Him and fall at His feet. The fifteenth chapter of Matthew, where this incident is recorded according to the character of that gospel, furnishes the detail of the threefold test which she was passed through. If you examine it, you will find she was tested in three ways; first of all, she was tested by silence. “He answered her not a word.” Has your faith ever been tested in that way? Do you know what it is to have cried day and night to a silent Christ? “He answered her not a word.” Oh what a trial of faith that was! Could it be possible that He did not hear, or that He heard without attention? Could it be possible that His heart was not capable of being touched by her misery? “He answered her not a word.” But there was more. It was not only that He was silent, but the Gospel of Matthew gives us His positive refusal. What was that? It is not right, “it is not meet,” it is not just; “to take the children’s bread”: you have no title to it. She came as a child, that is to say, by using the term Son of David she came to Him under a relationship that she was not in, and He says, As Son of David I refuse you, it is not right to take the children’s bread. But there was even more than that, there was reproach—“and to cast it to dogs.” Thus she was tested in this threefold way, silence, refusal, reproach. And the word the blessed Lord uses is a very remarkable word; I do not think it is used anywhere else in the original of the New Testament except here. The word is the diminutive, which means “a little dog” the very lowest of its species, “It is not right to take the children’s bread, and to cast it to little dogs.”
So now faith is proved—through some test very much akin to this. I have met with Christians who have been sorely tested and tried in their faith. Peter tells us that faith will assuredly undergo trying, “That the proving of your faith, much more precious than of gold which perishes, though it be proved by fire.” The allusion here is to the proving of gold, the metal is subjected to the fire, and the flame is increased and increased until the image of the refiner is reflected in the coin. There is, observe, no mitigation of the fire, no reduction of the strength of the flame, until the image of the one who is dealing with it is seen in it. Faith is always subjected in that way to testing; and so this poor woman’s faith was proved in this threefold way.
But there is a beautiful little word here which is peculiar to the Gospel of Mark, which I must take notice of, taken along with the Gospel of Matthew, they make a beautiful whole. The Lord says to her, according to this Gospel, and this may have helped to keep alive the flickering flame of faith in her heart—“Let the children first be filled.” That left a little ray of hope for her poor heart. “Let the children first be filled.” And so she might have said to herself, “Well, there is a little reserve there; there is a crumb let fall on purpose for me.” As Boaz had said in other days, “Let fall some handfuls on purpose for her.” “Let the children first be filled”; and so her hope would rise and her heart would live on through the fire of testing, and her faith be nourished by His grace and kindness. And then it is beautiful to think how that may have given the first flush of hope to that poor broken heart, and she would reason somewhat like this to herself, “Surely He does not mean to refuse me altogether, surely He means that I should prevail, surely He intends to be overcome by my misery.” I can conceive how all that would pass through her mind as His gracious words first fell upon her ear.
Next observe her answer to Him, and it is very beautiful; she says, “Yea, Lord”; she takes up the very word in the original that He used, or at least the root of it, and she says, “True, Lord, I am only an unentitled, miserable, wretched dog.” She takes that place, this was her soul’s “Amen,” she accepts His verdict, she stands before Him unentitled, but her faith still cleaves to Him for the absolute goodness that was in Him. Behind all that dark cloud of testing that light was there, and it is lovely to think that it fell upon her heart. God grant it may be in your souls and mine when we are tested, to be able to say, like the patriarch of old, “When I am tried, I shall come forth as gold,” having the refiner’s image and the refiner’s likeness stamped upon the purified coin.
And now mark the word she gets from Him; “For this saying go thy way; the devil is gone out of thy daughter.” He did not praise her adroitness or her humility, but He commended her faith, the faith which the goodness of His own Person, as He stood there before her, kindled and kept alive: “O woman, great is thy faith.”
Now let us turn to another instance of the mercy and goodness which were manifested in our Lord Jesus Christ in this poor man that was deaf and had an impediment in his speech. We shall only notice two or three points. First of all, there was the faith of the persons that brought him, for they came and besought Him. I have no doubt that what kept alive that faith in their hearts was just the goodness that shone in our Lord Jesus Christ. The friends of this poor man, for he was powerless in speech himself, came, attracted by this. Just look what He does; He takes him aside, out of the town. Have you not found in your history that He has done that to you oftentimes? Do you not remember that time you were ill? That time you were laid low in fever? Have you forgotten that time when the heavy blow of affliction came into your house? He was then taking you aside out of the town. I believe the Lord in special dealings with us takes us thus aside. Of Jacob it is said that he was “left alone”; but it is a wonderful solitude, solitude with Christ. “He took him aside.” And then we have the action, which is beautiful and suited to the case, though I shall not speak of it now. But observe two things connected with the action.
First of all, He looked up to heaven. What does that convey to us? Is He not here seen as the perfect servant, “I came not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me.” He says, as it were, I have come from heaven, I am the Servant-Prophet out of heaven for God and men. How blessed, “He looked up to heaven.” All mission, all power, all grace is from thence—there is nothing except from heaven; the second Man is out of heaven; the true Servant was the One who was in the service of heaven. “He looked up to heaven.”
Then there is another word, “He sighed,” or as some have translated it, “He groaned.” Here then is the compassionate Servant, here is the tender heart that felt for all, that was touched by human misery, the One who passed unscathed and unmoved through everything, but felt it all. How blessed to have before us such a Christ, and to have revealed to us how He felt! how He groaned! how He sighed!
And then lastly, there is the word of power. The true Servant, the compassionate Man, and yet at the same time, blessed for ever be His name, the mighty God. “Ephphatha: be opened.” “He spake and it was done”; He had but to utter the word, and the result was there.
And then He sought retirement again; He commanded them not to make it known; He did not seek publicity, or popularity, blessed be His name—all that prevails in the church-world and world-church of to-day, was far away from the mind of Jesus Christ. No; He was the Servant out of heaven, that came to do the will of Him that sent Him. But they could not keep silence; their tongues must speak His praise. And I am sure that we, through grace can add our hearty amen to the words that went out concerning Him on all sides, “He hath done all things well.” How blessed to say that, as we have often sung it. And even though it may be through tears, and loss, and pain, and sorrow, through weary days and weary nights, still the heart that knows Him and that He has touched can say, “He hath done all things well; he maketh both the deaf to hear and the dumb to speak.”