WE find in this chapter striking evidence of the great change which was now fast coming in through the rejection of Jesus by Israel. For, first, we have certain religious guides, “Scribes and Pharisees, which were of Jerusalem,” who had the best spiritual opportunities of their nation, and who came clothed with all that savored of antiquity and outward sanctity. These men put the question to our Lord, “Why do thy disciples transgress the tradition of the elders? for they wash not their hands when they eat bread.” The Lord proceeds to deal with the conscience. He does not enter into an abstract discussion about tradition; nor does He dispute with them as to the authority of the elders; but He at once lays hold of the plain fact, that, in their zeal for the tradition of the elders, they were setting themselves point-blank against the clear, positive commandment of God. This I believe to be the invariable effect of tradition, no matter whom it may govern. If we take up the history of Christendom and consider any rule that was ever invented, it will be found to carry those who follow it in opposition to the mind of God. It may seem to be the most natural thing possible, and growing out of the new circumstances of the church; but we are never safe in departure from God’s word for any other standard.
Not that one contends for the bare literal interpretation of scripture. A certain course that the word of God binds upon His saints in dealing with one evil may not be their duty at some other crisis. New circumstances modify the path the church ought to pursue. Were you to apply the directions given for judging immorality to fatal error touching our Lord’s person, you would have a very insufficient measure of discipline. False doctrine does not touch the natural conscience as gross conduct does. Nay, you may too often find a believer drawn away by his affections to make excuses for those who are fundamentally heterodox. All sorts of difficulties fill the mind where the eye is not really single. Many might thus be involved who did not themselves hold the false doctrine, If I accept the principle of dealing with none but him who brings not the doctrine of Christ, it will not do; for there may be others entangled by it. What is any individual, what is the church even, in comparison with the Saviour, the Son of the Father? Accordingly, the rule laid down by the Spirit for vindicating Christ’s person from blasphemous assailants or their partisans, is infinitely more stringent than where it is a question of moral corruption, be it ever so bad.
Again, there is a strong tendency to stereotype our own previous practice, and when some fresh evil comes in to insist on what was done before, or is done generally, without inquiring afresh of God, anti searching into His word in view of the actual case before us, and of our own responsibility. The spirit of dependence is needed in order to walk rightly with God. There is in the written word of God that which will meet every claim; but each case should be a renewed occasion for consulting that word in the presence of Him who gave it. People like to be consistent with themselves, and to hold fast former opinions and. practices.
Our Lord, in this place, asserts that deference to mere human tradition leads into direct disobedience of God’s will. Washing the hands might have seemed to be a most proper act. Nobody could pretend that scripture forbade it; and, no doubt, the Jewish doctors could press its moral significance. They might very well argue how calculated it was to keep before their minds the purity God insists on, and especially that we ought never to receive anything from His hand without putting away all defilement from ours. They might reason thus to a people who loved all outward routine. At all events they might say, What was the harm of such a tradition? What mischief could it do for persons to wash their hands, while it might do so much good? But our Lord simply comes to this issue: “Why do ye also transgress the commandment of God by your tradition?” It was not in spite of, but by, their tradition that God was disobeyed.
This is illustrated by a very important relationship in Israel. The apostle Paul, in writing to the Ephesians as, cites the command to honor the father as the first commandment with promise. commandments had the threat of death annexed but this commandment was one that God out to crown with long life on earth. The apostle’s reasoning is, that, if a Jewish child was not only bound, but encouraged by such a promise; to venerate his parents, how much more is a Christian child now? He was to obey them in the Lord — not in the law, but in the Lord. This is the instance taken up here also, “God commanded, saying, Honor thy father and mother; and, He that curseth father or mother, let him die the death.” That is, on the one hand, the honor was valued by God; on the other, disrespect was deadly in His sight. “But ye say, Whosoever shall say to his father or his mother, It is a gift, by whatsoever thou mightest be profited by me, and honor not his father or his mother...” The Jews had brought in a cheat for their consciences by which they might free themselves, from the obligation to meet filial duties. They had only to pronounce the word, “It is a gift” (Corban), and a parent might be forgotten! Doubtless, it was one of their authorized traditions, and for the priest’s profit; but it was as undoubtedly an unhallowed act in God’s sight, and a direct infringement of His command. “Thus have ye made the commandment of God of none effect by your tradition.” This is a solemn thing to be remembered; for it is not merely applicable to this class of human relationships, but if any will take the trouble to examine every kind of religious rule introduced, not only in popery, but in protestantism, they will find the same thing invariably true. To add to scripture is ruinous: it does not matter by whom, it may be done, nor that men allege the holiest motive; for God is jealous about it, and will not have His word enlarged or amended. Revelation is complete, and our simple business is to be obedient to the word of God.
Thus it matters not what example, any may propose. Take one of the commonest possible — the choice of a minister. People, Christians, say, We must send for ministers, and choose between them who is to be ours. I am willing to concede care and conscience in exercising their judgment without partiality or prejudice. But where is the warrant for choosing anyone whatever to preach the gospel, or to teach the church? Is there one precept, one instance, in all the New Testament? Did God, then, not foresee the difficulties and the wants of congregations? Surely He did. Why, then, is there an absence of all such directions for them? Because it was a sin to do it — not only not His mind but contrary to it. There is not a single case, nor anything like it, from the time the Holy Ghost was sent down at Pentecost till the canon of scripture was closed. And yet you have multitudes of churches spoken of in the scripture. What, then, is a congregation to do when they want a minister? Why not search and see the scriptural way of meeting such a dilemma? The difficulty arises from their being in a false position already. The central truth of the church is the presence of the Holy Ghost.
We are speaking now of the Christian assembly, wherein the Spirit is personally present to act according to His own will in the midst of disciples, there gathered for the purpose of glorifying God and exalting Christ. Where the meeting is thus carried on, the question of choosing a minister could not arise. Where there are but three meeting upon God’s principles (that is, church-ground), it is, if I may so say, church, if not the church. If there were three thousand real saints met, but not on God’s principles, they would not be the church nor church either, though all members of Christ So that, if you take this common Protestant tradition of choosing a minister, it is decisive. It puts the persons who use it in distinct opposition to the word of God. It might be good for a Christian assembly to feel their weakness. There might be none with any special gift among them: some might be able to help in worship and prayer, though not in preaching or teaching. But the blessed comfort is that, if there were not someone specially gifted in the word, the Holy Ghost is able to edify the saints without him. If the assembly could have any amount of gift, and have it in a wrong way, the blessing would be impaired, and the will and glory of God so far set aside. But if there were not one with a special gift, there might be real blessing, provided the eye were towards the Lord.
The object of the Holy Ghost is to put the souls of the saints in direct connection with the Lord. God in His wisdom may be pleased not to raise up any in a particular assembly, or He may send there two, three, or more to minister. I do not believe that any one man has sufficient gifts for the church. The notion of having a single person to be the exclusive organ of the communications of God to His people is a wrong to them, and above all, to the Lord. In every respect it opposes, and destroys, the will of God about His church. There might seem to be a great many good reasons why people should choose a minister, but never listen to any apology for that which you do not find in the word of God. We are bad judges of what would be best for us. Men may make great mistakes; but faith goes upon the ground that God can make none. He provides for everything in His word. God is pressing that upon us at this very moment. At the Reformation the point was to get the Bible to all, so that there might be the possibility of poor souls learning Christ for their salvation. But there nearly all that was known of truth ended, The Reformation never touched the true question of the church. The Reformers had to deal with a very rough enemy. They had to blow up the masses of rock in the quarry; and we must not find fault if they could not fashion the stones, nor build them, with equal skill. But we ought not to stop at their hewings.
Tradition ought never to be held in any shape whatever. Here it was not merely following one another, but using tradition to indulge hypocritical selfishness. “Ye hypocrites,” says our Lord, “well did Esaias prophesy of you, saying, This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me,” Those who pretended such zeal for the law were destroying its very foundations all the while, The father and mother stand at the head of the relative precepts which have to do with men. Thus, by their tradition, which allowed their dishonor, God’s own authority was made null and void — and that, too, in the very highest earthly relationships in Israel. Isaiah shows that, as they had got rid of the law by their tradition, so the prophets condemned them. “In vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.”
Having dispatched this matter, He calls the multitude, and says to them, “Hear, and understand: not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man, but that which cometh out of the mouth, this defileth a man.” It is the chiefly religious leaders that occupy themselves with tradition. The great general snare is denying the evil of men. The constant weapon which Satan uses now is the idea that man is not so had but that moral culture may improve him. The progress of the world is astonishing, they say. There are societies for promoting every philanthropic object, even down to preventing cruelty to animals. Here is a word that pronounces on these efforts of men in the gross. “Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man, but that which cometh out of the mouth, this defileth a man.” The real secret of man’s deplorable condition is his heart. This affects all that comes out.
It is not in any wise what God made. Man is now merely a corrupt creature, whose corruption is imparted to what he takes in. Therefore mere restraining of the flesh is entirely useless in God’s sight, and essentially false. The Lord says to the multitude, “Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man, but that which cometh out of the mouth, this defileth a man.” Observe, He has done with the question of Jerusalem and of tradition. He speaks of what touches human nature. Man is lost. But no one thoroughly believes this about himself, till he has found Christ. He may believe he is a sinner, but does he believe he is so bad that no good can be got out of him? Is not the prevalent theory and effort to better man’s condition? But our Lord declares here that it is not by what you put in, or what you keep from man, that he is made better. The heart is bad; and till the heart is reached, all else is vain. But “the word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth and in thy heart.” God’s way of dealing with the heart ought to be the nearest thing to a Christian. What so simple, so blessed, so mighty, as the gospel? Who says that the gospel wants a handmaid? The handmaid has lost her mission and is discharged. As Hagar was sent out of the house, so all that you get by Hagar is merely Ishmael — the son born after the flesh, that mocks the child of promise. Man is not now in a state of probation. The trial has been made. God has pronounced upon men that the flesh is utterly worthless; and yet man is trying the question again, instead of believing God.
The disciples came to speak to our Lord about it. They did not altogether relish what He had been saying. They came and said unto Him, “Knowest thou that the Pharisees were offended after they heard this saying?” They might not be offended themselves, but were disposed to sympathize with the people who were. We might have thought the multitude would be most offended. But no; the Pharisees, standing upon tradition, have no more notion of the true ruin of man’s nature in the sight of God than even the poor multitude in all their ignorance. Nothing so blinds the mind as tradition. The Pharisees, then, were offended, and the disciples were trying to act as mediators between them and our Lord. But our Lord answers still more sternly, “Every plant, which my heavenly Father hath not planted, shall be rooted up.” There needs a new life from God, not an improving of the old one. A plant must be planted, then, and the heavenly Father must do it. Every other plant shall be rooted up. “Let them alone: they be blind leaders of the blind.” We are not to spend our time reasoning with these Pharisees: it is altogether vain. They require first principles, and the work of God in their souls; and therefore all discussion is premature and thrown away. “Let them alone: they be blind leaders of the blind.” He did not apply this to the multitude, but to the leaders that were stumbled by the doctrine of man’s total corruption. Such are best to their own devices. “Let them alone.” And if blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch.
But the Lord does not leave the disciples where they were. Peter answers and ears unto Him, “Declare unto us this parable.” This is evidently instructive. What did he mean by calling it a parable? He did not understand it himself. Here was one, the very chief of the twelve apostles and he cannot understand what our Lord means when He tells them that man is altogether wrong―his heart most of all; that what comes out of him is what is so bad, not that which goes in, And this is a parable! The difficulty of scripture arises less from difficult language than from unpalatable truth. Truth is contrary to people’s wishes; and they cannot see it because they do not like to receive it. A man may not he always conscious of this himself, but it is the real secret that God sees. The obstacle consists in man’s dislike of the truth. Peter says, “Declare unto us this parable. And Jesus said, Are ye also yet without understanding?” Think where a disciple was when he could find a dark saying in our Lord’s sentence upon man as utterly bad and worthless!
“Do ye not yet understand, that whatsoever entereth in at the mouth goeth into the belly, and is cast out into the draft? But those things which proceed out of... the heart ... they defile the man. For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies.” The source of man’s evil is from within. And, therefore, until there is a new life brought in — till man is born again, of water and of the Spirit — all is useless. “These are the things which defile a man: but to eat with unwashen hands defileth not a man.” There closes our Lord’s blessed and weighty instruction, announcing that the day of outward forms was past, and that it was now a question of the reality of man’s state in the sight of God. And this He brings out with the greatest possible clearness for the disciples who could not understand: all very suggestive indeed to us.
But now we find our Lord turning to a different thought. He goes away from these scribes and Pharisees to the coasts of Tyre and Sidon, that is, to the very extremity of the Holy Land, and to that particular quarter of the borders of it which had been expressly the scene of the judgments of God. In chapter 11. our Lord had referred to them, and said, that it would be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon at the day of judgment than for the cities where His mighty works had been done. They were proverbial as the monuments of God’s vengeance among the Gentiles. There our Lord is met by a woman of Canaan coming out of the same coasts. If there was one race in all these borders more particularly under God’s ban, it was Canaan. “Cursed,” said Noah, “be Canaan” — such a deep character of evil had come in by the youth Canaan, who seems to have been specially the leader of his father in the wickedness against his grandfather Noah. “Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren.” And so, when Israel was brought into the land, the Canaanites were to be exterminated without mercy. They were persons whose abominations had gone up to heaven with a cry for vengeance from God. Here this woman came out of the coasts of Canaan, and cries unto Jesus, saying, “Have mercy on me, O Lord, thou Son of David: my daughter is grievously vexed with a demon.” (vs. 22.) If we could have conceived any case most opposed to what we had before — scribes and Pharisees of Jerusalem, full of learning and outward veneration for the law — we have it in this poor woman of Canaan.
The circumstances, too, were dreadful. Not only was it in Tyre and Sidon, recalling the judgments of God, but the demon had taken possession of her daughter. All these circumstances together made the case to be as deplorable a one as could be found. How was the Lord going to deal with her? The Lord shows, in meeting her case, a great change in His ways. We have seen the Jews pronounced hypocrites; their worship intolerable to God, and declared such through their own prophets. For if the Lord pronounced these men to be hypocrites, He did it out of the lips of their own prophet Isaiah. Now comes one that had not the smallest tie with Israel. In former times, the obligation of Israel had been to kill the Canaanites. How would the Messiah deal with her? She cries unto the Lord, saying, “Have mercy on me, O Lord, thou Son of David; my daughter is grievously vexed with a demon. But he answered her not a word,” Not a word Why was this? She was on totally wrong ground. What had she to do with the Son of David? If the Lord had acted as the Son of David, what could He have done with her except order her to be executed? Had the Lord been merely the Son of David, could He have given her the blessing He had in His heart? She appealed to Him as if she were one of a chosen people who had claims on Him as their Messiah. Was it ever promised that Messiah was to heal the Canaanites? Not a word about it. When the Messiah does come as Son of David, the Canaanites will not be there. Look at Zech. 14, and you will find, when our Lord shall be King over all the earth, “In that day there shall be no more the Canaanite in the house of Jehovah of hosts.” So that it is plain that the judgments which were not thoroughly executed by Israel, because they were unfaithful to the trust of the Lord, are to be executed by-and-by when the Son of David will take His inheritance. This woman was altogether confused about it. She had the conviction that He was much more than the Son of David, but she did not know how to bring it out.
It is, I think, in much the same way that many persons now, anxious about their sins, have tried the Lord’s Prayer, and have asked the Father to forgive them their sins as they forgive others. They go to God as their Father, and ask of Him to deal with them as children. But this is the very thing which is not yet settled. Are they children? Can they say that God is their Father? They would shrink from it. It is that which they chiefly desire, but they fear it is not so; that is, they have no right to draw near to God on the footing of a relationship which they do not know to exist. So that when persons are thus confused, they never get thorough peace to their souls. Sometimes they are hoping they are the children of God, sometimes fearing they are not, cast down with the sense of the evil within them. The fact is, they do not understand the matter at all. They are quite right in wishing to turn to God, but they do not know how to do it, They are not willing to go to God in all their need — just as they are giving up all thought of having promises, or anything else, This may explain the wrongness of an anxious soul seeking after God on the ground of promises, A good deal is said about sinners “grasping the promises”; but have you any real title to grasp the promises? For whom were they? In the Old Testament they were for Israel; in the New for Christians. But you are not an Israelite and you are not sure you are a Christian in the sense meant. No wonder that you feel confused.
It is good for a soul to be brought to this: — I have no claim upon God for anything; I am a lost sinner, If God shakes a person from what they have no right to, if He strips them of everything, it is for the purpose of giving them a blessing that He has a right to give them. People forget that now it is the righteousness of God — God’s right to bless through Christ Jesus, according to all that is in His heart. It is no right of theirs: sin has destroyed that. The cross has come in, Men are lost. But they are afraid to confess the true ruin in which they are found. This is what the Lord was dealing with in the poor woman of Canaan, He was bringing her down to feel that she had no right to the promises, As Son of David He had promises. He was to do all kinds of things for Israel: but where were any promises to the Canaanites? Thus, on the ground of promise, on the ground of His being the Son of David, it was impossible for the Lord to give her what she asked. She did not understand this. She thought that if an Israelite might go on the ground of promise she could.
But it is a mistake. “All the promises of God in him are yea, and in him Amen, unto the glory of God by us.” But who are the “us”? We who have the Lord Jesus. When we have got Christ without a promise, then we have a Christ in whom all the promises of God are yea and Amen. We go to Him as sinners, naked and bare, without the smallest help even of a promise. But when we have Christ as sinners, then we find that in this Blessed One all the promises of God are found to be ours. But we find Him as lost sinners first, and there are no such things as promises to lost sinners. Not a soul has a right to a promise till he receives Christ; and when we have Christ, we have in Him all the promises. So God will deal with Israel by-and-by; not on any claims that they profess, for He has allowed them to forfeit these by rejecting Christ now. “For God hath concluded them all in unbelief, that he might have mercy upon all. O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God!”
The poor woman thus made it meet not to answer her. If the Lord had spoken to her, it must have been with a rebuke. It was grace and tenderness that led Him not to answer her: He remains silent till she drops the ground that she had first taken. But the disciples were not silent; they wanted to get rid of her importunity; they did rut like the trouble of her. They “came and besought him, saying, Send her away; for she crieth after us.” But the Lord confirms what has been already said as to the wrongness of her plea. He says, as it were, She does not belong to the house of Israel: I cannot give her a blessing on the ground she takes, but I will not send her away without a blessing. He stands for the special privilege of the sheep of the house of Israel, and she was not a sheep. She could not get the blessing on that ground. “He answered and said, I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”
Then the Canaanitess came and “worshipped him, saying, Lord, help me.” She drops the words “Son of David.” She no longer uses the title which connects Him with Israel, but acknowledges generally His authority. Now He answers her, though she is not yet down low enough. When she appeals to Him as Lord, which was a suitable title, He answers, “It is not meet to take the children’s bread, and to cast it to dogs.” The moment that this is uttered, all the secret is out. “Truth Lord,” she says, “yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their master’s table.” She takes the place of being a dog. She acknowledges that Israel was, in the outward ways of God, the favored people, as children eating of bread upon the table; whereas the Gentiles were but the dogs underneath. She acknowledges it, and it is very humbling. People do not like it now. But she is brought down to it. The Lord may, for the purpose of leading us into deeper blessing, bring us down to the very lowest point of the truth about ourselves. But was there no blessing even for a dog? She falls back upon this truth: Let it be that I am a dog, has not God some blessing for me? No one could fancy that there ever were promises for dogs! yet this was the place she took. When she is brought down to her true place, the Lord gives her the full blessing. He even meets her with the strongest approbation of her faith — “O woman, great is thy faith: be it unto thee even as thou wilt.” When He had pronounced the sentence upon the nation of the Jews, who were only hypocrites, the Lord goes out to the Gentiles. Faith meets with richest mercy. The faith, that penetrates through outward circumstances, and bears the discovery that we have not yet got down to the lowly place we ought to take, only receives blessing deeper and more enduring than ever. The poor woman was blessed even to her heart’s content. “Be it unto thee even as thou wilt. And her daughter was made whole from that very hour.” This was grace; and grace dealing with the most extreme case of a Gentile under special curse is that which occupies the Lord on His turning away from Israel.
But there is more than this. It is not the Lord retiring after He has fed the multitude, but the Lord coming down from the mountain in sovereign goodness. “Jesus departed from thence, and came nigh unto the sea of Galilee; and went up into a mountain, and sat down there.” (vs. 29.) It is now the Lord, who had been away visiting the Gentiles, when the multitude can approach Him. “Great multitudes came unto him, having with them those that were lame, blind, dumb, maimed, and, many others, and cast them down at Jesus’ feet, and he healed them: insomuch that the multitude wondered, when they saw the dumb to speak, the maimed to be whole, the lame to walk, and the blind to see: and they glorified the God of Israel.” (vss. 30, 31.) This again is a picture of Israel feeling their real condition. They are coming to Jesus, looking to Him, and saying, as it were, “Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord.” They are to speak thus by-and-by; and the Lord declared they should not see Him till they should say, Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord. What they saw in Jesus led them to glorify the God of Israel. Thus the Lord will have relations with Israel. They come, not now in controversy, but as a poor, maimed, blind, and miserable multitude; and the Lord heals them all. But this is not all. He feeds them as well as heals them; and we have the beautiful second miracle of the loaves.
But mark the differences. In a former case, the disciples were for sending the multitudes away; and the Lord allowed them to show out their unbelief. In the present instance, it is Christ Himself who thinks of them and purposes to bless them. “I have compassion,” says He, “on the multitude, because they continue with me now three days, and have nothing to eat: and I will not send them away fasting, lest they faint in the way.” (vs. 32.) You may remember that it is said in Hos. 6, “After two days will he revive us, in the third day he will raise us up, and we shall live in his sight.” It is the adequate time of the trial of the people. Literally it was the time our Lord lay in the grave; but it is connected also with the future blessing of Israel. “I will not send them away fasting, lest they faint in the way, And his disciples say unto him, Whence should we have so much bread in the wilderness, as to fill so great a multitude?” How slow they are to learn the resources of Christ, as before they were to learn the worthlessness of man! “Jesus saith unto them, How many loaves have ye? And they said, Seven, and a few little fishes.” (vs. 34.) It is not now five loaves and twelve baskets full left; but with seven loaves they begin, and with seven baskets full they end. The reason is, seven is always the number of spiritual completeness in scripture, and this is intended to denote the fullness which the Lord makes the blessing flow to His people―the fullness of provision that they have in Him. “He took the seven loaves and the fishes, and gave thanks, and brake them, and gave to his disciples, and the disciples to the multitude,” (vs. 36.) Can one doubt that this is the picture of the Lord providing amply for the Jews — for the beloved people of His choice, whom He never can abandon, to whom He must accomplish His promises, because He is the faithful God? Here the Lord, out of His own heart, fully provides for their refreshment, even for their bodily refreshment. This will be the character of the millennial day, when not only the soul will be blessed, but when every kind of mercy will abound, God vindicating His earth from the hand of Satan, who had long defiled it. Even here below, there will be the flowing out of divine compassion toward them, and giving them all they need. In the seven loaves before they ate, and the seven baskets of fragments taken up after they had eaten, you have the idea of completeness, an ample store, as for the present, so for wants to come.