This life of faith, this spiritual life that Jesus came to reveal, is seen even more clearly when it stands in contrast to the religious life of the scribes and Pharisees. Mark introduces this contrast between earthly and spiritual religion again in Mark 7, wherein the first eight verses, these men involve Jesus in an argument about ceremonial washings and the eating of unclean foods. As usual, their concern was with ceremonialism and not with inward holiness. But for Jesus, the concern was not the posture of the worshiper’s body, the soberness of his face, or the ritual that accomplished outward acceptability. Jesus’ concern was the submission of the heart. There is no good to be done by taking your body to church if you leave your heart outside. That is why Jesus calls them hypocrites in verses 6-8. Instead of using human traditions as helpful supplements to Scripture, these men had gone further, first to make the traditions equal to Scripture and finally to make them supersede scripture, degrading God’s, Word and making an idol out of human principles. This was an idol that left them free to sin against God without any pangs of conscience (vv. 9-13).
Theme: The Earthly and the Spiritual
SCRIPTURE
Mark 7:1-13
Now when the Pharisees gathered to him, with some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem, they saw that some of his disciples ate with hands that were defiled, that is, unwashed. (For the Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they wash their hands properly, holding to the tradition of the elders, and when they come from the marketplace, they do not eat unless they wash.
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