📖 Mark 7:1-30

The Text

Mark 7:1–30 (CSB)

1 The Pharisees and some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem gathered around him. 2 They observed that some of his disciples were eating bread with unclean—that is, unwashed—hands. 3 (For the Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they give their hands a ceremonial washing, keeping the tradition of the elders. 4 When they come from the marketplace, they do not eat unless they have washed. And there are many other customs they have received and keep, like the washing of cups, pitchers, kettles, and dining couches.) 5 So the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, "Why don't your disciples live according to the tradition of the elders, instead of eating bread with ceremonially unclean hands?" 6 He answered them, "Isaiah prophesied correctly about you hypocrites, as it is written: This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. 7 They worship me in vain, teaching as doctrines human commands.

8 Abandoning the command of God, you hold on to human tradition." 9 He also said to them, "You have a fine way of invalidating God's command in order to set up your tradition! 10 For Moses said: Honor your father and your mother; and Whoever speaks evil of father or mother must be put to death. 11 But you say, 'If anyone tells his father or mother: Whatever benefit you might have received from me is corban' " (that is, an offering devoted to God), 12 "you no longer let him do anything for his father or mother. 13 You nullify the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And you do many other similar things."

14 Summoning the crowd again, he told them, "Listen to me, all of you, and understand: 15 Nothing that goes into a person from outside can defile him but the things that come out of a person are what defile him." 17 When he went into the house away from the crowd, his disciples asked him about the parable. 18 He said to them, "Are you also as lacking in understanding? Don't you realize that nothing going into a person from the outside can defile him? 19 For it doesn't go into his heart but into the stomach and is eliminated" (thus he declared all foods clean). 20 And he said, "What comes out of a person is what defiles him. 21 For from within, out of people's hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immoralities, thefts, murders, 22 adulteries, greed, evil actions, deceit, self-indulgence, envy, slander, pride, and foolishness. 23 All these evil things come from within and defile a person."

24 He got up and departed from there to the region of Tyre. He entered a house and did not want anyone to know it, but he could not escape notice. 25 Instead, immediately after hearing about him, a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit came and fell at his feet. 26 The woman was a Gentile, a Syrophoenician by birth, and she was asking him to cast the demon out of her daughter. 27 He said to her, "Let the children be fed first, because it isn't right to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs." 28 But she replied to him, "Lord, even the dogs under the table eat the children's crumbs." 29 Then he told her, "Because of this reply, you may go. The demon has left your daughter." 30 When she went back to her home, she found her child lying on the bed, and the demon was gone.

The Sermon

"When Jesus stood up, he said to her, 'Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?' 'No one, Lord,' she answered. 'Neither do I condemn you,' said Jesus. 'Go, and from now on do not sin anymore' " (Jn. 8:10–11). Upon preaching the absolute judgment of "no condemnation!" from the lips of our Lord Jesus Christ, this is the command for the adultress and the Christian to do: go and sin no more.

The order of the declaration and the command is crucially important. We must have the declaration of the Almighty God that there is no condemnation upon our souls so that we can now, in complete freedom in Christ, go and obey God and sin no more.

If you flip the order around, what you will end up with is the back-breaking, bone-grinding, soul-crushing, heart-destroying legalistic religion. In other words, if you start with the command, "go and sin no more", then there is condemnation for you. We know that is not the gospel of Jesus Christ. We know that sort of preaching belongs to other religions like Roman Catholicism, Mormonism, other sects and cults, and, quite frankly, most legalistic and antinomianist churches.

(While I don't use the terms legalism and antinomianism interchangeably, we must understand they are the two sides of the same coin. Legalism bears down on people with man-made laws on top of God's pure and perfect laws. Antinomianism tries to ignore a handful of God's law only to double down on people with man-made laws on top of God's pure and perfect laws.)

Dead religion states that you must earn your salvation. True religion of God is this: since we have his only begotten Son and his righteousness, we get to obey God. And you think that because the gospel is such good news, we would naturally want this gospel. But, in this upside-down way, our flesh wants to work hard for the gift in order to earn it. Because of this natural inclination, there has been no time period since the creation of Adam and Eve that we have been free from dead religion.

Let us start at the beginning. Look at the contrast between God's law and the legalistic and licentious sinful temptation from Satan.

"And the LORD God commanded the man, 'You are free to eat from any tree of the garden, but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for on the day you eat from it, you will certainly die' " (Gen. 2:16-17). The command wasn't easy, but it was easy to understand. "Do not eat from this tree." Understood. "If you do this, you will die." Make sense.

When God gives us his perfect law, there is no discussion, debate, or negotiation on the part of man, his creation. God says, "Do this and live. Don't do this and live." What was Adam's response? Nothing was ever recorded. In fact, when God gives the law, his next action was to create a wife for Adam.

When Satan and mankind start working together, it is not long before we started with God's good thing and twisting it into a godless, evil sin. Here is what I mean:

Genesis 3:1-5 Now the serpent was the most cunning of all the wild animals that the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, "Did God really say, 'You can't eat from any tree in the garden'? " The woman said to the serpent, "We may eat the fruit from the trees in the garden. But about the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden, God said, 'You must not eat it or touch it, or you will die.' " "No! You will certainly not die," the serpent said to the woman. "In fact, God knows that when you eat it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."

Should Eve be entertaining a talking snake? Absolutely not. Keep in mind the context: Eve is righteous in the eyes of the Lord. She is without sin yet she is being tempted. Being tempted is not a sin, for Christ was tempted in every way as we were, but was without sin (Heb. 4:15). You and I are going to be tempted -- we are sojourners passing through this world. Of course, we are going to be tempted. But we cannot give in to temptation.

And Satan's lie-twisted-truths of "Did God really say?" and "You will not die--you will be like God" exposed the hole in our armor--our legalistic leanings. We will take God's good law, and because we want to be extra safe and not sin, we have this tendency to layer additional made up laws on top. See how Eve responds to temptation:

"We must not touch it."

God never said, "Don't touch it." But I bet some are listening to this sermon, hearing this word, and think, "Well, that is a good idea – that would keep anybody safe and secure." But did the extra rules make it safer? Did it, though? Does it ever work? No, it does not. Never has. Never will. As good-intentioned as we might be, our man-made laws do not protect us from falling into sin.

We have fallen into sin. We are sinning. We will sin. God rescues and saves us from our sin by giving us His Son and His Spirit and the gift of repentance until he brings us all the way home. That is extraordinarily good news.

And what started in the garden at the beginning of time continues to this day, and until Christ comes back, legalism/antinomianism, that is, man-made laws will always try to find a way to permeate and infect the Bride of Christ. By the wiles of Satan, it attempts to seep into the church. Ever since the first proclamation of the gospel, the church has had to deal with legalism. We deal with it now and Christ dealt with it during his earthly ministry. See this in Mark 7:

3-5 (For the Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they give their hands a ceremonial washing, keeping the tradition of the elders. When they come from the marketplace, they do not eat unless they have washed. And there are many other customs they have received and keep, like the washing of cups, pitchers, kettles, and dining couches.) So the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, "Why don't your disciples live according to the tradition of the elders, instead of eating bread with ceremonially unclean hands?"

What was the response of Christ? Did he look upon the Pharisee, saw what they did, and thought, "these guys are super righteous"? Let me ask the same question in another way: does he look upon what we do to see if we are righteous and blameless with him?

How did Jesus respond? Starting at verse 6: "Isaiah prophesied correctly about you hypocrites, as it is written: This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. They worship me in vain, teaching as doctrines human commands" (Mk. 7:6-7). In other words, he saw the hearts of the Pharisees and knew they were far from God because they did not trust or believe in God. They trusted in how well they were obeying their own laws. That's pretty convenient.

You might think, "How can you say that they didn't believe nor trust in God? These dudes were super religious. Maybe their theology was a little messed up, but you cannot convince me that they did not believe in the God of the Scriptures!

We know this because Christ said, "But if I am doing these works and you don't believe me, believe the works. This way you will know and understand that the Father is in me and I in the Father" (Jn. 10:38). In other words, if they believed in God, they would have seen the day of Christ and rejoiced with their father, Abraham (Jn 8:58). Go back and look at their response."Why don't your disciples obey and follow our made-up laws?" They did not have a love for God, rather, they just a love for their own filthy rags called self-righteousness (Is. 64:6). We see this because of their responses. For out of the mouth, the heart speaks (Matt. 12:34).

8-13 Abandoning the command of God, you hold on to human tradition." He also said to them, "You have a fine way of invalidating God's command in order to set up your tradition! For Moses said: Honor your father and your mother; and Whoever speaks evil of father or mother must be put to death. But you say, 'If anyone tells his father or mother: Whatever benefit you might have received from me is corban' " (that is, an offering devoted to God), "you no longer let him do anything for his father or mother. You nullify the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And you do many other similar things."

Jesus comes straight to the heart of the matter by getting to the heart of the law. All of the law of God falls under two laws: Love the Lord your God with all of your soul, mind, and strength and love your neighbor as yourself (Matt. 22:36-40). From there, the Ten Commandments are divided between those two laws. The first four – worship God alone, do not make or worship idols, do not take the name of the Lord in vain, and keep the Sabbath – fall under loving the Lord your God. The rest of the Ten Commandments – honor your father and mother, do not kill, do not steal, do not fornicate, do not lie, do not covet – fall under love others as you would love yourself.

11-13 But you say, 'If anyone tells his father or mother: Whatever benefit you might have received from me is corban' " (that is, an offering devoted to God), "you no longer let him do anything for his father or mother. You nullify the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And you do many other similar things."

These are the antinomian and legalist sides of the same coin I talked about. This is antinomianism: you don't have to obey all of the laws of God--you didn't necessarily have to honor and take care of your parents if they needed help. That is a sin. So, since you had all this loose change lying around (i.e., corban or a blessing from God), you might as well give it to the church. This is double the wickedness and double the sin against God. God gave us this law not to make sure his priest had an easy life, but to ensure that the elderly, the feeble, the ill, and the weak were watched over and cared for.

It is no wonder that Christ put the legalists on blast. Legalists and antinomianists have tried their best to get you to please them rather than to please God. Praise be to God that they are weak and feeble, but he alone is Almighty strong. We cannot override the law of God. And we cannot thwart the grace of God. God already sent the fulfillment of the law and the giver of grace upon grace: his precious only begotten Son, Christ Jesus our Lord.

15 Nothing that goes into a person from outside can defile him but the things that come out of a person are what defile him." 20 And he said, "What comes out of a person is what defiles him. 21-22 For from within, out of people's hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immoralities, thefts, murders,adulteries, greed, evil actions, deceit, self-indulgence, envy, slander, pride, and foolishness.

Suppose nothing outside a person can enter to defile him. Whatever comes out of a person defiles them. Uh oh. What does that mean? Our defilement and our sin nature cannot be blamed for anything outside of ourselves. The only blame for our own sin is just us.

And I know that evil happens to us all the time. I know. But that does not give us the liberty to sin all the more. Do you think the God of the heavens is on his throne and declaring things like, "I know I gave you my only begotten Son, but I see someone hurt you, so I am going to give you a pass to hurt someone else." Should God allow us to sin to cover up for another sin? That is not how that works. Two sins do not make one righteous in the sight of God.

You need the one who is actually righteous, perfect, good, and holy to take away our sins, to be the atoning sacrifice to remove our sins as far as the east is from the west.

"Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves" (Gen. 3:7). Since sin entered the world and mankind, there is nothing we can do to make us clean. There is nothing we can do externally to cover up our filthiness, shame, and guilt because everything inside of us has defiled us as sinful in the eyes of a holy God.

If we are not clean on the inside, there is nothing we can do to please God. There is nothing we can do that would be considered and judged holy unto God. Even though it might look the same, legalistic living is not pious living. One is operating out of your own strength and a singular focus on what you do. The other is utterly dependent on God strength and goodness and a singular focus on the face of God. Legalism is just repeating what Adam and Eve tried to do. It is just a repeat of what the Pharisees were doing. And if we do not grab the free offer of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, then the repetition of the back-breaking grind of trying to do the right thing will work us straight into hell.

The Conclusion

You and I have been called to obey and please God. You and I have been called to pious living. You and I have been called to live holy unto the Lord. We cannot begin to obey and please God if we are not born again by God.

Ezek. 36:24-28 " 'For I will take you from the nations and gather you from all the countries, and will bring you into your own land. I will also sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean. I will cleanse you from all your impurities and all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will remove your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. I will place my Spirit within you and cause you to follow my statutes and carefully observe my ordinances. You will live in the land that I gave your ancestors; you will be my people, and I will be your God.

The order is crucial here. He cleanses us, gives us a new heart with new desires (Ps. 37:4), and his Spirit within us. Then what comes next? "Cause you to follow my statutes and carefully observe my ordinances."

You are the people of God, and He is your God. Since we are believers, we don't get to sin -- we get to obey, worship, and love him. "And now, Israel, what does the LORD your God ask of you except to fear the LORD your God by walking in all his ways, to love him, and to worship the LORD your God with all your heart and all your soul?" (Dt. 10:12). And "[. . .] an hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in Spirit and in truth. Yes, the Father wants such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in Spirit and in truth" (Jn. 4:23-24)

Since we are now saved, we live piously and holy unto the Lord. Don't fall into the trap of eyeballing your works to see if you are in right standing with God. All of your good works come from God (Eph. 2:10). Stop looking at your works like a Pharisee to see if you believe. Keep your eyes upon Jesus Christ, who alone is the author, finisher, and perfecter of our faith.

The second thing to do is to love one another as yourself. Easy to say, harder to do:

Jam. 1:27 Pure and undefiled religion before God the Father is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself unstained from the world.

Mic. 6:8 Mankind, he has told each of you what is good
and what it is the LORD requires of you:
to act justly,
to love faithfulness,
and to walk humbly with your God.

These are just a couple of examples. Go look up "one another" in the Bible. Start there if you honestly do not know what to do.

Go back to verse 29 Then he told her, "Because of this reply, you may go. The demon has left your daughter." We are the Gentile woman! We come in desperate need of salvation. We come in desperate need of rescuing from sin. We come in desperate need of healing and wholeness.

I always imagine this womans posture before the Lord. On her knees, her eyes do not raise up to look into his eyes and her hands clasp together. Pull her hands apart. Unclasp the Syrophoenician's hands from each other. What are you going to find? Self-righteousness? Good works? Penance? Worldly sorrow?

" 'Lord, even the dogs under the table eat the children's crumbs' " (Mark 7:28). She came with nothing, looking for table scraps from the Son of Man.

Then he told her, 'Because of this reply, you may go. The demon has left your daughter' " (Mark 7:29). What she received was not table scraps from the Son of God, but she received the Son of God who loved her and gave himself up for her (Gal. 2:20).

You and I got nothing. We have been given the law of God, and we were born suppressing the truth of God and his law.

Yet, you and I have found favor in the eyes of God (Gen. 6:8). Because of all that he has done, we are declared righteous in his sight, blameless among our fellow man, and we walk with God because he calls us his friend and his child, in whom he is well-pleased (Gen. 6:7, 5:24; Matt. 17:5).

The Lord does not condemn you. Go and sin no more (Jn. 8:11). When we do sin, turn to the Father because we have an advocate in the Lord Jesus Christ (1 Jn. 2:1). Amen.