This chapter continues the movement of the King, and He is beginning now to move toward the cross. We have already seen His rejection and conflict with the religious rulers. This chapter advances the ministry of Jesus to the very breaking point with the scribes and Pharisees. There is a lot of action here.
15:1-2 – The scribes and the Pharisees had come all the way from Jerusalem. Immediately we recognize that this was not a friendly visit. They did not accuse Him of breaking the Scriptures but of violating the traditions which they considered to be on a par with the Scriptures.
15:3 – Jesus accuses them of breaking the commandment of God with their tradition. Their tradition, you see, permitted a man to disobey the Law, an amazing thing—and they had a very clever way of doing it.
15:4-6 – Our Lord is saying that honoring father and mother includes supporting them. The way they got around that responsibility was to dedicate their money as a gift to God, and that would relieve them of supporting their parents. This gave a pious way out for a man to break the Mosaic Law.
I still believe the best way to test a Christian is by his pocketbook. The barometer of the Christian today is how he handles his own money and how he handles God’s money. The religious rulers of Jesus’ day were helping men escape their responsibility.
15:7-8 – The Lord called the scribes and Pharisees hypocrites. This is the most frightful word in Scripture. Jesus accused the scribes and Pharisees of playing at religion.
15:10-11 – The great principle that Jesus was teaching is that moral defilement is spiritual, not physical.
15:12 – The disciples are amazed that the Lord would offend the Pharisees. Up to this point there has been conflict between the religious leaders and Jesus, but this is the breaking point. The Lord continues to instruct His disciples.
15:13 – The word plant here means “system”. It is not too broad to interpret Jesus as saying, “Every religious system which My heavenly Father hath not planted shall be rooted up.”
15:14 – This to me is a humorous statement, and it is certainly biting sarcasm. The Pharisees were the blind leaders.
15:15 – The Lord has been speaking in parables to His disciples, but they had not gotten His point yet.
15:16-18 – This is a great principle. A person is not defiled by what goes into his mouth but by what comes out of his mouth. As someone has well said, what is in the well of the heart will come up in the bucket of the mouth sooner or later. Listen to Him—
15:19-20 – We are certainly seeing this working out in our contemporary culture. We are in the period of the “new morality” and have reached the day that Isaiah talked about when he said that they would “…call evil good, and good evil…” (Isa. 5:20). Those of us who believe the Holy Bible are considered squares and entirely wrong. What do we have in this day of freedom, now that the lid has been taken off and man expresses what is in his heart? Do we have a new morality? No, we have the same old things—evil thoughts, murder, adultery, fornication, false witness, blasphemy, and thefts. We have really opened a Pandora’s box, and we are in trouble.