Mark 7: 1-23
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The New
Testament Witness of the Apostle
Peter |
The Pulpit at Pilgrim's Rest Christ Covenant Reformed (PCA) |
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Recently, as part of my preparation to teach more English Literature at school this fall, I have picked up the latest in a long line of translations of the first piece of English Literature - Beowulf. Now despite the reordering from a primitive Christian perspective of a dim and ancient pagan past, the first writer in English truthfully describes where the pagan hearts of the characters were mostly focused.
"Sometimes at pagan shrines they
vowed
offering to idols, swore
oaths
that the killer of souls
might come to their
aid
and save the people.
That was their
way,
their heathenish hope;
deep in their
hearts
they remembered hell.
(Beowulf II. 175-180)
The story of course goes on to remember the hero's hand to hand combat with three devilish creatures, which may or may not have historically been some of the last dinosaurs or related extinct creatures? The last enemy, the dragon - with whom Beowulf shares a death struggle is almost symbolic in nature. You see in the west, the Dragon in literature represents the Devil and the transitory legends of the first millennium begin to examine that theme as the heroes and heroines become more christian in manner and confession. "Since the 1939 Sutton Hoo discovery of a seventh-century ship, in which both Christian and pagan artifacts were discovered alongside one another ... we know that paganism did exist alongside Christianity during the approximate era in which Beowulf was composed." This ancient fact is one which the Church of Christ is more and more being confronted with in our own time and place. No longer is the west civilized in the light of the gospel which has been our common heritage for almost a thousand years!
Well do my several commentators launch into discussions of true and false religion in regards to the passage which describes the Old Covenant Church leaders. Calvin, of course describes the problem that we are getting at best:
"It almost always happens with weak persons, that they form an unfavorable judgment about a doctrine, as soon as they find that it is regarded with doubt or meets with opposition. And certainly it were to be wished, that it should give no offense, but receive the calm approbation of all; but, as the minds of many are blinded, and even their hearts are kindled into rage, by Satan, and as many souls are held under the benumbing influence of brutal stupidity, it is impossible that all should relish the true doctrine of salvation."
Now, let's make certain you understand my point from the various examples already given. At the time of Christ, Mark records for us the dichotomy of the Old Covenant professors. The composer of Beowulf describes a mixed religion as does Calvin observe within the Roman Church, for whom he has words as harsh as the Lord's to the Pharisees and Sadducees. Unfortunately, in our own time, there is a hastening lemming like urge to re-image or a "contriving new modes of worship" to please a very generally pagan population. So the issue before us does indeed have more than just a passing significance. Earlier generations of liberals merely played with the words of theology and gave them their favorite meanings, leaving the traditional forms of worship well entrenched so that no one would notice how the theological landscape was being changed. Now that the theological language has been thoroughly defiled, the traditional forms and experiences may more easily be transformed through an entertainment media to tickle the emotional fancies of an ignorant generation.
In the time of Christ, even as the Jewish professors of faith had sought to be earnest in their habits of living to reflect the proto-gospel which they barely comprehended, these very artifacts of habit became the be all and end all of their experience. Thus, the representatives who query Jesus have evolved so very far from the true faith that they cannot even recognize the only and proper object of the faith once given to their father Abraham! At question here is the ritual cleanings which have grown up along side the law of God and were to be ultimately recorded in their Mishnah and Gamara, the modern Talmud. Like an ancient aunt whose table manners would have required volumes to differentiate, the old covenant people were kept away from the real spiritual food by the whole apparatus of ritual and superstition being pushed by the religious establishment. The very question brought by the religious commission brings forth the wrath of God in Christ in His quote and commentary on Isaiah which we see in verse six:
"This people honors Me with
their
lips,
But their heart
is far from
Me.
And in vain they
worship
Me,
Teaching as
doctrines the commandments of men."
In His commentary, Jesus shows how they have contrived to ignore the weight of the commandments given to Moses. The very commandment that we are to honor and support our parents was set aside to allow the support of the priestly class. Calvin summarizes this point well: "The commandment of God is, that children shall honor their parents. Now as the sacred offerings yielded emolument to the priests, the observance of them was so rigidly enforced, that men were taught to regard it as a more heinous sin not to make a free-will offering than to defraud a parent of what was justly due to him. In short, what the Law of God declared to be voluntary was, in the estimation of the scribes, of higher value than one of the most important of the commandments of God.
So we see just like our thoroughly modern culture, the loving concern in the commandment of God is set aside to allow people to follow the purpose of their culture. Did you notice in the summary of the Supreme Court rulings this week that there was a common theme? Just as Boy Scouts may determine their own standards, so may prospective mothers determine theirs as well! In the same way, the worst of the channels, from the program titles, on the DISH network, is the feminist channel where it would seem everyone is free to set their own agenda. The plurality of human agendas in our time would hardly surprise the ancient pagans who had an assortment of goddish cults to celebrate every favorite perversion.
Well does Jesus define the source of sin. "What comes out of a man, that defiles a man. For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed" a long list of sinful perverted activities. I am sure that if we all looked over the list carefully, we would find the secrets of our own hearts exposed. One of the Republican candidates to be named vice-presidential running mate, has too often publicly given voice to the heartfelt wishes of conservative voters everywhere in desiring an early end of a specific liberal group. If you say Amen to his wish, any simmering anger has been found out and murder can logically and theologically be laid against your moral account!
Just like the ancient professors of religion at the time of Christ, our culture assumes wrongly that the human spirit is contaminated from outside sources. I have actually heard professional educationists proclaim that if we could just remove little children from the homes, then they wouldn't learn any bad habits from their parents. Of course, by their definition, there are no longer any bad habits, so their fiendishly proposed experiment would certainly succeed according to their own debased thinking.
Dr Cole records in his commentary on this passage that the rabbinic teaching assumed: "for all defilement,there must be a 'mother of defilement', an external source, by contact with which defilement was contracted. They, in other words, assumed an initially pure state ..."
Jesus in this passage, strikes at the heart of that nonsense. By this means, He affirms the unpopular doctrine of reprobation, or as out TULIP acronym has it: Total Depravity. As a refresher for your memory, by Total Depravity we mean that
"Since the Fall of Adam .. all people have been affected by his rebellion through what is called Original Sin, through which Adam's sin is imputed to and inherited by all of his offspring. ... in this state of spiritual deadness towards God, man is totally depraved in all parts of his being ... and unless God changes this depraved spiritual condition, man lacks the desire and spiritual ability to respond even to the Gospel message."
"All these evil things," Jesus says, "come from within and defile a man."
A hard, but necessary lesson, no more popular today than it ever was! Many of the holiness movements in our time, rival the teachers condemned by Jesus. I well remember a late elder in another church who didn't want to think about doctrines. He said the only thing he needed to know was what he had to do to get to heaven! As if any human were able to earn salvation? If that were even remotely possible, there would be no need for the Gospel of Grace. Given that dismal logic, we can better appreciate why the professors of Israel as well as the educationists today have such an antipathy towards Christ's Church. That worldly hostility we are to ignore and correct wherever possible, even as Jesus challenged the popular thinking of His day. Again, we hear the deep wisdom of Calvin on our spiritually enlightened position:
"By the persons that have been planted by the hand of God we are to understand those who, by his free adoption, have been ingrafted into the tree of life, as Isaiah also, when speaking of the Church renewed by the grace of God, calls it a branch planted by the Lord. Now as salvation depends solely on the election of God, the reprobate must perish, in whatever way this may be effected; not that they are innocent, and free from all blame, when God destroys them, but because, by their own malice, they turn to their destruction all that is offered to them, however salutary it may be. To those who willingly perish the Gospel thus becomes, as Paul assures us, the savor of death unto death".
For this reason, Jesus challenges the religious wisdom of the Phariseees and Sadducees, to point out the necessary role He came to perform and accomplish for us and for our salvation. "in vain is God worshipped, when the will of men is substituted in the room of doctrine." This is the great sin of the religious cabal in Jerusalem, their religion as are all religions are false, fake and fraudulent. Only in Christ alone is there any hope for selfish serving humanity in every time and place. And as we have seen throughout history, whenever the Gospel is proclaimed in all of its purity, there will be sinful opposition, oppression and persecution.
You know, we could almost wonder if there were any hope for a revitalized church any time in the future. Given what we know of what happened when the disciples finally learned their basic theology and recorded and passed it along, the true religion was blessed by God and the world was changed forever. Of course, the world always will do everything that Satan encourages to destroy the true faith, but if we are faithful, God is sovereign and He is still building His Church. I can remember when I was in Seminary, good solid Reformed authors were barely a handful. Unbeknownst to me, the good books were locked up in an attic where none of us could learn our rich heritage of faith. The Reformed denominations were all small and insignificant and the liberals celebrated the triumph of human ignorance over the Gospel truths.
Today, a mere thirty years later, the bold work of the theological pioneers of yesteryear has born fresh fruit. Were it not for Francis Schaeffer, Jay Adams and their magnificent commitment to the true religion, I would have had no where to turn for instruction. Providentially, their works and those of Calvin were on sale when the Seminary Bookstore was being closed. I chose books from that sale table which had the most dust upon them, almost realizing that that was a good sign for the content inside.
What we are doing is second generational, and the generation that comes after us may better hope for the revival and reformation that Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones and other fathers in the faith spent their lives praying for. May we take this lesson of Christ seriously as we consider the spiritual nature of our knowing and obeying Him day by day. May we also more and more clean out the theological and superstitious skeletons from our mental closets and rest upon Him alone for our salvation. Amen.
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Cole, Alan. |
Tyndale New Testament
Commentaries: |
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Heaney, Seamus. |
Beowulf. |
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Keener, Craig S. |
The IVP Bible Background Commentary:
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Pringle, William. |
Calvin's New Testament
Commentaries: |
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Uprichard, Harry. |
A Son is Revealed: |
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"Bringing the Light of the Reformation to Scripture" (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1995) |
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B2b37 |
02 July 00 |