On Whose Authority?

[0:00] Well, it may be helpful for us just to remember here that Mark's gospel is not a collection of random events that took place in Jesus's life.

[0:11] Now, we've said this many times throughout this study, and from time to time, it's just good to be reminded of it. Because when we come to this particular passage, it seems like it is placed oddly in Mark's gospel, right?

[0:24] I mean, it just, it kind of sticks out a little bit. And as we're going through, we know that Mark isn't dealing with things in a strictly chronological way. But he's just finished up this section where he's really dealing with the disciples a lot, and these events that surround the disciples and them beginning to see that he is truly the Son of God, that he is divine in his nature.

[0:45] And then he's about to move forward to some other miracles. This passage contains no miracles. There is actually some very important teaching. But it just seems odd that it would be placed here.

[0:56] Like, why not put this back in chapter 3 when he was already dealing with the Pharisees and the issues over the Sabbath and those kinds of things? But, of course, we understand that it is not here by any kind of mistake.

[1:08] It's actually here for quite an important purpose. When we're looking at the overall timelines here of what's happening in Jesus's life, remember, in these last few verses in chapter 6, Jesus's popularity has probably reached its peak in Galilee.

[1:27] That's where he spent most of his time up to this point, especially in Capernaum. And then there's this issue of the feeding of the 5,000, and then they're following him everywhere, and he's going through Gennesaret. His popularity in Galilee really kind of reaches its peak.

[1:39] But then remember, the very next day, after the feeding of the 5,000, John tells us that most of Jesus's followers left him. And then what's he going to do at the end of this passage?

[1:52] If you've read ahead, you know the places that he goes to next are not in the Jewish regions of Galilee. He spends his time among the Gentiles now. What does this passage help us understand in that transition?

[2:07] It helps us understand why. These men, these Pharisees and scribes, represented the apostate nation of Israel. And it was necessary, as we'll get to in a couple of weeks, it was necessary for Jesus to first go to the Jews.

[2:21] And he even instructed his apostles to do the same thing. But it was never meant, the gospel was never meant to be exclusive to the Jews. It just began with them. And in their apostasy, and perhaps even to reveal their apostasy, Jesus spends this time in Galilee.

[2:38] He exposes these Pharisees and scribes. And then from there, he moves on. You remember what they're doing. They're seeking to destroy him. And so Jesus leaves that.

[2:51] Maybe you would think, if maybe you're new to the gospel books, and you're looking at all of these really amazing things that Jesus has done, and you think, everywhere Jesus goes, everybody that's sick is all of a sudden well.

[3:02] Like, that's amazing. And he's controlling storms with his words, and he's feeding people, thousands of people, with just a few pieces of fish and bread.

[3:13] And we think, why would anybody be against that? Like, who in the world would see that and have a problem with Jesus? Well, then Mark gives us this little example of why these people had a problem with Jesus.

[3:27] They basically ignored all of those things of his identity and what he was doing because they were so deeply offended at his lack of regard for them and their rules.

[3:38] And that's what we're really going to get into today. It may be a temptation for us, as we look through these verses, to focus so much on these three parentheticals that we actually end up missing the real issues here and the main point of the passage itself.

[3:59] This is a popular passage in modern times among modern Christians, at least here in the United States, because there's almost like this generational war that happens in churches. There is one generation that are used to worshiping or doing things in one way, and then there is another generation that wants to change all of that and do different things.

[4:20] And this becomes somewhat of a battleground passage among some people where those who want to change all the stuff that has traditionally been done will come to this passage in verse 7, and they'll just look at those parentheticals.

[4:32] And they'll say, well, you're just a Pharisee because this is what they were doing. They had all of these traditions that they did, and then there was this Corbin thing, and look what this is, and then look what Jesus declared was all of a sudden fine.

[4:45] And they use this, they focus on the parentheticals to say, tradition is bad, Jesus says we can do whatever we want, and that kind of becomes their synopsis of the passage. Okay, they may prove their point in pointing out the dangers of traditionalism and certainly the dangers of legalism, but in the process they may actually miss the point of the passage.

[5:10] There are two major issues at stake in this confrontation that Jesus has with the Pharisees. These are so important. In fact, if you'd like to keep notes, you should probably write these down.

[5:22] This is what's going to guide our conversation, our time of preaching today, okay? The first one is this, the authority of Scripture. The authority of Scripture is at stake here. That's an issue.

[5:35] It's not just about the Pharisees had a way of doing things and others had a different way of doing it. It's not just about that. It's about the questioning of the authority of the Bible. Then there's the way of salvation.

[5:50] The gospel is implicated here, and we're going to deal with that mainly next week. Both of these are interwoven in both of these sections, okay? They're interwoven all throughout.

[6:00] We're going to deal with them both ways. But this section that we're dealing with today is going to have more of a focus on the authority of the Bible, the authority of Scripture. Next Sunday is going to have more of a focus on how what the Pharisees were doing was actually distorting the gospel, and they were perverting a true gospel.

[6:23] The great danger of Phariseeism, listen, especially those of you who are like me that just sometimes like to go against the grain on purpose to aggravate people, okay?

[6:35] The danger of Phariseeism is not that they limit your freedom to do what you want to do. That's not the danger here.

[6:46] The danger of true Phariseeism is that it ultimately denies the authority of the Bible, and it presents a false gospel that cannot save you.

[7:00] That's the point. That's what we want to understand as we go through these verses, okay? I've broken this section today, 1 through 13, into just three statements. Maybe they'll be helpful for you as well.

[7:10] The first thing that I wrote down for the first four verses is this, developing tradition. Developing tradition. Look with me at verse 1. 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.

[7:32] And so we understand that religious leaders are seldom presented in the gospels as friendly to Jesus. And this passage is no exception to that. And remember, the Pharisees and the scribes played a very significant role in the life of Judaism, especially in the first century.

[7:50] Now, these men considered themselves to be the holiest of Israelites, but their understanding of holiness was very superficial. It was all external.

[8:02] And they established themselves as the religious authorities of the people. They demanded that all the people listen to them and follow their regulations that they had developed.

[8:13] And they were the type of individuals, as we studied through the gospels, that always had an ax to grind. You know those type of people, right? You probably work with people like that sometimes, that you can't actually have a conversation with them without them bringing up something that they don't like about what you're doing or how you're doing it.

[8:29] You know those people. The Pharisees were those people. And it wasn't just with Jesus. It was with everybody. They always had an ax to grind. There was always something they were picking apart about everybody else.

[8:40] And by the way, when it came to their traditions, it seems like they were actually pretty good at keeping their laws. But they were also very open to condemn everybody else for not keeping their laws.

[8:52] And so Mark records that a group of these men come from Jerusalem again, and they have surrounded Jesus. Look at verse one again. Now when the Pharisees gathered to him, the implication here in the language is that they have encircled him almost.

[9:05] That's kind of the picture we get. Jesus is with people. The Pharisees kind of stand in between that. They encircle Jesus. Why? In order that they may trap him.

[9:18] That's what they wanted to do. And their accusation on this day seems so silly. What they were upset about was that some of Jesus' disciples ate some food in front of them, and they didn't wash their hands first.

[9:36] And they've determined that because the disciples didn't wash their hands, that they're going to surround Jesus. They're going to bring an accusation against him, and they're going to cause a problem.

[9:46] Look at verse three. Here's the parenthetical. For 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.

[10:00] And there are many other traditions that they observe, such as the washing of cups and pots and copper vessels and dining couches. So Mark gives us a little explanation here of this is why they were bothered.

[10:12] This is what was going on. And so the first thing obviously has to do with them washing their hands. And then he says, this is what the Jews do. They do not eat unless they wash their hands. And there's a way that they would do this.

[10:23] This was regulated by the Pharisees. They had to do it a certain way. They took some water and they first held their fingertips up so that when the water came down, it would drip off of their wrist.

[10:33] And then they would immediately turn their fingertips down and it would run off the other direction. And then they would take their fist and they would kind of like scrub their hands with their fist. In fact, your Bible may actually have a footnote here that says that a literal interpretation of this Greek phrase means that they washed with a fist.

[10:51] And that's what they're doing. They're scrubbing their hands. Now, this was just to eat a meal. And then Mark tells us that there are other things like this that they did. In fact, when they went to the marketplace, they would take a bath afterwards.

[11:04] And we can see archaeologically, there are all these mikvahs that are around Israel that would be commonplace and around many homes. And basically, they were so concerned with being defiled in the marketplace because you never know who you're going to bump into there.

[11:19] You may bump into a Gentile. You may bump into an unclean person. Remember the lady with the issue of blood? She presses through the crowd. Nobody knows she has an issue of blood until Jesus actually brings attention to it.

[11:30] And then all of a sudden, all of them are defiled. They're all unclean. And they got to go home and take a bath. And they got to take a bath so they can have a meal. And there were these laws in regards, not God's laws, these were pharisaical laws that according to washing pots and cups and all these things is really, it got quite extensive.

[11:48] And that's really what Mark is describing here. And so the offense of the Pharisees and scribes here had to do with breaking the tradition of the elders.

[12:01] So this was developed over time. Remember, there's a 400-year gap between the return from Babylon and Jesus' birth. And in the midst of this time, it started as a noble reason.

[12:12] They began to develop these laws that would help them obey the Lord better because it was disobedience to the Lord that got them in the mess with Babylon. And so they developed these things.

[12:22] There is, in the 3rd or 4th century BC, the Mishnah was developed. This, if you were to have a copy of it today, it's about 1,000 pages. And basically, the Mishnah is a commentary on the Torah.

[12:37] The Torah is God's law. That is the Old Testament scriptures. The Mishnah is this really long book that describes how you are to go about obeying God's law in various circumstances.

[12:48] And then probably the 2nd century AD, a multi-volume set comes out called the Talmud. And the Talmud is a commentary on the Mishnah.

[13:00] So think about this. God's law is hard enough. It's demanding. And then these men, over the course of all these years, have developed hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of more laws that God did not require, but they required.

[13:15] And they developed this tradition that became known as the tradition of the elders. Now, the motivation behind the development of these traditions may have been noble, but they were fundamentally flawed from the beginning.

[13:30] And here's why. The reason they developed them is because they considered God's given word as insufficient for them to know how they were to live out their life in various circumstances.

[13:43] They did not believe in the sufficiency of scripture. So even if they just did this so that they could try to keep God's laws the best that they possibly could, their assumption was that God's word wasn't enough.

[13:56] Now, we need to acknowledge that tradition is not intrinsically evil. We know that, right? We all have traditions.

[14:09] Our day-to-day life is directed by tradition that we don't even recognize that we have. The very structure of our service today is not based on something that God has told us to do.

[14:20] He didn't say, this is what your service order should be. This is based on tradition. It's the things that we have gathered and this is how we do it. And if we change it, it bothers me. We don't like to do that, right? But there's nothing intrinsically evil about tradition.

[14:33] Perhaps the way that we see this most clearly is in the celebration of holidays. But at the same time, we should acknowledge that tradition has this unique way of creating division and conflict.

[14:49] There is a particular tradition that my family has that Julie and I have fought about for 12 years now. And it has to do with birthday celebrations.

[15:00] Now, my family, my mom especially, since I was born, I would imagine even since before I was born, even going back to my brother's birth, everybody's birthday gets a birthday cake.

[15:15] It doesn't matter how old you are. Now, this is a common tradition. I recognize that. But every year, it doesn't matter how old you are. It doesn't matter how you're related to the family. You may get no gifts.

[15:26] We may not even get together. But mom wants to know that on my birthday, I had a birthday cake. And the birthday cake is not like whatever you want it to be. It's a quarter sheet cake that you get from the grocery store.

[15:41] It's white cake. Don't even bother suggesting chocolate. It's not that we don't like chocolate. We're blanking ships. We don't eat chocolate cake.

[15:51] That's not what we do on birthdays. We didn't even get marbled cake. It's white cake, buttercream icing. Don't ask for the whipped stuff. Buttercream. It doesn't matter what the design is.

[16:01] It just has to be a quarter sheet cake, white cake with buttercream icing. And then to go along with that is there's candles that correspond to age. I know that's a common tradition as well.

[16:12] And then when it comes time to sing the happy birthday song, what my family does, the right way to do it is that you blow the candles out first.

[16:24] And that is what signifies to everyone in the room, okay, it's time to now sing the song. It's like, it's like the maestro of an orchestra saying, all right, here we go. And then he brings everybody in. Okay, the blowing of the candles is bringing everybody in.

[16:37] All right. Julie comes along and my sister-in-law, Kathleen. And together they decide, I don't want sheet cake.

[16:48] I want cookie cake. Like some kind of barbarian. They want cookie cake. And it gets worse because they don't blow the candles out first.

[17:00] They sing first. And then they blow out candles, which is so weird. Why would you do that? That's a tradition that we have. All right. It bothers me when we don't follow that tradition.

[17:12] Cookie cake is weird. I like cookies. I like cookies. But then on a birthday, you don't have cookie cake. That's not what you eat. Okay. Now, it would be one thing for me to just acknowledge I have a preference with birthday cakes.

[17:24] I have a preference and Julie has a preference and we just agree that we have different preferences on it. Okay, that would be one way to handle it. Another way to handle it would be to say, Julie, so long as you are committed to breaking this tradition, you will never be a real blink and ship.

[17:41] Right? That would be another way to process that tradition. Here's what began happening with the Pharisees and the scribes. They developed these traditions. They developed these regulations.

[17:53] And they essentially said, if you don't follow these, you are not a true child of God. You are not a true Israelite. You are not pleasing to the Lord.

[18:05] Neither are you acceptable to the Lord. And it's not that the tradition was wrong. It's not that having things that help guide what you're doing is a bad thing to do.

[18:15] That's okay to do. The problem was that they were turning their traditions into something that it wasn't. And they ended up denying the authority of God's word.

[18:27] And they ended up teaching that outward conformity to their rules was actually necessary for salvation. And it produced this fear. Think about these Jews that would go to the marketplace.

[18:42] They're so worried about being unclean because they accidentally touched somebody that is ceremonial unclean that all of a sudden they're not acceptable to God anymore.

[18:53] And so they have baths outside of their house in order that they can clean up as soon as they come back from the marketplace so that God doesn't get angry with them. That's what, it developed this fear.

[19:04] Now listen, I don't know what kind of environment you've grown up in. And I don't know what kind of traditions you've been taught throughout your life. And again, there's nothing wrong with traditions in and of themselves. But if you're living by traditions to the extent that you think if I don't hurry up and fix this thing that I messed up, God's going to be angry with me, there's a problem.

[19:22] So first we see developing tradition, then we see elevating tradition. Verse five, and the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, why do your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but instead eat with defiled hands?

[19:38] Now this is not an example of a genuine inquiry on their part. They're not asking a sincere question here. This is an accusation. Remember, they were not Galileans.

[19:49] Mark says in verse one, they came from Jerusalem and there's one reason that they came. They wanted to entrap Jesus. They were trying to find a way to accuse him in order that they might destroy him.

[20:05] In fact, just flip a couple of pages back to chapter three. We've seen this already. Mark chapter three, look at verse six.

[20:17] Jesus has just healed the man with the withered hand. They were unhappy that he did that on the Sabbath. And here's what happened. The Pharisees went out and immediately held counsel with the Herodians, which were their enemies, and they held counsel against him how they might destroy him.

[20:34] That's months before this takes place, or at least in the way that Mark presents it. Months before. Now there are these delegations of Pharisees and scribes coming to Galilee from Jerusalem for the sole purpose of finding a way to accuse Jesus so that they might destroy him.

[20:53] And why did they want to destroy him? It wasn't because he broke God's law. It wasn't because he was doing bad things. It was because he broke their law and their tradition.

[21:08] Their anger was not due to any violation against God. It was their own pride. They had elevated their traditions to a place of equality with God's word.

[21:21] So they were deeply offended then whenever Jesus and his disciples disregarded their rules. Now think about this. Their hearts were so hardened to the truth that they refused to consider all that Jesus had done and taught.

[21:38] They were so filled with pride that they sought to destroy to murder the one who walked on water and healed the multitudes and fed thousands of people and all these things we've seen Jesus do.

[21:55] They didn't care about that. They were blind to that. Why? Their own pride. And what their pride had caused them to do was elevate their tradition to the place of God's word.

[22:07] Now this question also reveals another problem. This question that the Pharisees and scribes asked Jesus. And it's not only that they denied the authority of scripture but it actually begins to reveal their false gospel.

[22:22] So by elevating their rules to be equal with God's word they linked acceptance with God with conformity to their laws. And essentially this is what their question was saying.

[22:34] You can't be right with God if you're not obedient to us. Do you see the link that's being made here? This is a legitimate link. They're saying if you break our law it's as if you are breaking God's law therefore the one who is really offended right now is not the pharisaical sect but it's God himself is displeased with you not because of his law but because of our law.

[23:01] And so we begin to see their false gospel. Their gospel that they're purporting is that you are right with God based on how you fulfill the law. It was self-righteousness had nothing to do with God's grace had nothing to do with mercy had nothing to do with faith it was totally antithetical to everything Jesus was teaching was true.

[23:21] And they said no eternal life and acceptance with God is based on how good of a Jew you are and not only how good of a Jew you are but how well you follow all of these other things as well. They had elevated their tradition.

[23:36] And this is the very definition of legalism isn't it? That's the word that we most often use for this is legalism and we can be a little too quick to label someone as a legalist simply for having a particular standard and that's really wrong of us to do but true legalism is when outward conformity is linked with acceptance with God in eternity.

[23:59] That's true legalism. It perverts the gospel and it diminishes God's word. Now I want to be careful I'm going to illustrate this and I want to be careful how I do it because I don't want to be disrespectful. Julie and I both grew up in some environments that leaned this way in some areas and Julie I think more so than me and we know people who have put such an incredible amount of emphasis on external matters like what you wear and in an attempt to guard against immodesty and inappropriate dress which are good things to guard against they developed these particular traditions and rules that they would try to enforce on others and it was a noble reason at heart but what they ended up doing was falling into this pharisaical trap and let's be honest I have plenty of those things in that I'm guilty of doing as well and have been now there was a particular thing that they felt was especially egregious and that was for a woman to wear pants and I don't mean this in a funny way I mean this in a real way this is this and they still live this way they believe this in this way that a woman shouldn't wear pants now if that's a standard that you have that bothers me not in the least bit I think that's fine my mom for the most part lives that way and there's no problem there but what they would do is this would work itself out in many kind of unreasonable ways what they would do is they would quote this passage in Leviticus that says a woman should not wear that which pertained to a man and a man should not wear that which pertained to a woman and they would say well pants really belong to a man so for a woman to wear pants that means that their femininity has been diminished and they're actually becoming more masculine in that process and then when you say well explain to me how that works and they would point to restroom signs and they say well how do you know which bathroom to go to and so you only know because the ladies restroom has a symbol with a woman with a skirt and a men's restroom you only know that that's the men's not because it says men's but because there's a symbol of pants and that and they honestly that's that's what they would use they would they would describe it in this way there and there were funny things that were outworkings of this whenever Julie growing up in her youth group whenever they would go on a ski trip from time to time they they were it was necessary their particular regulation was to wear culottes if you know what those are they're kind of unusual but they're I think they're popular I think they get popular again aren't they but this they were popular anyways they would wear these culottes well they would wear ski bibs and you know what ski bibs are they may basically make you look like brightly colored marshmallows coming down the the ski slope like they're just massive like they're puffy those kinds of things they would have ski bibs they weren't allowed to just wear ski bibs they had to wear culottes over top of their ski bibs and they called them ski lots is what they called them and which is just a silly way to see how this begins to be an outworking of of this tradition now if that's a tradition you hold fine no problem the problem becomes when they begin to link conformity to those regulations to the sincerity and genuine nature of a person's heart for Jesus none of none of my friends in in that in that particular situation would ever say that salvation comes from anything except for the grace of God but but it would not be uncommon for a woman to come to church in a pair of pants and then leave and then the statement after they walk out is can you believe they call themselves a Christian and they would dress like that to church now we can apply that to a lot of different things in my my experience there were movie theaters was a problem you couldn't do that there there were other things drum sets and lots of like silly things okay silly things washing hands and washing pots those kinds of things and the problem is not that they had these standards the problem is that they judged a person's heart for God on

[28:02] the basis of their conformity to their rules not actually their genuine heart to obey God and worship him and love him according to the scriptures you understand the problem here the difference I'm not saying that it's problem to have rules or traditions that's fine that may be helpful but we must be careful and before we condemn people like I just illustrated let's stop and think about all the subtle ways that we may be doing the same thing how quickly we may judge a person's heart with God based on the way that they look or or some things that that they may do that really just break our cultural standard more than it actually breaks God's law we have those things don't we I can think of those things in my own heart I know you can too and it may not be quite as silly as ski lots but we need to beware of this I have more preferences than probably you could bear to listen to my preferences always need to be subservient to the truth that's the emphasis here what is it that matters God's law not

[29:20] Jared's law so have your cookie cake and wear your ski bibs and bang your drum Kyle and less obedient to the Lord finally idolizing tradition developing tradition elevating tradition and then Jesus exposes it as not merely elevating it to the place of scripture but he exposes it as a form of idolatry you can sense the righteous indignation in Jesus's words here that we're about to read he responds to them with passion it's emphatic even in English there's a place where they reveal this the emphatic nature the language I'm putting an explanation point on I think it's verse number nine they put that here because Jesus's words here are so forceful he's seeing he's seeing more to this than what is just a misplaced tradition they become an idol verse 6 and he said to them well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites as it is written this people honors me with their lips but their heart is far from me in vain they worship me teaching as doctrines the commandments of men you leave the commandment of God and hold to the tradition of men so on the one hand the Pharisees were denying the authority of scripture by elevating their rules on the other hand Jesus was affirming the authority of scripture by using Isaiah's prophecy to say this is who you are Isaiah was talking about you that everything looks fine on the outside it looks like you've got it all together and you're wearing all the right things and you're saying all the right things and and nobody's gonna be more pious than what you are but your heart is far from him and Jesus goes on to say that means that your worship is worthless in vain you worship me why because you teach as commandments the doctrines of men he says you're a bunch of hypocrites what does he mean by that he doesn't mean that they have moments of weakness where they fall short of their own standard that's just called being human okay this this word is it comes from Greek theater it has to do with putting on a mask in fact I think that's might be a more literal translation is to put on a mask whenever they would have these three theatrical shows in Greek culture they would have mask attached to sticks perhaps and they would that would show which character they were performing as in that moment okay now the mask was one thing the person behind the mask was something completely different and that's what Jesus is saying you're like these people in the theater on the outside this is what you say and this is what you do and and you've got this this exterior functioning as if you are a a great child of God and a great

[32:25] Israelite but in your heart you couldn't be further from that you're completely different person it's not really who you are they honor God with their lips but they didn't genuinely love him with their hearts in the process of all of this lawmaking they failed to follow the most important law Deuteronomy 6 5 you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might and you may want to write down Isaiah chapter 1 verses 10 through 18 we'll go there now but you may want to read that later God's problem with Israel in those moments was not that they weren't doing the feast and they weren't doing the sacrifices his problem actually was that they were doing it he said I'm tired of your feast I'm tired of your sacrifices because they don't have your heart and Jesus concluded this charge against them by saying they had rejected the word of God in order to hold to their traditions so that their tradition quite literally had become an idol and by enforcing their laws in the place of God's word they ultimately made themselves gods this is what Sinclair

[33:40] Ferguson said they had replaced God's love with self-love God's law with man's tradition and having made themselves their own gods they were insisting that others follow them or perish now they would have never said that but that's essentially what they were doing verse 9 Jesus gives an example and he said to them you have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to establish your tradition for Moses said honor your father and your mother and whoever reviles father or mother must surely die but you say if a man tells his father or his mother whatever you would have gained from me as Corbin that is given to God then you no longer permit him to do anything for his father or mother thus you make void the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down and many such things you do you can imagine the shock on their face when

[34:41] Jesus makes the charge and then he gives this example of what they were actually doing it was emphatic and you need to remember here that their tradition was initially developed as a means of keeping God's law but what Jesus was now condemning them for was intentionally rejecting God's law he said you have a clever way of rejecting the commandment in place of your own tradition now this example that he gives has to do with this tradition called Corbin and basically the way that it works it kind of gets convoluted but the way that it works is if a person wanted to designate their possessions for a gift to God or to God's service a pharisaical tradition was that they would pronounce Corbin over those possessions and they would remain in control of those things but they weren't allowed to be used for other purposes or given to other people okay so they they say I want to give this to God I'm going to pronounce Corbin over it and at the end of my life it goes to the church or goes to the temple goes to whatever okay that's essentially what is happening here and there's a couple of reasons that people may do this the first reason is a genuine devotion to God and there's nothing wrong with that the Bible talks about making vows there's no problem with making a vow to the Lord we need to make sure we're very mindful of how we do that but essentially they would say I want to please the Lord I want to give this to the Lord and so they pronounce

[36:15] Corbin and the situation that Jesus presents is as if a young man has pronounced Corbin over a certain amount of possessions to be given to the Lord and then some point down the road his aged parents have a problem and they need assistance and they come to him and they say we need some help can you help and and care for us as Moses has commanded that we do and they go and they say okay I want to help and then the Pharisees stop them and say no you can't do that you can't use these resources to help your parents because you pronounced Corbin over those those issues and look at Jesus's language in verse number 12 then you no longer permit him to do anything for his father or mother in other words the Pharisees and scribes were saying no you can't help them because you did what we said about the Corbin thing you said the Corbin thing you're stuck that's coming to us buddy you can't help your parents and Jesus says what you're doing is you're rejecting God's law and preventing people from being obedient to God in order that they would be obedient to you it's not just that you've elevated your tradition to the position of Scripture you've actually made your tradition greater than Scripture it's an idol it's an idol and you have made yourselves little gods that determine who is right and who is wrong who will live and who will die there's a second reason somebody may do this

[37:41] D.W. Manson said that this this would have been a regular practice that a Pharisee perhaps might would decide you know I've got this thing against my parents I know that they're getting up in age and I don't want to have to give my stuff to them because they they were rude to me about whatever whatever happens and they say okay I'm gonna pronounce Corbin over my stuff and it's not so much in order that I can give it to God I just want to keep it away from them so there's two things happening here but it all boils down to the same thing Jesus is saying you're breaking God's law to do your own thing and so do you see the hypocrisy in all of this they claim to love God they came to want to claim to want to keep his law but in reality they were idolaters Jesus said many such things you do they were actively engaged in this in a multitude of ways and it's no different than the fundamentalist that emphasizes their rules over grace it's no different than the Roman Catholic that insists on the church's authorities and traditions it's no different than the church of Christ congregation that preaches baptism as a means of salvation they all deny the truth of God's word while trying to maintain an external veneer of holiness and loyalty to God am I making sense you understand let me finish it this way acceptance with God is found in the person and work of Christ not in obedience to religious ideas and regulations listen please hear me your ability to conform to God's rules for that matter your ability to conform to God's rules is not enough for you to be accepted by God because you can't do it it's not possible our acceptance with God is on the basis of the person and work of Christ because he did it he did it he fulfilled the law perfectly God's law and in fulfilling it perfectly he dies on a cross in order to absorb the wrath of God on our behalf and we keep coming back to this passage so much recently and when we go to 2nd Corinthians chapter 5 or 1st Corinthians chapter 5 and it says he made him to be sin who knew no sin that in him we might have the righteousness of God

[40:31] Jesus perfectly fulfilled the law because we can't perfectly fulfill the law we will never be accepted by God based on how good we are you can't you'll never be good enough his his standard is perfection absolute perfection and even if you do pretty good you'll never reach that standard but Jesus did reach that standard why because he's not just a man he is God in the flesh and he lived a sinless life and so when he died on that cross he died not because he deserved punishment for sin he died in your place literally in the place of sinners he absorbed God's wrath and in return there's this imputation that takes place where our sins and the judgment against them is imputed onto him on the cross and then his perfect righteousness is then imputed onto me who is undeserving of any grace of God that's where your acceptance comes from it doesn't matter if you wash your hands don't wash your hands hands before lunch it doesn't matter it doesn't matter wear pants I don't care eat cookie cake maybe eat cookie cake eat all the sheet cake you want it won't matter it won't matter if you don't know Christ if you don't know Christ it doesn't matter acceptance with God is on the basis of who he is not on the basis of who you are because at the end of the day you're nobody and neither am I thanks Abby remember Romans 10 what is it that I'm supposed to believe in all of this what is it that I'm supposed to believe in order to receive this salvation because salvation is not something you earn by doing it's something you receive by believing you believe that Jesus is the Messiah and the Son of God believe that his death on the cross was a sufficient atonement for your sin that he rose from the dead to prove his power to give you life and that he is the Lord of all to whom we should lovingly submit and serve and remember Romans 10 if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead you will be saved for with the heart one believes and is justified and with the mouth one confesses and is saved and one final point of application as Christians we struggle with how to govern our behavior and practice we do this a lot it's it's easy to blur the lines isn't it we all struggle with this

[43:07] Alistair Begg you know I listen to him a lot and he said something in preaching on this passage that I found helpful for me and it was this that which is in conflict with the Bible or or not in conflict with the Bible nor commanded by the Bible may be permissible provided it's not enforced upon people as essential and particularly essential to acceptance with God and we need to be careful that in developing our traditions we never diminish the sole authority of the Bible or the extraordinary sovereign grace of God we're the beneficiaries of that grace why in the world would we ever again bind ourselves or anyone else to the bondage of the law in Christ we are made free from that not to disobey it but to actually finally truly genuinely obey it in Christ sometimes even in our evangelism we have all the things right for salvation and then once somebody gets saved we have this way of strapping on the bondage of Phariseeism to them all over again why would we do that don't don't diminish the grace of God don't diminish the authority of the word have the highest possible view of God's word you can and be the greatest proponent of God's grace that anyone in your family or in your place of work has ever seen

[45:13] NING