Rite Can Be Wrong!

The term that I am using “rite”, has a couple of different meanings. One use of the term regards an established ceremony prescribed by a religion (like, "the rite of baptism"). Another use means any customary observance or practice (like, "The rite of passage into manhood.”).

Rite becomes wrong when “ism” is added to its root – ritualism, legalism, traditionalism, etc. Ritualism is excessive devotion to a ritual that misses the reality that it represents.

The way chapter 7 opens strongly suggests that the Pharisees and scribes had arrived with a mission to trap Jesus. We last saw the Pharisees in a Galilean synagogue, where Jesus defied their rules against healing on the Sabbath (3:1-6). Afterward, they "went out and immediately began conspiring with the Herodians against Him, as to how they might destroy Him" (3:6). Obviously, they wanted to discredit Him publicly before disposing of Him physically. That's Conspiracy 101. If you kill a beloved populist leader, you risk turning him into a symbol around which opposition forms. Dishonor Him first, and then no one will care when he is murdered.

The Course that Leads to Legalism – 7:1-13

A. The Self-righteous Accusations of the Pharisees – 7:1-5

The Pharisees accused the disciples of failing to practice the Jewish ceremonial washing. These washings had nothing to do with personal hygiene, nor were they commanded in the Law. They were a part of the tradition that the scribes and Pharisees had given to the people to add to their burdens (Matt. 23:4).

Our Lord had already violated their Sabbath traditions (Mark 2:23-3:5), so the Jews were eager to accuse Him when they saw the disciples eat “with defiled hands.” Why would such a seemingly trivial matter upset these religious leaders? Why would they feel compelled to defend their ceremonial washings? For one thing, these leaders resented it when our Lord openly flaunted their authority. After all, these practices had been handed down from the fathers and carried with them the authority of the ages! The Jews called tradition “the fence of the Law.” It was not the Law that protected the tradition, but the tradition that protected the Law!

But something much more important was involved. Whenever the Jews practiced these washings, they declared that they were “special” and that other people were “unclean”! If a Jew went to the marketplace to buy food, he might be “defiled” by a Gentile or (God forbid!) a Samaritan. This tradition had begun centuries before to remind the Jews that they were God’s elect people and therefore had to keep themselves separated. However, a good reminder had gradually degenerated into an empty ritual, and the result was pride and religious isolation.

Traditions can be good or bad. But when they evolve into traditionalism, it becomes one expression of legalism. Without question, a great deal of confusion exists today in the church over the definition of legalism. There are those who conclude that a legalist is someone who “keeps the commandments.” This cannot be legalism since the Bible commends those who keep God’s commandments. Jesus said, “If you love me, you will keep My commandments” (John 14:15). Others imagine that a legalist is a person who works at keeping God’s law. Such a person is not a legalist since the psalmist extols the beauty and necessity of a love for God’s law (Psalm 119).

Some assert that a legalist is anyone who follows God’s law after he or she has embraced Christ as Lord and Savior. This cannot be legalism since Paul tells us that the law is good if one uses it lawfully (1 Tim. 1:8). What, then, is a legalism?

Legalism is the adding of basic presuppositions to a faith to make that faith more exclusive or less available to “outsiders” who do not think, act, or believe as do the “true” believers. Legalism is one of many power maneuvers by faith leaders who seek to consolidate religious authority in the hands of a very few.

The Pharisees fit this definition as do many modern-day Christians who erect an ethical system that does not comport with the Bible, either by setting aside its ethical demands or by replacing biblical norms with extra-biblical decrees. The Pharisees, contrary to popular opinion, did not keep God’s law. The commandments of God were neglected by the Pharisees (Mark 7:8). They “nicely set aside the commandment of God in order to keep [their] tradition” (Mark 7:9). Jesus told the Pharisees that they had the devil as their father (John 8:44). We are used to thinking of the scribes and Pharisees as meticulous men who carefully observed the jots and tittles [of God’s law]. This is not the portrait found in the Gospels. The scribes and Pharisees that Jesus encountered were grossly, obviously, and flagrantly breaking the Mosaic law, while keeping all kinds of man-made traditions. Jesus' condemnation of them in Matthew 23 certainly makes this clear.”

1. Legalism stresses the works of a person’s hands while neglecting the wickedness of their hearts – 7:6

Note two key traits of these self-righteous, legalistic, Jews of Jesus’ day:

Their hypocrisy – Mk. 7:6; Mt. 23:13, 15

“But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut the kingdom of heaven in people's faces. For you neither enter yourselves nor allow those who would enter to go in. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel across sea and land to make a single proselyte, and when he becomes a proselyte, you make him twice as much a child of hell as yourselves.” 

Their hardness of heart - Mat 23:4, “They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on people's shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to move them with their finger.”

2. Traditionalism goes through the motions of worship without heart devotion – 7:7, “in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.” 

Unclean people were not permitted to enter the sanctuary to worship God. Their condition rendered their worship unacceptable, and their presence might have contaminated the worship of those who were clean. When he raised the issue of hypocrisy in worship, Jesus reframed the terms of the argument, but he did not change the subject. Worship was the heart of the matter.

Because worship is ultimate, Jesus scorchingly addresses the scribes and the Pharisees in Matthew 23. He calls them hypocrites, sons of hell, blind guides, fools, robbers, self-indulgent, whitewashed tombs, snakes, vipers, persecutors, and murderers.

They experienced the most severe pronouncements of damnation ever uttered by Christ. The phrase "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees appears seven times in this passage. This expression is a way of pronouncing condemnation, damnation, or judgment on someone, and Jesus said it to people who believed that what they were doing brought honor to God. 

Many people read this passage and focus on how evil these men must have been to evoke such wrath and condemnation from Christ. However, the scribes and Pharisees were the most highly regarded religious leaders of their day, and we shouldn't see them as being insincere; they believed fully in what they were doing, that it was right and good. And so did everyone else.

Many years ago, one of the Czars of Russia, walking in his palace park, came upon a sentry standing before a small patch of weeds. The Czar asked him what he was doing there. The sentry did not know; all he could say was that he had been ordered to his post by the captain of the guard. The Czar then sent his aide to ask the captain. But the captain could only say that the regulations had always called for a sentry at that particular spot. His curiosity having been aroused, the Czar ordered an investigation. No living man at the court could remember a time when there had not been a sentry at that post and none could say what he was guarding. Finally, the archives were opened and after a long search, the mystery was solved. The records showed that Catherine the Great had once planted a rosebush in that plot of ground and a sentry had been put there to see that no one trampled on it. The rosebush died. But no one had thought to cancel the order for the sentry. For a hundred years the spot where the rosebush had once been, was still being watched by men who did not know what they were watching!

This typifies Christians who are serving religious traditions and have no idea why.

3. Leaving the commandment of God and offering a substitute in its place – 7:8-9 - “You leave the commandment of God and hold to the tradition of men.”  And he said to them, “You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to establish your tradition!”

The main New Testament Greek word translated “tradition” is παράδοσις (paradosis).

It comes from two parts:

• παρά (para) = alongside, from
• δίδωμι (didōmi) = to give, hand over.  Literally it means: “that which is handed over” or “handed down.” So at its core, it is about transmission, not content. It asks: What is being handed on, and from whom?

Jesus and the apostles sometimes use paradosis negatively—when traditions replace or distort God’s word.

4. Destroying the authority of God’s Word by adding to it – 7:10-13

“Corban" is a word-symbol anchored in the Law of God by which a material possession can be set apart as a "gift" for holy use. Through the process of ritualization and substitution, the Pharisees exercised their legalistic subtlety until the interpretation of Corban as a sacred vow conflicted with the commandment, "Honor thy father and thy mother …" (Deu_5:16, KJV). Taken to its logical extreme, a son could justify neglect for needy parents, even though he had the means to help them, if his money had been declared Corban. Ironically, the same son who meticulously kept the oral tradition by neglecting his needy parents could use the same resources to indulge his own greed without violating the Pharisees' law. Whereas Jesus has called them hypocrites for substituting outer ritual for inner spirituality, He now goes a step further in His denunciation of the Pharisees by adding to His earlier indictment, "All too well you reject the commandment of God, that you may keep your tradition" (Mark 7:9); "making the word of God of no effect through your tradition which you have handed down" (Mark 7:13). The final verdict comes down with the indictment, "And many such things you do" (Mark 7:13).

History reveals that the Jewish religious leaders came to honor their traditions far above the Word of God. Rabbi Eleazer said, “He who expounds the Scriptures in opposition to the tradition has no share in the world to come.” The Mishna, a collection of Jewish traditions in the Talmud, records, “It is a greater offense to teach anything contrary to the voice of the Rabbis than to contradict Scripture itself.”

2. The Source of all Mankind’s Troubles – 7:14-23

Jesus gathers the crowd and makes a radical statement: “Nothing outside a person can defile them… it is what comes out of a person that defiles.” This is revolutionary. He is dismantling centuries of purity culture in one sentence.

This shocked His hearers. They believed impurity came from contact—with food, people, or objects.
Jesus says impurity comes from character. The problem is not what enters the mouth.
The problem is what already exists in the heart.  Christianity is not primarily about external regulation but internal transformation.

The Jewish dietary laws were given by God to teach His chosen people to make a difference between what was clean and what was unclean. (No doubt there were also some practical reasons involved, such as sanitation and health.) To disobey these laws was a matter of ceremonial defilement, and that was an external matter. Food ends up in the stomach, but sin begins in the heart. The food we eat is digested and the waste evacuated, but sin remains and it produces defilement and death.

Jesus gives a 13-part list that exposes the kind of evil that lives in the human heart. You don’t need to travel a long distance to find the source of these sins. You don’t need to conduct an exhaustive search. All you need to do is look at your own heart.

Mark 7:21-22, “For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness.”

This list cuts across every generation, every culture, every church. Notice something important:
Jesus does not blame society or upbringing, or circumstances. He says, “These things come from within.”

That means:

• We don’t need better cosmetics - we need a new heart.
• We don’t need religious polish - we need spiritual rebirth.
• We don’t need less exposure - we need more grace.

Here’s the good news implied in this passage: Jesus exposes the heart in order to heal it. The same One who names our uncleanness will later stretch out His hands on a cross - bearing our defilement so that we might be made clean.

As David prayed: “Create in me a clean heart, O God.” (Psalm 51:10) And that prayer is answered not by rituals - but by Christ.

Mark 7 invites us to stop living outside-in and start living inside-out.

Jesus is not asking for:

• Cleaner hands
• Better habits
• More impressive religious performance

He’s asking for the heart. Because when the heart is transformed, everything else follows.

The invitation is simple:

Bring your heart to Jesus. Not the polished or religious version.

Bring the real one. The messy one. The wounded one. The one that leaks envy, pride, fear, and anger.

That’s the heart He came to heal. That’s the heart He came to make new. That’s the heart He came to transform—from the inside out.

Mark 7 asks every believer a searching question:

Are we more concerned with appearing clean or with being made clean?

Christianity is not "religion"

Religion emphasizes precepts, propositions, performance, production, programs, promotion, percentages, etc. Christianity emphasizes the Person of Jesus Christ, and His life lived out through the receptive Christian believer.

Religion has to do with form, formalism and formulas; ritual, rules, regulations and rites; legalism, laws and laboring. The "good news" of Christianity is that it is not what we do or perform, but what Jesus has done and is doing in us. Jesus exclaimed from the cross, "It is finished!" (John 19:30). The performance is hereby accomplished! Jesus has done all the doing that needs doing for our regeneration, and continues to do all the doing that God wants to do in us. "God is at work in you both to will and to work for His good pleasure" (Phil. 2:13).

Some have tried to explain that "Christianity is not religion; it is a relationship." Such a statement is too ambiguous, for it is possible to have a "relationship" with religious peoples and practices. Although Christianity does involve a personal relationship between an individual and the living Lord Jesus, it must be pointed out that this is effected by the presence of the Spirit of Christ dwelling within the spirit of a Christian who has received Him by faith, and the Spirit of Christ functioning through that Christian's behavior. It is not just a casual relationship of acquaintance with the historical Jesus or with the theological formulations of Jesus' work. Perhaps it would be better to indicate that "Christianity is not religion; it is the reality of Jesus Christ as God coming in the form of His Spirit to indwell man in order to restore him to the functional intent of God whereby the character of God is allowed to be manifested in man's behavior to the glory of God.

Christianity is not religion! Christianity is Christ!  Jesus the Christ did not found a religion to remember and reiterate His teaching. Christianity is the personal, spiritual presence of the risen and living Lord Jesus Christ, manifesting His life and character in Christians, i.e. "Christ-ones." Paul explained, "It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me" (Gal. 2:20).

In summary, God is not looking for flawless rituals. He is looking for faithful hearts. So let us come honestly - not with washed hands, but with surrendered hearts.

What can wash away my sins – nothing but the blood of Jesus. What can make me whole again – nothing but the blood of Jesus!

O precious is the flow that makes me white as snow; no other fount I know; nothing but the blood of Jesus.