WWUTT 2171 Eating With Unclean Hands (Mark 7:1-4)

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In addition to God's law, or even above God's law, the Pharisees had come up with all of these traditions, all these rules that the people had to keep in order to be good.

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But that is not the way we attain righteousness when we understand the text. Many of the

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Bible stories and verses we think we know, we don't. When we understand the text is an online ministry dedicated to teaching the

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Word of God in context, promoting sound doctrine while exposing the faulty. Here's your teacher,

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Pastor Gabe. Thank you, Becky. In our study of the Gospel of Mark, we are in chapter 7 this week, where Jesus confronts the

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Pharisees who had been adding to God's law. And even beyond this, they were elevating their own traditions above the

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Word of God. So let's read in Mark 7 verses 1 -13 out of the

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Legacy Standard Bible, here the Word of the Lord. And the Pharisees and some of the scribes gathered around him when they had come from Jerusalem and had seen that some of his disciples were eating their bread with defiled hands, that is, unwashed.

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For the Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they carefully wash their hands, thus observing the tradition of the elders.

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And when they come from the marketplace, they don't eat unless they wash themselves. And there are many other things which they have received in order to observe, such as the washing of cups and pitchers and copper pots.

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And the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, Why do your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat their bread with defiled hands?

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And he said to them, Rightly did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites.

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As it is written, This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far away from me.

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But in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commands of men, leaving the commandment of God you hold to the tradition of men.

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And he was also saying to them, You are good at setting aside the commandment of God in order to keep your tradition.

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For Moses said, Honor your father and your mother, and he who speaks evil of father or mother is to be put to death.

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But you say, If a man says to his father or his mother, Whatever you might benefit from me is

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Corban, that is given to God. You no longer leave him to do anything for his father or his mother, thus invalidating the word of God by your tradition, which you have handed down.

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And you do many such things as that. So this is quite the confrontation that Jesus makes of the

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Pharisees, perhaps the harshest confrontation that we have seen thus far in Mark's gospel.

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You have these traditions that the Pharisees were imposing upon the people and even telling people that you have to keep all these rules, too, if you want to gain eternal life.

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If you'll remember back to the study we did in Matthew 23, which was earlier this year, the seven woes that Jesus gave to the

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Pharisees, he said of them, You tie heavy burdens on people and won't even lift a finger to help them carry those burdens.

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And that's what these traditions did. They were adding extra laws on to the law, tying these burdens on people and saying,

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You have to do more than just keep God's law. You have to keep all these extra laws, which we can't even be righteous on our own merit, trying to keep

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God's law. We need Christ's righteousness who perfectly kept God's law. But the

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Pharisees were telling the people, If you really want to gain eternal life, you have to do all of these things and thus discouraging people, tying heavy burdens on them, making it so that they thought there's nothing that I can do, even resenting

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God. How can I keep all of these commands, commands which were not even in God's law?

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So let's consider this passage. And something that I want to do this week as we look at this is think about some other ways that we might see in Christianity or those that proclaim that they are

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Christians, different rules, doctrines, traditions of men that have been added to God's law.

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And it is being said, You have to do this stuff you won't even find in the Bible. But you find all these other faith traditions that will claim to be

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Christian and claim that they are giving God's word that you must keep. So we're going to consider that between today and tomorrow as we're in this particular section of Mark 7.

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Let me come back up to verse 1 and we'll go through these things at least halfway through this section here up to the point where Jesus gives examples to them of ways that they invalidate

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God's law, because then tomorrow we'll come back, read that section and then consider some more examples that we might run into today.

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So verse 1, the Pharisees and some of the scribes gathered around him when they had come from Jerusalem.

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So remember that was that was where they just were. And we've read previously in Mark that the crowds would gather around them so that they couldn't even find time or space to sit down and eat a meal.

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So here it's like they finally got an opportunity everywhere previously you don't have enough time to eat.

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But now they finally have an opportunity to sit down and eat and who comes along to interrupt their meal, spoil their dinner, but the

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Pharisees by asking all these legalistic questions. So they had seen that some of his disciples, this is verse 2, were eating their bread with defiled hands that is unwashed.

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So they had unclean hands. They didn't see the disciples go over and wash their hands over there in the basin or the water that was provided at the entrance to the household or whatever.

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Maybe they're even eating out in public somewhere, haven't gone anywhere to wash their hands. So they're eating their food with defiled hands.

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Now that is in the perspective of the Pharisees. This isn't saying that the disciples hands were defiled.

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The Pharisees just considered the disciples hands that way. So that's why it says they were eating with defiled hands.

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That's what the Pharisees thought about them. So if they have these unclean hands, they're eating their food with unclean hands, therefore making their food unclean and therefore making themselves unclean.

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So this is going into all these different purity laws that the Pharisees would follow and therefore impose upon the people.

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And we have examples of this. Mark gives this parenthetical reference here in verses 3 and 4 of some different things that the

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Pharisees were requiring people to do as a matter of cleanliness and even saying this is what you have to do to be holy.

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If you have something on the outside that is dirty and then you touch your food and then you put it in your mouth, well, then you've made yourself unclean, even from the inside out, which

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Jesus is going to confront later that that's not how a person is made unclean. That comes up later in the chapter.

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But here's the examples that Mark gives of some of these cleanliness laws. Verse 3, for the

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Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they carefully wash their hands, thus observing the traditions of the elders.

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Now, the interesting thing about the way this is worded in the Greek, and I don't know Greek real well, so I'm kind of relying on some other commentators who have said something about this.

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The Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they carefully wash their hands. The word here for hands can also be translated fist.

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And what this might be referring to is how the Pharisees or even the

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Jews, as they would require the Jews to do when they washed their hands, they would use the fist.

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So one hand would be open and they would use their fist to wash that hand. You can't have two flat palms.

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How do you wash your hands? When you go to the sink and you wash your hands, you use flat hands, right?

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One palm scrubbing the other palm. Well, that's not the way that they would wash their hands in this culture at this time.

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They would wash the hand with the fist. Because if you were using a flat palm to wash the other flat palm, then you're just smearing around the dirt and making both hands dirty.

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So you wash the hands thoroughly and then you make a fist with one hand and you scrub a flat palm with the fist.

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You're probably thinking of this going, this defies logic, because how did you get that one hand clean without the other hand being clean?

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I know this is just the silly rules that they were imposing upon people, but they would use a fist and they would scrub their palm.

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And not only that, but they had to be clean all the way down to the elbow. This was part of the rule. These were the rules that they had written that they were imposing upon people.

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So it wasn't just the hand that you were washing. You had to roll up your sleeves. You had to wash all the way down to the elbow, lest there be any chance that some part of your forearm could touch your food and make it unclean.

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So not only do you have to wash your hands, it wasn't just that they were going over and they would just stick their hand into the basin or something like that.

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There was this whole process that they had to go through. And I'm sure even beyond this, it was like how many scrubs, how long you had to spend and all this kind of thing.

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If you didn't do it long enough, well, then you just didn't get yourself clean. These were among these rules that the

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Pharisees would impose. And not only that, but Mark goes on and gives other examples of this too.

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Verse four. And when they come from the marketplace, they do not eat unless they wash themselves.

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And by the way, the word here for wash is baptizo. It's the same word for baptize.

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They were attempting to baptize themselves to make themselves clean, which that's not the purpose of baptism.

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Even though at this particular time, baptism was for it was symbolic even then for cleansing the self and making one ready for the coming of the

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Lord. That's the reason why John the Baptist was baptizing. There was also a baptism as part of the ritual that the

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Jews would practice, but it was when a Gentile was baptized to become a Jew.

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They would go through this baptism process to signify leaving their

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Gentile ways and becoming among the people of God. It was a practice as far as a ceremonial practice is concerned.

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It was something that mostly just Gentiles did until John the Baptist came along and then he made it a baptism that everybody was supposed to do, preparing that the

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Messiah was going to come. Well, the Pharisees would also have a kind of baptism that they would do. It wasn't exactly in the same ritualistic form as when a

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Gentile was converted to Judaism, but they too would baptize themselves when they came from the marketplace.

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It was almost like the same process that the high priest would go through whenever he would go into the Holy of Holies.

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So these Pharisees are doing whenever they would come from the marketplace. Look at how clean I am, look at how mindful that I am of cleanliness, so you know that I am really committed to holiness.

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That was kind of the attitude of the Pharisees in the midst of this whole thing. But this was just when they went to the marketplace.

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That's the occasion that Mark gives here. When they come from the marketplace, they do not eat unless they wash themselves.

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So it wasn't like every time somebody came from the marketplace, it was just before they ate. They would have to clean themselves.

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Why? Why would they do that when they came from the marketplace? Well, there was a possibility you could have touched something unclean.

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Now some of this goes into not just ceremonial laws with regards to ceremonial cleanliness, you know, going into the temple and things like that.

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But it even has to do with the dietary laws, because you go into the marketplace to buy clothing or even food.

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And if you remember in Leviticus 11, there are laws that God has given to Israel regarding what food they can eat and what food they cannot eat.

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This food is clean for you to eat. This food is considered to be unclean.

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And all of this was a matter of ceremonial cleanliness. This was not a law or regulation that God had imposed prior to the giving of the law, the

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Levitical law. Because to Noah, God had said, I give you every animal for food.

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So you were able to eat anything until the Mosaic law was given.

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So from the time of the Mosaic law until now that we're reading about here, there were certain foods that the

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Jews were forbidden to eat. About 1 ,500 years now that these food laws have been in place.

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So when you go to the marketplace, there's a possibility that you could touch something there in the marketplace.

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That might have been unclean, according to even the dietary laws that would therefore make you unclean.

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Maybe you touched a reptile or you touched an amphibian or something like that. Maybe that happened without you knowing.

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Or it was one of those bugs that God had forbidden the people from eating. So when you get home because I've been made unclean because I touched one of those creatures,

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I'm going to wash myself lest I eat my food with defiled hands and make myself unclean.

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Now this is that practice of adding a hedge about the law. You know what that means?

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We've talked about this before, even when we were in Matthew. But adding a hedge about the law is when you take these extra commands and you add them onto God's commands.

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In order to keep myself from potentially disobeying God's law, I'm going to add an extra perimeter out here.

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So I'm even going to keep these rules because if I can keep these rules, then I won't even get close to disobeying God's rule.

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And the very first place in scripture that we have an example of a hedge about the law is actually in Satan's confrontation of Eve in Genesis chapter 3.

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If you'll remember, Satan asked Eve, did God really say that you cannot eat from any of the trees in the garden?

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And we know that's not what God said. You can eat from any tree, but you can't eat from this tree, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

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And that's what Eve says to the serpent, but she adds to the law. She says, we can eat from any tree of the garden, but we can't eat of this tree in the midst of the garden, nor can we touch it or we will die.

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Now that was not part of the command that God gave. It likely came from Adam, because when you read in Genesis 2,

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God giving this command not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, God gave the command before Eve had been created.

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So God gave it to Adam. And then when Eve came along, Adam, as the head of his household, was supposed to teach

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Eve what God had said and what he had commanded. And so when Eve makes this response to the serpent and says, we can't eat from that tree, nor can we touch it, it might've been

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Adam saying, don't even go near that tree. We can avoid breaking this law if we don't even go over there and touch it.

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And of course, this hedge about the law doesn't intimidate Satan in the least. You will not surely die, he says to Eve, for God knows that when you eat of it, you will be like God, knowing good and evil, and tempts her to eat the fruit, which she does, hands it to Adam and he eats.

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So really that whole hedge about the law thing didn't work at all, did it? Now we might do things like this today.

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For example, you may say, in order to keep myself from lusting at all, I am not going to watch

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TV, period. That might be the hedge that you place about the law. Now that could be a personal discipline that you impose upon yourself.

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And for you, that's probably a good idea. Maybe for you, you can't keep your eyes from watching things that may potentially cause you to lust.

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I'm going to give up my smartphone, I'm going to give up my computer. Why does anybody need these technological things anyway, if you happen to have a job where you don't need an email address or something like that?

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So you give up this technology, you don't watch it, or you limit yourself and how much you're exposed to it.

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That way you're not potentially going to put something in front of your eyes that could cause you to lust. Good disciplinary practice.

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For you, that might be necessary. But what happens then when you place a hedge about it like that?

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The hedge itself is not wrong. But when you then take that rule and you make it a requirement for everybody else, oh, you're watching

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TV? I can't imagine what kind of stuff that you must be watching. I'm holier than you because I don't want to watch

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TV at all. I don't have any of the social media apps on my smartphone.

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So I'm more pure than you. If you want to keep yourself pure, you got to get rid of social media because there is all kinds of filthy stuff out there you're putting in front of your eyes every day and you're making yourself unclean.

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Okay, now what have you done? You've taken that personal discipline that you had enacted in your life to keep you on the right track.

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And now you've made it a law and imposed it upon everybody else and have even said of those people that they're immoral if they don't keep the new law that you just made up.

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So that's a hedge about the law where you go from a personal decision or a personal discipline to imposing a law that then you impose upon other people.

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And that's what the Pharisees had done here. There were probably some good disciplinary practices in there to keep yourself pure or to be mindful of the fact that I'm not touching anything that could potentially make me unclean.

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Ceremonially unclean, there might have been some decent disciplines in there, but those things over time, they balloon out, they get added to God's law.

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They're not even in the scriptures. But here's the Pharisees imposing that upon everybody else. Even Jesus disciples.

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Remember, the Pharisees have been trying to trap him and the disciples and all kinds of stuff up to this point.

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Well, now they think they got him. The disciples are not washing their hands. They defile themselves.

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See, these are the kinds of people that Jesus and his disciples are and trying to make them look bad around the other people that they've imposed these laws upon.

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And the people have been so strenuously trying to keep them and probably do a bad job at doing so.

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So once again, verse four, when they come from the marketplace, they do not eat unless they wash themselves.

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And Mark goes on. There are many other things which they have received in order to observe, such as the washing of cups and pitchers and copper pots.

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You know, another thing that the Jews were concerned about when they went to the marketplace is potentially running into a

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Gentile or even worse than that, a Samaritan.

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And if I happen to brush past a Samaritan, then I'm unclean. And if I go and eat my food when

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I've been made unclean in this way, then I'm going to make myself really unclean. Then I'm going to be unholy from the inside out.

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This was the mindset that they had. So they would, anything that they bought, maybe a

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Samaritan handled this, maybe one of those Roman guards or whatever, they picked it up and they've defiled it with their

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Gentile grubby hands. And so when they would bring those things home, they would wash them with things like metal or copper pots.

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They would even put them through fire to purify them and make sure that I'm not going to do anything that could potentially make myself unclean.

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Now again, this does not have anything to do with hygiene. That is not what this is about at all.

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I mean, this is not the Pharisees saying, hey, you guys, you guys need to wash your hands before dinner.

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Just like your mom told you when you were growing up, I still tell my kids to wash my hands and they would be in disobedience if they didn't wash their hands.

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Not because it's a sin to not wash your hands, but because they would be disobeying mom and dad, right?

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That would be the sin where the command says to obey your parents in the

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Lord for this is right. So I tell my children to wash their hands because it's just good hygiene to wash your hands before dinner.

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Or like the other day when I had my son grating cheese for me, he's going to hold that big block of cheese in his hand and grate it.

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Well, he better wash his hands because I don't think his siblings would appreciate his grubby hands touching their cheese before dinner.

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So wash your hands, kids. That is perfectly fine. That is not at all what Jesus is confronting here has nothing to do with hygiene.

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It has to do with the rules that the Pharisees were imposing upon people and saying that if you really want to be holy, if you really want to be good, you have to do this.

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Now we can't even be good by trying to keep God's law.

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For as we read in Romans 3 23, all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

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Every single one of us have broken God's law. So we can't even achieve righteousness that way.

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Jesus perfectly kept the law and became righteousness for us.

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So that when we put our faith in Jesus, not only are our sins forgiven because of the sacrifice that he made on the cross, but his righteousness is even given to us the righteousness that he accomplished in his life, being obedient to all that the father commanded.

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Only Jesus is sinless and accomplished this. And so when we put our faith in him, he gives us his righteousness.

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And when God looks at us, he sees us with the same affection that he has for his own son.

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And we are sons and daughters of God adopted because of the righteousness of Christ that has been given to us.

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We can't keep God's law. We can't even keep our own rules. If we were to try to follow our own rules, you can't even keep the same moral impositions that you put on other people.

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You might say, if this person wants to be good, they got to, well, that girl can't possibly be a Christian because she wore that, something like that.

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Have you kept those rules? Have you kept those modesty requirements yourself?

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How do you know you haven't stepped over the line? The stuff that we impose upon other people, we can't even keep that in our own lives.

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You can't achieve righteousness by keeping God's law. You definitely can't achieve righteousness keeping your own laws because that wouldn't make you good anyway.

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There is none righteous, as said in Romans 3 .10 -12, no one does good, not one person except Jesus, who did everything perfect.

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We're going to see that coming. I think it's Mark 10, where he talks about that with the rich young ruler.

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So in order to be righteous before God, we must have faith in Jesus Christ, who is the righteous one.

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We're going to come back to reading more about these rules and the things that the

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Pharisees were doing and compare some of the Pharisaical traditions with the kinds of things that will be imposed upon Christians today, other forms of legalism, other traditions of men that are elevated to the commands of God or even above the commands of God.

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You could probably think of a few before we get there. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, I thank you for giving your son

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Jesus, who lived a perfect life, who died the death that we were supposed to die, who rose again from the dead so that all who believe in him will not perish but have everlasting life and we are clothed in the righteousness of Christ.

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So in his righteousness, may we walk today as Jesus walked, doing those things that are pleasing unto

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God. Forgive us when we stumble and cleanse us of all unrighteousness. It's in Jesus' name we pray.

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Amen. Thank you for listening to When We Understand the Text with Pastor Gabe Hughes. If you'd like to support this ministry, visit our website www .wutt

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.com and click on the Give tab in the top right corner of the page. Join us again tomorrow as we continue our