Then Pharisees and scribes came to Jesus from Jerusalem and said, “Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands when they eat.” He answered them, “And why do you break the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition? For God commanded, ‘Honor your father and your mother,’ and, ‘Whoever reviles father or mother must surely die.’ But you say, ‘If anyone tells his father or his mother, “What you would have gained from me is given to God,” he need not honor his father.’ So for the sake of your tradition you have made void the word of God. You hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy of you, when he said:
“‘This people honors me with their lips,
but their heart is far from me;
in vain do they worship me,
teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’”
but their heart is far from me;
in vain do they worship me,
teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’”
And he called the people to him and said to them, “Hear and understand: it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out of the mouth; this defiles a person.” Then the disciples came and said to him, “Do you know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this saying?” He answered, “Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be rooted up. Let them alone; they are blind guides. And if the blind lead the blind, both will fall into a pit.” But Peter said to him, “Explain the parable to us.” And he said, “Are you also still without understanding? Do you not see that whatever goes into the mouth passes into the stomach and is expelled? But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a person. For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a person. But to eat with unwashed hands does not defile anyone.”
- Matthew 15:1-20
I'm a bit of a germaphobe. I come from a long line of germaphobes. Being a nurse, my mother instilled in me an innate sense of an unseen world that surrounds me; a world that is constantly trying to infect me and the best way to hold the germs at bay is to wash, wash, wash my hands. My wife and I joke a lot about my incessant proclivity to wash my hands all the time and try to stay clean. I typically have a bottle of hand sanitizer stashed away in our cars, my jackets, and my lunch box so that I can disinfect my hands before I put anything in my mouth. I'm a little OCD when it comes to cleanliness. I actually believe that there is such a thing as dirty soap. Maybe you have seen those towels that have "Head" and "Butt" embroidered on them. Those were made for people like me, who cannot dry our heads off on the same side of the towel that we dry the rest of our bodies off. I would have a panic attack if I used the wrong side of my towel to dry my face. I don't know what I would do without soap (and lotion to help mend my over-washed hands).
About five years ago, my wife and I attended our Presbytery's annual church camp, Horn Creek. We were not married at the time, and I was bunking with a lodge full of older, single men. The college men's cabin must have been full. I was in college, but I felt like a little pup in the cabin. I was relieved that I had managed to pack a pair of ear plugs, because many of my bunk mates were cutting down a massive forest the first night. Even though the snoring didn't prevent me from sleeping, I didn't sleep well because I was dreading having to share a shower with seven other men. How would I keep track of my towel and which side is which? I would have to keep it under lock and key. When I awoke from what little sleep I could manage, I awoke to my worst nightmare. The cabin was outfitted with two sinks in the bunk-room, and I was appalled to see one of my cabin mates taking a sponge bath at the sink and cleaning his armpits with the community soap that we all used to wash our hands. The soap was defiled, I had reached my breaking point, and thankfully my parents were arriving that afternoon and had room for me to stay with them.
Needless to say, along with many others today, I can tend to focus on the dirt outside that can get in rather than the dirt inside that gets out. That is to say, I'm more focused on staying clean from the outside in rather than from the inside out.
In Matthew 15, Jesus is questioned by the Pharisees, "Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands when they eat?" Jesus answers their question with a question: "Why do you break the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition?" Well, in order for all of this to make some sense, we need to understand more about the Pharisees' cleanliness traditions and the intent hidden behind their question.
Alfred Edersheim provides some helpful comments concerning this passage of Scripture in his book Jesus the Messiah. First, you have to understand the Pharisees' intent behind asking Jesus why his disciples didn't wash their hands before eating. It will help in order to further understand why Jesus reacted the way He did. Edersheim explains that the Pharisees were on a mission to discredit Jesus as the Messiah, and one way they went about doing so was by accusing Jesus of sinning. He explains that if the Pharisees could establish that Jesus was a sinner, then, "it would, of course, prove that He was not the Messiah, but a deceiver who misled the people, and whom it was the duty of the Sanhedrin to unmask and arrest." Overall, they were constantly trying to catch Jesus in a sin in order to save face so that they would be seen as the good-guys yet again and discredit everything Jesus ever said about them as a blasphemous liar. Edersheim continues to explain that, "The way in which they attempted to establish this, perhaps persuaded themselves that it was so, was by proving that He sanctioned in others, and Himself committed, breaches of the traditional law." They wanted to prove that Jesus was sinning by accusing Him of breaking the traditions of men, and Jesus wouldn't stand for it.
Now, it is also important to understand the sin that the Pharisees were accusing Jesus of commiting in order to make more sense of His heated response to them. Edersheim explains that:
"[The] Scribes now blamed the Master for allowing His disciples to eat without having previously washed, or, as St. Mark...expresses it: 'with common hands.' This practice is expressly admitted to have been, not a Law of Moses, but 'a tradition of the elders.' Still, it was so strictly enjoined that to neglect it was like being guilty of gross carnal defilement. Its omission would lead to temporal destruction, or, at least, to poverty. Bread eaten with unwashed hands was as if it had been filth. In fact, although at one time it had only been one of the marks of a Pharisee, yet at a later period to wash before eating was regarded as affording the ready means of recognizing a Jew."
The Pharisees lifted the traditions of men over the Commandments of God. Their traditional laws focused on keeping a righteous man undefiled from a corrupt world. The Pharisees believed that they were clean and that the dirty world would corrupt them unless they did everything they could to keep themselves clean. They misunderstood the moral Law, and therefore, they invented external laws to keep them from corruption. The moral Law, however, teaches that the corruption lies within man and not outside of him. The Law was meant to reveal the sinfulness of men, not to protect them from the corruption of the world. As Paul explains:
Now we know that the law is good, if one uses it lawfully, understanding this, that the law is not laid down for the just but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane, for those who strike their fathers and mothers, for murderers, the sexually immoral, men who practice homosexuality, enslavers, liars, perjurers, and whatever else is contrary to sound doctrine, in accordance with the gospel of the glory of the blessed God with which I have been entrusted.
(1 Tim. 1:8-11)
The Law does not make men righteous, but rather, it reveals men to be unrighteous. The Law points us to Christ, the righteous one, for our salvation, and not to our sinful selves wherein no righteousness lies. Righteousness and purity do not come from obedience to the Law, but from our union with Jesus Christ (2 Cor. 5:21; Phil. 3:9).
For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. (Rom. 8:3-4)
Jesus responds to the Pharisees by quoting Isaiah 29:13:
And the Lord said:
“Because this people draw near with their mouth
and honor me with their lips,
while their hearts are far from me,
and their fear of me is a commandment taught by men."
“Because this people draw near with their mouth
and honor me with their lips,
while their hearts are far from me,
and their fear of me is a commandment taught by men."
Edersheim explains that, "In thus setting forth for the first time the real character or traditionalism, and placing Himself in open opposition to its fundamental principles, the Christ enunciated also for the first time the fundamental principle of His own interpretation of the Law. That Law was not a system of externalism, in which outward things affected the inner man. It was moral, and addressed itself to man as a moral being. Not from without inwards, but from within outwards: such was the principle of the new Kingdom, as setting for the Law in its fulness and fulfilling it..It is in this essential contrariety of principle, rather than in any details, that the unspeakable difference between Christ and all contemporary teachers appears." Edersheim wrote these words in the late 19th century. They still hold true today.
Reeling this all in, I want to further elaborate on my last post about the way in which many Christians struggling with pornography are attempting to mortify and overcome this sin in their life by washing their hands and not their hearts. I have turned to a plethora of resources published online, in books, and in videos about combating the sin of pornography, and although much of what they have to say is helpful, they always seem to take an outside-in approach. That is to say, many teachings about how to overcome pornography focus primarily on helping those struggling with pornography flee outward stimulus. You need to put a filter on your devices with internet access. You need to stop watching movies with sex and nudity in them. You need to stop listening to sexual explicit or provocative music. You need to be careful what you read. You need to find friends that will support you and hold you accountable rather than hanging out with friends that love to tell sex jokes and talk about sex.
Yes, there is warrant for taking these precautions. I am not saying that these steps are not helpful, but they don't deal with the main issue: your heart. You see, you can wash your hands of pornography all you want, but it doesn't change the fact that your heart is still wired for lust. Pornography is a forbidden fruit. To our flesh, it looks attractive, it smells sweet, and it tastes like honey. We are not cured if we keep walking past the tree, wishing we could only sink our teeth in it. Instead, we need to address the real problem: the deceitfulness of our hearts. We need to see the tree for what it is: sinful, destructive, adultery, full of lust, deceit, and as something that separates us from the love of God. We can build a wall around the tree, dig a mote and fill it with water, put an electric fence around it, and train guard dogs to attack us if we get close to it, but it doesn't change the fact that we still smack our lips every time we think about it. Yes, the tree is bad, but what's worse is our desire to feast upon it despite its sinfulness.
But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.
(Matthew 5:28)
Look carefully at this passage, again. Where do we commit adultery? It's not the eyes that are sinful. It is our hearts wherein the sin rests.
We have to address the sin of pornography from the inside out. Perhaps I am guilty of this myself, but many times we can quote statistic after statistic about how pervasive the adult entertainment industry is and point to the industry as the culprit of our problems. We point the finger at porn-stars, prostitutes, pimps, immodest women, and so many others as the perpetrators of our problems. We think that if we could somehow eliminate pornography, prostitution, and sex trafficking that the problem would be solved. If you destroyed every clock in the world, would that stop time? No, and if you destroyed every trace of the sex industry around the world that wouldn't stop the fact that men and women are lustful, sinful, hurtful, broken, fallen creatures.
In order to overcome pornography, you have to start with the demand. You can tear out your eyes, but the heart remains unscathed. Your problem is not the sinfulness of the world trying to corrupt you, but your problem is the sinfulness of your heart that is corrupting everything you say and do. Out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a person. It is not the porn you watch, but the fact that you enjoy watching porn.
I've said it before, and I'll reiterate it again. You are not a victim of pornography. Until you admit that your problem with porn is completely your fault and no one else's, you will not be able to start taking the crucial step of mortifying it once and for all. Pornography is a gross, sinful, vile corruption of God's beautiful design of a sexual relationship between a husband and wife. The reason it is a problem in your life is not because people are making it but because you love to consume it. You consume it because your heart wants to, not because someone is forcing you to. Although you know that the actions portrayed in porn are sinful, your corrupt heart gobbles them up. The images do not defile you, but rather, your corrupt heart defiles you.
Yes, there is something to be said about the usefulness of internet filters and accountability software, but those are mere hand washings. More than anything, you need to address the problem from the inside out. Guarding your heart, removing yourself from tempting situations, surrounding yourself with people who will hold you accountable, and making a covenant with your eyes have their merit, but all of that is vanity unless you subdue the old man in your heart. Although your environment can tempt you to sin, it is not the reason why you sin. Your sin is deeply rooted in a sinful heart that can only be overcome by the grace of God. Therefore, more than anything else, you need the grace of God, the Word of God, the Spirit of God, and the Son of God to combat your problem with this and every other sin in your life.
[The] word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.
(Heb. 4:12-16)
You can turn your internet off, throw away all your movies, sell your TVs and computers, burn your iPods, trash your phones and cut ties with all of your friends, but you cannot fix your own heart. You could lock yourself in an empty room to try to overcome this sin in your life but to no avail. You would only lock yourself in a room along with the enemy within you. You take him everywhere you go, and no matter what you may do, he's there to stay. There is one thing and one thing only that can evict the enemy within: God. Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.
And such were some of you.
But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.
The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. And God raised the Lord and will also raise us up by his power.
Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never! Or do you not know that he who is joined to a prostitute becomes one body with her? For, as it is written, “The two will become one flesh.” But he who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him.
Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body. Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.
(1 Cor. 6:9-20)
If you are struggling with pornography or know somebody that is and you found this blog helpful, uplifting, and encouraging, then please visit my Facebook page for further resources and discussion. If you would like to contact me, feel free to message me through my Facebook page as well. I am literally a click away. I would love to know who you are and keep you in my prayers. Thanks.
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