Then his disciples, coming up, said to him, Dost thou know that the Pharisees, having heard this word, have been offended?
The disciples bring Jesus what looks like helpful news: the religious leaders are offended by what He said about defilement. Their report raises two questions — why does truth sting a religious mind, and why will the Lord not soften it?
The Lord had just told the crowd what really defiles a person: what comes out of the mouth, not what goes in. That struck at a whole system of outward religion, and at the men who ran it.
The Pharisees did not like what the Lord said. He said that hypocrisy about outward forms had taken the place of truth in the inner person. He said that man's heart, even with all his law-keeping religion, was a source of nothing but evil. At this they were greatly "offended" (v. 12), and His disciples told Him so.
The irony is in who took offence.
In verse 10 He calls the crowd to Him. He speaks to them in such plain words that you would think they would be the ones to take offence. But we are told that it was the Pharisees, the religious leaders, who took offence.
The reaction was not a one-off.
True of the first century, it is true of our own day. The disease is chronic. What is more, rebuke is unbearable. "They were offended when they heard this saying." They are offended still. Nothing offends more quickly, more deeply, or more unforgivably than exposing a false religion. And here is a strange contradiction: the more false and foolish it is, the tighter people hold on to it!
That gives a test for anyone who finds a word of Scripture hard to take:
If the truth offends, it is because one prefers falsehood to truth.
Why did the disciples bring this news at all? Writers read their report as fear, not agreement.
"Do you know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this saying?" the disciples said to our Lord. He had just spoken out boldly against the outward religion of the leaders of the people. They were afraid of what such faithfulness would cost. They may have admitted that what our Lord said was true, but they shrank from stirring up opposition. Sadly, we know a great deal of this timidity when opposition looms. What will people say? What will our friends say? How often this has stopped someone whose conscience is awake about his path! It keeps him from simply obeying God, whatever people say.
Read that way, the offence of the leaders is not a sign that something went wrong.
The enemy will always be offended when God is moving, but true faith goes forward and fears no foe.
Jesus does not calm the situation down.
The disciples did not altogether relish what the Lord had been saying. They might not be offended themselves. But they were inclined to sympathise with those who were. Our Lord answers even more sternly: "Every plant that My heavenly Father has not planted will be rooted up." What is needed is new life from God, not an improvement of the old. So a plant of heavenly origin must be planted, and the heavenly Father must do it. Every other plant will be rooted up. "Let them alone; they are blind leaders of the blind." Reasoning with these Pharisees is useless.
This offence was part of something larger. Scripture had foretold the nation's stumbling long before.
As Isaiah had predicted, the Lord of hosts was in the middle of the nation even then. He was a sanctuary for those who would come to Him. But He was there also "a stone of offense and a rock of stumbling to both houses of Israel, a trap and a snare to the inhabitants of Jerusalem," and "many shall stumble on it. They shall fall and be broken; they shall be snared and taken" (Isa. 8:14-15). The Stone of Israel was in lowly form then, and the proud Pharisees stumbled at Him and His sayings (Matt. 15:12).
One writer applies the rooting up beyond the Pharisees, to Christendom — organised Christianity as a whole:
These words do not only show the doom of the Jewish Pharisees. They also speak of the doom of what His heavenly Father has not planted — Christendom. It will be rooted up and then cast out along with its boasted leaders, who are only leaders of the blind.
- Exposure offends. No insult stung the Pharisees. The truth did: defilement starts in the heart, not in the hands.
- The offended were the religious. The Lord aimed His plain words at the crowd, yet the leaders were the ones who took offence.
- Offence is a test. Truth offends only where someone prefers falsehood. False religion hates exposure most of all.
- Timidity spreads. The disciples half agreed with the Lord, yet they feared the fallout. That same fear of what people will say still stops obedience today.
- No softening. Christ did not ease off. He said every plant His Father has not planted will be pulled up. The need is new life from God, not a better version of the old.
But he answering said, Every plant which my heavenly Father has not planted shall be rooted up.
The disciples came to Jesus with a warning. His words about the human heart had offended the religious leaders. His reply does not soften the offense — it explains it, by dividing everyone into two kinds of plants.
The Lord had just told the crowd that what makes a person unclean comes from inside him, not from outside. That teaching cut through everything the leaders relied on. Their reaction showed where they stood.
The disciples report to the Lord that the Pharisees had taken offense at what He had said. But we must not water down the solemn truth of it in any way. If the truth offends, it is because someone prefers falsehood to truth. The Lord's reply is decisive and cuts deep. Every plant which His heavenly Father had not planted would be rooted up. Enemies of the truth are not the planting of the Father. They may be very careful about religious tradition, yet in heart be thoroughly opposed to God.
The picture of planting raises a question: how does anyone become one of the Father's plants?
But our Lord answers still more sternly: "Every plant that My heavenly Father has not planted will be rooted up." There must be a new life from God, not an improving of the old one. A plant must be of heavenly origin, then, and the heavenly Father must plant it. Every other plant will be rooted up. "Let them alone: they are blind leaders of the blind." Reasoning with these Pharisees is a waste of time. What they need is first principles, and the work of God in their souls. He did not apply this to the crowd, but to the leaders who stumbled at the truth of man's total corruption. Such people are best left to themselves.
Jesus does not say your Father here. One writer reads the verse beside another saying of Jesus about learning from the Father.
It is written in the prophets, "And they will all be taught by God." "Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to Me." It is plain that, since they rejected His teaching, they had not heard from the Father. They were not God's children. Had He said on that occasion "your Father," it would have reminded the disciples of the relationship they had with God. But by saying "My heavenly Father," the Lord would impress on everyone the absolute necessity of listening to His Father, and of being plants of His planting.
The word "planted" is picture language. One writer says what it stands for.
The Lord Jesus Himself said, "Every plant that My heavenly Father has not planted will be rooted up" (Matt. 15:13); showing that planting is a picture of setting someone in a place of blessing.
Commentators differ on how far the words reach. Some limit the words to the leaders of Israel. One writer sees them falling on the wider religious world too.
These words not only show the doom of the Jewish Pharisees, they also speak of the doom of that which His heavenly Father has not planted — Christendom. It will be rooted up and then cast out along with its boasted leaders, who are only leaders of the blind.
The verse names the Father. The words that follow it — leave them alone — are heavier than they sound.
We have God's grace and God's sovereignty in verse 13. The Father's name is always connected with grace.
Each of us ought to realise that nothing worse can happen to us than to be left alone. If God gives up a soul, it is all over with it.
The saying asks each reader which kind of plant he is.
Is Jesus your Saviour and Lord? If He is, you may look forward to the great transplanting with confidence. But remember, your turning to Him must be real, for the Lord Himself said, "Every plant that My heavenly Father has not planted will be rooted up" (Matt. 15:13). Only if you have been planted in grace here by the hand of God will you be planted in glory there, when Jesus comes again.
- Root — His words about the heart offended the leaders. Preferring falsehood to truth showed they were not the Father's planting.
- Planter — The Father does the planting: what is needed is new life from God, not the improving of the old.
- Hearing — Jesus says "My heavenly Father," not "your Father." Everyone must listen to His Father and be a plant of His planting.
- Reach — The word condemns the Pharisees. Some read it as reaching every religious system God never planted.
- Result — To be planted is to be established in blessing; to be left alone is the worst thing that can happen to a soul.
Leave them alone; they are blind leaders of blind but if blind lead blind, both will fall into a ditch.
Jesus has just told the crowd that what defiles a person comes out of him, not into him. This offended the Pharisees, and the disciples say so. His answer is blunt: these teachers are plants His Father never planted, and the disciples must leave them alone.
The command follows straight on from Jesus' words about the plant His Father never planted. One writer ties the two together:
The disciples did not much like what the Lord had been saying... But our Lord answers even more sternly, "Every plant that My heavenly Father has not planted will be rooted up." The need is for a new life from God, not for an improvement of the old one. So a plant of heavenly origin must be planted, and the heavenly Father must do the planting. Every other plant will be rooted up. "Let them alone: they are blind leaders of the blind." Reasoning with these Pharisees is completely useless. They need first principles, and the work of God in their souls. So all discussion is pointless... He did not apply this to the crowd, but to the leaders, who stumbled at the teaching that man is totally corrupt.
Being left alone sounds mild. From the lips of the Son of God it is anything but:
"Let them alone," He says — a terrible sentence from the lips of the Son of God! Yet if men want this proud independence, God may leave them alone to enjoy the folly they have chosen. He does not hold them back with His wise and loving hand — the hand the believer knows he needs and values.
Another writer takes the same command as a word to the disciples themselves:
They were blind themselves and misleading others who were blind also. God would deal with them in His government, and the disciples were to leave them alone and not retaliate.
Jesus calls them "guides" — men who had taken the place of showing others the way:
"Blind guides" — they did not know where they were going. John shows us that. So with all their pretension they were blind. They ask, in John 9, "Are we also blind?" They were assuming to be guides. The language means that there is an awful end for those under their influence.
One note traces the picture to a custom among shepherds:
The phrase "blind leaders" alludes to the shepherds' custom, when angry with their flock, of giving them a blind sheep as a leader. And so of bad administrators of a town.
The verse ends with both men in the pit. Being only a follower is no excuse:
The "blind" here are first of all the Jewish leaders. But the follower will not escape the ditch just by being a follower. The truth speaks for itself to anyone who has ears to hear. The man who hands himself over completely to another's leadership has his conscience before man, not before God. Even the Lord rests His right to be heard on the truth of what He said: "If I tell the truth, why do you not believe Me?"... Whatever a man yields himself to will shape him.
The warning reaches past Israel's leaders. One writer traces the danger to how teachers are chosen:
That companies of professing Christians should choose a teacher is entirely foreign to Scripture and shows how far Christendom has departed from the order of God for His assembly. The result of this disorder is that too often the chosen teacher is but a blind leader of the blind, and "if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch."
The answer is not a better leader to follow, but sight of your own:
There is a great principle here, in "let them alone." Now mark — if you have a blind leader, and you are blind yourself, the ditch is the only end of your road. Christianity, however, is not the blind leading the blind; nor the seeing leading the blind; but the seeing leading the seeing. God delights to give us light so that we can see His things. But enjoying them and using them well depends entirely on our subjection to Christ, to the Holy Spirit, and to the Scriptures.
- Root — The offended leaders were plants the Father never planted. They needed new life from God, not a better version of the old.
- Released — "Let them alone" is a verdict, not a kindness. God may leave men to the independence they demanded, without His restraining hand.
- Restraint — For the disciples the same words meant no argument and no revenge. God Himself would deal with these men.
- Responsibility — The follower falls in with the guide. Hand yourself over to a man, and your conscience answers to him instead of to God.
- Remedy — Not the blind leading the blind, and not the seeing leading the blind, but the seeing leading the seeing. That sight comes from subjection to Christ, the Spirit, and the Scriptures.