Do ye not yet apprehend, that everything that enters into the mouth finds its way into the belly, and is cast forth into the draught?
Peter asked the Lord to explain what he called a parable. The answer is plain: food takes a physical route through the body and leaves it again. So why did such an ordinary fact need saying? And what does it settle about clean and unclean food, about washed hands, and about where a person's real uncleanness starts?
The Lord's reply opens with a rebuke, because nothing He had said was obscure. One writer points out that the obstacle was never the vocabulary.
What did he mean by calling it a parable? He did not understand it himself. Here was the chief of the twelve apostles, and he cannot understand our Lord. The Lord tells them that man is altogether wrong — his heart most of all. What comes out of a man is what makes him evil, not what goes in. And this is a parable! The difficulty of Scripture comes less from hard language than from truth people do not want to hear. Truth goes against what people wish; they cannot see it, because they do not like to receive it.
One writer follows the route the Lord describes to see how far it can reach.
Whatever physical food one eats does not have any spiritual effect. It affects the stomach, and so the body's condition, but not the heart. Here the heart stands for the spiritual inner being of the person. God had made provision for physical purging (or cleansing) in the disposal of waste. But there was a far more serious issue involved in spiritual defilement.
If food never reaches the heart, a whole system of food rules loses its ground.
Leaving aside the man-made rules He had already condemned in their hearing, He wanted them to know that "whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile him." Eating certain meats would not make a man morally unclean, as the Jews held. From the bondage of this tradition, the truth which came by Jesus Christ set them free.
The Lord clears away the wrong answer and names the right one. One writer sharpens the point by contrasting two visitors to the same wicked city.
This cuts at the root of all worldly religion of the flesh, which deals only with outward things and leaves the heart untouched. God works from within and deals with the conscience and heart. The real source of defilement is not a man's environment but himself. It is true that man is a fallen creature. If he goes into scenes of evil and temptation, his surroundings will stir up the lusts within him. But even so the source of the evil is from within. An angel can pass through Sodom and not be defiled, but not so Lot. There was no evil heart in the angel to answer to sin; there was in Lot.
If the evil sits inside a man, outward washing cannot reach it. One writer names what he really needs instead.
This is what both your heart and mine contains, dear reader. If the worst of these evils have not broken out, it is because of the mercy of God in the surroundings He has been pleased to set us in. But the evils are certainly within us. They are only waiting for the chance to show themselves in all their ugliness. What stronger proof could we have that it is not reformation men need, but a new creation! And what proof that outward practices can never be enough on their own, because they cannot reach what is within!
The Lord's verdict on man's nature is severe, but it is not the end of the matter.
It shows here that man has a nature that is bad at its root, and the evil is not from outside, but from within — from the heart. But the heart can be purified... It is not cleansing by blood that the Lord spoke of in John 13, when He said "You are completely clean," but cleansing by water — the new birth. "Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you."
- Plain, not puzzling. Peter called it a parable, but nothing was unclear. Scripture's hardest sayings are the ones we least want to be true.
- Follow the food. What enters the mouth goes to the stomach and out again, by God's own provision. It never reaches the heart, so it cannot stain the person.
- So the rules fall. No food makes a man morally unclean. The Lord's word freed people from a tradition that had bound them.
- So the blame moves inward. A man's surroundings do not defile him; he defiles himself. An angel could walk through the wicked city of Sodom unstained. Lot could not.
- So washing cannot help. Outward practice never reaches inside. Man does not need reform but a new creation — a heart cleansed by the word of Christ.
but the things which go forth out of the mouth come out of the heart, and those defile man.
The argument began over unwashed hands, but Jesus takes it far past table manners. He traces every defiling word back to its source — not the food a man eats, but his heart.
The mouth works in two directions. Only one of them tells you anything about the man.
The mouth both takes in and gives out. It is the avenue to the stomach and the outlet for the heart. The wise man has said: "All the toil of man is for his mouth" (Ecclesiastes 6:7). In this he spoke truly. The Pharisees of our Lord's time were more fussy about what goes into the mouth than about what comes out of it.
A change of setting cannot cure a defilement that starts inside. But a setting can draw out what is already there.
The washing of hands and cups and pots deals only with defilement from the outside. But moral defilement springs from the evil inside the heart. This cuts at the root of all worldly religion of the flesh, which deals only with outward things and leaves the heart untouched. God works from within and deals with the conscience and heart. The real source of defilement is not a man's environment but himself. It is true that man is a fallen creature. If he goes into scenes of evil and temptation, his surroundings will stir up the lusts inside him. But even then the evil comes from within. An angel can pass through Sodom and stay undefiled; Lot could not. There was no evil heart in the angel to answer to sin; there was in Lot.
The trouble is in the spring, not the stream. So a cleaner outward record puts no one in a better position.
Here we are all in the same case, whatever the apparent differences in outward life. "Every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually" describes more than the world before the flood. It is the truth about the heart of man everywhere and at all times. It is the defiled spring of everything that defiles.
A popular idea says people only need better surroundings and better training.
It is mainly the religious leaders who busy themselves with tradition. The great general snare is denying the evil of men. The deception Satan uses now is the idea that man is not so bad that moral training cannot improve him. The progress of the world is astonishing, they say. There are societies for every charitable cause and for the improvement of man. People look for the fault in a person's circumstances and surroundings instead of in the man himself... The real secret of man's deplorable condition is his heart. This affects all that comes out.
The list Jesus gives next — evil thoughts, murder, adultery, theft, false witness, slander — is not a description of criminals only.
This is what both your heart and mine contains, dear reader. If the worst of these evils have not broken out in us, we owe it to the mercy of God in the setting where He has chosen to place us. But the evils are certainly within us. They are only waiting for an opportunity to show themselves in all their ugliness. What stronger proof could we have that what men need is not reformation but a new creation!
When the disciples report that the Pharisees were offended, the answer is sharper still — and it points to the only cure.
But our Lord answers still more sternly: "Every plant that My heavenly Father has not planted shall be rooted up." There needs to be a new life from God, not an improving of the old one. A plant of heavenly origin must be planted, and the heavenly Father must do it. Every other plant shall be rooted up.
- Speech. The mouth takes in and gives out. Only what comes out reveals the man, because it comes from the heart.
- Spring. Defilement rises from inside a person, not from his surroundings. An angel walks through Sodom untouched; Lot does not.
- Sameness. Every heart in every age has the same polluted spring, whatever the outward differences.
- Snare. Satan's standing deception says man is not so bad that moral training cannot improve him. So people blame the circumstances, never the man.
- Solution. Man needs a new creation, not reformation. Only what the heavenly Father plants Himself will stand.
For out of the heart come forth evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witnessings, blasphemies;
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
these are the things which defile man; but the eating with unwashen hands does not defile man.
The Pharisees came asking about hand-washing; the Lord ends the discussion by naming what actually makes a person unclean. One writer notes that the question on the table has quietly shifted:
The Lord's subject in this saying is not the means of cleansing, but the cause of defilement. He is not speaking here about how useless ceremonial washing is, or about using water to remove moral stains; He had already told the Pharisees that. Now He teaches those with no training in the law where defilement really comes from. Cleansing assumes defilement is already there. So how does a person become unclean? Is it because polluting things from outside enter his body? The Lord declared that the inner motives behind a person's words and actions are the cause of his uncleanness.
The list of evils just before this verse is what the heart produces. Notice what the Lord does not add:
That was the public verdict. Israel and their hypocritical, self-righteous leaders could not pass it... But with His disciples He goes further. He does not only condemn outward hypocrisy; He shows what does come out of the human heart, and it was evil of every kind. Does He, who is full of love and goodness, have nothing to say about good coming from it? Not a word. These are what defile a person.
Peter asked the Lord to explain the saying, as if it were a riddle. One writer shows why plain words sounded like a puzzle:
What did he mean by calling it a parable? He did not understand it himself. Here was the chief of the twelve apostles, and he cannot understand our Lord. The Lord tells them that man is wrong through and through — his heart most of all. What comes out of a person makes him evil, not what goes in. And this is a parable! The difficulty of Scripture comes less from hard language than from truth we do not want to hear. Truth goes against what people wish; they cannot see it, because they do not like to receive it.
If defilement starts inside, rules that manage behaviour aim at the wrong target:
Man is now a corrupt creature, and his corruption passes into whatever he takes in. So holding the flesh in check is useless in God's sight, and false at its root... Man is lost. But no one fully believes this about himself until he has found Christ. He may believe he is a sinner, but does he believe he is so bad that no good toward God can be got out of him? ... Man is no longer on trial. The testing is over. God has declared that the flesh is worthless; and yet man keeps re-opening the question, instead of believing God.
Rules that manage what goes into a person did not stop with the Pharisees:
Pharisee religion washed the hands; the movement against alcohol washes the lips. But the same word of the Lord shows that both fall short... The heart, the whole spring of moral action, is corrupt before God. What a man is taints what he does. So while man's method is to cut off this and that, God's method is first of all to make the tree good.
This list is not about criminals. It describes the heart every reader carries:
This is what your heart and mine both hold, dear reader. If the worst of these evils have not broken out, that is thanks to God's mercy in the setting where He has chosen to place us. But the evils are certainly inside us, only waiting for a chance to show themselves in all their ugliness. What stronger proof could we have that men do not need reform, but a new creation!
The chapter does not stop with exposure. Straight after these words the Lord moves outside Israel:
My reader, this is your heart! Have you admitted it, bowed to it, accepted the judgment of God on it? Has it become a comfort beyond words to turn away from yourself to Him — that blessed One, whose heart is full of goodness towards you, and whose word to you is, "I cannot trust you; you may trust Me"?... It is striking that as soon as He had exposed the heart of man, the Lord left the place of boasted privilege for the coasts of Tyre and Sidon, which lay outside the region of earthly blessing.
- Source. The Lord is not asking how to get clean. He names where uncleanness starts: in the inner motives behind our words and acts.
- Verdict. What comes out of the human heart is evil of every kind, and He says not one word about good coming from it.
- Resistance. Plain words sounded like a "parable" to the disciples. Scripture is hard less because of its language than because we dislike its truth.
- Futility. Washing hands, washing lips, holding the flesh in check: outward rules cut off single acts and never reach the spring. God's way is to make the tree good.
- Remedy. This exposure proves that man needs not reform but a new creation. The One who exposes the heart then steps straight outside the place of privilege.