These are the Sermon Notes for May 17, 2020. Watch our livestream service every Sunday at 9:37 am on our facebook page or watch the livestream recordings any time.
Mark 7:14-23 Defilement’s Origin
We are returning in our study of the Gospel of Mark with chapter 7:14-23. Last week we left Jesus and His disciples on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee in the region of Gennesaret in a dispute with the Scribes and Pharisees.
The Scribes and Pharisees had been questioning Jesus as to why His disciples eat with hands that were defiled, meaning that they had not gone through the ritual of ceremonial washing before they ate according to the traditions of the elders that had been passed down.
Jesus condemned their religious tradition for what it was, a tradition of men and not the command of God. He then went on to expose the hypocrisy of their hearts by showing how they very easily ignore the commands of God in order to protect their traditions. Jesus used the example of their violation of the fifth Commandment in order to protect their own wealth and resources instead of caring for their aging parents. He exposed that they were making void the Word of God by their traditions not just in this way but in many others.
And then we come to our text in chapter seven, verse fourteen.
14 And he called the people to him again and said to them, “Hear me, all of you, and understand: 15 There is nothing outside a person that by going into him can defile him, but the things that come out of a person are what defile him.” 17 And when he had entered the house and left the people, his disciples asked him about the parable. 18 And he said to them, “Then are you also without understanding? Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile him, 19 since it enters not his heart but his stomach, and is expelled?” (Thus he declared all foods clean.) 20 And he said, “What comes out of a person is what defiles him. 21 For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, 22 coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. 23 All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.”
Last week I quoted Matthew Henry when he wrote, “Corrupt customs are best cured by rectifying corrupt notions.” Here in this passage Jesus not only shows the answer to the Scribes and Pharisees corrupt notions but He also exposes the corrupt notions of all mankind when it comes to defilement.
Now, I’m sure that that may not be the vocabulary that people use when, or if, they consider this issue but the concept is there that mankind is basically good and whatever makes him bad comes from outside.
This is at the heart of modern psychology, that a person starts out as good but their environment, their education, or their examples let them down and somehow damaged them, defiled them.
The Scribes and the Pharisees taught the same thing, that the children of Abraham were pure in and of themselves, and as long as they carefully held to the traditions of the elders that they would remain pure and acceptable to God. If something on the outside of a person could defile them, the assumption is made that they were inwardly pure before but Jesus here says that it’s exactly the opposite.
The problem with thinking that people are basically good, that people were morally pure in and of themselves before situations arose, or circumstances changed, or bad things happened that damaged them and defiled them is that it ignores the Scripture, it ignores what God’s Word actually says.
I want to be very clear before I go any further: I am not downplaying mental health problems, I am not denying that mental health problems exist, I am not suggesting that if people just believe in Jesus that their problems and issues will disappear. I am an example of exactly the opposite, I have put my faith in Jesus, I have given my life to His service, and yet I still struggle with anxiety and depression. These things are real and are constant companions so please do not hear me saying that this stuff is not real, it is.
The problem is not the psychology, the problem is moral defilement, what makes a person bad. And the question before us, the question that Jesus answered here is, does defilement come from the outside or the inside?
The Scribes and Pharisees were saying that moral defilement comes from the outside, from external, outward performance. But the Bible says, Jesus says otherwise.
Jeremiah 17:9 says, that the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately sick, Romans 3:23 says, that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.
Jesus said, “Hear me, all of you, and understand: 15 There is nothing outside a person that by going into him can defile him, but the things that come out of a person are what defile him.”
That is to say that a person is not morally defiled by what he eats even if his hands were not ceremonially washed, disobedience is what causes defilement, disobedience to God’s Law. A person who ate unclean food or ate with unclean hands as defined by the Law of Moses was not defiled by the food nor defiled by their hands but by disobedience to God’s commands. Even Adam and Eve are an example of this, it wasn’t the forbidden fruit that made them sinful, it was their disobedience of God’s command not to eat from that particular tree. Mankind has suffered from their disobedience ever since.
The scribes and Pharisees taught that a person had to follow their rules in order to maintain their cleanness, but external rituals do not cleanse a person, God alone can cleanse a person’s evil heart.
The Disciples still did not get this.
17 And when he had entered the house and left the people, his disciples asked him about the parable. 18 And he said to them, “Then are you also without understanding? I grew up with the New International Version of the Bible where my life verse here is translated, “Are you still so dull?”
Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile him, 19 since it enters not his heart but his stomach, and is expelled?” (Thus he declared all foods clean.)
Good news for all you bacon and lobster lovers! Paul also echoed this truth in Romans 14:17, the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking but of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.
This was a problem that plagued the early church, not just eating non-kosher foods but the eating of meat that had been sacrificed to idols. Even the Apostle Peter struggled with this long after this teaching from Jesus and visions given by the Holy Spirit. You can read about that in Acts 10 and Galatians 2.
And yet somehow, though we don’t really struggle with the cleanness of foods or the ceremonial washing of our hands we still don’t get Jesus’ real point, that defilement from sin does not come from outside a person but from inside a person.
Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile him, 19 since it enters not his heart but his stomach, and is expelled?”
20 And he said, “What comes out of a person is what defiles him. 21 For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, 22 coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. 23 All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.”
This is a list of evil that is tolerated, accepted, celebrated, even seen as fundamental rights of the individual in our society.
Evil thoughts, the first item on the list, is the general category and root of all the various evils that follow. Evil thoughts unite with a person’s will and produce all these various evil words and actions.
When Jesus said, in verse 21, out of the heart of man come evil thoughts and so on, He was not talking about one man, but every man, all of mankind, men and women alike. This is the common condition of all mankind, bubbling over with evil thoughts that give rise to evil deeds.
Sexual immorality, that is, any sexual activity outside the covenant of marriage, theft or stealing, murder (1John 3:15 says that everyone who hates his brother is a murderer), adultery, that is any sexual activity with someone who is not your spouse or who is the spouse of someone else, coveting, that strong urge to collect more and better material things than others around you, the need to keep up with the Joneses, wickedness, generally doing evil things, deceit, lying, trickery and treachery, sensuality, meaning sexual activity with no moral restraint, envy, literally “an evil eye,” an idiom that means a feeling of resentment or jealousy because of what someone else has, slander, speaking about someone in such a way that damages their reputation, pride, meaning arrogance, foolishness, not goofiness or silliness but an unwillingness to use one’s capacity for understanding, some might say living in a constant willing denial of God.
This is the common condition of the insides of every person who has ever lived besides Jesus. No external ritual can cleanse us of this, no amount of hand washing or rule following will ever effect this condition.
And this condition, which the Bible calls “sin,” brings with it consequences.
Romans 6:23 says, the wages of sin in death. That is that the reward for this inward sinfulness is death, eternal death. This is the great predicament of mankind. This is the bad news. Because of our inward sinfulness we are defiled in God’s sight and that sinfulness earns us only death and eternal judgment.
This bad news from Jesus is offensive, I wouldn’t blame you for shutting off this video long before now, but Jesus didn’t come to make your life easy or to make you feel good about yourself and I’m not here to make you feel good or make your life easy either. It’s the badness of the bad news that makes the Good News so good!
Jesus didn’t come to condemn us, Jesus came to expose our sin, remind us of its consequences, and offer a solution. It is by God’s grace that we are saved from the condemnation that we deserve because of our inward defilement, it is by God’s grace that though we sin against Him, God the Father still loves us. John 3:16-20 says:
16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. 18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. 19 And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. 20 For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed.
Not everyone will accept this word, not everyone wants to come out from the darkness. But I do pray that everyone who hears this word today will come to the light, confess their sin, and trust in the Savior, Jesus Christ, who died on the cross to take the punishment that we all deserve for our sin. Through faith in Him He cancelled the record of our debt that stood against us, this He set aside, nailing it to the cross.
May His Name be praised.
Let’s pray
