Chapter # 7 Paragraph # 1 Study # 9
May 31, 2022
Moss Bluff, Louisiana
(312)
1901 ASV
7:15 there is nothing from without the man, that going into him can defile him; but the things which proceed out of the man are those that defile the man.
7:16 [If any man hath ears to hear, let him hear.]
7:17 And when he was entered into the house from the multitude, his disciples asked of him the parable.
7:18 And he saith unto them, Are ye so without understanding also? Perceive ye not, that whatsoever from without goeth into the man, [it] cannot defile him;
7:19 because it goeth not into his heart, but into his belly, and goeth out into the draught? [This he said], making all meats clean.
7:20 And he said, That which proceedeth out of the man, that defileth the man.
7:21 For from within, out of the heart of men, evil thoughts proceed, fornications, thefts, murders, adulteries,
7:22 covetings, wickednesses, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, railing, pride, foolishness:
7:23 all these evil things proceed from within, and defile the man.
- I. Jesus' "Critical Truth".
- A. Established as "critical".
- B. Declared as "Truth".
- 1. "Nothing is without of the man entering into him which is able to degrade him".
- a. This "degrading" is "to reduce to 'common' status" as not "belonging" to anyone in particular. This is most critical when the "Anyone" is God Himself.
- 1) Mark's use of the verb (koinoo) translated "defile" by the NASB is restricted to four uses (7:15-23). This four-fold use in these few verses has the impact of intensification regarding the issue of "defilement". This issue has to do with men being under the Law/Wrath of The God by reason of this "defilement". In other words, "defilement" makes any "connection" with God impossible so that the ultimate end of the "defiled" is to be cast away from the presence of God into the Lake of Fire.
- 2) The verb has an associated adjective (koinos) also used in the larger context (7:2, 5) with the sense of "undedicated" as in "not owned". The Pharisees were accusing the disciples of Jesus of not being "dedicated" to God by reason of their use of their hands to eat without following the traditions of the elders. Their argument is that the "hands" are creating the reality of "no relationship" between men and God.
- 3) There is also a link to "a primary preposition" (sun) in Mark 4:10 and 9:4 where the focus is upon a "togetherness" between individuals that gives the sense of "a commonality"; i.e., two or more having the same "commitment" (dedication).
- 4) At the heart of Jesus' topic of "defilement" is the fact that men are not separated from God by a "defilement" that arises from foods that go into the mouth whether by "dedicated hands" or by "undedicated hands" [Note 1 Corinthians 8:8: "...food will not commend us to God; we are neither the worse if we do not eat, nor the better if we do eat"; also there is Colossians 2:21 where Paul questions why the Colossians have subjected themselves to the "commandments and teachings of men" as if "life" comes from those commandments instead of from the Living God]. Their "separation" from God is described in graphic terms by Paul in Ephesians 2:12-13: "...separate from Christ, excluded from the commonwealth of Israel, ... strangers to the covenants of The Promise, having no hope and without God in the world ... formerly ... far off ...".
- b. The "nothing" is connected to the disciples' failure to wash their hands before eating.
- 1) This indicates that this "nothing" is physical/material. What goes into the mouth is something physical (food; 7:19). This, at root, eliminates the necessity of submission to the dietary code imposed upon Israel in the Law (7:19b). The proscribed foods of that code were not to prohibit "defilement", but to preserve "health", but The Pharisees had turned what was "provided for the health of man" into something "provided for the actions of man that would recommend him to God". This is the deceit that man was made for the Sabbath; a 180 degree subversion of God's truth. This is the reason for proclamation of the need for "repentance" within the message of Jesus.
- a) At the root of this "critical truth" are two issues.
- i. One's "view of God": is He primarily (or even, "at all") a Seeker of His Own Self-focused Agenda; or is He primarily (or "always") a Seeker of the best and ultimate outcomes for "persons whom He has created and called"? In other words, is God ever "arbitrary" (making up rules for the sake of rules)?
- ii. One's "view of him/her self": is a human being "corrupted by external factors of physical life" so that he/she is fundamentally pure and needs only to abstain from corrupting influences that come from the physical/material world", or is a human being already "corrupted" at the "heart" level of his/her being and, thus, needs Jesus' message of "repentance unto forgiveness"?
- iii. It is the latter of these two issues that is primary. The legacy of The Pharisees and some of the scribes is a theology of the basic goodness of man who has the personal ability to maintain the "natural" ("We have Abraham as our father": John 8:39) relationship one has with God, or to degrade that relationship by failing to "keep the traditions of the elders". Man, say they, is "capable" and "responsible" so that he/she is the one who determines whether, or not, the "natural" relationship continues or is broken.
- b) The issues of God's imposition of ultimate and absolutely destructive outcomes upon "persons whom He has created" are only "issues" whenever there are fixed commitments by those persons to personal gain at the expense of others. God despises "hateful" people only because they intend their own gain at whatever cost there is to others.
- 2) This indication does not mean that there is "nothing" to lies and deceits that come from some outside "tempter", or false doctrines and traditions of the elders that are placed as substitutes for the words of God; but, there is, at least, the suggestion that even external deceptions have to have something within man to call to them and open them to the possibilities suggested by those deceits.
- 3) The condemnation of The Pharisees and some of the scribes by Jesus, in fact, indicates that those men do have some level of ability to "defile" others (Hebrews 12:15 and 1 Corinthians 8:7) by reason of their teachings that come from "outside" the man.
- c. At the very heart of this declaration is the deceit of Pharisaical religion that God is mostly concerned with the physical/material aspects of man's actions, not the inner heart. Even the proscribed physical foods in the dietary code had to "taste good" in order to tempt someone to think of God as an arbitrary limiter of man's pleasures (a key aspect of the values of the "heart") rather than a "Great Shepherd" who was looking out for His sheep.
- 1) "Believing" this deceit keeps "man" in his "common" state.
- a) He does not enter into this "common" state by faith in this deceit; he is already in that common state.
- b) He is kept from escaping from this "common" state by faith in this deceit.
- 2) Being in this "common" state will lead to eternal destruction from the presence of the Lord if the "escape" that the Lord has provided is not accepted.
- 2. "BUT the things out of the man proceeding is/are the things degrading the man". There is the anomaly in 7:15 of the verb "estin", being a third person singular, present indicative active, being the main verb for the "things proceeding out from" (ta ... ekporeuomena), being a plural nominative: this is a strange wedding of a plural subject being tied to a singular verb. The NASB (as well as the Authorized Version) translates "...the things which come out of him, those are they that defile the man"). There is an implication here that, rather than a multitude of "things" which defile, there is a singular thing that produces all of the "things", and that it is that singular thing, that is already defiled, that produces all of the defiling activities. In a word, then, Jesus is saying that men are already defiled and their actions prove that.
