15:1–9 In 14:13–36, readers heard that Jesus is God’s Son, Lord of creation and healer of the people. The scribes and Pharisees, however, see Jesus as a reckless rabbi whom they must call to account for ignoring their traditions. From Jesus’ perspective, their traditions would have to improve to be useless.

The scene has the texture of an inquiry. “Pharisees and scribes came to Jesus from Jerusalem.” If they have traveled 90 miles (145 km) on foot over rugged terrain, they must consider their question important: Why do Jesus’ disciples break the traditions by failing to wash their hands before eating? Since “break” is present tense, it hints that the scribes and Pharisees see this as policy. They do not see minor, accidental breaches but habitual violations caused by Jesus’ regular teaching of his disciples. Their concern is not microbes, which were unknown at the time. Rather, they have expanded ritual cleansings for priests in tabernacle service (Ex. 30:17–21), applying them to everyone in order to put a fence around the law. The Mishnah, a second-century-AD codification of oral laws from earlier times, included pages of regulations on proper washing.

The scribes ascribe their traditions a weight that is alien to today’s listeners, to whom a “tradition” is a long-practiced and beloved (or beneficial) custom. Most rabbis and many Jews, however, believed God gave their tradition (also known as oral law) to Moses on Sinai. Indeed, the first paragraph of the Mishnah said just that:

Moses received the Law from Sinai and committed it to Joshua, and Joshua to the elders, and the elders to the Prophets; and the Prophets committed it to the men of the Great Synagogue. They said three things: Be deliberate in judgment, raise up many disciples, and make a fence around the Law. (Avot 1:1, Danby translation)

The authorities suspect that Jesus disregards their entire tradition. If God himself gave the tradition to Moses on Sinai, then its breaches are sin. But Jesus sees tradition differently. He contrasts “the commandment of God” with “your tradition,” calling their teachings “the commandments of men” (Matt. 15:3, 9). Jesus does not defend his practices; instead he questions theirs, asking, “Why do you break the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition?” (v. 3). That is, he breaks their tradition because it nullifies God’s law.

For instance, “God commanded, ‘Honor your father and your mother.’” Further, the child who reviles (Gk. kakologeō) his parents must surely be put to death (v. 4, citing Ex. 21:17).252 But their tradition permits children to dishonor parents. Specifically, a rabbinic tradition permitted people to label property “Corban,” meaning “given to God” (Mark 7:11–12). Such property became untouchable, even if still under the owner’s control (Matt. 15:5). This was quickly perverted: it allowed children to refuse to care for needy parents by declaring that the resources that could have helped them were dedicated to God. So “tradition” nullified God’s Word (v. 6).

The scribes and Pharisees know better than this. They stress the need to honor parents, especially aged parents. God’s Word and his character establish the first principles of ethics. But scribes and Pharisees have traded God’s truth for the helpful practices that traditions encode. The sensible tradition of dedicating wealth to God is illustrative. Over time, people begin to manipulate or exploit that tradition. Instead of supplementing God’s law, traditions begin to supplant it. Isaiah calls this hypocrisy, and Jesus agrees: “Well did Isaiah prophesy of you, . . . ‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me’” (vv. 7–8). Jesus declares that Isaiah prophesies of “you” because the scribes and Pharisees share Israel’s ignorance of God and his covenant (Isaiah 28–29). The Pharisees have good words but neither faith nor good deeds. Worse, they claim to worship God, yet they condemn God’s Son because he ignores their traditions.

The phrase “teaching as doctrines” in Matthew 15:9 uses repetition for emphasis. The Greek says they were “teaching as teachings [didaskontes didaskalias] the commandments of men.” In Paul’s letters, where almost all uses of didaskalia occur, “teachings” usually has the sense of an authoritative word (1 Tim. 4:6, 13–16). The point is this: the Pharisees think far too much of their teachings and not nearly enough of Jesus.

15:10–11 Rules about ceremonial washing before eating seem like arcane, irrelevant matters for theologians. But Jesus, as Israel’s shepherd, knows the people need instruction on food, purity, and impurity, so he summons them to “hear and understand” (v. 10). The Pharisees multiply regulations about purity and impurity, and it is right to ignore them. Nonetheless, it is still possible to defile oneself. Jesus notes, “It is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out of the mouth; this defiles a person” (v. 11). This had to be startling to Jesus’ first hearers, since Mosaic law says it is possible to be defiled by touching an unclean person or eating unclean food (Leviticus 11). But the principle is true: accidents of touching or eating do not make humans unclean. Slanderous speech (Matt. 15:19) defiles lips more than eating the wrong food does. Mark 7:19 says that by saying this, Jesus hereby “declared all foods clean.” Matthew does not explicitly state this conclusion here, but the church will slowly work through the issue (Acts 15; Romans 14; 1 Timothy 4).

15:12–20 The disciples, burdened with lingering respect for those they have considered holy teachers, inform Jesus, “The Pharisees were offended when they heard this saying” (v. 12). It is normally unwise to disrespect influential leaders, but Jesus judges it necessary. The disciples and the crowds must discern that these are unreliable teachers. Jesus compares them to bad plants and blind guides.

Jesus begins, “Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be rooted up.” The planting metaphor can be used positively or negatively in Scripture (Jer. 1:10; Eccles. 3:2). The Psalms open with the blessed man who is “like a tree planted by streams of water” because he delights in God’s law (Ps. 1:1–3; also Isa. 60:21). In contrast, God uproots bad plants (Deut. 29:28; Isa. 5:1–7; Jer. 11:15–17; 12:1–4), and Jesus places the Pharisees among them.

Second, these scribes and Pharisees are “blind guides.” Everyone knows the blind need guides. How absurd for one blind man to offer to guide another. Yet such are the Pharisees, the blind leading the blind, until both fall into a pit (Matt. 15:14).

By now, the disciples appear to be alone with Jesus. Peter, typically, asks Jesus to explain his metaphors (called “the parable” in a loose sense in v. 15). After chiding the disciples, “Are you also still without understanding?” he elaborates. His comment features repetition and an A-B-B-A structure. He says, first and last, that neither food nor unwashed hands defile anyone. Even if something unclean is ingested, it passes harmlessly from the body (vv. 17, 20). The middle section twice declares that what defiles is not what goes in but what comes out of a man. For “what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart” (v. 18). Again Jesus repeats himself: “from the heart” and “out of the heart” come “evil thoughts,” evil deeds, and evil words.

Like many sin or vice lists of the NT, verse 19 approximates the second table of the law. Jesus omits the fifth and tenth commandments (addressing honoring one’s parents and coveting), mentions murder and theft once, and doubles both sexual sins (“adultery, sexual immorality”) and sins of speech (“false witness, slander”). Every sin in verse 19 is plural, which suggests that sin manifests itself in diverse ways.

In naming both adultery and sexual immorality, Matthew parallels Paul by accenting sexual sin (Rom. 1:24–32; 1 Cor. 6:9–10; Gal. 5:19–21). Certainly, sexual sin was rampant in the Roman Empire. Jesus wisely prohibits the most grievous sin, adultery, then bans sexual immorality in general. Jesus also mentions false witness and slander; vice lists often emphasize sins of speech (Matt. 23:7–12, 16–22; Rom. 3:10–14; James 3:1–12; 1 Pet. 3:10).

Jesus assesses what defiles a person three times in Matthew 15:18–20. First, what comes out of the mouth defiles (v. 18); second, all of the sins listed in verse 19 defile; third, “to eat with unwashed hands does not defile” (v. 20). When Jesus says that evil thoughts, theft, and slander defile a person, he reverses the expected sequence, for when he says, “out of the heart come evil thoughts,” we anticipate that he will say that the defiled man has evil thoughts, but instead he says that evil thoughts defile a man.

Evil thoughts, words, and deeds defile in two ways. They manifest one’s lack of holiness and also deepen unrighteousness. When evil thoughts lead to slander, lies, blasphemy, and the verbalization of wicked plans, the progress in sin coarsens the person. And when wicked words erupt in wicked deeds, it coarsens the actor even more. Murder proceeds from a wicked heart, but the person who actually murders is more corrupt than one who merely entertains the thought. Sin has a stronger grip. Its groove goes deeper.253

Jesus closes with a direct contradiction of the teachers: “To eat with unwashed hands does not defile anyone” (v. 20). No one gains purity by keeping external regulations, and no one loses purity by disregarding them. What counts is the heart, the core of one’s being. The heart is the source of human affections, passions, drives—and sins. The heart produces evil thoughts, and evil deeds follow.

By saying this, Jesus flatly rejects the scribal claim to interpret the law rightly. He knows what the law teaches; they do not. He interprets the law, embodies the law, fulfills the law, remedies every breach of the law. Israel’s leaders see none of this because they do not trust him.