Writing Loopholes in God's Law

 Getting Back Big Bucks

Imagine it’s April 15th. That’s Tax Day here in the dear ol’ U.S. of A. But in this little scenario you’re feeling pretty good about yourself and the return you’re filing this year.

Why so cocky? Because of several large loopholes, you’re not just avoiding writing Uncle Sam a huge check, He’s sending you back some big bucks.

There’s just one little problem. You won’t find any of these loopholes anywhere in the tax code. It seems you wrote them yourself. You’re sure the IRS won’t have a problem with your creativity. And I’m sure they won’t mind sizing you up for one of those snappy orange jumpsuits either.

A Come-to-Jesus Meeting

What does that have to do with Mark’s story of Christ? So very glad you asked. It seems some religious power brokers had a literal come-to-Jesus meeting. The result? Our Savior shuts them up after they try to shut Him down (Mk 7:1-13).

When the curtain rises on chapter 7 of the second Gospel, we see Jewish officials rolling into Galilee from headquarters in Jerusalem. They’ve clearly got big problems with the Lord and His closest followers.

Flipping the Script

It seems the Twelve’s not obeying the rules found in the infamous Hebrew handbook. Earlier religious leaders wrote this manual and have handed it down for years. Break the rules at your own peril.

Let’s just say their little chat with the radical Rabbi/Carpenter from Nazareth doesn’t go as planned. He totally flips the script on these know-it-alls and calls them out on their own disobedience. It seems they’ve written their own loopholes into God’s Law and that’s not gonna fly.

Mark picks up the story as “some Pharisees and teachers of religious law arrived from Jerusalem to see Jesus” (v1). The home office of the Hebrews sends a team of their best to check out Jesus. It makes sense since His popularity has spiked.

Not the First Time

It’s not the first time they’ve investigated the radical Rabbi/Carpenter from Nazareth. There was the time they crashed Levi’s house party and freak out when when they see Jesus hanging out with the scum of society (Mk 2:15-17).

Later they blow a gasket when, in their not-so-humble opinion, Christ and His crew spend too much time fasting and not enough time feasting (Mk 3:18-22). Another time, their jaws hit the floor when they catch the Lord and the boys hitting a drive-thru on Saturday, breaking all sorts of Sabbath rules (Mk 3:23-28).

Forcing Jesus to Follow Your Rules

Ever hear about the time these religious nitpickers try to trap Jesus into breaking their man-made rules about church (Mk 3:1-6)? He becomes such a problem for them that they eventually figure He must be an agent of Satan (Mk 3:20-30).

There’s a really important lesson here for all of us. Don’t make the mistake of forcing Jesus to follow your rules. It won’t end well. We need to remember that it works the other way around. He graciously provides us with commands that unlock supernatural joy and abundant life that only God provides

Ceremony, Not Sanitation

So when they see our Savior stirring up trouble again in Galilee, the Pharisees and scribes reach into their bag of tricks and pull out an oldie but a goodie, a little something called ritual washing. “They noticed that some of His disciples failed to follow the Jewish ritual of hand washing before eating” (v2).

Maybe the first thing that came to mind when you read this passage is when your mom made sure you washed your hands before supper. Just so we’re clear, personal hygiene isn’t the issue. These rules are NOT about sanitation and ALL about ceremony.

A Convoluted Ceremony

Since Mark writes for mostly a non-Jewish audience of Roman readers, he has to explain the finer points of Hebrew religious tradition when it comes to the complicated sequence of ceremonial hand washing (v3-4). It’s way more convoluted that those signs we see in restaurant restrooms telling employees to use soap and warm water.

It goes a little something like this. The ceremony begins with pointing your fingers up while someone else pours water over your hands. Here’s where the NLT gets the picture of “cupped hands” (v3). If the water drips off at your wrist, you can proceed to the next step. If not, start over.

Make a Fist

Step two is turning your hands over and pointing your fingers down. Someone then pours more water over them a second time. And you thought the “lather, rinse, repeat” instructions on your bottle of shampoo was a little much.

Think you grab a towel and dry off at this point? Not so fast, my friend. Now you make a fist with one hand and begin rubbing the other hand to dry it off. And you do that all the way up to the elbow.

Then each hand was to be rubbed with the fist of the other hand. As you can imagine, this takes a while. And the crazy thing is that you’re expected to do this even if you don’t have any water by dry scrubbing and rubbing your hands to get ceremonially clean.

Turning on the Blue Lights

When the religious police don’t see Jesus and His followers following their rules, they turn on the blue lights. “Why don’t Your disciples follow our age-old tradition? They eat without first performing the hand-washing ceremony” (v5).

Did you catch that? “YOUR disciples….OUR age-old tradition” (emphasis added). Gulp. Do you realize just Whom you’re talking to? They’re going to learn in Galilean minute that trying bully the Son of God is a very bad idea.

Tradition with a Capital T

“Tradition” is an important word here in this passage. It’s the Greek noun παραδοσις/paradosis, which literally describes a handing down or handing over or something delivered. Here it means the passing down of something important from one generation to the next.

Back in first century Israel, tradition isn’t simply history or how things have usually been done for a while. This is Tradition with a capital T. We’re talking about all sorts of formal rules and regs collected and passed down.

Religious Hall Monitors

The bad part is that this so-called tradition actually took the place of God’s Word as the highest authority in Judaism. In Jesus’ day, it simply existed in oral form since the days of the Babylonian captivity. A couple of hundred years later, Jewish leaders wrote it down into what we know today as the Mishna.

In the process, the scribes and Pharisees end up adding hundreds of their own rules and regs to God’s commands. They believe their role was to be the religious hall monitors and make sure everybody toes the line.

Every. Single. Person.

Part of that tradition is ceremonial washing. Back on Mount Sinai, God gave Moses commands requiring that priests wash their hands before eating holy offerings (Ex 30:17-21; 40:12-15). Over the years, leaders expand those stipulations to cover anyone and everyone worshiping the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Not just priests. Every. Single. Person.

For those of you who grew up Catholic, you’re probably familiar with this idea of tradition. According to Catholic teaching, there are three legs on the doctrinal stool: the Bible, papal decree, and tradition. In other words, tradition carries the same weight as God’s Word. You’re going to see that Jesus says the exact opposite.

Posers

But there’s something else going on here too. Commentators believe these knuckleheads from Jerusalem have arrived with a simple plan: Convict this Troublemaker of breaking Moses’ law. They plan to use tradition to take Christ down.

It’s at this point that Jesus leads these Old Testament experts on a rather interesting Bible study. He begins by calling them out for, well, being posers. “You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you” (v6).

Wearing a Mask

Hypocrite is one of those words that even folks who’ve never been in a church throw around. It comes from a Greek word (Gr. ‘υποκριτης/hupokrites) that describes an actor or someone simply pretending to be somebody else.

It’s a compound word that literally means to interpret from underneath. Back in the Greco-Roman world, actors in the theater wore big masks in order to portray different characters. Kinda like they wear heavy makeup and prosthetics in movies and plays 

today.

The Oscar Goes to…

That’s how hypocrite came to mean an imposter pretending to be something they’re not. They’re a fake and a phony. They present themselves as one thing when in fact they’re really something else.

Jesus isn’t complimenting them on their acting ability. He’s not nominating them for an Oscar. Just the opposite. Our Savior sees right through them. He gets up in their grill and calls them counterfeits.

Take off the Mask

They’re not the only ones. We ALL need to take off our masks. You. Me. Us. Them. It’s time to stop the act. Get real. Be who you are. Don’t worry about what others think of you. Be you. The real you. You do know God can see the real you, right?

That’s why it’s important to find a group of folks who accept you just as you are but love you too much to let you stay that way. In other words, we all need friends who love us unconditionally, without our masks, just like Jesus does.

When Your Worship Is a Farce

Back in Mark’s Gospel, the Lord goes on to tell these religious leaders that God has mentioned them in the Bible. Most times that might be pretty sweet…except this time. This time He’s using them as the bad example. Gulp.

Christ quotes from a conversation His Father had with the prophet Isaiah (Is 29:13). “These people honor Me with their lips, but their hearts are far from Me. Their worship is a farce, for they teach man-made ideas as commands from God” (v6-7).

Religion or Relationship?

This is originally part of God’s warning to His people to turn their worship around. Despite the holy heads up, they didn’t listen. About 100 years after Isaiah sounds the alarm, God allows Babylon to bulldoze the nation of Judah and haul the people off as slaves. Can’t say they weren’t warned.

Now Jesus accuses the Pharisees and scribes of doing just the same. They’re all about rules but NOT a relationship. That’s the big difference between placing your faith in Christ and religion. Religion is all about what we have to do to reach God. Faith in Jesus is all about what He has already done.

The Ultimate Rule Follower

In other words, religious rule-following to reach God is like trying to high jump to Jupiter. Yeah, good luck with that. Our Savior does for us what we could never do for ourselves. He brings God to us here on earth in human form so that we can have a relationship with Him.

Jesus follows all the rules because we can’t. He dies the death for our disobedience we should have died. He rises to the new life we don’t deserve. We place our trust in what He’s done and His loving leadership for our lives.

A Big Steaming Pile

One of the greatest Pharisees of all time learned this lesson the hard way before placing his faith in the resurrected Jesus. The apostle formerly known as Saul worked his tail off to build up such an impressive religious resume that God had to accept him.

Despite piling up a LinkedIn profile that might make the Pope jealous, Paul realized it was all a big steaming pile compared to knowing Jesus (Phil 3:4-11). He says there’s nothing more awesome than a relationship with the risen Son of God.

A Biblical Buffet

These religious know-it-alls don’t know that yet. Instead Christ cuts to the chase. “For you ignore God’s law and substitute your own tradition” (v8). They’re rewriting the rules to suit their own agenda. They trim out this pesky little section over here. They add little something something over there.

Come on, admit it. You and I do the same. We carefully pick and choose what parts of God’s Word we want to obey. Kinda like some sort of biblical buffet. I take some of this. Ooo, I LOVE that! We pass right on by the stuff we don’t like they’re Brussel sprouts.

A Tradition of Insurrection

We need to realize this is a not-so-subtle form of revolt against the King of Kings. It’s saying that His commands aren’t good enough. We’ve got a better idea when it comes to running the universe.

So we weasel our way onto His throne and rewrite His rules. Bad idea. Trading our man-made ways for His perfect and holy law is an age old tradition. A tradition of insurrection and rebellion. And in case you didn’t know, we’re ALL rebels against God’s kingdom before Jesus came to our rescue (Rom 5:10).

If You Can Dodge a Wrench

Jesus gives the Pharisees and scribes a sweet backhanded compliment. “You skillfully sidestep God’s law in order to hold on to your own tradition” (v9). Boys, when it comes to avoiding the Father’s commands, you’ve got serious game! To paraphrase the great Patches O’Hoolihan, “If you can dodge a wrench, you can dodge a command.”

The Lord then gives them a specific example of their nimble disobedience (v10). He reminds them that God thinks honoring our parents is such a good idea that He put it in His Top Ten (Ex 20:12). Our Heavenly Dad goes so far as to say that talking smack about them is a capital crime (Ex 21:17). Apparently He skips right past time out.

A Hebrew Pre-Nup

But these religious legal experts evade these commands by writing their own loophole. Jesus says, “But you say it is right for people to say to their parents, ‘Sorry, I can’t help you. For I have vowed to give to God what I would have given you’” (v11).

This is something called “corban.” Think of it as a sort of Hebrew pre-nup. It’s a promise that ties up your fortune to support future work at the temple. Kinda like announcing that you’re leaving all of your inheritance to the church.

Shirking Their Responsibility

Giving a huge chunk of cash to further God’s kingdom might sound like a great idea. I mean, who wouldn’t like their name on that cool new Sunday school building? Maybe you could even get a plaque on your own special pew like some sort of religious PSL.

But the problem is that it’s really an excuse they use to shirk their responsibility to help their own families. By promising their portfolios to the temple, they believe their money was now untouchable for any other use…that includes helping mom and dad!

Caring for Aging Parents

Jesus pulls no punches with them. “In this way, you let them disregard their needy parents” (v12). Remember, there are no 

nursing homes, retirement communities, social security, or longterm care insurance in the First Century. It’s up to adult children to care for their aging parents.

So in order to get out of honoring their parents with financing support, the Pharisees and scribes have cooked up their own loophole in God’s law. Geez, Mom and Dad, I’d love to help you. I really would. There’s just one hitch. I promised it to God. Stinks to be you.

Not an Isolated Incident

Christ calls them on their con. “And so you cancel the word of God in order to hand down your own tradition. And this is only one example among many others” (v13). Somehow these religious leaders think they can cook up their own commands that make divine decrees null and void.

This isn’t some isolated incident either. These religious leaders have been working overtime to come up with all sorts of crazy 

laws to repeal God’s precepts. Just how god are His commands? King David wrote a song about them and it goes a little something like this.

“The instructions of the LORD are perfect, reviving the soul. The decrees of the LORD are trustworthy, making wise the simple. The commandments of the LORD are right, bringing joy to the heart. The commands of the LORD are clear, giving insight for living” (Ps 19:7-8). There’s more. Do I need to go on? I didn’t think so.

God Doesn’t Need an Editor

When it comes to God’s commands, He doesn’t need an editor. He’s not looking for a rewrite. So let's all put down the red pen.

The only thing He asks of us is our willing obedience. Don’t buy the lie that His law is a cosmic buzzkill. It’s the key that unlocks the flood of divine joy and abundant life.

God's Guardrails

Whether it’s you and me or the scribes and Pharisees, we’re making a big mistake when we rewrite God’s divine decrees. First of all, we might think we’re being clever and creating a loophole. Not so much.

Second, we’re missing out on the path to true joy through willing obedience. Our loving Dad in heaven wants nothing but His best for us. In many ways these commands are God’s guardrails to protect us from ourselves.

Third, if you think the feds are rough on tax cheats, that’s nothing compared to those who monkey with the law of God. It makes an IRS audit will look like a vacation at Sandals.