Charles Ellicott Commentary Matthew 15:13

"But he answered and said, Every plant which my heavenly Father planted not, shall be rooted up." — Matthew 15:13 (ASV)

Every plant which my heavenly Father has not planted — The disciples could hardly fail to connect these words with the parable they had heard so recently. The system and the men they had been taught to regard as preeminently religious were, after all, in their Master’s judgment, like the tares and not the wheat (Matthew 13:37–38). Insofar as they were a sect or party, His Father had not planted them. They, too, were left to grow until the harvest, according to the teaching of that parable, but their end was certain—they would be rooted out.

The words proclaiming their doom were, however, intentionally general in their form. In that divine judgment which works through the world’s history, foreshadowing the outcomes of the last great day, that doom is written on every system, party, or sect that originates in human zeal, narrowness, or self-will. It has not been planted by the Father, and therefore it is doomed to perish.