John Calvin Commentary Matthew 15

Then scribes and Pharisees. As the fault corrected here is not only common but highly dangerous, this passage is particularly worthy of our attention. We see the extraordinary insolence displayed by people regarding the form and manner of worshipping God, for they are perpetually contriving new modes of worship. When anyone wishes to be thought wiser than others, they display their ingenuity on this subject.

I speak not of foreigners, but of the very members of the Church, on whom God has conferred the special honor of declaring with their lips the rule of godliness. God has established the manner in which he wishes us to worship him and has included in his law the perfection of holiness.

Yet a vast number of people, as if it were a light and trivial matter to obey God and to keep what he commands, gather for themselves, from every side, many additions. Those who occupy places of authority bring forward their inventions for this purpose, as if they possessed something more perfect than the word of the Lord.

This is followed by the slow growth of tyranny. For when people have once assumed for themselves the right to issue commands, they demand a rigid adherence to their laws and do not allow the smallest iota to be left out, either through contempt or through forgetfulness.

The world cannot endure lawful authority and most violently rebels against enduring the Lord’s yoke, yet it easily and willingly becomes entangled in the snares of vain traditions. Indeed, for many, such bondage appears to be an object of desire.

Meanwhile, the worship of God is corrupted, of which the first and leading principle is obedience. Human authority is preferred to the command of God. The common people are sternly, and therefore tyrannically, compelled to give their whole attention to trifles.

This passage teaches us:

1. First, that all modes of worship invented by men are displeasing to God, because he chooses that he alone shall be heard, to train and instruct us in true godliness according to his own pleasure.

2. Secondly, that those who are not satisfied with the only law of God, and weary themselves by attending to the traditions of men, are uselessly employed.

3. Thirdly, that an outrage is committed against God when the inventions of men are so highly extolled that the majesty of his law is almost lowered, or at least the reverence for it is abated.

Scribes who had come from Jerusalem. The purpose for which those scribes came to Jesus is not stated. However, I think it probable that their attention was aroused by his fame, and that they came with the desire of receiving instruction, provided that they would approve of him as a competent teacher.³⁹¹ It is also possible that they were sent to spy.

However that may be, since they had brought their haughty disdain with them, they were easily provoked by the slightest offense to bite or snarl at Christ. Therefore, we see with what difficulty those who are influenced by ambition and the lust of power are brought to submit to sound doctrine.

Those especially whose attachment to ceremonies has been strengthened by long practice cannot endure any novelty, but loudly condemn everything to which they have not been accustomed. In short, anything more haughty or more disdainful than this class of people cannot be imagined.

Both Evangelists mention that they were scribes and Pharisees; but Matthew puts the scribes first, and Mark puts them second. They convey the same meaning: that the scribes belonged to various sects, but that the Pharisees were the leaders because they occupied an honorable position and at that time held authority.

It should not be surprising that the Pharisees were the first to take offense at the disregard of the laws of which they were authors. For, as we have said, though they boasted that they were expounders of the law (and indeed their name was derived from that circumstance),³⁹² they had corrupted the purity of the word of God by their inventions.

All the traditions that then existed among the Jews had come out of their workshop,³⁹³ and this was the reason they displayed more than ordinary zeal and bitterness in defending them.

Why do thy disciples transgress? When we speak of human traditions, this question has no reference to political laws, the use and object of which are widely different from enjoining the manner in which we ought to worship God. But as there are various kinds of human traditions, we must make some distinction among them. Some are clearly wicked, for they instill acts of worship which are wicked and diametrically opposed to the word of God. Others of them mix profane trifles with the worship of God, and corrupt its purity. Others, which are more plausible, and are not chargeable with any remarkable fault, are condemned on this ground: that they are imagined to be necessary to the worship of God; and thus there is a departure from sincere obedience to God alone, and a snare is laid for the conscience.

To this last description the present passage unquestionably relates. The washing of hands, on which the Pharisees insisted, could not in itself be charged with wicked superstition; otherwise, Christ would not have permitted the water-pots to be used at the marriage (John 2:6), if it had not been an allowable ceremony. The fault, however, lay in this: they did not think that God could be properly worshipped in any other way.

It was not without a specious pretext that the practice of washings was first introduced. We know how rigidly the Law of God demands outward cleanness—not that the Lord intended that this should occupy the whole attention of his servants, but that they might be more careful to guard against every spiritual defilement. Yet, in washings the Law preserved some moderation. Next came teachers who thought that they would not be considered sufficiently acute if they did not make some addition to the word of God;³⁹⁴ and thus arose washings of which no mention was made in the Law. The legislators themselves did not claim that they delivered anything new,³⁹⁵ but only that they administered cautions, which would assist in keeping the Law of God.

But this was immediately followed by great abuse, when ceremonies introduced by men began to be regarded as a part of divine worship, and again, when in matters that were free and voluntary, uniformity was strictly required. For it was always the will of God, as we have already said, that he should be worshipped according to the rule laid down in his word, and therefore no addition to his Law can be endured. Now, as he permits believers to have outward ceremonies by means of which they may perform practices of godliness, so he does not allow them to mix up those ceremonies with his own word, as if religion consisted in them.³⁹⁶

For they wash not their hands. The ground of offense is explained more fully by Mark, but the substance of his explanation is that many things were practiced by the scribes which they had voluntarily undertaken to keep. These were secondary laws invented by the curiosity of men, as if the plain command of God were not enough. God commanded that those who had contracted any defilement should wash themselves (Leviticus 11:25, 28), and this extended to cups, pots, clothing, and other articles of household furniture (Leviticus 11:32), so that they might not touch anything polluted or unclean. But to invent other ablutions was idle and useless.³⁹⁷ They were not lacking plausibility, as Paul tells us that the inventions of men have an appearance of wisdom (Colossians 2:23); however, if they had rested in the Law of God alone, that modesty would have been more agreeable to Him than concern about small matters.

They desired to warn a person not to take food while he was unclean through thoughtlessness; but the Lord considered it enough to wash away those defilements of which they were aware. Besides, no end or limit could be set to such cautions, for they could scarcely move a finger without contracting some new spot or stain.

A far worse abuse, however, lay in this: the consciences of men were tormented with scruples which led them to regard every person as guilty of pollution who did not on every occasion wash his body with water. In private individuals, they would perhaps have overlooked the neglect of this ceremony. But as they had expected from Christ and his disciples something uncommon and extraordinary, they considered it improper that ceremonies, which were traditions of the elders and the practice of which was held sacred by the scribes, should not be observed by the disciples of a master who undertook to reform the existing state of things.

It is a great mistake to compare the sprinkling of the water of purification, or, as the Papists call it, blessed water, with the Jewish washing; for, by repeating the one baptism so frequently,³⁹⁸ Papists do all that is in their power to efface it. Besides, this absurd sprinkling is used for exorcising.³⁹⁹ But if it were permissible in itself, and were not accompanied by so many abuses, still we must always condemn the urgency with which they demand it as if it were indispensable.

Why do you also transgress? There are two answers given here by Christ: the first is addressed, so to speak, to the person, while the latter decides the fact and the question at hand. Mark inverts that order, for he first represents Christ as speaking on the whole subject and afterward adds the reproof directed against hypocrites. We will follow Matthew's narrative. When the Lord, in turn, asks the scribes why they break God's Law on account of their traditions, He does not yet pronounce a direct acquittal of His disciples from the crime charged against them, but only points out how improper and unjustifiable this eagerness to take offense is. They are displeased when the commandments of men are not observed with exactness; and how much more blameworthy is it to spend all their time observing them, while disregarding God's law? It is clear, therefore, that their anger is ignited more by ambition than by genuine zeal when they thus place men above God.

When He says that they transgress the commandments of God, the meaning of the expression is easily understood from the context. They did not openly or explicitly set aside God's law, so as to consider anything lawful that the law had forbidden; but there was an indirect transgression of it, because they allowed duties that God had commanded to be neglected without consequence. Christ provides a plain and familiar example. The commandment of God is that children shall honor their parents (Exodus 20:12). Now, as the sacred offerings provided income for the priests, their observance was so rigidly enforced that people were taught to regard it as a more heinous sin not to make a free-will offering than to defraud a parent of what was justly owed to him. In short, what God's Law declared to be voluntary was, in the scribes' estimation, of higher value than one of God's most important commandments. Whenever we are so eager to keep human laws that we give less care and attention to keeping God's law itself, we are considered to be transgressing it. Shortly afterward, He says that they had annulled the commandment of God on account of human traditions; for the scribes led the people to develop such a strong attachment to their own injunctions that they did not allow them time to pay attention to God's word. Again, as they considered those persons to have discharged their duty well who obeyed these injunctions to the letter, from this arose a license to sin; for whenever holiness is made to consist in anything other than observing God's Law, people are led to believe that the law may be violated without danger.

Let anyone now consider whether this wickedness does not at present abound more among the Papists than it formerly did among the Jews. Indeed, it is not denied by the Pope, or by all of his filthy clergy, that we ought to obey God; but when we come to the point, we find that they consider the act of eating a morsel of meat as nothing less than a capital crime, while theft or fornication is regarded as a venial fault, and thus, because of their traditions, they overturn God's Law. For it is utterly intolerable that human enactments should divert any part of that obedience which is due to God alone. Besides, the honor that God commands to be given to parents extends to all the duties of filial piety.⁴⁰⁰ The latter clause that Christ adds, that he who curses father or mother deserves to be put to death, is intended to inform us that it is no light or unimportant commandment to honor parents, since its violation is so severely punished. And this is a significant aggravation of the guilt of the scribes, that such a severe threat does not deter them from granting an extension of liberty to those who despised their parents.

But you say, etc. The mode of expression is defective, and is more fully exhibited by Mark, who adds, you suffer them not to do anything more to their father or to their mother. The meaning is that the scribes were altogether wrong in acquitting those persons who fail to perform their duties to their parents, provided that this deficiency be supplied, on their part, by a voluntary sacrifice, which might have been omitted without offending God. For we must not understand Christ’s words to mean that the scribes had forbidden men to render all proper obedience; ⁴⁰¹ but they were so eager to pursue their own gain, that children were allowed, in the meantime, to neglect their duties to their parents.