John Calvin Commentary Matthew 15:3

"And he answered and said unto them, Why do ye also transgress the commandment of God because of your tradition?" — Matthew 15:3 (ASV)

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.

⁴⁰⁰ “Comprend tous devoirs d’obeissance, secours, et soulagement;” — “includes every duty of obedience, assistance, and relief.”;” — “includes every duty of obedience, assistance, and relief.”