And he said to them, “You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to establish your tradition!
Religious leaders from Jerusalem had just challenged Jesus about His disciples eating with unwashed hands. He answered by naming what they were doing: setting God's command aside with skill, to keep a rule of their own.
Four Names for One Sin
Matthew and Mark together give four descriptions of what these men did with God's command. One writer traces them as steps that get worse, not four ways of saying the same thing:
The Bible TreasuryThese four terms about this one sin seem to show a rising scale of error. At the starting point, the commandment is (1) left on one side or ignored. Then it is (2) rejected and its claims refused. Next it is (3) crossed and violated. Lastly it is (4) made ineffective and void, as a human rule takes its place.
Verse 9 sits at stage two. In verse 8 they let the command slip. Here they refuse it.
What "Reject" Means
The word behind "rejecting" means more than breaking a rule. It means treating something as having no claim on you:
The Bible TreasuryFurther, these boastful zealots had rejected the commandment of God. In the original, the verb seems to mean slighting or disregarding the claims the law had on them. They acted as if those claims were not worth noticing (compare Hebrews 10:28, Greek). The Lord used the same word when He spoke to the seventy He sent out to preach: "The one who hears you hears me, and the one who rejects you rejects me, and the one who rejects me rejects him who sent me" (Luke 10:16).
The Order of the Fall
One writer sets out the order behind the charge:
William KellyThere is the process: give up what is of God, and then you will fall into the hands of man. It is not a comparison of things as to whether this is better than that. The evil is laying aside the commandment of God, and preferring man's tradition to it. The only thing that has a claim upon the Christian heart is what comes from God.
Corban: The Test Case
Jesus does not leave the charge as a bare claim. He picks one accepted custom and shows where it led. The command it pushed aside was the one about caring for father and mother.
Hamilton SmithThe word of God gives plain directions for children to honour their parents. But they had a tradition by which they could claim to set aside their property for the use of God. They said "It is Corban," meaning a gift devoted to God, so it could not go to help a needy parent. So, by their tradition, they set aside the word of God. They avoided their duty to needy relatives and served their own greed.
What made the arrangement work was how it looked from the outside:
F. B. HoleMany a Jew used "Corban" as a cover, and so dropped all his rightful duties towards his poor old parents. And he did it with an air of holiness, for did it not seem more pious to devote things to God rather than to one's parents?
The Whole Word at Stake
Rejecting one command might look like a limited failure. One writer says the damage goes further, because a rival authority takes over:
J. N. DarbyThey did not only set aside one commandment so that they might keep their tradition. By doing this they also made null and rejected the authority of the whole word of God. If I break one, I am guilty of all; but in setting up another authority, I displace and make void and null the whole word of God, which claims all authority. If another can direct, I am not sole master, and the man is not my servant. This not only misleads the servant; it sets the master aside.
Whose Word Binds the Conscience
This verse does not make teaching or help from others wrong. It marks where authority stops:
William KellyTo hear men of God, to get help from servants of God, to value an explanation of the truth — all this is good. But it is very different from an authoritative rule or creed that men impose as binding on the conscience. It is never right to accept in that way what comes from man. God alone and His word bind the conscience. His servants may teach, but if they teach rightly, it is the truth of God.
Summary
- Drift first. They let the command slip before they refuse it. Verse 8 comes before verse 9, and both come before tradition makes God's word void.
- Refusal next. "Reject" means treating God's claim as unworthy of notice. Jesus used the same word for those who reject His messengers and Himself.
- Swap follows. Give up what is from God, and you fall into the hands of man. The evil is not that tradition is worse; it is that they dropped God's word.
- Cost shows. Corban let a man look devoted while his parents went without. The rule served greed and wore an air of holiness.
- Cure holds. Teaching may help the conscience, but only God's word may bind it. One added rule sets up a rival master and unseats the whole.