Things Which Defile.
“And He called to Him the multitude again, and said unto them,
Hear Me all of you, and understand: there is nothing from without
the man, that going into him can defile him: but the things which
proceed out of the man are those that defile the man. And when He
was entered into the house from the multitude, His disciples asked
of Him the parable. And He saith unto them, Are ye so without
understanding also? Perceive ye not, that whatsoever from without
goeth into the man, _it_ cannot defile him; because it goeth not
into his heart, but into his belly, and goeth out into the
draught? _This He said_, making all meats clean. And He said, That
which proceeded out of the man, that defileth the man. For from
within, out of the heart of men, evil thoughts proceed,
fornications, thefts, murders, adulteries, covetings,
wickednesses, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, railing, pride,
foolishness: all these evil things proceed from within, and defile
the man.”—MARK vii. 14-23 (R.V.).
When Jesus had exposed the hypocrisy of the Pharisees, He took a bold and
significant step. Calling the multitude to Him, He publicly announced that
no diet can really pollute the soul; only its own actions and desires can
do that: not that which entereth into the man can defile him, but the
things which proceed out of the man.
He does not as yet proclaim the abolition of the law, but He surely
declares that it is only temporary, because it is conventional, not rooted
in the eternal distinctions between right and wrong, but artificial. And
He shows that its time is short indeed, by charging the multitude to
understand how limited is its reach, how poor are its effects.
Such teaching, addressed with marked emphasis to the public, the masses,
whom the Pharisees despised as ignorant of the law, and cursed, was a
defiance indeed. And the natural consequence was an opposition so fierce
that He was driven to betake Himself, for the only time, and like Elijah
in his extremity, to a Gentile land. And yet there was abundant evidence
in the Old Testament itself that the precepts of the law were not the life
of souls. David ate the shewbread. The priests profaned the sabbath.
Isaiah spiritualized fasting. Zechariah foretold the consecration of the
Philistines. Whenever the spiritual energies of the ancient saints
received a fresh access, they were seen to strive against and shake off
some of the trammels of a literal and servile legalism. The doctrine of
Jesus explained and justified what already was felt by the foremost
spirits in Israel.
When they were alone, “the disciples asked of Him the parable,” that is,
in other words, the saying which they felt to be deeper than they
understood, and full of far-reaching issues. But Jesus rebuked them for
not understanding what uncleanness really meant. For Him, defilement was
badness, a condition of the soul. And therefore meats could not defile a
man, because they did not reach the heart, but only the bodily organs. In
so doing, as St. Mark plainly adds, He made all meats clean, and thus
pronounced the doom of Judaism, and the new dispensation of the Spirit. In
truth, St. Paul did little more than expand this memorable saying.
“Nothing that goeth into a man can defile him,” here is the germ of all
the decision about idol meats—“neither if ‘one’ eat is he the better,
neither if he eat not is he the worse.” “The things which proceed out of
the man are those which defile the man,” here is the germ of all the
demonstration that love fulfils the law; and that our true need is to be
renewed inwardly, so that we may bring forth fruit unto God.
But the true pollution of the man comes from within; and the life is
stained because the heart is impure. For from within, out of the heart of
men, evil thoughts proceed, like the uncharitable and bitter judgments of
His accusers—and thence come also the sensual indulgences which men
ascribe to the flesh, but which depraved imaginations excite, and love of
God and their neighbour would restrain—and thence are the sins of violence
which men excuse by pleading sudden provocation, whereas the spark led to
a conflagration only because the heart was a dry fuel—and thence, plainly
enough, come deceit and railing, pride and folly.
It is a hard saying, but our conscience acknowledges the truth of it. We
are not the toy of circumstances, but such as we have made ourselves; and
our lives would have been pure if the stream had flowed from a pure
fountain. However modern sentiment may rejoice in highly coloured pictures
of the noble profligate and his pure minded and elegant victim; of the
brigand or the border ruffian full of kindness, with a heart as gentle as
his hands are red; and however true we may feel it to be that the worst
heart may never have betrayed itself by the worst actions, but many that
are first shall be last, it still continues to be the fact, and undeniable
when we do not sophisticate our judgment, that “all these evil things
proceed from within.”
It is also true that they “further defile the man.” The corruption which
already existed in the heart is made worse by passing into action; shame
and fear are weakened; the will is confirmed in evil; a gap is opened or
widened between the man who commits a new sin, and the virtue on which he
has turned his back. Few, alas! are ignorant of the defiling power of a
bad action, or even of a sinful thought deliberately harboured, and the
harbouring of which is really an action, a decision of the will.
This word which makes all meats clean, ought for ever to decide the
question whether certain drinks are in the abstract unlawful for a
Christian.
We must remember that it leaves untouched the question, what restrictions
may be necessary for men who have depraved and debased their own
appetites, until innocent indulgence _does_ reach the heart and pervert
it. Hand and foot are innocent, but men there are who cannot enter into
life otherwise than halt or maimed. Also it leaves untouched the question,
as long as such men exist, how far may I be privileged to share and so to
lighten the burden imposed on them by past transgressions? It is surely a
noble sign of religious life in our day, that many thousands can say, as
the Apostle said, of innocent joys, “Have we not a right? ... Nevertheless
we did not use this right, but we bear all things, that we may cause no
hindrance to the gospel of Christ.”
Nevertheless the rule is absolute: “Whatsoever from without goeth into the
man, it cannot defile him.” And the Church of Christ is bound to maintain,
uncompromised and absolute, the liberty of Christian souls.
Let us not fail to contrast such teaching as this of Jesus with that of
our modern materialism.
“The value of meat and drink is perfectly transcendental,” says one. “Man
is what he eats,” says another. But it is enough to make us tremble, to
ask what will issue from such teaching if it ever grasps firmly the mind
of a single generation. What will become of honesty, when the value of
what may be had by theft is transcendental? How shall armies be persuaded
to suffer hardness, and populations to famish within beleaguered walls,
when they learn that “man is what he eats,” so that his very essence is
visibly enfeebled, his personality starved out, as he grows pale and
wasted underneath his country’s flag? In vain shall such a generation
strive to keep alive the flame of generous self-devotion. Self-devotion
seemed to their fathers to be the noblest attainment; to them it can be
only a worn-out form of speech to say that the soul can overcome the
flesh. For to them the man is the flesh; he is the resultant of his
nourishment; what enters into the mouth makes his character, for it makes
him all.
There is that within us all which knows better; which sets against the
aphorism, “Man is what he eats;” the text “As a man thinketh in his heart
so is he;” which will always spurn the doctrine of the brute, when it is
boldly confronted with the doctrine of the Crucified.
The Children And The Dogs.
“And from thence He arose, and went away into the borders of Tyre
and Sidon. And He entered into a house, and would have no man know
it: and He could not be hid. But straightway a woman, whose little
daughter had an unclean spirit, having heard of Him, came and fell
down at His feet. Now the woman was a Greek, a Syrophœnician by
race. And she besought Him that He would cast forth the devil out
of her daughter. And He said unto her, Let the children first be
filled: for it is not meet to take the children’s bread and cast
it to the dogs. But she answered and saith unto Him, Yea, Lord:
even the dogs under the table eat of the children’s crumbs. And He
said unto her, For this saying go thy way; the devil is gone out
of thy daughter. And she went away unto her house, and found the
child laid upon the bed, and the devil gone out.”—MARK vii. 24-30
(R.V.).
The ingratitude and perverseness of His countrymen have now driven Jesus
into retirement “on the borders” of heathenism. It it is not clear that He
has yet crossed the frontier, and some presumption to the contrary is
found in the statement that a woman, drawn by a fame which had long since
gone throughout all Syria, “came out of those borders” to reach Him. She
was not only “a Greek” (by language or by creed as conjecture may decide,
though very probably the word means little more than a Gentile), but even
of the especially accursed race of Canaan, the reprobate of reprobates.
And yet the prophet Zechariah had foreseen a time when the Philistine also
should be a remnant for our God, and as a chieftain in Judah, and when the
most stubborn race of all the Canaanites should be absorbed in Israel as
thoroughly as that which gave Araunah to the kindliest intercourse with
David, for Ekron should be as a Jebusite (ix. 7). But the hour for
breaking down the middle wall of partition was not yet fully come. Nor did
any friend plead for this unhappy woman, that she loved the nation and had
built a synagogue; nothing as yet lifted her above the dead level of that
paganism to which Christ, in the days of His flesh and upon earth, had no
commission. Even the great champion and apostle of the Gentiles confessed
that his Lord was a minister of the circumcision by the grace of God, and
it was by His ministry to the Jews that the Gentiles were ultimately to be
won. We need not be surprised therefore at His silence when she pleaded,
for this might well be calculated to elicit some expression of faith,
something to separate her from her fellows, and so enable Him to bless her
without breaking down prematurely all distinctions. Also it must be
considered that nothing could more offend His countrymen than to grant her
prayer, while as yet it was impossible to hope for any compensating
harvest among her fellows, such as had been reaped in Samaria. What is
surprising is the apparent harshness of expression which follows that
silence, when even His disciples are induced to intercede for her. But
theirs was only the softness which yields to clamour, as many people give
alms, not to silent worth but to loud and pertinacious importunity. And
they even presumed to throw their own discomfort into the scale, and urge
as a reason for this intercession, that she crieth after _us_. But Jesus
was occupied with His mission, and unwilling to go farther than He was
sent.
In her agony she pressed nearer still to Him when He refused, and
worshipped Him, no longer as the Son of David, since what was Hebrew in
His commission made against her; but simply appealed to His compassion,
calling Him Lord. The absence of these details from St. Mark’s narrative
is interesting, and shows the mistake of thinking that his Gospel is
simply the most graphic and the fullest. It is such when our Lord Himself
is in action; its information is derived from one who pondered and told
all things, not as they were pictorial in themselves, but as they
illustrated the one great figure of the Son of man. And so the answer of
Jesus is fully given, although it does not appear as if grace were poured
into His lips. “Let the children first be filled, for it is not meet to
take the children’s bread, and to cast it to the dogs.” It might seem that
sterner words could scarcely have been spoken, and that His kindness was
only for the Jews, who even in their ingratitude were to the best of the
Gentiles as children compared with dogs. Yet she does not contradict Him.
Neither does she argue back,—for the words “Truth, Lord, but ...” have
rightly disappeared from the Revised Version, and with them a certain
contentious aspect which they give to her reply. On the contrary she
assents, she accepts all the seeming severity of His view, because her
penetrating faith has detected its kindly undertone, and the triple
opportunity which it offers to a quick and confiding intelligence. It is
indeed touching to reflect how impregnable was Jesus in controversy with
the keenest intellects of Judaism, with how sharp a weapon He rent their
snares, and retorted their arguments to their confusion, and then to
observe Him inviting, tempting, preparing the way for an argument which
would lead Him, gladly won, captive to a heathen’s and a woman’s
importunate and trustful sagacity. It is the same Divine condescension
which gave to Jacob his new name of Israel because he had striven with God
and prevailed.
And let us reverently ponder the fact that this pagan mother of a
demoniacal child, this woman whose name has perished, is the only person
who won a dialectical victory in striving with the Wisdom of God; such a
victory as a father allows to his eager child, when he raises gentle
obstacles, and even assumes a transparent mask of harshness, but never
passes the limit of the trust and love which he is probing.
The first and most obvious opportunity which He gives to her is
nevertheless hard to show in English. He might have used an epithet
suitable for those fierce creatures which prowl through Eastern streets at
night without any master, living upon refuse, a peril even to men who are
unarmed. But Jesus used a diminutive word, not found elsewhere in the New
Testament, and quite unsuitable to those fierce beasts, a word “in which
the idea of uncleanness gives place to that of dependence, of belonging to
man and to the family.” No one applies our colloquial epithet “doggie” to
a fierce or rabid brute. Thus Jesus really domesticated the Gentile world.
And nobly, eagerly, yet very modestly she used this tacit concession, when
she repeated His carefully selected word, and inferred from it that her
place was not among those vile “dogs” which are “without,” but with the
domestic dogs, the little dogs underneath the table.
Again, she observed the promise which lurked under seeming refusal, when
He said, “Let the children first be filled,” and so implied that her turn
should come, that it was only a question of time. And so she answers that
such dogs as He would make of her and hers do not fast utterly until their
mealtime after the children have been satisfied; they wait under the
table, and some ungrudged fragments reach them there, some “crumbs.”
Moreover, and perhaps chiefly, the bread she craves need not be torn from
hungry children. Their Benefactor has had to wander off into concealment,
they have let fall, unheeding, not only crumbs, although her noble tact
expresses it thus lightly to their countryman, but far more than she
divined, even the very Bread of Life. Surely His own illustration has
admitted her right to profit by the heedlessness of “the children.” And He
_had_ admitted all this: He had meant to be thus overcome. One loves to
think of the first flush of hope in that trembling mother’s heavy heart,
as she discerned His intention and said within herself, “Oh, surely I am
not mistaken; He does not really refuse at all; He wills that I should
answer Him and prevail.” One supposes that she looked up, half afraid to
utter the great rejoinder, and took courage when she met His questioning
inviting gaze.
And then comes the glad response, no longer spoken coldly and without an
epithet: “O woman, great is thy faith.” He praises not her adroitness nor
her humility, but the faith which would not doubt, in that dark hour, that
light was behind the cloud; and so He sets no other limit to His reward
than the limit of her desires: “Be it unto thee even as thou wilt.”
Let us learn that no case is too desperate for prayer, and perseverance
will surely find at last that our Lord delighteth to be gracious. Let us
be certain that the brightest and most confiding view of all His dealings
is the truest, and man, if only he trusts aright, shall live by every word
that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.
Thus did Jesus declare, in action as in word, the fading out of all
distinction between the ceremonially clean and unclean. He crossed the
limits of the Holy Land: He found great faith in a daughter of the
accursed race; and He ratified and acted upon her claim that the bread
which fell neglected from the table of the Jew was not forbidden to the
hunger of the Gentile. The history of the Acts of the Apostles is already
here in spirit.
The Deaf And Dumb Man.
“And again He went out from the borders of Tyre, and came through
Sidon unto the sea of Galilee, through the midst of the borders of
Decapolis. And they bring unto Him one that was deaf, and had an
impediment in his speech; and they beseech Him to lay His hand
upon him. And He took him aside from the multitude privately, and
put His fingers into his ears, and He spat, and touched His
tongue; and looking up to heaven, He sighed, and saith unto him,
Ephphatha, that is, Be opened. And his ears were opened, and the
bond of his tongue was loosed, and he spake plain. And He charged
them that they should tell no man: but the more He charged them,
so much the more a great deal they published it. And they were
beyond measure astonished, saying, He hath done all things well:
He maketh even the deaf to hear, and the dumb to speak.”—MARK vii.
31-37 (R.V.).
There are curious and significant varieties in the methods by which our
Saviour healed. We have seen Him, when watched on the sabbath by eager and
expectant foes, baffling all their malice by a miracle without a deed, by
refusing to cross the line of the most rigid and ceremonial orthodoxy, by
only commanding an innocent gesture, Stretch forth thine hand. In sharp
contrast with such a miracle is the one which we have now reached. There
is brought to Him a man who is deaf, and whose speech therefore could not
have been more than a babble, since it is by hearing that we learn to
articulate; but of whom we are plainly told that he suffered from organic
inability to utter as well as to hear, for he had an impediment in his
speech, the string of his tongue needed to be loosed, and Jesus touched
his tongue as well as his ears, to heal him.
It should be observed that no unbelieving theory can explain the change in
our Lord’s method. Some pretend that all the stories of His miracles grew
up afterward, from the sense of awe with which He was regarded. How does
that agree with effort, sighing, and even gradation in the stages of
recovery, following after the most easy, astonishing and instantaneous
cures? Others believe that the enthusiasm of His teaching and the charm of
His presence conveyed healing efficacy to the impressible and the nervous.
How does this account for the fact that His earliest miracles were the
prompt and effortless ones, and as time passes on, He secludes the patient
and uses agencies, as if the resistance to His power were more
appreciable? Enthusiasm would gather force with every new success.
All becomes clear when we accept the Christian doctrine. Jesus came in the
fulness of the love of God, with both hands filled with gifts. On His part
there is no hesitation and no limit. But on the part of man there is
doubt, misconception, and at last open hostility. A real chasm is opened
between man and the grace He gives, so that, although not straitened in
Him, they are straitened in their own affections. Even while they believe
in Him as a healer, they no longer accept Him as their Lord.
And Jesus makes it plain to them that the gift is no longer so easy,
spontaneous and of public right as formerly. In His own country He could
not do many mighty works. And now, returning by indirect routes, and
privately, from the heathen shores whither Jewish enmity had driven Him,
He will make the multitude feel a kind of exclusion, taking the patient
from among them, as He does again presently in Bethsaida (chap. viii. 23).
There is also, in the deliberate act of seclusion and in the means
employed, a stimulus for the faith of the sufferer, which would scarcely
have been needed a little while before.
The people were unconscious of any reason why this cure should differ from
former ones. And so they besought Jesus to lay His hand on him, the usual
and natural expression for a conveyance of invisible power. But even if no
other objection had existed, this action would have meant little to the
deaf and dumb man, living in a silent world, and needing to have his faith
aroused by some yet plainer sign. Jesus therefore removes him from the
crowd whose curiosity would distract his attention—even as by affliction
and pain He still isolates each of us at times from the world, shutting us
up with God.
He speaks the only language intelligible to such a man, the language of
signs, putting His fingers into his ears as if to break a seal, conveying
the moisture of His own lip to the silent tongue, as if to impart its
faculty, and then, at what should have been the exultant moment of
conscious and triumphant power, He sighed deeply.
What an unexpected revelation of the man rather than the wonder worker.
How unlike anything that theological myth or heroic legend would have
invented. Perhaps, as Keble sings, He thought of those moral defects for
which, in a responsible universe, no miracle may be wrought, of “the deaf
heart, the dumb by choice.” Perhaps, according to Stier’s ingenious guess,
He sighed because, in our sinful world, the gift of hearing is so doubtful
a blessing, and the faculty of speech so apt to be perverted. One can
almost imagine that no human endowment is ever given by Him Who knows all,
without a touch of sadness. But it is more natural to suppose that He Who
is touched with the feeling of our infirmities, and Who bare our sickness,
thought upon the countless miseries of which this was but a specimen, and
sighed for the perverseness by which the fulness of His compassion was
being restrained. We are reminded by that sigh, however we explain it,
that the only triumphs which made Him rejoice in Spirit were very
different from displays of His physical ascendancy.
It is interesting to observe that St. Mark, informed by the most ardent
and impressible of the apostles, by him who reverted, long afterwards, to
the voice which he heard in the holy mount, has recorded several of the
Aramaic words which Jesus uttered at memorable junctures. “Ephphatha, Be
opened,” He said, and the bond of his tongue was loosed, and his speech,
hitherto incoherent, became plain. But the Gospel which tells us the first
word he heard is silent about what he said. Only we read, and this is
suggestive enough, that the command was at once given to him, as well as
to the bystanders, to keep silent. Not copious speech, but wise restraint,
is what the tongue needs most to learn. To him, as to so many whom Christ
had healed, the injunction came, not to preach without a commission, not
to suppose that great blessings require loud announcement, or unfit men
for lowly and quiet places. Legend would surely have endowed with special
eloquence the lips which Jesus unsealed. He charged them that they should
tell no man.
It was a double miracle, and the latent unbelief became clear of the very
men who had hoped for some measure of blessing. For they were beyond
measure astonished, saying He doeth all things well, celebrating the power
which restored the hearing and the speech together. Do we blame their
previous incredulity? Perhaps we also expect some blessing from our Lord,
yet fail to bring Him all we have and all we are for blessing. Perhaps we
should be astonished beyond measure if we received at the hands of Jesus a
sanctification that extended to all our powers.