Mark 7

Chapter 7. Side Issues and EssentialsNo one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment. If he does, the new piece will pull away from the old, making the tear worse. And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the wine will burst the skins, and both the wine and the wineskins will be ruined. No, he pours new wine into new wineskins. (Mark 2:21-22)This striking double figure, drawn by Christ from the simple customs of everyday life in the East, suggests a world of wisdom in connection with the Master’s work and ours. The Lord was introducing new principles and teachings into old and outworn forms and systems. He was dealing with men that had long grown into conventional ideas and methods of religious work and worship until they had lost the vital principle in the shell of form and ceremony, and to them religion consisted mainly in traditional observances and ceremonial acts. They were clinging to the old husk of Judaism and wholly losing the living kernel of spiritual truth and life which it had enclosed. Christ came to plant this vital seed and develop a new and nobler life which would throw off the old husk and blossom into a harvest of glory and blessing. With the keenest jealousy for all their cherished traditions and conventions they looked with suspicion and anger on what they deemed a daring and dangerous innovation and a new theology. This conflict, therefore, was bound to come; it had now reached its first acute and critical stage, bringing out on their part a storm of criticism and hostility, and on His part a series of bold, profound and far-reaching principles, covering the whole question of what is essential in Christianity and what constitutes a lot of side issues. The Question of Fasting The first of these questions which they raised relates to the place of fasting in the Christian system. It would seem as if they had in mind the last incident to which our attention has been called in this Gospel, the feast that followed the calling of Levi, and the presence of the Master at that social gathering of publicans and sinners. It had evidently struck them not only as bad form on His part, as a Jewish rabbi, to mingle so freely with disreputable characters, but particularly out of place that He should be present at such a function. They were as much shocked as if one of us ministers should be found at a theater some evening. This was the more emphatic because it would seem that the disciples of John were at the same time observing a special fast on account of their master’s having just been cast into prison by Herod. It was as if these saintly people had said, “Did you ever hear anything like this? Here are John’s poor disciples and we religious Pharisees fasting. And there is this new rabbi feasting with a lot of disreputable people.” Of course it all seemed very shocking, and they no doubt thought they were honest in their indignant criticism. The Master replies by taking up the question of fasting, so far as His disciples are concerned, and answering it by one of those profound and far-reaching illustrations which seem to ignore the point at issue and yet illuminate the whole subject in its remotest bearings. He does not condemn fasting or even discountenance it in its true place. He even takes it for granted that there are times when His followers should fast, and He seems to imply that it was most natural and seemly that John’s disciples should fast when their master was gone, even as His disciples should fast when the Bridegroom should be taken away. The reference here appears to be to the dark and sorrowful days immediately following the crucifixion when the disciples mourned and wept for their absent Lord. But what the Lord does discountenance is fasting for fasting’s sake. Their boast was, like the Pharisees, “I fast twice a week” (Luke 18:12). It was done like a meritorious duty, as an enforced infliction of suffering, that was expected to give the Lord special pleasure, and add to their accumulated credit in the books of heaven. All this God had already frequently reproved by the ancient prophets. Any good work loses its value when it is done for effect. And the idea that we can make God happy by being miserable is repugnant at once to Christianity and common sense. It is the old spirit of asceticism of which the apostle says, “Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-imposed worship, their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body, but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence” (Colossians 2:23). Some people still always seem to be sailing in what navigators call the doldrums and seem to consider it the highest achievement of sainthood to enjoy bad health and have a miserable time. All this the Lord Jesus repudiates as foreign to the true spirit of the gospel. By a very striking and really scriptural figure, He lights up the whole question as He asks, “How can the guests of the bridegroom fast while he is with them?” (Mark 2:19). This metaphor recalls the beautiful message of Hosea to God’s ancient people, where Jehovah represents Himself as the Bridegroom of His people, and declares, “I will betroth you to me forever” (Hosea 2:19). By the use of this figure, Christ really identifies Himself with the Jehovah of ancient prophecy. Indeed, John the Baptist had already identified Him in his striking proclamation, “The friend who attends the bridegroom waits and listens for him, and is full of joy when he hears the bridegroom’s voice” (John 3:29). The Lord Jesus thus assumes what the ancient prophet and forerunner had predicted of Him, and takes the place of the Bridegroom of His people. If you were invited to a wedding, you would not put on mourning, especially if you yourself were the bride. And so away with the idea that the depth of piety is to be measured by the length of our countenance. “Let the people of Zion be glad in their King” (Psalms 149:2). Christian life should be a happy honeymoon. Even here we have the place of the betrothed bride and we are looking and hastening unto the marriage of the Lamb. There are times when the burden of the Lord will rest upon us and the Spirit will make intercession within us with groanings which cannot be uttered, but even then we should be able to say with Paul, “Now I rejoice in what was suffered for you, and I fill up in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, which is the church” (Colossians 1:24). And there are times when the brimming cup of bitter sorrow will be pressed to our burning lips, even by the Father’s hand. But that is the time when most of all we need to “Rejoice in the Lord” (Philippians 4:4), and even to “also rejoice in our sufferings” (Romans 5:3). The sanctimonious severity of Pharisaism has been crystallized too much into modern conventional religion. The grim story is told of a happy black sister who was struck with a flash of heavenly lightning in a very conservative and proper, fashionable church. Without ceremony and without the consent of the authorities, she began shouting and praising the Lord. The solemn sexton hastened to her side and ordered her to hush and keep quiet. “Oh,” she said, “I’ve got religion. I’ve got religion.” Raising his finger and looking sternly at her, he replied in a solemn voice, “Hush, woman, this is no place for religion. This is a church.” The Old and the New The Lord follows His special message on fasting by the two striking figures of our text, which not only apply to the subject of fasting, but to the whole range of Christian life as it relates on the one side to outward form and law, and on the other, to the deeper principles of spontaneous life and love. The figures themselves are particularly fine. The new cloth sewed on the old garment literally means undressed cloth, cloth not yet fulled, as the draper would call it. Should such a piece of undressed cloth be sewn upon an old garment, the action of the heat, the dampness and the hard usage of the wearer would cause it to shrink and tear the old cloth to which it was attached and make a worse tear than before. In like manner the bottles used in the Orient were made of skin, not glass. And these skins when new were elastic and susceptible of stretching with the fermentation of the wine and expansion of its volume. The wineskin grew as the wine swelled and there was no rupture. But new wine put into old skins would have no allowance for stretching, and the result would be the rending of the wineskins and the loss of both wineskin and wine. And so the Lord teaches that it is impracticable to try to combine things that are not essentially adjustable to each other. The result will be failure and disaster. This principle is of very wide and varied application. Primarily no doubt He had reference to the old ceremonial system of Moses which could not be carried intact into Christianity, but must yield its nonessential points to the larger life and liberty of the gospel. The story of this transition is told us in the Acts of the Apostles, and we see there how the conservative party tried to cling to the old for its own sake, and how God gradually adjusted the church to her new conditions and the simplicity and freedom of the life of the Spirit, and the love and liberty of the gospel. The same struggle still goes on when people try to hold on to old forms, habits and methods of worship and work which are not in themselves essential. I remember terrific struggles in my early experience as a minister in the church to which I belonged, on the grave question of using an organ or simply praising God with the human voice, the question of using the Psalms of David in the old harsh version of Rousse or daring to introduce modern hymns and tunes, of the frequency and order of observing the Lord’s Supper, and many other things that are simply nonessentials. There is no sacredness in antiquity. There is not always wisdom in old age. Nature adjusts herself with perpetual rejuvenation to the ever-changing seasons. Of all this the apostle well says, “These things are all destined to perish with use, because they are based on human commands and teachings” (Colossians 2:22), “the reality, however, is found in Christ” (Colossians 2:17). Our text might be applied also to the uselessness of trying to get people to produce the fruits of the Spirit while they still are in the flesh and have un-regenerate hearts. One is reminded of a Polynesian grave with a coconut tree growing above it and constantly covered with fruit tied on with strings for the supply of the wants of the departed friend in the other world. A good many Christian lives are like this tree. Their fruit is all tied on with strings, and there is a dead man at the root. How wisely and truly the Master used to reiterate, “Make a tree good and its fruit will be good, or make a tree bad and its fruit will be bad, for a tree is recognized by its fruit” (Matthew 12:33). Mere discipline, legislation and example will not make things right. God’s remedy is a new garment, a new bottle, a new heart, a divine transformation, a life that springs spontaneous from within and, like the lilies, grows without trying. This text also touches a very practical question which is always coming up among Christian workers and in our modern church life. How shall we regulate the social amusements of our Christian people? Is it possible to do this by arbitrary rules and church discipline? Or, in other words, by the works of the law? Experience has not proved it so. The better way is that adopted by a Christian minister who announced a special sermon on “Religious Amusements.” He did not mention dancing, card-playing or theater-going, but simply expounded three principles which should govern the conduct of every follower of the Lord Jesus Christ. First, will this glorify Christ? And can I take Him with me to this place and in this pleasure? “Whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God” (1 Corinthians 10:31). “Apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5). Second, is this expedient? Whether right or wrong for me, is it going to do harm to somebody else, and encourage a weak brother or sister to do at his risk what I can do with perfect safety? “All food is clean, but it is wrong for a man to eat anything that causes someone else to stumble” (Romans 14:20). “Make up your mind not to put any stumbling block or obstacle in your brother’s way” (Romans 14:13). “It is better not to eat meat or drink wine or to do anything else that will cause your brother to fall” (Romans 14:21). Third, am I under the power of this thing? Is it becoming a controlling habit and necessity in my life? Is it mastering my freedom and my conscience? “‘Everything is permissible for me’—but I will not be mastered by anything” (1 Corinthians 6:12). After the address referred to, a good many of the young people of the church decided without any pressure that in the light of these three principles, or at least of one or the other of them, they were no longer at liberty to go to the theater, to attend the races, to play cards, to dance and to indulge in promiscuous worldly amusements. It was the operation of a principle rather than the application of a rule. The Sabbath Question This was destined to become one of the most burning questions of all the Master’s ministry. Of course the passing of Judaism and the gradual introduction of the Christian Sabbath has greatly lessened the acuteness of this issue in our day, but it is not without its bearings still in our practical work as ministers and teachers. At the very outset our text suggests an explicit answer to an increasing school of Sabbatarians who are trying in the present day to impose the Sabbath law of the ancient Hebrews upon the Church of Christ, and are teaching many honest but mistaken followers that we are disobedient to God when we fail to observe the seventh day of the week as the Sabbath. This surely is an attempt to put new cloth on old garments and new wine in old bottles and to project the shadow of Mt. Sinai upon the glorious sunlight of the gospel age. Let us note, in the Master’s answer to these critics, a number of important points. First, the Lord did not revoke or discountenance the Sabbath as an institution, but adopted it and incorporated it into the Christian system by declaring that the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath. Second, the Lord gave the Sabbath a much wider scope, an older sacredness than a mere Jewish institution. “The Sabbath,” He said, “was made for man” (Mark 2:27). He is looking back to the creation Sabbath to which also the fourth commandment looks back when it says, “Remember the Sabbath day” (Exodus 20:8). As one has finely said, “The Sabbath was a higher mountain peak than Sinai, the mountain of the law.” For a time, it is true, the clouds of Sinai gathered about it and hid its ancient glory. But they have now passed and the Sabbath still stands in its primeval authority and blessedness as made for man and not for Israel or any transitory age. Third, the Master assumes the right to regulate the Sabbath and legislate for it. If the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath, He is entitled to settle every question regarding it. And if He lays down certain principles respecting its observance in the spirit of liberty and love, and if He even changes the day of its observance in the spirit of liberty and love, He is only doing that which belongs to Him as Lord of the Sabbath, and His example and Word are our sufficient warrant for the New Testament Sabbath of the first day. Certain principles and directions He does give practically reenacting the Sabbath for the Christian age with a glorious Magna Charta of liberty and love. The supreme features of His teaching respecting the Christian Sabbath are liberty and love, or liberty limited and regulated by love. The law of Christ is the law of love. We are not to do things because they have to be done, but because they are best to be done, they are necessary to be done and their doing is to help somebody. Even under the Old Testament, He shows them that there were times when the law of necessity justified David in doing things which were forbidden by the letter of the law, but necessary for the preservation of himself and his comrades. Here the law of love triumphed over the law of tradition and enactment. Then He appeals, as we find in the parallel Gospels, to the principle of humanity and asks what man would not, on the Sabbath, break the Sabbath law regarding manual labor to rescue his ox or his ass, especially if it was his own ox or ass. There is a fine suggestion here of their own selfishness which would settle all questions of conscience quickly if their own property was in danger, Sabbath or no Sabbath. And then He argues by inexorable logic, how much more valuable a man is than an ox or an ass or a sheep, and how reasonable it is even to infringe the letter of the Sabbath law to help and heal a suffering human being. They are utterly unable to meet the calm, keen logic of His argument and only look on with ill-suppressed hate and anger, while He proceeds to demonstrate what He had just taught, by bidding the man with the withered hand stand forth in their midst on the Sabbath day. He looks into their silent faces and demands, “‘Which is lawful on the Sabbath: to do good or to do evil, to save life or to kill?’… He looked around at them in anger and, deeply distressed at their stubborn hearts, said to the man, ‘Stretch out your hand.’ He stretched it out, and his hand was completely restored” (Mark 3:4-5). The sequel only shows how vain it is to try to teach a prejudiced and angry spirit, for “Then the Pharisees went out and began to plot with the Herodians how they might kill Jesus” (Mark 3:6). They were so distorted morally and mentally that, while they fully recognized His power to heal and all it must have meant as to His divine character, they put before all this their own theological prejudices and their own willful bigotry, and as the margin expresses it, yielded themselves up to hardness of heart. It was exactly the same thing to which their wickedness ripened later when they fully recognized His miraculous power and supernatural character after the raising of Lazarus from the dead, but in spite of light and conviction, coolly went forward and planned for His destruction. It only shows to what fearful lengths religious bigotry and theological obstinacy may go. May the Lord save us from the letter of the law and give us the spirit of love. Returning for a moment to the Sabbath law, the happy medium of Christian practice would seem to be, not the loose and godless disregard of God’s holy day, which is bringing such perilous conditions into the Church and society today, but a sacred regard for God’s day which shall be controlled by the spirit of love and lead us to treat the Sabbath as we would treat the best room in our houses; not bringing into it the rubbish of the workshop, but making it a gathering place for the family circle and the service of the Lord. We should invariably connect the Sabbath and the sanctuary, and always observe it by habitual and reverent attendance at the house of God. We should avoid all our ordinary secular occupations, and such reading, letter writing, visiting and social enjoyment as are not distinctly of a more sacred character. It is not a proper day to finish up your belated correspondence, unless your letters are written with special reference to the service of God and the help of souls. It certainly is not a day to read the secular newspapers and fill your mind with all the rubbish and rottenness of this vile world. As to the use of public conveyances, it is proper to use them for the service of God to facilitate your attendance at church and your varied Christian ministries, but you have no right to use them for mere diversion and amusement. In other words, the principle of Sabbath observance is separation and dedication, the lifting of this holy day to a higher plane than other days, making it the day of God, and finding it the vestibule of heaven. Those who spend their Sabbaths thus will have cause like a good old saint to say, “If this be not heaven, it surely must be the way to heaven.”