For Moses said, Honour thy father and thy mother; and, Whoso curseth father or mother, let him die the death:
The verse states the fifth commandment that children must actively honor father and mother by caring for and supporting them, and that cursing either parent carries the death penalty by divine authority. Jesus spoke it as defender of God's law when deputies and spies from Jerusalem accused His disciples before the multitude for eating without ceremonial handwashing and transgressing the tradition of the elders. He exposed by it the leaders' repeated practice of evading the command by teaching that a man had only to declare his means a gift devoted to God to be free from doing anything more for his parents. That subterfuge allowed an undutiful child to keep property for his own use in life while pretending devotion to God, covering self-aggrandizement and hardheartedness with outward religious zeal. In this He proved that laying aside God's commandment to hold human tradition, and teaching for doctrines the commandments of men, makes the word of God of no effect and makes void His law.
Setting of Confrontation
The verse belongs to a confrontation in which Pharisees and scribes came as deputies and wily spies from Jerusalem, exacting sticklers for human rites, and accused His disciples before the multitude for eating without ceremonial handwashing and for transgressing the tradition of the elders. In Christ's day Jewish religious belief was controlled by Sadducees, Pharisees and Essenes who were unconverted and unsanctified through the truth, perverse in ideas, ruled by self, without oneness with Christ and without active Christian fellowship, and jealous against all they supposed did not keep the letter of the law.
Numberless rules about purification made life one long struggle against ceremonial defilement, with minute particulars and senseless, unreasonable forms about washing hands before eating though God gave no commandment for them. Neglect of those washings was counted a heinous sin to be punished in this world and the next, and the rules occupied people with trifling distinctions God had not required and turned attention away from the great principles of His law, while Christ and His disciples did not observe these ceremonial washings.
Customs and maxims handed down from rabbi to rabbi from generation to generation were made all-essential and were regarded as having more force and more value than the Ten Commandments. The precepts and teachings of men were dwelt upon and taught above the words of the living God and above a Thus saith the Lord. Even Christ's few followers and the disciples He called were constantly kept back by those customs and maxims from advancement in knowledge and from becoming efficient workers, from efficiency, usefulness and efficient work and from the advancement they might have made. The Messiah was expected to free the people from such confusing traditions that confused faith by imposing human traditions as God's commandments.
When confronted, Jesus made no defense of Himself or His disciples but exposed the leaders' spirit by an example they repeatedly practiced and had just done. In His own practice He followed what the Bible taught rather than obeying rabbinic rules that contradicted it.
Meaning of Parental Command
The verse states the fifth commandment to honor father and mother, one of the Ten Commandments and a great precept of the law given from Sinai. It belongs among God's living word, the Biblical paths, and the plain Thus saith the Lord commands involving eternal interests. The command originated with Christ Himself and was given through Moses.
To honor father and mother means active care and doing for parents. It requires support of father and mother, with children to honor them as part of God's law whose authority human customs and teachings must not outweigh.
The verse adds that whoever curses father or mother shall die the death, so cursing either parent carries the death penalty by divine authority. Christ upheld both the duty to honor father and mother and its stated penalty for cursing a parent, and restored the law's true significance without diminishing its sacredness. Setting aside God's law in favor of human laws and traditions leads to corruption.
This command must not be set aside as of no consequence, made of no effect, or displaced by human precepts. It must not be treated as unimportant or as no longer binding, nor ignored or despised. Human traditions cannot be treated as equal to God's word or used to override its requirements, and the commandments' authority must not be outweighed by human customs and teachings.
Corban Subterfuge Exposed
The scribes and Pharisees evaded the command to honor father and mother by teaching that a man who declared his means a gift to his father or mother was free and need do nothing more for them. The same evasion allowed a person to withhold help from parents by declaring his resources a gift to God.
They taught that devotion of property to the temple was more sacred than support of parents, and that it was sacrilege to give to parents what had been consecrated. An undutiful child had only to pronounce Corban, meaning a gift, over property to devote it to God. He could then keep it for his own use during life, with it going to temple service after death, leaving him free in life and death to dishonor and defraud his parents under pretended devotion to God.
That apparent zeal of priests and rabbis was pretense covering desire for self-aggrandizement. Their outward show of religious devotion hid hardheartedness and exploitation of the poor and widows.
Christ's exposure of this subterfuge never lessened the obligation to present gifts and offerings to God. He Himself gave the directions about tithes and offerings and commended the poor widow who gave all her living to the temple treasury.
Christ Vindicates God's Law
Jesus uttered the command about father and mother as defender of the law when human traditions were set against it, declaring that the priests and rulers and teachers made void the law of God by their maxims and traditions while they strictly enforced the ritual law. He made no defense of Himself or His disciples but exposed the spirit of the exacting sticklers for human rites by an example they repeatedly practiced and had just done. The rabbis and priests set aside the fifth commandment as of no consequence while exact in the elders' traditions, teaching that devotion of property to the temple was more sacred than support of parents and that it was sacrilege to give parents what had been consecrated.
He exposed and denounced the scribes and Pharisees as hypocrites and deceivers whose claimed sanctity was only a cloak for iniquity, because they wove human traditions and the maxims of men into the laws of God and laid aside the commandment of God to hold the tradition of men. By that exposure He laid bare their evil practices and broke the effect and influence of their human teachings, proving that strict ceremony-keeping is set against true obedience to God and that their rabbinical theology stands condemned. Those who followed human inventions were confused about the laws of God's government and made God's law and word of no effect, honoring Him with lips while the heart was far from Him, so that their worship was vain in teaching commandments of men as doctrines, and they stood ignorant of both the Scriptures and the power of God.
He came to teach the truth in its purity and to tear away the error enveloping the commandments of God and to show the true character of the law of Jehovah. The command to honour father and mother is pure and unadulterated truth from God that had been buried under customs and traditions and fables mingled with human sayings and opinions, which gave so little heavenly light that they did not elevate and ennoble and strengthen the soul, with truth mixed with such a mass of error that truth was brought down to the dust. Christ rescued this truth from the rubbish of error, freed it from the exactions and traditions of men, and bade it stand fast forever, making it shine in its original luster. He took up this grand jewel of truth originated by Himself and given through Moses, which had been lost sight of under misinterpretations taught as sacred doctrines while the Jews made their own ideas and customs and practices into idols and formed a confederacy to stand by the old traditions in defiance of His lessons of pure practical godliness, and replaced it in the framework of the gospel in its own divine brightness, and His pure preaching of it drew crowds to follow Him with praise and honor and glory.
In the Sermon on the Mount He showed its far-reaching claims in a manner the people had never heard before, for the scribes had dwelt upon technicalities, and its great principles are the first four and the last six commandments. He restored the law's true significance and defended its plain meaning without diminishing its sacredness and without twisting it into its opposite. Human traditions must not make the commandment about honoring parents and its stated penalty for cursing a parent ineffective. His opposition to such traditions does not mean He is abolishing the law, for the law remains binding. The only ground for unity is obedience to the commandments of God, which is plainly the character of His church and is combined in the first and second and third angels' messages requiring obedience to God's law.
Tradition Nullifies God's Word
Traditional precepts encumbered the law of God though professedly designed to guard it, supplementing the commandments with a mass of wholly human oral traditions conceived by narrow minds. They were regarded as more sacred than the law itself, so that when human tradition collided with the commandments given from Sinai preference was given to rabbinical precepts and human inventions were exalted above divine precepts. Numberless rules about purification made life one long struggle against ceremonial defilement, requiring senseless, unreasonable forms and minute particulars about washing hands before eating though God gave no commandment for them, and neglect was counted a heinous sin to be punished in this world and the next. This occupied people with trifling distinctions God had not required and turned attention away from the great principles of His law, while Christ and His disciples did not observe these ceremonial washings. In Christ's day Jewish religious belief was controlled by Sadducees, Pharisees and Essenes who were unconverted, unsanctified through the truth, perverse in ideas, ruled by self, without oneness with Christ and without active Christian fellowship, and jealous against all they supposed did not keep the letter of the law, teaching tradition as more essential than the precepts of Jehovah.
By placing their requirements above divine precepts the rabbis set themselves above God, laying aside the commandment of God to hold the tradition of men. They taught for doctrines the commandments of men, drawing near with mouth and lips while the heart is far, worshiping in vain. They wove human traditions and the maxims of men into the laws of God and made the word of God of no effect, and choosing human traditions over God's commandments makes void the law of God. Their teachings obscured God's clear commandments with human interpretations, rules and technical interpretations, and denied essential truths. They twisted plain Scripture into its opposite, put a forced mystical meaning on God's Word, and made God's Word appear to agree with human traditions. By following human inventions they confused men about the laws of God's government, obscuring its true meaning and leading people to reject truth, leaving people confused, rejecting truth, and ignorant of both the Scriptures and the power of God.
They were absorbed in traditions and passed by the precious truths of God's Word, with truth mixed with such a mass of error that truth was brought down to the dust. Such traditional matters distracted from truths concerning salvation and from eternal truth. Setting aside God's law in favor of human laws and traditions leads to corruption. The majority do not desire truth but have a disposition to accept human theories and traditions in place of God's word. That disposition opposed Luther in presenting truth specially applicable to his time and opposes truth specially applicable to the church today, so those who present truth for this time will receive no greater favor than earlier reformers, because the great controversy between truth and error, between Christ and Satan, is to increase in intensity to the close of this world's history.
The same work continued in 1898, when many teachers torture God's Word to advance apostasy from His law, turn the people from God's law to observe and exalt tradition, and drown God's voice by the commandments of men. This was the course that led men in Christ's day to reject Christ and to kill the world's Redeemer over difference of opinion about ceremonies. The same danger applies when people exalt a false sabbath and turn others from obedience and loyalty to God. God's living oracles and revelation must stand first, and the plain Thus saith the Lord commands involving eternal interests must not be set aside for customs, practices and traditions which God had not given. Putting human inventions, methods, theories, teachings and interpretations above them turns away from God's special work. Traveling over the same ground is clinging with tenacity to old habits and a love of nonessential studies as if salvation depended on them, drifting into worldly plans with no thought of the time and work to be done, and giving a deficient, wrong education that directs minds from eternal truth to human wisdom which is foolishness because it misses God's providences looking into eternity.
Later Parallels and Applications
The confrontation over handwashing stands as Jesus' appeal to Scripture against human tradition, with the command to honor father and mother and the death penalty for cursing them displaying the authority of God's word. Rome forsook those Biblical paths to follow human traditions, leaving God's commands just as the leaders in Christ's day had done.
The same nullifying of the command is done when papal leaders put monasticism above filial love and duty. They teach that devotion to Christ requires trampling father and mother under foot. By that tradition many youth are induced to enter a cloister and devote themselves to monastic life without the knowledge or consent of their parents and contrary to their commands, with hearts steeled against their parents. Homes are made desolate and parents are deprived of the society of their sons and daughters.
The principle that God's commands are authoritative and must not be treated as unimportant or displaced by human rules applies to honoring the seventh-day Sabbath. The course of making God's law void by teaching human commandments as doctrine led men in Christ's day to reject Christ. The same danger applies when people exalt a false sabbath and turn others from obedience and loyalty to God.
The verse is connected with the need to give up errors and traditions received from people and turn wholly to God and His word. Scribal and Pharisaic traditions that set aside God's commands are compared with medical theories and maxims that are worthless or harmful. God's command, rather than custom or human teaching, must govern conduct, for rabbinical traditions that were put above God's commandments turned attention away from the great principles of God's law.
The verse states the fifth commandment that children must actively honor father and mother by caring for and supporting them, and that cursing either parent carries the death penalty by divine authority. Jesus spoke it as defender of God's law when deputies and spies from Jerusalem accused His disciples before the multitude for eating without ceremonial handwashing and transgressing the tradition of the elders. He exposed by it the leaders' repeated practice of evading the command by teaching that a man had only to declare his means a gift devoted to God to be free from doing anything more for his parents. That subterfuge allowed an undutiful child to keep property for his own use in life while pretending devotion to God, covering self-aggrandizement and hardheartedness with outward religious zeal. In this He proved that laying aside God's commandment to hold human tradition, and teaching for doctrines the commandments of men, makes the word of God of no effect and makes void His law.
Setting of Confrontation
The verse belongs to a confrontation in which Pharisees and scribes came as deputies and wily spies from Jerusalem, exacting sticklers for human rites, and accused His disciples before the multitude for eating without ceremonial handwashing and for transgressing the tradition of the elders. In Christ's day Jewish religious belief was controlled by Sadducees, Pharisees and Essenes who were unconverted and unsanctified through the truth, perverse in ideas, ruled by self, without oneness with Christ and without active Christian fellowship, and jealous against all they supposed did not keep the letter of the law.
Numberless rules about purification made life one long struggle against ceremonial defilement, with minute particulars and senseless, unreasonable forms about washing hands before eating though God gave no commandment for them. Neglect of those washings was counted a heinous sin to be punished in this world and the next, and the rules occupied people with trifling distinctions God had not required and turned attention away from the great principles of His law, while Christ and His disciples did not observe these ceremonial washings.
Customs and maxims handed down from rabbi to rabbi from generation to generation were made all-essential and were regarded as having more force and more value than the Ten Commandments. The precepts and teachings of men were dwelt upon and taught above the words of the living God and above a Thus saith the Lord. Even Christ's few followers and the disciples He called were constantly kept back by those customs and maxims from advancement in knowledge and from becoming efficient workers, from efficiency, usefulness and efficient work and from the advancement they might have made. The Messiah was expected to free the people from such confusing traditions that confused faith by imposing human traditions as God's commandments.
When confronted, Jesus made no defense of Himself or His disciples but exposed the leaders' spirit by an example they repeatedly practiced and had just done. In His own practice He followed what the Bible taught rather than obeying rabbinic rules that contradicted it.
Meaning of Parental Command
The verse states the fifth commandment to honor father and mother, one of the Ten Commandments and a great precept of the law given from Sinai. It belongs among God's living word, the Biblical paths, and the plain Thus saith the Lord commands involving eternal interests. The command originated with Christ Himself and was given through Moses.
To honor father and mother means active care and doing for parents. It requires support of father and mother, with children to honor them as part of God's law whose authority human customs and teachings must not outweigh.
The verse adds that whoever curses father or mother shall die the death, so cursing either parent carries the death penalty by divine authority. Christ upheld both the duty to honor father and mother and its stated penalty for cursing a parent, and restored the law's true significance without diminishing its sacredness. Setting aside God's law in favor of human laws and traditions leads to corruption.
This command must not be set aside as of no consequence, made of no effect, or displaced by human precepts. It must not be treated as unimportant or as no longer binding, nor ignored or despised. Human traditions cannot be treated as equal to God's word or used to override its requirements, and the commandments' authority must not be outweighed by human customs and teachings.
Corban Subterfuge Exposed
The scribes and Pharisees evaded the command to honor father and mother by teaching that a man who declared his means a gift to his father or mother was free and need do nothing more for them. The same evasion allowed a person to withhold help from parents by declaring his resources a gift to God.
They taught that devotion of property to the temple was more sacred than support of parents, and that it was sacrilege to give to parents what had been consecrated. An undutiful child had only to pronounce Corban, meaning a gift, over property to devote it to God. He could then keep it for his own use during life, with it going to temple service after death, leaving him free in life and death to dishonor and defraud his parents under pretended devotion to God.
That apparent zeal of priests and rabbis was pretense covering desire for self-aggrandizement. Their outward show of religious devotion hid hardheartedness and exploitation of the poor and widows.
Christ's exposure of this subterfuge never lessened the obligation to present gifts and offerings to God. He Himself gave the directions about tithes and offerings and commended the poor widow who gave all her living to the temple treasury.
Christ Vindicates God's Law
Jesus uttered the command about father and mother as defender of the law when human traditions were set against it, declaring that the priests and rulers and teachers made void the law of God by their maxims and traditions while they strictly enforced the ritual law. He made no defense of Himself or His disciples but exposed the spirit of the exacting sticklers for human rites by an example they repeatedly practiced and had just done. The rabbis and priests set aside the fifth commandment as of no consequence while exact in the elders' traditions, teaching that devotion of property to the temple was more sacred than support of parents and that it was sacrilege to give parents what had been consecrated.
He exposed and denounced the scribes and Pharisees as hypocrites and deceivers whose claimed sanctity was only a cloak for iniquity, because they wove human traditions and the maxims of men into the laws of God and laid aside the commandment of God to hold the tradition of men. By that exposure He laid bare their evil practices and broke the effect and influence of their human teachings, proving that strict ceremony-keeping is set against true obedience to God and that their rabbinical theology stands condemned. Those who followed human inventions were confused about the laws of God's government and made God's law and word of no effect, honoring Him with lips while the heart was far from Him, so that their worship was vain in teaching commandments of men as doctrines, and they stood ignorant of both the Scriptures and the power of God.
He came to teach the truth in its purity and to tear away the error enveloping the commandments of God and to show the true character of the law of Jehovah. The command to honour father and mother is pure and unadulterated truth from God that had been buried under customs and traditions and fables mingled with human sayings and opinions, which gave so little heavenly light that they did not elevate and ennoble and strengthen the soul, with truth mixed with such a mass of error that truth was brought down to the dust. Christ rescued this truth from the rubbish of error, freed it from the exactions and traditions of men, and bade it stand fast forever, making it shine in its original luster. He took up this grand jewel of truth originated by Himself and given through Moses, which had been lost sight of under misinterpretations taught as sacred doctrines while the Jews made their own ideas and customs and practices into idols and formed a confederacy to stand by the old traditions in defiance of His lessons of pure practical godliness, and replaced it in the framework of the gospel in its own divine brightness, and His pure preaching of it drew crowds to follow Him with praise and honor and glory.
In the Sermon on the Mount He showed its far-reaching claims in a manner the people had never heard before, for the scribes had dwelt upon technicalities, and its great principles are the first four and the last six commandments. He restored the law's true significance and defended its plain meaning without diminishing its sacredness and without twisting it into its opposite. Human traditions must not make the commandment about honoring parents and its stated penalty for cursing a parent ineffective. His opposition to such traditions does not mean He is abolishing the law, for the law remains binding. The only ground for unity is obedience to the commandments of God, which is plainly the character of His church and is combined in the first and second and third angels' messages requiring obedience to God's law.
Tradition Nullifies God's Word
Traditional precepts encumbered the law of God though professedly designed to guard it, supplementing the commandments with a mass of wholly human oral traditions conceived by narrow minds. They were regarded as more sacred than the law itself, so that when human tradition collided with the commandments given from Sinai preference was given to rabbinical precepts and human inventions were exalted above divine precepts. Numberless rules about purification made life one long struggle against ceremonial defilement, requiring senseless, unreasonable forms and minute particulars about washing hands before eating though God gave no commandment for them, and neglect was counted a heinous sin to be punished in this world and the next. This occupied people with trifling distinctions God had not required and turned attention away from the great principles of His law, while Christ and His disciples did not observe these ceremonial washings. In Christ's day Jewish religious belief was controlled by Sadducees, Pharisees and Essenes who were unconverted, unsanctified through the truth, perverse in ideas, ruled by self, without oneness with Christ and without active Christian fellowship, and jealous against all they supposed did not keep the letter of the law, teaching tradition as more essential than the precepts of Jehovah.
By placing their requirements above divine precepts the rabbis set themselves above God, laying aside the commandment of God to hold the tradition of men. They taught for doctrines the commandments of men, drawing near with mouth and lips while the heart is far, worshiping in vain. They wove human traditions and the maxims of men into the laws of God and made the word of God of no effect, and choosing human traditions over God's commandments makes void the law of God. Their teachings obscured God's clear commandments with human interpretations, rules and technical interpretations, and denied essential truths. They twisted plain Scripture into its opposite, put a forced mystical meaning on God's Word, and made God's Word appear to agree with human traditions. By following human inventions they confused men about the laws of God's government, obscuring its true meaning and leading people to reject truth, leaving people confused, rejecting truth, and ignorant of both the Scriptures and the power of God.
They were absorbed in traditions and passed by the precious truths of God's Word, with truth mixed with such a mass of error that truth was brought down to the dust. Such traditional matters distracted from truths concerning salvation and from eternal truth. Setting aside God's law in favor of human laws and traditions leads to corruption. The majority do not desire truth but have a disposition to accept human theories and traditions in place of God's word. That disposition opposed Luther in presenting truth specially applicable to his time and opposes truth specially applicable to the church today, so those who present truth for this time will receive no greater favor than earlier reformers, because the great controversy between truth and error, between Christ and Satan, is to increase in intensity to the close of this world's history.
The same work continued in 1898, when many teachers torture God's Word to advance apostasy from His law, turn the people from God's law to observe and exalt tradition, and drown God's voice by the commandments of men. This was the course that led men in Christ's day to reject Christ and to kill the world's Redeemer over difference of opinion about ceremonies. The same danger applies when people exalt a false sabbath and turn others from obedience and loyalty to God. God's living oracles and revelation must stand first, and the plain Thus saith the Lord commands involving eternal interests must not be set aside for customs, practices and traditions which God had not given. Putting human inventions, methods, theories, teachings and interpretations above them turns away from God's special work. Traveling over the same ground is clinging with tenacity to old habits and a love of nonessential studies as if salvation depended on them, drifting into worldly plans with no thought of the time and work to be done, and giving a deficient, wrong education that directs minds from eternal truth to human wisdom which is foolishness because it misses God's providences looking into eternity.
Later Parallels and Applications
The confrontation over handwashing stands as Jesus' appeal to Scripture against human tradition, with the command to honor father and mother and the death penalty for cursing them displaying the authority of God's word. Rome forsook those Biblical paths to follow human traditions, leaving God's commands just as the leaders in Christ's day had done.
The same nullifying of the command is done when papal leaders put monasticism above filial love and duty. They teach that devotion to Christ requires trampling father and mother under foot. By that tradition many youth are induced to enter a cloister and devote themselves to monastic life without the knowledge or consent of their parents and contrary to their commands, with hearts steeled against their parents. Homes are made desolate and parents are deprived of the society of their sons and daughters.
The principle that God's commands are authoritative and must not be treated as unimportant or displaced by human rules applies to honoring the seventh-day Sabbath. The course of making God's law void by teaching human commandments as doctrine led men in Christ's day to reject Christ. The same danger applies when people exalt a false sabbath and turn others from obedience and loyalty to God.
The verse is connected with the need to give up errors and traditions received from people and turn wholly to God and His word. Scribal and Pharisaic traditions that set aside God's commands are compared with medical theories and maxims that are worthless or harmful. God's command, rather than custom or human teaching, must govern conduct, for rabbinical traditions that were put above God's commandments turned attention away from the great principles of God's law.