Mark 7:11, commentary and pictures

Corban meant a person could declare whatever would have helped father or mother a gift dedicated to God or the temple, and then be counted free to do nothing more for them. It belonged to a clash in which Jesus was challenged over neglect of handwashing and other purification rules that God had never commanded, while neglect of such forms was treated as a heinous sin. By that device the fifth commandment to honor father and mother was set aside for human tradition, making the word of God of no effect while the traditions of the elders were kept exactly. The rule let an undutiful child keep the property for his own use in life and leave it to the temple after death, dishonoring parents under cover of devotion, since devotion to the temple was held more sacred than support of parents even in greatest need. It exposed worship that honored God with the lips while the heart was far from Him, cloaking greed and neglect of duty with a show of generosity and sanctity.

Setting and Wording

The saying belongs to a confrontation in which Pharisees and certain scribes came to accuse Jesus because He and His disciples did not observe ceremonial washings before eating, and the dispute centered on elaborate handwashing traditions that had no command from God. It gives another instance in that rebuke of a human tradition displacing a divine command.

Life under the rules about purification had become one long struggle against ceremonial defilement in an endless round of washings, with numberless rules and trifling distinctions God had not required. Neglect of the forms before eating was counted a heinous sin to be punished in this world and the next, and destroying the transgressor was regarded as virtue. While the people were occupied with these things their attention was turned away from the great principles of His law.

Corban means that a man could say to his father or mother that whatever might have profited them was a gift dedicated to the temple or to God, and then be treated as free and be suffered to do nothing more for them. Declaring resources that might have supported parents to be Corban was used to evade and claim freedom from the duty to honor and help them, concealing neglect of duty to parents beneath a show of generosity to the temple. This saying handed down from rabbi to rabbi nullified the plain requirement given through Moses to honor father and mother, making the word of God of no effect.

The teaching held that devotion of property to the temple was a duty more sacred than even the support of parents, so that however great their necessity it was sacrilege to give father or mother any part of what had been consecrated. By pronouncing Corban an undutiful child could retain the property for his own use during his lifetime, with it to be appropriated to temple service after his death. Thus in both life and death he dishonored and defrauded his parents under cover of pretended devotion to God.

Rabbinical precepts encumbered the law of God professedly to guard its observance, yet were regarded as more sacred than the law itself. When the two came in collision they were given preference over the commandments given from Sinai. Customs and traditions handed down from rabbi to rabbi and from generation to generation through the rabbis were made all-essential, taught and dwelt upon as of more value than the words of the living God and a Thus saith the Lord, even of more value and force than the Ten Commandments. The Corban rule by which a man could withhold from his father or mother what they might be profited by him is one of those precepts of men.

Nullifying God's Commandment

The verse exposes a direct rejection of God's commandment in order to keep human tradition, setting aside the fifth commandment to honor father and mother as of no consequence while carrying out the traditions of the elders with exactness. By allowing a man to declare what would have profited his father or mother to be a gift dedicated to the temple and then to be free to do nothing more for them, a saying handed down from rabbi to rabbi nullified the plain requirement given through Moses and made the word of God of no effect. The tradition claimed that devotion of property to the temple was more sacred than even the support of parents, so that however great their need it was counted sacrilege to give them any part of what had been consecrated. In this way a religious rule was used to evade the duty to parents and to claim freedom from it, making God's command ineffective while Christ exposed the device and restored the commandment's true significance.

Human interpretations and rules thus distorted clear commands, twisted plain precepts into an opposite conclusion, and made Scripture appear to excuse withholding support from parents. God's Word was interpreted to fit human traditions and its truth rejected, turning it to serve an observance God had never given. Teachers mingled human sayings, opinions, fables, and maxims with the precepts of heaven and presented them to the people as divine truth. They taught for doctrines the commandments of men, giving rabbinical sayings handed down from century to century as if they were the word of the Lord when they were really inventions of human minds.

Truth was mixed with such a mass of error and technicalities that truth was brought down to the dust, with the scribes dwelling on technicalities instead of the far-reaching claims of the law. A forced, mystical meaning was put upon God's Word because its truth condemned the teachers' own course, seeking to turn the people from God's law to observe and exalt tradition. By the commandments of men God's voice was drowned and His Word put to torture to advance apostasy from His law. Though strictly enforcing the ritual law and winning reverence by outward punctiliousness, the leaders destroyed the force of God's law and displaced the principles that lead to a holy life, while selfishness and moral corruption remained within. Yet exposing this abuse does not lessen the obligation to present gifts and offerings to God.

Hypocrisy Greed and Corruption

The Corban device allowed a child to withhold from father or mother what would have profited them by calling it a gift dedicated to God, concealing neglect of duty beneath a show of generosity to the temple. That practice exposed hypocrisy and deceptive teaching, for sanctity was only a cloak for iniquity. Lips honored God while the heart was far from Him, and the worship offered was vain. Human traditions and maxims of men were woven into the laws of God, laying aside the commandment of God to hold the tradition of men and teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.

Religious leaders imposed customs as if they were God's commandments and used man-made traditions and offerings to appear devoted while enriching themselves. They took the people's offerings for their own use even as they burdened and exploited widows.

Elevating human laws and traditions above the law of God always produces corruption, fraud, deception, and debasing iniquity. Where Scripture is suppressed and man regards himself as supreme, fraud, deception, and debasing iniquity follow, with sin disguised in a garb of sanctity. By following human inventions people were confused in regard to the laws of God's government and were led to make void His law and to make the word of God of none effect through tradition. The untainted purity of Christ's life and words was a bitter reproof to self-righteous but unclean pretenders, charging the religious teachers with ignorance both of the Scriptures and of the power of God.

The customs and maxims of the scribes and Pharisees kept back Christ's few followers and disciples from advancing, supplying their great lack of knowledge, and becoming efficient workers. Customs and traditions handed down from generation to generation through the rabbis were made all-essential and were regarded as of even more value and force than the Ten Commandments. The precepts and teachings of men were taught and dwelt upon as of more value than the words of the living God and than a Thus saith the Lord. Declaring support for parents to be Corban, a gift dedicated to God, to evade the duty to help them was one of those precepts of men illustrating the wider error of giving human custom more value than God's word.

This lawlessness in making God's law void by teaching human commandments led the Jewish people to reject the Son of God. Attention to such traditions caused them to pass by truths that mattered for salvation. Those who teach people to break God's law in this way are disloyal to it and lead others into confusion and darkness.

Prophetic Parallels Beyond Israel

The same principle was fulfilled when the Roman Church came to power at the beginning of the Dark Ages and deepened the darkness by transferring faith from Christ the true foundation to the pope of Rome and to the priests and prelates to whom he delegated authority. Instead of trusting in the Son of God for forgiveness of sins and eternal salvation, the people were taught to look to the pope and to his priests and prelates for forgiveness and salvation. They were taught that the pope was their earthly mediator standing in the place of God, whom none could bypass to approach God, and that he must be implicitly obeyed, with deviation punished severely in body and soul. Thus minds were turned from God to fallible, erring and cruel men, and to the prince of darkness working through them, while sin was disguised in a garb of sanctity.

The same corruption appeared in teaching people to trust works of their own to atone for sin and to appease the wrath of God or secure His favor, by long pilgrimages, acts of penance, worship of relics, erection of churches, shrines and altars, and payment of large sums to the church, as if God were like men to be angered at trifles or pacified by gifts or acts of penance. The same evil is repeated when monastic claims are put above filial love and duty, inducing youth to enter a cloister and devote themselves to monastic life without the knowledge or consent of their parents and contrary to their commands. They are even taught to trample a weeping father and pleading mother under foot to go onward, so that by that human tradition homes are made desolate and parents are deprived of the society of their sons and daughters.

The verse belongs to Jesus' rebuke of forsaking Scripture and Biblical paths for human tradition, illustrating the charge that Rome had forsaken God's word for human rules while upholding human rules and setting aside God's commands, so that the Bible's authority needed to be restored. The same false religious requirement is met today when the sanctity of the fourth commandment is set aside as the Jews set aside the fifth, while human traditions are eagerly grasped and enforced upon the people. The religious world largely follows that track by upholding the first day of the week, a day that bears no divine credentials and which God has not commanded men to observe, clothing a false sabbath with a garb of sanctity and exalting what is common above what God has made sacred. Its observance is sought to be compelled by imprisonment and fines, with a zeal that will grow until, like the Jews, reproach is heaped on those who keep His commandments. The rejection and distortion of divine law in Christ's day, in which a religious rule let a person claim that resources which might support his parents had been dedicated as a gift to God and thus be excused from helping them, illustrates a pattern in which human teaching overrides God's law that continues in the religious world today.

Call to Obedient Worship

Christ exposed the evasion by which resources that should have supported parents could be declared a gift devoted to God to claim freedom from that duty, and in exposing it He restored the commandment to honor father and mother to its true significance. He set Scripture against rabbinic rules that conflicted with God's law, following what the Bible taught rather than those rules. He preached the word pure and unadulterated, rescued truths from the rubbish of error, freed them from the exactions and traditions of men and bade them stand fast forever, making truth shine in its original luster with impressive, straightforward, direct teaching, so that crowds followed and gave praise and honor and glory as they listened.

The lesson is that errors and traditions received from people must be given up and God's word followed rather than religious custom. Human inventions must never be allowed to become more important than obedience to God, and religious custom must not override His commandment. In Christ's day teachers instructed in customs and traditions and fables mingled with their own sayings and opinions, with so little of heaven's light that they did not elevate, ennoble, and strengthen the soul.

He denounced every abomination and exposed the hypocrisy of scribes and Pharisees whose sanctity was only a cloak for iniquity, rebuking them for weaving human traditions and maxims of men into the laws of God, laying aside the commandment of God to hold the tradition of men, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men, honoring God with the lips while the heart was far from Him, and worshiping in vain. By following human inventions men were confused in regard to the laws of God's government and were led to make void His law and to make the word of God of no effect through tradition. Sayings of rabbis handed down from century to century were given as divine truth when they were really the invention of human minds, the fruit of the tree of evil, mingling human sayings with the precepts of heaven. Against this stood Christ's teaching without uncertainty and His practical obedience against their daily transgression, and the untainted purity of His life and words was a bitter reproof to self-righteous but unclean pretenders ignorant both of the Scriptures and of the power of God.

The Corban rule is an example of laying aside the commandment of God to hold customs, practices, and traditions which God had not given, giving the word of God an inferior place and making what should stand first subordinate to human inventions. It is clinging with tenacity to old habits and nonessential requirements as if salvation depended on them, turning away from the plain word which involves eternal interests to human theories and teachings. It means explaining infinite, eternal truth, the revelation of God, in the light of human interpretation instead of by the power of the Holy Spirit, directing minds from God to human wisdom, which is foolishness because it misses God's providences that look into eternity, and giving a deficient and wrong education. The same ground is traveled whenever educators drift into worldly plans, methods, and customs.

Professedly pious people use such excuses and their own transgression to shield wrongdoing, disregard God's law, and lead others into apostasy, bringing harm to themselves and others. Traditions enforced as God's commandments cloud faith and obscure God's will. The verse exposes obstinate holding of human ideas, customs, and practices as idols, teaching misinterpretations as sacred doctrines and forming a confederacy to stand by old human traditions in defiance of pure truth and practical godliness. Christ came to give back precious jewels of truth that had been lost sight of, gathering grand truths originated by Himself and given to patriarchs, prophets, and apostles and replacing them in the framework of the gospel in their own divine brightness, but they would never give up their traditions to receive them.