Howbeit in vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.
Christ confronted the Pharisees and scribes who accused His disciples of eating with unwashen hands contrary to the tradition of the elders about washings of cups, pots, vessels and tables. Worship is empty and worthless when the commandments, traditions, maxims and customs of men are taught as divine doctrines and exalted above the Word of God in place of God's law. It lays aside the commandment of God to hold tradition handed down from rabbi to rabbi, as when the fifth commandment to honor father and mother was made of none effect by declaring help devoted as a gift, and as when numberless purification rules turned attention from the great principles of the law to trifling distinctions God had not required. The same vain worship is repeated in substituting a false sabbath for the Sabbath of the fourth commandment, for the first day bears no divine command and is a common working day and human institution exalted as sacred and enforced upon the world. All who accept human authority, customs of the church, or traditions of the Fathers must instead take the word of the eternal Father where alone is truth unmixed with error, with every person searching the Scriptures for himself to know the conditions of salvation.
Original Setting and Wording
Christ spoke the words to a deputation of Pharisees and scribes who came to Him to watch for something to accuse Him of after He had absented Himself from the Passover, laying a trap by charging that His disciples ate bread with unwashen hands contrary to the tradition of the elders about washing of cups and pots and brazen vessels and tables. The spies made that neglect the ground of accusation for transgressing the tradition of the elders, for Christ and His disciples did not observe these ceremonial washings. He answered them with authority as the Expositor of the prophecies He Himself had given, in hypocrite-exposing fulfillment of Isaiah's prophecy that this people honor with lips while the heart is far away. Their worship was drawing near with mouth and lips while the heart was far from God, performing their round of temple service and offering sacrifices that typified the great Sacrifice, yet when Christ, the One whom all the ceremonies represented, was among them they would not recognize or receive Him.
It was spoken to the Jews at His coming in the fullness of time, when the world was darkened by apostasy and the Jews were wrapped in unbelief. Transgression was everywhere and human traditions and customs were taught as the commandments of God, with truth mixed with such a mass of error that truth was brought down to the dust. Faith was clouded because they had departed from God, and many of their leaders brought in their own traditions and enforced them as the commandments of God. Those human traditions and needless ceremonies confused faith and spread ignorance and bigotry, leaving the people in a condition that was a reproach to the heathen, weaving human traditions and maxims into God's law which confused people about God's government and led them to break God's law by following human inventions. The pious still prayed earnestly for the coming of the Messiah, trusting from the predictions of the prophets that the appointed time had come, and believing that when He came He would give a clear revelation of the divine will that would free their doctrines from tradition and dispel the cloud from the minds of the people.
In vain means worship is empty, worthless and counts for nothing when the commandments, traditions, maxims, customs and practices of men are taught as divine doctrines and exalted above the Word of God in place of God's law. It describes scribes and Pharisees and educated teachers who had departed from God and did not follow the ways of the Lord, who followed their own understanding, interpreted the Scriptures to harmonize with their own course of action, sought the praise of men, departed from the plainly revealed way of the Lord, and followed traditions of men's devising. Attention to religious forms displaced knowledge of God and the law's weightier matters: judgment, mercy, and faith, for the rabbis elevated tradition and ceremonies above Scripture. Their teaching also misrepresented God's character, whom Christ came to reveal as merciful, loving, and full of light.
The words mean laying aside and rejecting the commandment of God to hold the traditions of men handed down from rabbi to rabbi that nullify the plain requirements of God. The traditional precepts encumbered the law of God, were professedly meant to guard it, but were regarded as more sacred than the law itself, and when they collided with the commandments given from Sinai preference was given to the rabbinical precepts. The Pharisees' traditions displaced God's commandment and wrongly received the reverence due to God's law, elevating tradition above God's commandments, adding human inventions and treating them as more important than God's precepts. The Jewish sects elevated oral traditions and detailed handwashing ceremonies that God had not commanded above God's precepts, making human inventions more important than the commandments of God. Their course proved they did not know the Scriptures or the power of God, setting aside God's commandment to hold human tradition and making God's word powerless through tradition.
Its first illustration is setting aside the fifth commandment to honor father and mother by saying a man is free from helping his parents if he says his help is a gift devoted, thus making the word of God of none effect while doing many other such like things. Its second illustration is the numberless rules about ceremonial purification before eating, scarcely learnable in a lifetime, that made life one long struggle against ceremonial defilement and an endless round of washings. Neglect was treated as heinous sin punishable in this world and the next, and attention was turned away from the great principles of God's law to trifling distinctions God had not required. The hand-washing ceremonies were minute requirements with no command from God, including ritual washings of pots and cups and many other like things, yet disagreement over such forms became a reason to oppose and kill the world's Redeemer. Their reliance on human traditions also kept them from understanding Scripture and recognizing Christ.
Human Traditions Exposed
The traditions professedly meant to guard the law encumbered it, displaced God's commandment, and received the reverence due to God's law itself. They were regarded as more sacred than the law given from Sinai, and when they collided with the commandments preference was given to the rabbinical precepts. Human inventions were thus elevated above God's commandments and treated as more important than God's precepts. The Jewish sects elevated oral traditions and detailed handwashing ceremonies that God had not commanded, making human inventions more important than the commandments of God. The rules about ceremonial purification before eating were numberless and scarcely learnable in a lifetime, making life one long struggle against ceremonial defilement and an endless round of washings. Neglect was treated as heinous sin punishable in this world and the next, turning attention away from the great principles of God's law to trifling distinctions God had not required, and Christ and His disciples did not observe these washings, so that neglect became the spies' ground of accusation for transgressing the tradition of the elders. These minute hand-washing requirements had no command from God, yet disagreement over such forms became a reason to oppose and kill the world's Redeemer.
Attention to religious forms displaced knowledge of God. The rabbis elevated tradition and ceremonies above Scripture, so teaching distracted students from knowing God and obscured the weightier matters of the law: judgment, mercy, and faith. Strict outward practices — ceremonies, washings, fasting, long prayers, and almsgiving — did not make men faithful to God, but were marked by bigotry and hypocrisy, though some among them were genuinely pious and became Christ's disciples. God's law was presented as a cold code burdened with traditions, obscuring its glory and far-reaching claims, which Christ rejected in order to reveal the law's true meaning and enduring standard of righteousness.
Outward exactness in prayer, almsgiving, and religious zeal was used to appear devout while concealing hard, unmerciful hearts. That outward display hid exploitation of widows and the poor, appropriation of the people's offerings for personal gain, corrupt hearts, selfish ambition, pride, and avarice. The leaders imposed customs and ceremonies God had not given as if divine, while strictly following these human interpretations did not make men righteous before God but burdened them with meaningless ceremonies and narrowed their lives. Jesus condemned the priests, rulers, and rabbinical schools for strictly enforcing ritual law, forms, ceremonies, maxims, and traditions while making void the law of God. He refused their theology, took no notice of their forms and ceremonies, exposed the evil practices of the priests, encouraged sinners to go directly to God as a merciful Father, and in their opinion set aside the priesthood, which injured the effect of their maxims and traditions, hurt their influence, and lessened the authority of the rulers, so that Satan pressed this grievance upon their minds to move the Sanhedrin to resolve to put Jesus to death in order to maintain their own power.
The substitution of the precepts of men for the commandments of God has not ceased. Even among Christians there are institutions and usages with no better foundation than the traditions of the Fathers, resting on mere human authority and supplanting those of divine appointment. Men cling to their traditions and revere their customs and cherish hatred against those who seek to show them their error, so that in this day those who call attention to the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus meet the same enmity manifested in the days of Christ. All who accept human authority, the customs of the church, or the traditions of the Fathers must take heed to this warning and accept instead the word of the eternal Father, the Lord of heaven and earth, where alone is truth unmixed with error.
Voiding God's Law
The verse draws a sharp line between the precepts of Jehovah and the maxims and traditions of men, upholding the Ten Commandments as the expression of truth in all its purity, and worship is vain when the commandments of men are taught for doctrines in place of God's law. God has established the rules for worship in His word, and people are not free to add to them or take from them. He does not permit people to choose which parts of His law to obey or to replace His revealed requirements with human customs and traditions.
God's commandments cannot be changed, and those who break even a least commandment and teach others to do so are condemned, while those who keep and teach them are honored. Treating any part of the law as no longer binding leaves people condemned as transgressors, even if they are honest in doing so. Religious teachers make worship vain when they use traditions to make God's law void, claiming to know the law while leading people into confusion and teaching them to disregard its requirements, whereas loyalty to God's law means neither breaking it nor teaching others that breaking it does not matter. Christ removed those traditions and restored the commandments to their true significance, showing that God's law reaches the motives of the heart. He exposed human additions that mingle customs, fables, and personal opinions with truth, and restored truth to its pure, original brightness. He came to teach truth in its purity when transgression was everywhere and truth was mixed with such a mass of error that truth was brought down to the dust, to tear away the error enveloping the commandments of God and to show the true character of the law of Jehovah.
In the sermon on the mount He presented that law with far-reaching claims in a manner never heard before, apart from the technicalities of the scribes, in its great principles of the first four and the last six commandments. His death was not to immortalize sin or to perpetuate transgression but to be the only hope for the transgressor as a perfect sacrifice and offering that no angel in heaven could make, He who was one with the Father and in the express image of His person, full of grace and truth. The Jews had distorted the law with traditions and narrow Sabbath restrictions, turning it into a burden rather than honoring its dignity, though God's commands can be kept by all. Human traditions about the Sabbath had distorted its observance by adding burdensome rules, and Jesus rejected those customs without breaking the Sabbath commandment, showing that human traditions must not replace or distort God's commandments. The law they claimed to keep strictly they turned into a yoke of bondage, especially by complicating Sabbath observance until it held nothing but rigorous exactions.
Satan put his leaven into the precious everlasting truth to make of no effect the sacred institution old as creation. The law of God is the transcript of His character and, if kept with heart obedience, would have produced a wholly different influence, but vainglory, selfishness and oppression marked its perverters. They proudly displayed their ceremonies before the very face of Christ, who is the foundation and center of the whole Jewish economy, while rejecting the substance of all their ceremonies, and, blinded by Satan, they did not know the day of their visitation.
Sabbath and False Worship
Worship becomes empty when human commandments are taught as divine doctrines, and this applies to Babylon's false teachings, including the substitution of a false Sabbath for the Sabbath of the fourth commandment and the doctrine of the natural immortality of the soul. That doctrine of natural immortality was the lie first told to Eve, and with related errors it has been spread to the world. Upholding the first day of the week as the Sabbath repeats the work of the Pharisees, because the first day bears no divine authority and God never commanded its observance. It has no value with God, being a common working day put in place of the day God set apart as sanctified and holy, while the holy sanctified day of the Lord of hosts is discarded. Accepting that false Sabbath and cherishing ignorance that refuses to be expelled by light from God's Word means shutting away from light and repeating what the Jews did in rejecting God's messengers as troublers, a traitorous movement of Satan for which God will judge.
Exalting Sunday as sacred without scriptural authority is a human institution originating with Rome and claimed by her as the sign of her authority. The Papacy promoted this human institution, and Protestant churches are adopting the same tradition and spirit, doing the same work of Sunday exaltation that the papacy did before them. Church traditions enforced by civil power repeat the papal practice of placing human authority above Scripture, as papal leaders required Sunday observance and pressed people to dishonor the Bible Sabbath, putting human customs above God's commandment. That veneration for human traditions, with conformity to worldly customs, is the spirit of the papacy.
Clothing that false Sabbath with sanctity and compelling its observance makes worship void. Teaching for doctrines the commandments of men means making a false sabbath as a god which all are to reverence, and those who will not reverence this false god face the stocks, imprisonment, fines, confiscation of goods, and the chain gang. By contrast, the words of God spoken in the mount, treasured and brought into home life and carried out in all business transactions, would govern the whole conduct of life and fit a people to regain Paradise which was lost by disobedience. That zeal, trained by the enemy, will grow until those who exalt human requirements heap reproach on those who keep God's commandments while thinking they serve God. The claims of this spurious sabbath, which has no other foundation than the authority of the Roman church, are to be enforced upon the world, so the same battle fought when papal authorities urged their dogmas upon advocates of truth in Luther's time is to be fought again, and every soul will be called to decide on which side of the controversy he will be found.
The movement in the United States to secure state support for church institutions and usages, especially to enforce Sunday observance, follows in the steps of papists. It opens the door for popery to regain in Protestant America the supremacy lost in the Old World, as Protestant churches permeated by that same spirit do the same work of Sunday exaltation. Protestant churches have received doctrines which the Word of God condemns and will bring them to the front and force them upon the consciences of men, trampling upon God's holy day and showing contempt for God's holy precepts with the Bible open, for which God will hold them accountable.
Requiring Sunday observance as the so-called Christian Sabbath while setting aside God's law, especially the seventh-day Sabbath of the fourth commandment, puts human precepts in place of God's commandments, and nothing can justify that exchange. Joining the error to a work good in itself, such as temperance reform, and to principles in harmony with the Bible does not change the error or excuse it. It makes it more dangerous like poison hidden in wholesome food by giving falsehood plausibility through just enough truth. God's servants cannot unite with a movement that joins needed reforms to a requirement contrary to God's law, and religious claims and reforms do not justify setting aside God's commands for human precepts to avoid the seventh-day Sabbath.
Setting aside the sanctity of the fourth commandment while grasping and enforcing tradition misleads others and binds about those Christ has made free. It leads them to close their eyes to truth in the Word of God and refuse obedience to a Thus saith the Lord. It comes from being wedded to one's own ideas and not giving ear to God's voice, keeping influence and securing human cooperation by surrendering truth. Obedience would cut off human support, but God would be a majority in force, power, and influence.
Misleading Teachers Reproved
In vain worship describes the scribes and Pharisees and educated teachers in Christ's day who had departed from God and did not follow the ways of the Lord, though the people looked to them to explain what heaven had revealed. They followed their own understanding, interpreted what had been revealed to harmonize with their own course of action, sought the praise of men, and departed from the plainly revealed way to follow traditions of men's devising. Their teaching misrepresented God's character, whereas Christ came to reveal the Father as merciful, loving, and full of light. Their faith was clouded by bringing in their own traditions and enforcing them as God's commandments, with needless ceremonies that confused faith and spread ignorance and bigotry until the condition of the people was a reproach to the heathen, while pious Jews prayed for the Messiah to give a clear revelation of the divine will that would free doctrine from tradition and dispel the cloud from minds.
The priests and Pharisees put their own interpretations on God's word, failed to practice it, and obscured its true meaning. They searched the Old Testament yet interpreted what they read to sustain their traditions, gave forced and mystical meanings that condemned their own course, mingled human sayings with heavenly precepts as Thus saith the Lord when they were inventions of human minds, exalted forms and maxims handed down by rabbis though not in the Bible, and relied on rabbinic ideas instead of the plain teaching of Scripture. By substituting their own traditions and fables and exalting their words as God's commandments they made the commandments of God of none effect and made void the law. The same danger applies to teachers who misinterpret Scripture and lead people into confusion and darkness.
By this mishandling they blinded eyes, bewildered minds, and confused hearers so they could not separate truth from error or see Christ. They obscured clear teaching, made obedience to God's commandments seem a needless burden, weakened respect for God, wove human traditions and maxims into God's law, confused people about God's government, and led them to break God's law by following human inventions. They performed the round of temple service and offered sacrifices that typified the great Sacrifice, drawing near with mouth and lips while the heart was far from God, yet when Christ, the One whom all the ceremonies represented, was among them they would not recognize or receive Him. They emptied the law by burdening it with needless ceremonies, tore down the standard of righteousness, blinded eyes and hardened hearts, and led people to believe a lie instead of truth.
Because they missed the central truth of the living oracles they missed everything. Because Christ was different from their idea of what the Messiah should be they refused to receive Him. Though divided on most points they were united in opposition to Christ, and the same uniting happens today to make of no effect the message the Lord has sent, with much deception prevailing even among those greatly blessed with light. Therefore all must search the Scriptures for themselves with singleness of purpose, know whether doctrine is of God, and let the trumpet give a certain sound.
The same disposition existed among those who opposed Luther and remains whenever people accept human theories and traditions as God's word. It chooses human traditions and the commandments of men instead of God's Word and scornfully rejects the Scriptures when given to the people in their own language, while all who love truth receive them with great joy. This was fulfilled in Germany when Luther's German New Testament was received with joy by lovers of truth and rejected by those holding to human tradition.
Satan puts his shadow between the soul and the bright beams of heavenly light that would guide to salvation, working through a confederacy of evil angels and evil men to bury truth under the rubbish of human traditions. He succeeds by making the world believe human words, sayings, commandments, achievements, customs and practices are of great consequence, burying the jewels of truth scattered over revelation and leaving heaven's wisdom practically ignored. Minds beclouded with evil and cherished iniquity then feel no need for prayerful, diligent effort to know what they must know or lose heaven, and view truth darkly as through smoked glass, with feeble vision that looks at the shadow and turns from the light.
Error cannot stand alone but fastens like a parasite upon the tree of truth, and human traditions attach like floating germs to the truth of God until men regard them as part of the truth. As traditions pass from age to age they acquire power over the human mind, but age does not make error truth and burdensome weight does not turn truth into a parasite. The tree of truth bears its own genuine fruit revealing its heavenly origin, while the parasite of error bears its own fruit revealing a diverse character. Through false doctrines and theories that have no foundation in truth Satan gains a foothold, captivates minds, misshapes human character, produces disloyalty in the world, turns even professedly Christian churches from the law of Jehovah to erect a false standard counter to God's holy law, and denies His jurisdiction in order to cause humanity to acknowledge Satan as supreme.
This is why Christ did not choose the scribes and Pharisees but chose unlearned fishermen to make wise unto salvation, because He could not trust those whose worship was vain in teaching the commandments of men for doctrines. For the same reason the Lord does not choose the learned and popular to work with the churches today when they follow the same course. Christ as the greatest Teacher calls all who labor and are heavy laden to come to Him and learn of Him. The priests and rulers had taught human commandments as religious doctrine, and their teaching helped shape the disciples' earlier beliefs and expectations, making it harder for them to understand Christ's lessons.
Call to True Worship
The same condemnation rests in our day on people who look to educated men who follow the course of the scribes and Pharisees and educated teachers in Christ's day, who had departed from God and from the plainly revealed way of the Lord, followed their own understanding, interpreted what God revealed to harmonize with their own course, sought the praise of men, and followed traditions of men's devising. It is Christ's warning to all who claim to be Christians yet remain in blind unbelief and reject light, and especially to those who claim to open God's living oracles, for He has worked for and invited all, will enlighten all who search candidly and sincerely, and now knocks at the door of the heart, but those who refuse fall under this rebuke. Their worship is vain because they misapplied the Scriptures, substituted their own traditions and fables, exalted their words as God's commandments, made void the law and of none effect, blinded eyes, bewildered minds so people could not see Christ, and this rebuke embraces many teachers of this time and all who claim to be religious but make void God's law by tradition. The same charge falls on the Christian world in this age, which follows the very same course as the unbelieving Jews who misinterpreted Scripture while claiming to believe it and professed to keep God's commandments while teaching men's commandments as doctrines, refusing to open eyes to truth, enshrouded in as dense a cloud of deception, believing itself righteous while perishing in sins, for sincerity in deception does not justify evil and a wrong course never turns error into truth. The same condition exists among many professed Christians today who are ignorant of the Scriptures and of the power of God, who emptied God's law by burdening it with needless ceremonies, tore down the Lord's standard of righteousness, blinded eyes and hardened hearts, and led people to believe a lie instead of truth, including churches converted to the world with beautiful music and splendid decorations and false shepherds who feed themselves instead of the flock, and including professed believers whose outward profession masks barrenness like the fruitless fig tree bearing only leaves of profession and unable to bear Christ's close search for good fruit.
The nation was not ready to receive Christ and did not recognize their Deliverer because they had lost sight of the character He would reveal and the manner of His coming although both were plainly delineated in the Word. As a nation they had become estranged from the pure spirituality attained through obedience to God's law and continued to set up human commands in place of doctrine and to teach human commandments as doctrine. This happened because Israel forgot God and disobeyed Him under Satan's misleading influence, set aside God's law and put human opinions in its place, stressed their own ideas, let detailed formalism and rites and ceremonies replace the law, and filled minds with theories and teachings contrary to God's law, so the law meant to give wisdom and elevation of life and character stopped being a delight and became an unendurable weight. Clinging to fixed ideas and following human traditions and commandments as the Jews did makes worship vain and makes people unable to receive the Holy Spirit. The darkness of false ideas, from magnifying human commands and misinterpreting Scripture until hearers were confused and unable to separate truth from error, the real from the false and the genuine from the spurious, kept even Christ's disciples from receiving the Holy Ghost while Jesus was with them though He was full of light and longed to give it, so truth had to be constantly repeated and a special divine enlightenment by the Comforter was needed to bring His words to remembrance and open understanding.
Minds that have accepted sayings of men as divine commands must be educated to look to God, the author of all truth. Teachers should listen to God's Word and reject assertions that have no Thus saith the Lord as foundation, rather than repeat the Jews' example, and must refuse to pass down falsehoods as God's Word without unprejudiced search of Scripture. Human traditions can make God's commandments ineffective and human interpretations can confuse rather than clarify, so the Bible and not human maxims must guide belief and life, and Jewish teachers confused hearers by quoting rabbinic ideas instead of giving plain Scripture teaching, warning against replacing God's Word with human teachings or seeking explanations and revelations the Word does not give. Because heavenly information is given in the Bible, which is addressed to every person of every class, clime and age, every one with reasoning faculties has the duty to search the Scriptures for himself and know the conditions on which salvation is provided, instead of accepting a teacher's bending of Scripture to fit opinion. Satan puts his shadow between the soul and the bright beams of heavenly light that would guide to salvation, working through a confederacy of evil angels and evil men to bury truth under rubbish of human traditions, customs and practices put in place of truth, and keeping human tradition in place of God's truth leads people to reject truth when they accept such teaching instead of searching and comparing Scripture for themselves.
Those who belong to Christ refuse to leave Him to follow elders' traditions or scribes' and Pharisees' lifeless formalism, to seek counsel from formalists, to take sides with them, or to join in that teaching. The waiting believers had to give up errors and traditions received from people and turn wholly to God and His word, and those who endured the resulting trials would be purified and gain eternal victory. Encouraging gatherings that teach error by attending can expose people to teachings that poison the soul and draw them away from truth. The rebuke also falls on those in responsible positions who move farther from God, transgress God's commandments while manufacturing restrictive commandments of their own, limit freedom, bind heavy burdens grievous to be borne, do a work God has not authorized, neglect the appointed work of freeing the oppressed and saving souls, assume infallibility, pronounce judgment on the work and words of God's messengers, place themselves in the judgment seat to control others, and make decisions and laws to bring talent under jurisdiction, imposing their own decisions and judgments as though God appointed them. Like the Pharisees, leaders who lack personal piety, humble seeking of God's counsel, consecration and constant reliance on God fall into self-sufficient unsanctified wisdom and substitute human authority for God's will, and unless the converting power of God is felt on heart and character so they are one with Christ and keep the way of the Lord, the Lord has no more use for them and while they keep that spirit they cannot be laborers together with God even when handling sacred truths.
Its warning applies to imposing arbitrary regulations about how many meals people should eat, since God's word sets no fixed schedule and such rules must not be treated as divine commands. It regards as vain invention and tradition of men the self-confident talk that with utmost confidence extols one human system as the only right way, as when talk molded by Regular educators extols Regular practice and depreciates homeopathy with extravagant claims and denounces every other system as satanic, for such narrow loyalty to the system in which men were educated is not the way of the Lord, just as the priests and Pharisees did not keep the way of the Lord. Learning medical theories and maxims at the expense of Bible study can be spiritually harmful, and needless intricacies can injure the mind. Receiving people into the church without conversion or adequate instruction about baptism's meaning and solemnity is an example of teaching human commandments as doctrines and making worship vain. Human traditions must not be placed above God's word, for Jesus distinguished false from true and obeyed God's law while those who prized human precepts condemned Him, exposed human additions of customs, fables and personal opinions mingled with truth, and restored truth to its pure original brightness. He condemned priests, rulers and rabbinical schools for strictly enforcing ritual law, forms, ceremonies, maxims and traditions while making void God's law, refused their theology, took no notice of their forms, exposed evil practices, encouraged sinners to go directly to God as a merciful Father, and in their opinion set aside the priesthood, which injured their maxims, hurt their influence, lessened their authority, and moved the Sanhedrin under Satan's pressure to resolve to put Him to death to maintain power; He exposed false religion by giving the true interpretation of law and prophets and every type and symbol and by standing alone in living God's law, making true and false religion so clear that His life reproached pretentious godliness mingled with selfishness, hypocrisy, covetousness and unfair dealing, which is why His nation was displeased and did not receive Him. This requires holding to principle without yielding one jot, refusing to be led by human sophistry, maxims, suppositions and assurances, retaining zeal and earnestness and not letting love grow cold even when iniquity advances, while using wisdom in presenting faith so as not to arouse prejudice at once.
Christ confronted the Pharisees and scribes who accused His disciples of eating with unwashen hands contrary to the tradition of the elders about washings of cups, pots, vessels and tables. Worship is empty and worthless when the commandments, traditions, maxims and customs of men are taught as divine doctrines and exalted above the Word of God in place of God's law. It lays aside the commandment of God to hold tradition handed down from rabbi to rabbi, as when the fifth commandment to honor father and mother was made of none effect by declaring help devoted as a gift, and as when numberless purification rules turned attention from the great principles of the law to trifling distinctions God had not required. The same vain worship is repeated in substituting a false sabbath for the Sabbath of the fourth commandment, for the first day bears no divine command and is a common working day and human institution exalted as sacred and enforced upon the world. All who accept human authority, customs of the church, or traditions of the Fathers must instead take the word of the eternal Father where alone is truth unmixed with error, with every person searching the Scriptures for himself to know the conditions of salvation.
Original Setting and Wording
Christ spoke the words to a deputation of Pharisees and scribes who came to Him to watch for something to accuse Him of after He had absented Himself from the Passover, laying a trap by charging that His disciples ate bread with unwashen hands contrary to the tradition of the elders about washing of cups and pots and brazen vessels and tables. The spies made that neglect the ground of accusation for transgressing the tradition of the elders, for Christ and His disciples did not observe these ceremonial washings. He answered them with authority as the Expositor of the prophecies He Himself had given, in hypocrite-exposing fulfillment of Isaiah's prophecy that this people honor with lips while the heart is far away. Their worship was drawing near with mouth and lips while the heart was far from God, performing their round of temple service and offering sacrifices that typified the great Sacrifice, yet when Christ, the One whom all the ceremonies represented, was among them they would not recognize or receive Him.
It was spoken to the Jews at His coming in the fullness of time, when the world was darkened by apostasy and the Jews were wrapped in unbelief. Transgression was everywhere and human traditions and customs were taught as the commandments of God, with truth mixed with such a mass of error that truth was brought down to the dust. Faith was clouded because they had departed from God, and many of their leaders brought in their own traditions and enforced them as the commandments of God. Those human traditions and needless ceremonies confused faith and spread ignorance and bigotry, leaving the people in a condition that was a reproach to the heathen, weaving human traditions and maxims into God's law which confused people about God's government and led them to break God's law by following human inventions. The pious still prayed earnestly for the coming of the Messiah, trusting from the predictions of the prophets that the appointed time had come, and believing that when He came He would give a clear revelation of the divine will that would free their doctrines from tradition and dispel the cloud from the minds of the people.
In vain means worship is empty, worthless and counts for nothing when the commandments, traditions, maxims, customs and practices of men are taught as divine doctrines and exalted above the Word of God in place of God's law. It describes scribes and Pharisees and educated teachers who had departed from God and did not follow the ways of the Lord, who followed their own understanding, interpreted the Scriptures to harmonize with their own course of action, sought the praise of men, departed from the plainly revealed way of the Lord, and followed traditions of men's devising. Attention to religious forms displaced knowledge of God and the law's weightier matters: judgment, mercy, and faith, for the rabbis elevated tradition and ceremonies above Scripture. Their teaching also misrepresented God's character, whom Christ came to reveal as merciful, loving, and full of light.
The words mean laying aside and rejecting the commandment of God to hold the traditions of men handed down from rabbi to rabbi that nullify the plain requirements of God. The traditional precepts encumbered the law of God, were professedly meant to guard it, but were regarded as more sacred than the law itself, and when they collided with the commandments given from Sinai preference was given to the rabbinical precepts. The Pharisees' traditions displaced God's commandment and wrongly received the reverence due to God's law, elevating tradition above God's commandments, adding human inventions and treating them as more important than God's precepts. The Jewish sects elevated oral traditions and detailed handwashing ceremonies that God had not commanded above God's precepts, making human inventions more important than the commandments of God. Their course proved they did not know the Scriptures or the power of God, setting aside God's commandment to hold human tradition and making God's word powerless through tradition.
Its first illustration is setting aside the fifth commandment to honor father and mother by saying a man is free from helping his parents if he says his help is a gift devoted, thus making the word of God of none effect while doing many other such like things. Its second illustration is the numberless rules about ceremonial purification before eating, scarcely learnable in a lifetime, that made life one long struggle against ceremonial defilement and an endless round of washings. Neglect was treated as heinous sin punishable in this world and the next, and attention was turned away from the great principles of God's law to trifling distinctions God had not required. The hand-washing ceremonies were minute requirements with no command from God, including ritual washings of pots and cups and many other like things, yet disagreement over such forms became a reason to oppose and kill the world's Redeemer. Their reliance on human traditions also kept them from understanding Scripture and recognizing Christ.
Human Traditions Exposed
The traditions professedly meant to guard the law encumbered it, displaced God's commandment, and received the reverence due to God's law itself. They were regarded as more sacred than the law given from Sinai, and when they collided with the commandments preference was given to the rabbinical precepts. Human inventions were thus elevated above God's commandments and treated as more important than God's precepts. The Jewish sects elevated oral traditions and detailed handwashing ceremonies that God had not commanded, making human inventions more important than the commandments of God. The rules about ceremonial purification before eating were numberless and scarcely learnable in a lifetime, making life one long struggle against ceremonial defilement and an endless round of washings. Neglect was treated as heinous sin punishable in this world and the next, turning attention away from the great principles of God's law to trifling distinctions God had not required, and Christ and His disciples did not observe these washings, so that neglect became the spies' ground of accusation for transgressing the tradition of the elders. These minute hand-washing requirements had no command from God, yet disagreement over such forms became a reason to oppose and kill the world's Redeemer.
Attention to religious forms displaced knowledge of God. The rabbis elevated tradition and ceremonies above Scripture, so teaching distracted students from knowing God and obscured the weightier matters of the law: judgment, mercy, and faith. Strict outward practices — ceremonies, washings, fasting, long prayers, and almsgiving — did not make men faithful to God, but were marked by bigotry and hypocrisy, though some among them were genuinely pious and became Christ's disciples. God's law was presented as a cold code burdened with traditions, obscuring its glory and far-reaching claims, which Christ rejected in order to reveal the law's true meaning and enduring standard of righteousness.
Outward exactness in prayer, almsgiving, and religious zeal was used to appear devout while concealing hard, unmerciful hearts. That outward display hid exploitation of widows and the poor, appropriation of the people's offerings for personal gain, corrupt hearts, selfish ambition, pride, and avarice. The leaders imposed customs and ceremonies God had not given as if divine, while strictly following these human interpretations did not make men righteous before God but burdened them with meaningless ceremonies and narrowed their lives. Jesus condemned the priests, rulers, and rabbinical schools for strictly enforcing ritual law, forms, ceremonies, maxims, and traditions while making void the law of God. He refused their theology, took no notice of their forms and ceremonies, exposed the evil practices of the priests, encouraged sinners to go directly to God as a merciful Father, and in their opinion set aside the priesthood, which injured the effect of their maxims and traditions, hurt their influence, and lessened the authority of the rulers, so that Satan pressed this grievance upon their minds to move the Sanhedrin to resolve to put Jesus to death in order to maintain their own power.
The substitution of the precepts of men for the commandments of God has not ceased. Even among Christians there are institutions and usages with no better foundation than the traditions of the Fathers, resting on mere human authority and supplanting those of divine appointment. Men cling to their traditions and revere their customs and cherish hatred against those who seek to show them their error, so that in this day those who call attention to the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus meet the same enmity manifested in the days of Christ. All who accept human authority, the customs of the church, or the traditions of the Fathers must take heed to this warning and accept instead the word of the eternal Father, the Lord of heaven and earth, where alone is truth unmixed with error.
Voiding God's Law
The verse draws a sharp line between the precepts of Jehovah and the maxims and traditions of men, upholding the Ten Commandments as the expression of truth in all its purity, and worship is vain when the commandments of men are taught for doctrines in place of God's law. God has established the rules for worship in His word, and people are not free to add to them or take from them. He does not permit people to choose which parts of His law to obey or to replace His revealed requirements with human customs and traditions.
God's commandments cannot be changed, and those who break even a least commandment and teach others to do so are condemned, while those who keep and teach them are honored. Treating any part of the law as no longer binding leaves people condemned as transgressors, even if they are honest in doing so. Religious teachers make worship vain when they use traditions to make God's law void, claiming to know the law while leading people into confusion and teaching them to disregard its requirements, whereas loyalty to God's law means neither breaking it nor teaching others that breaking it does not matter. Christ removed those traditions and restored the commandments to their true significance, showing that God's law reaches the motives of the heart. He exposed human additions that mingle customs, fables, and personal opinions with truth, and restored truth to its pure, original brightness. He came to teach truth in its purity when transgression was everywhere and truth was mixed with such a mass of error that truth was brought down to the dust, to tear away the error enveloping the commandments of God and to show the true character of the law of Jehovah.
In the sermon on the mount He presented that law with far-reaching claims in a manner never heard before, apart from the technicalities of the scribes, in its great principles of the first four and the last six commandments. His death was not to immortalize sin or to perpetuate transgression but to be the only hope for the transgressor as a perfect sacrifice and offering that no angel in heaven could make, He who was one with the Father and in the express image of His person, full of grace and truth. The Jews had distorted the law with traditions and narrow Sabbath restrictions, turning it into a burden rather than honoring its dignity, though God's commands can be kept by all. Human traditions about the Sabbath had distorted its observance by adding burdensome rules, and Jesus rejected those customs without breaking the Sabbath commandment, showing that human traditions must not replace or distort God's commandments. The law they claimed to keep strictly they turned into a yoke of bondage, especially by complicating Sabbath observance until it held nothing but rigorous exactions.
Satan put his leaven into the precious everlasting truth to make of no effect the sacred institution old as creation. The law of God is the transcript of His character and, if kept with heart obedience, would have produced a wholly different influence, but vainglory, selfishness and oppression marked its perverters. They proudly displayed their ceremonies before the very face of Christ, who is the foundation and center of the whole Jewish economy, while rejecting the substance of all their ceremonies, and, blinded by Satan, they did not know the day of their visitation.
Sabbath and False Worship
Worship becomes empty when human commandments are taught as divine doctrines, and this applies to Babylon's false teachings, including the substitution of a false Sabbath for the Sabbath of the fourth commandment and the doctrine of the natural immortality of the soul. That doctrine of natural immortality was the lie first told to Eve, and with related errors it has been spread to the world. Upholding the first day of the week as the Sabbath repeats the work of the Pharisees, because the first day bears no divine authority and God never commanded its observance. It has no value with God, being a common working day put in place of the day God set apart as sanctified and holy, while the holy sanctified day of the Lord of hosts is discarded. Accepting that false Sabbath and cherishing ignorance that refuses to be expelled by light from God's Word means shutting away from light and repeating what the Jews did in rejecting God's messengers as troublers, a traitorous movement of Satan for which God will judge.
Exalting Sunday as sacred without scriptural authority is a human institution originating with Rome and claimed by her as the sign of her authority. The Papacy promoted this human institution, and Protestant churches are adopting the same tradition and spirit, doing the same work of Sunday exaltation that the papacy did before them. Church traditions enforced by civil power repeat the papal practice of placing human authority above Scripture, as papal leaders required Sunday observance and pressed people to dishonor the Bible Sabbath, putting human customs above God's commandment. That veneration for human traditions, with conformity to worldly customs, is the spirit of the papacy.
Clothing that false Sabbath with sanctity and compelling its observance makes worship void. Teaching for doctrines the commandments of men means making a false sabbath as a god which all are to reverence, and those who will not reverence this false god face the stocks, imprisonment, fines, confiscation of goods, and the chain gang. By contrast, the words of God spoken in the mount, treasured and brought into home life and carried out in all business transactions, would govern the whole conduct of life and fit a people to regain Paradise which was lost by disobedience. That zeal, trained by the enemy, will grow until those who exalt human requirements heap reproach on those who keep God's commandments while thinking they serve God. The claims of this spurious sabbath, which has no other foundation than the authority of the Roman church, are to be enforced upon the world, so the same battle fought when papal authorities urged their dogmas upon advocates of truth in Luther's time is to be fought again, and every soul will be called to decide on which side of the controversy he will be found.
The movement in the United States to secure state support for church institutions and usages, especially to enforce Sunday observance, follows in the steps of papists. It opens the door for popery to regain in Protestant America the supremacy lost in the Old World, as Protestant churches permeated by that same spirit do the same work of Sunday exaltation. Protestant churches have received doctrines which the Word of God condemns and will bring them to the front and force them upon the consciences of men, trampling upon God's holy day and showing contempt for God's holy precepts with the Bible open, for which God will hold them accountable.
Requiring Sunday observance as the so-called Christian Sabbath while setting aside God's law, especially the seventh-day Sabbath of the fourth commandment, puts human precepts in place of God's commandments, and nothing can justify that exchange. Joining the error to a work good in itself, such as temperance reform, and to principles in harmony with the Bible does not change the error or excuse it. It makes it more dangerous like poison hidden in wholesome food by giving falsehood plausibility through just enough truth. God's servants cannot unite with a movement that joins needed reforms to a requirement contrary to God's law, and religious claims and reforms do not justify setting aside God's commands for human precepts to avoid the seventh-day Sabbath.
Setting aside the sanctity of the fourth commandment while grasping and enforcing tradition misleads others and binds about those Christ has made free. It leads them to close their eyes to truth in the Word of God and refuse obedience to a Thus saith the Lord. It comes from being wedded to one's own ideas and not giving ear to God's voice, keeping influence and securing human cooperation by surrendering truth. Obedience would cut off human support, but God would be a majority in force, power, and influence.
Misleading Teachers Reproved
In vain worship describes the scribes and Pharisees and educated teachers in Christ's day who had departed from God and did not follow the ways of the Lord, though the people looked to them to explain what heaven had revealed. They followed their own understanding, interpreted what had been revealed to harmonize with their own course of action, sought the praise of men, and departed from the plainly revealed way to follow traditions of men's devising. Their teaching misrepresented God's character, whereas Christ came to reveal the Father as merciful, loving, and full of light. Their faith was clouded by bringing in their own traditions and enforcing them as God's commandments, with needless ceremonies that confused faith and spread ignorance and bigotry until the condition of the people was a reproach to the heathen, while pious Jews prayed for the Messiah to give a clear revelation of the divine will that would free doctrine from tradition and dispel the cloud from minds.
The priests and Pharisees put their own interpretations on God's word, failed to practice it, and obscured its true meaning. They searched the Old Testament yet interpreted what they read to sustain their traditions, gave forced and mystical meanings that condemned their own course, mingled human sayings with heavenly precepts as Thus saith the Lord when they were inventions of human minds, exalted forms and maxims handed down by rabbis though not in the Bible, and relied on rabbinic ideas instead of the plain teaching of Scripture. By substituting their own traditions and fables and exalting their words as God's commandments they made the commandments of God of none effect and made void the law. The same danger applies to teachers who misinterpret Scripture and lead people into confusion and darkness.
By this mishandling they blinded eyes, bewildered minds, and confused hearers so they could not separate truth from error or see Christ. They obscured clear teaching, made obedience to God's commandments seem a needless burden, weakened respect for God, wove human traditions and maxims into God's law, confused people about God's government, and led them to break God's law by following human inventions. They performed the round of temple service and offered sacrifices that typified the great Sacrifice, drawing near with mouth and lips while the heart was far from God, yet when Christ, the One whom all the ceremonies represented, was among them they would not recognize or receive Him. They emptied the law by burdening it with needless ceremonies, tore down the standard of righteousness, blinded eyes and hardened hearts, and led people to believe a lie instead of truth.
Because they missed the central truth of the living oracles they missed everything. Because Christ was different from their idea of what the Messiah should be they refused to receive Him. Though divided on most points they were united in opposition to Christ, and the same uniting happens today to make of no effect the message the Lord has sent, with much deception prevailing even among those greatly blessed with light. Therefore all must search the Scriptures for themselves with singleness of purpose, know whether doctrine is of God, and let the trumpet give a certain sound.
The same disposition existed among those who opposed Luther and remains whenever people accept human theories and traditions as God's word. It chooses human traditions and the commandments of men instead of God's Word and scornfully rejects the Scriptures when given to the people in their own language, while all who love truth receive them with great joy. This was fulfilled in Germany when Luther's German New Testament was received with joy by lovers of truth and rejected by those holding to human tradition.
Satan puts his shadow between the soul and the bright beams of heavenly light that would guide to salvation, working through a confederacy of evil angels and evil men to bury truth under the rubbish of human traditions. He succeeds by making the world believe human words, sayings, commandments, achievements, customs and practices are of great consequence, burying the jewels of truth scattered over revelation and leaving heaven's wisdom practically ignored. Minds beclouded with evil and cherished iniquity then feel no need for prayerful, diligent effort to know what they must know or lose heaven, and view truth darkly as through smoked glass, with feeble vision that looks at the shadow and turns from the light.
Error cannot stand alone but fastens like a parasite upon the tree of truth, and human traditions attach like floating germs to the truth of God until men regard them as part of the truth. As traditions pass from age to age they acquire power over the human mind, but age does not make error truth and burdensome weight does not turn truth into a parasite. The tree of truth bears its own genuine fruit revealing its heavenly origin, while the parasite of error bears its own fruit revealing a diverse character. Through false doctrines and theories that have no foundation in truth Satan gains a foothold, captivates minds, misshapes human character, produces disloyalty in the world, turns even professedly Christian churches from the law of Jehovah to erect a false standard counter to God's holy law, and denies His jurisdiction in order to cause humanity to acknowledge Satan as supreme.
This is why Christ did not choose the scribes and Pharisees but chose unlearned fishermen to make wise unto salvation, because He could not trust those whose worship was vain in teaching the commandments of men for doctrines. For the same reason the Lord does not choose the learned and popular to work with the churches today when they follow the same course. Christ as the greatest Teacher calls all who labor and are heavy laden to come to Him and learn of Him. The priests and rulers had taught human commandments as religious doctrine, and their teaching helped shape the disciples' earlier beliefs and expectations, making it harder for them to understand Christ's lessons.
Call to True Worship
The same condemnation rests in our day on people who look to educated men who follow the course of the scribes and Pharisees and educated teachers in Christ's day, who had departed from God and from the plainly revealed way of the Lord, followed their own understanding, interpreted what God revealed to harmonize with their own course, sought the praise of men, and followed traditions of men's devising. It is Christ's warning to all who claim to be Christians yet remain in blind unbelief and reject light, and especially to those who claim to open God's living oracles, for He has worked for and invited all, will enlighten all who search candidly and sincerely, and now knocks at the door of the heart, but those who refuse fall under this rebuke. Their worship is vain because they misapplied the Scriptures, substituted their own traditions and fables, exalted their words as God's commandments, made void the law and of none effect, blinded eyes, bewildered minds so people could not see Christ, and this rebuke embraces many teachers of this time and all who claim to be religious but make void God's law by tradition. The same charge falls on the Christian world in this age, which follows the very same course as the unbelieving Jews who misinterpreted Scripture while claiming to believe it and professed to keep God's commandments while teaching men's commandments as doctrines, refusing to open eyes to truth, enshrouded in as dense a cloud of deception, believing itself righteous while perishing in sins, for sincerity in deception does not justify evil and a wrong course never turns error into truth. The same condition exists among many professed Christians today who are ignorant of the Scriptures and of the power of God, who emptied God's law by burdening it with needless ceremonies, tore down the Lord's standard of righteousness, blinded eyes and hardened hearts, and led people to believe a lie instead of truth, including churches converted to the world with beautiful music and splendid decorations and false shepherds who feed themselves instead of the flock, and including professed believers whose outward profession masks barrenness like the fruitless fig tree bearing only leaves of profession and unable to bear Christ's close search for good fruit.
The nation was not ready to receive Christ and did not recognize their Deliverer because they had lost sight of the character He would reveal and the manner of His coming although both were plainly delineated in the Word. As a nation they had become estranged from the pure spirituality attained through obedience to God's law and continued to set up human commands in place of doctrine and to teach human commandments as doctrine. This happened because Israel forgot God and disobeyed Him under Satan's misleading influence, set aside God's law and put human opinions in its place, stressed their own ideas, let detailed formalism and rites and ceremonies replace the law, and filled minds with theories and teachings contrary to God's law, so the law meant to give wisdom and elevation of life and character stopped being a delight and became an unendurable weight. Clinging to fixed ideas and following human traditions and commandments as the Jews did makes worship vain and makes people unable to receive the Holy Spirit. The darkness of false ideas, from magnifying human commands and misinterpreting Scripture until hearers were confused and unable to separate truth from error, the real from the false and the genuine from the spurious, kept even Christ's disciples from receiving the Holy Ghost while Jesus was with them though He was full of light and longed to give it, so truth had to be constantly repeated and a special divine enlightenment by the Comforter was needed to bring His words to remembrance and open understanding.
Minds that have accepted sayings of men as divine commands must be educated to look to God, the author of all truth. Teachers should listen to God's Word and reject assertions that have no Thus saith the Lord as foundation, rather than repeat the Jews' example, and must refuse to pass down falsehoods as God's Word without unprejudiced search of Scripture. Human traditions can make God's commandments ineffective and human interpretations can confuse rather than clarify, so the Bible and not human maxims must guide belief and life, and Jewish teachers confused hearers by quoting rabbinic ideas instead of giving plain Scripture teaching, warning against replacing God's Word with human teachings or seeking explanations and revelations the Word does not give. Because heavenly information is given in the Bible, which is addressed to every person of every class, clime and age, every one with reasoning faculties has the duty to search the Scriptures for himself and know the conditions on which salvation is provided, instead of accepting a teacher's bending of Scripture to fit opinion. Satan puts his shadow between the soul and the bright beams of heavenly light that would guide to salvation, working through a confederacy of evil angels and evil men to bury truth under rubbish of human traditions, customs and practices put in place of truth, and keeping human tradition in place of God's truth leads people to reject truth when they accept such teaching instead of searching and comparing Scripture for themselves.
Those who belong to Christ refuse to leave Him to follow elders' traditions or scribes' and Pharisees' lifeless formalism, to seek counsel from formalists, to take sides with them, or to join in that teaching. The waiting believers had to give up errors and traditions received from people and turn wholly to God and His word, and those who endured the resulting trials would be purified and gain eternal victory. Encouraging gatherings that teach error by attending can expose people to teachings that poison the soul and draw them away from truth. The rebuke also falls on those in responsible positions who move farther from God, transgress God's commandments while manufacturing restrictive commandments of their own, limit freedom, bind heavy burdens grievous to be borne, do a work God has not authorized, neglect the appointed work of freeing the oppressed and saving souls, assume infallibility, pronounce judgment on the work and words of God's messengers, place themselves in the judgment seat to control others, and make decisions and laws to bring talent under jurisdiction, imposing their own decisions and judgments as though God appointed them. Like the Pharisees, leaders who lack personal piety, humble seeking of God's counsel, consecration and constant reliance on God fall into self-sufficient unsanctified wisdom and substitute human authority for God's will, and unless the converting power of God is felt on heart and character so they are one with Christ and keep the way of the Lord, the Lord has no more use for them and while they keep that spirit they cannot be laborers together with God even when handling sacred truths.
Its warning applies to imposing arbitrary regulations about how many meals people should eat, since God's word sets no fixed schedule and such rules must not be treated as divine commands. It regards as vain invention and tradition of men the self-confident talk that with utmost confidence extols one human system as the only right way, as when talk molded by Regular educators extols Regular practice and depreciates homeopathy with extravagant claims and denounces every other system as satanic, for such narrow loyalty to the system in which men were educated is not the way of the Lord, just as the priests and Pharisees did not keep the way of the Lord. Learning medical theories and maxims at the expense of Bible study can be spiritually harmful, and needless intricacies can injure the mind. Receiving people into the church without conversion or adequate instruction about baptism's meaning and solemnity is an example of teaching human commandments as doctrines and making worship vain. Human traditions must not be placed above God's word, for Jesus distinguished false from true and obeyed God's law while those who prized human precepts condemned Him, exposed human additions of customs, fables and personal opinions mingled with truth, and restored truth to its pure original brightness. He condemned priests, rulers and rabbinical schools for strictly enforcing ritual law, forms, ceremonies, maxims and traditions while making void God's law, refused their theology, took no notice of their forms, exposed evil practices, encouraged sinners to go directly to God as a merciful Father, and in their opinion set aside the priesthood, which injured their maxims, hurt their influence, lessened their authority, and moved the Sanhedrin under Satan's pressure to resolve to put Him to death to maintain power; He exposed false religion by giving the true interpretation of law and prophets and every type and symbol and by standing alone in living God's law, making true and false religion so clear that His life reproached pretentious godliness mingled with selfishness, hypocrisy, covetousness and unfair dealing, which is why His nation was displeased and did not receive Him. This requires holding to principle without yielding one jot, refusing to be led by human sophistry, maxims, suppositions and assurances, retaining zeal and earnestness and not letting love grow cold even when iniquity advances, while using wisdom in presenting faith so as not to arouse prejudice at once.