The Pulpit Commentary — Matthew — Volume 2 — Section 124

Our Lord's illustration needs to be kept within its natural and proper limits. The Pharisees had objected to the disciples ea.ting their bread with unwashen hands their not.ion_ being th~t soi:nething causing oeremonial defilement might be upon their hands, and this taken m with the bread would make them ceremonially unclean. It was a ridiculous subtlety, and yet it had become quite an established notion. It was beet met by such scorn as Jesus poured upon it. You cannot defile a man's soul by putting some dirt into his food; that may bring on disease in the man's body, but it cannot defile the man himself. Our Lord strikes hard at the insincerities of the Pharisee class, who were foul in speech, unclean in life, and self-seeking in relations however anxious they were about ceremonial defilement. What came out of them-th~ir speech conduct, relations-these defiled them. ' I. THE SECRET OF HUMAN DEFILEMENT IS THE WRONG INSIDE A MAN, A man is very largely resp0nsible for the contents of his mind. True, he may have been placed in circumstances beyond his control which have brought evil associations; but the law is always working, that the things only are retained and effective on which attention is continuously and persistently fixed. Then we must have fixed our attention on what our minds now have in them, and so we must be responsible for their contents. Can we bear to look at the actual contents of our minds? How utterly unimportant ceremonial defilements seem in view of this real evil J A man is in a state of defile- ment, heart-defilement, t.o begin with. From this may be shown the absolute need o, regeneration. II. THE FURTHER SEORET OF HUllAN DEFILEMENT re THAT THIS INSIDE WRONG GETS STRENGTHENED BY EXPRESSION. If the foul things inside a man would just stay quiet, things would not be so ~erioUB. But they are persistently active, ever trying to get expression, to say something or to do something. And they become stronger and more active by every expression. How that which· comes out of a man defiles him may be shown by indicating the way in which a foul thought, gaining utterance in a foul speech, becomes an act of the will; the man is made foul thereby,;....R. T. Ver. 22.-.A. daim on Goa's mercy. "Have mercy on me," The woman was wiser than she knew. She could bring no claim; as a foreigner she had no sort of right to our Lord's help. She made no pretence of having any claim, save the claim which every sufferer and every sinner may have on God's mercy. But that is the best of all claims; the one to which response is always assured. The sufferer and the sinner may fully hope in God's mercy. L THE CL.All[ OF THE BUFFEBER ON Goo's MERCY; Mercy includes interest, pity, sympathy, consideration, and desire t.o help. The good man feels merciful toward the suffering creature; the fatb er is merciful to the suffering children. God is merciful to the suffering being he has made. But God's mercy is assured because, to him, all suffering is the fruitage of sin ; and God knows how the suffering has to fall on those who have not committed the sin. If God saw only sin, he would respond with judgment. He sees so much suffering following on Ein, to which he can only respond with mercy. The child pleaded for was not suffering directly for sin. The mother's suffe1ing was part of the race-burden, and not distinctively her own. So, here, suffering claimed mercy, We might be led on to indicate that God's mercy can be shown to sufferers by prolonging the suffering as truly as by removing it. Mercy in its operation is ever gmded by an infinite wisdom." JI. THE CLAIM OF THE BINNER ON Goo's MEROY, Not a natural claim. There is no reai;on why God should bear with sinners in the nature of things. • Every notion of government shows demand for justice. Officially God must deal justly, Mercy brings in the qualification that belongB to God's character. We see this in the case of a human magistrate. As a magistrate be has no mercy; he ie strictly to apply the law. All a me.n, and as a character, he can bring mercy in to qualify the strict appli- cations of law, Jt is well t.o remertlber that God never deals with men simply as an official. He is al ways a character, a noble character, and therefore "merciful and gracious." Lead on to sl,ow that the supreme interest of the manifestation of Obrist, the supreme interest of such a scene as ie now before us, lies in its revelation of the cha• acter of God, and especially its disclosure of the fact that God's having a character gives both BUiferer11 and sinners a claim upon his rneroy,-R, 'l', CH, xv. 1-39.] THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. MATTHEW. 121