PARABLE, MIRACLE, AND SIGN
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given in the Revised Version, `This He said, making all meats clean', that is, abolishing for ever the
scrupulosities of mere ceremonial distinctions. The list of evil things is different from that given in Matthew 15:
`Evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an
evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness' (Mark 7:21,22).
We now would draw attention to one or two important words and expressions used in this parable, and then
show the light it casts upon the times and circumstances of this closing section of Matthew's Gospel.
DEFILED (koinos).- It must be remembered that the subject of defilement or uncleanliness in this parable is
ceremonial, it in no wise touches upon the desirability of having clean hands at meal times, neither does it teach
that we may eat anything with impunity. If we perceive the truth nothing can make us ceremonially unclean, but
some things may do us a great deal of harm physically. This word koinos has nothing whatever to do with
uncleanness in a physical sense, it means defilement only in a ceremonial sense. The following are its
occurrences:
KOINOS
`Defiled (that is to say unwashen) hands' (Mark 7:2).
`All things common' (Acts 2:44; 4:32).
`Common or unclean' (Acts 10:14,28; 11:8).
`There is nothing unclean of itself: but to him that esteemeth anything to be unclean, to him it is unclean' (Rom.
14:14).
`The common faith' (Titus 1:4).
`An unholy thing' (Heb. 10:29).
`The common salvation' (Jude 3).
KOINOO
`Defile a man' (Matt. 15:11,18,20; Mark 7:15,18,20,23).
`Call not thou common' (Acts 10:15; 11:9).
`Brought Greeks also into the temple, and hath polluted this holy place' (Acts 21:28).
`Sprinkling the unclean' (Heb. 9:13).
`There shall in no wise enter into it any thing that defileth' (Rev. 21:27).
It will be seen by the above passages that the idea defile must be considered from the ceremonial standpoint.
The apostle does not hesitate to speak of `the common faith', not because there was anything unclean about it,
but because it was not the exclusive possession of a privileged few, it being now proclaimed to the Gentile as
well as to the Jew. The ceremonial ablutions were jealously guarded and observed not so much out of a desire
for holiness or personal cleanliness, but out of a cramped, narrow and bigoted pride. To the Pharisaic mind
there was but one class, `the elect', all others were either `Gentile dogs' or `the people who know not the law'
who are cursed. This narrow exclusive spirit was a fundamental cause of the great rejection, for in Matthew
23:13 the first woe uttered by our Lord in this chapter touches this very point:
`But woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men: for
ye neither go in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in'.
Luke 11:52 adds another weighty word:
`Woe unto you, lawyers! for ye have taken away the key of knowledge: ye entered not in yourselves, and
them that were entering in ye hindered'.
The reference to the `blind guides' in Matthew 23:16 is a further link with Matthew 15. So also the
sentiment of verses 23-27. The charge is very severe, and must have caused, as indeed we know it did, intense
hatred. These men, who were so scrupulous about the outside as in Matthew 15, were within `full of all
uncleanness'.
HEART.- The way in which the Lord uses the word `heart' is full of deep teaching. In the Beatitudes He had
said, `Blessed are the pure in heart', the word `pure' being the Greek word katharos. The next time the Lord
uses the word in Matthew is in direct continuance of this passage in chapter 5: