Defiled (body). Christ, starting in Mark 7:15, gives enigmatic teaching that has confused the church for almost its entire history, that what goes out of a man defiles him, not what goes into him. This defiled concept is not used by Christ as a defiling of the body, but it does have a significant function in contrasting what is already defiled and can’t be changed, by what it means to be truly defiled but can be changed.
Then his signal to look for a deeper meaning than the one that He will not give: “If any man have ears to hear, let him hear.”
What does this mean?
“Defiled in the Old Testament:
טָמֵא ṭâmêʼ, taw-may, a primitive root; to be foul, especially in a ceremial or moral sense (contaminated):—defile (self), pollute (self), be (make, make self, pronounce) unclean, × utterly.
A defiled body is important in the Old Testament in indicating what is considered by God an unacceptable state for His service and contact with others. A woman who is married is defiled if she sleeps with another man (Numbers 5)> Leviticus 19:31 states that those are taw-may who consult familiar spirits or wizards. Among others, the most important is the touching of a dead body (Numbers 5:2; 9:6). This person must be purified by the ashes of the Red Heifer mixed with water (Numbers 19:2). This body is a physical body, and this defiling among physical bodies meant to symbolize a spiritual defilement between spiritual bodies. This defilement is the real kind since spiritual bodies are made up not of flesh and blood but by, among others, truth propositions and conclusions of belief. These are the essential moral essences. A physical body cannot be truly defiled because it is fallen and already defiled, and this cannot change. A spiritual body can be defiled because it can also be made Holy and undefiled. If this is so, it is made Holy by a spiritual and true moral state and action with and around faith states, their content, and motivation.
The key to Jesus in Matthew 12:37: For by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words, thou shalt be condemned. Words come directly out fo the spirit, the heart. They are evidence against your defiled spirit or for your spiritual and clean Godly state. But this is not any word, it is a very specific one, on a very specific subject.
It appears that Christ is simply saying that the wickedness that comes out of men is such as in the parallel passage in Matthew 15:9, “evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies.” Of course, the message is those trivial things like unclean hands do not defile a man. But the interesting thing here is that Jesus specifically refers to sins which we equate with a bodily motion with the spirt in his use of “evil thoughts” (διαλογισμός). This is particularly that kind which could be otherwise.
This is about obeying the Mosaic Law only if the Mosaic Law is essentially one for a moral-spiritual motion. This is a symbol, as per the context, of the same defiling of the spirit through the results of our narrow and antithetical interpretative applications of Messiah.
What man takes in is the Word of God, the equivalent of food and nourishment of the soul. Unwashed hands (impure intention, motivation by carnal concerns) are as worldly contamination, impossible to completely eliminate in our reading, but the Word of God (body), regardless, is not defiled by this but is clean when it enters the spirit, meaning the personal spirit remaining undefiled by it. What comes out of the ” is also undefiling, since this is the ordained elimination of what is not needed of the Word of God for essential faith, but acts as a carrier. What essentially “comes out,” what is defiling, is not from the “draught,” or as a result of unwashed hands, but what comes directly out of one’s spirit pertaining to scriptural interpretation of the PW, particularly about Jesus Christ, which aligns with how man subjectively interprets this prophetic word and applies it in his life, casting it into the world for all to see. The Pharisees’ words and actions display their lack of love and understanding of the revelation of Christ.
Christ knows that the Pharisees equate a mere tradition with the law of Moses in the same way that they equate it with the end of the prophetic revelation. But, prophetically, the Law is a symbol of their use or abuse as scriptural oracles: That Messiah would be a proud and powerful military conqueror, not a suffering servant, is to the same degree a tradition born of carnality, and not scriptural. Their accusation of Christ, accordingly, is not scriptural, accusing Him of a violation of tradition, which they equate with the gravity of the Law. Christ’s “walk,” or here His disregard of the tradition of hand washing, is, therefore, a righteous walk, not a sinful one, if He is the Messiah and author of the Law, who is its ultimate fulfillment and end of the Law.
All the works of men, but never God’s fulfillment of the PW (Jesus), “shall be burned” (1Co 3:15) by the light (truth) of His appearance (fulfillment). It is vain now that man worships God by these kinds of traditions, or by the Law, which is only a pedagogue from Christ to teach true prophetic doctrine, not meaningless injunctions for self-righteousness. In Mark 7:8, Christ uses the “commandment of God” henceforth in two senses for the reader: the law of Moses and the law of Christ, both of which is the New Testament prophetic law of promise and fulfillment. The law and its strict obedience were given only to prepare a people for Messiah, not an end in itself. This includes “honor thy father and mother,” being a command not primarily to do something, but believe something about the true origin and purpose of the entire revelation, which is Christ.
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