Not giving heed to Jewish fables
The perverting power of trivialities
Trivialities, and mere human conceptions, exert a perverting power
(1) by distracting attention from the essentials of religion;
(2) by dissipating the strength of the mind;
(3) by attributing to the human an authority belonging only to the Divine.
Truth, in its essence, always of more importance than the form in which it is clothed. The “spirit” is greater than the “letter.” (F. Wagstaff.)
Jewish fables to be rejected
I. Although all fables in matter of religion are to be rejected, yet especially he mentioneth these of the jews, because they were most dangerous of all.
1. Because they directly opposed themselves as the overthrowers of the whole doctrine of the gospel and the merit of Christ.
2. They were persuaded under most strong pretences, for they came as from God’s own mouth, and from His own people, from such as were born under the law, so as they were urged as things of surest ground and strongest authority from God Himself and His greatest prophet Moses.
II. But what were these fables?
1. Under this head may be comprehended all the false glosses and false interpretations of the law of Moses, urging the external and literal, but not the internal and spiritual meaning of the law; for which corruption Christ challengeth the Jewish teachers (Matthew 5:1-48; Matthew 6:1-34; Matthew 7:1-29).
2. All their fabulous invention in their Talmud, such as that concerning the coming of the Messiah, and the great feast at His coming; and of the fruitfulness of the earth, which at that time shall bring forth instead of ears of corn, loaves of bread; and a number such, of which St. Paul saith, they are for number infinite, and for use unprofitable.
3. But the context in the verse following pointeth us to expound them of some other than these, namely, of all those doctrines of the Jews which conceived the legal and ceremonial observation of days, meats, drinks, garments, washings, persons and peoples: for the Jews taught that the same difference remained to be obtained still, as Moses from the Lord commanded it; so as yet some meats were common and some clean; some days were more holy than others; so garments and persons much more lay open to legal pollution by issues, touchings, etc., whereas the appearing of Christ procured final freedom from all such impurity, so as, according to Peter’s vision (Acts 10:1-48), no man, no thing is to be called polluted or unclean.
III. But why doth the apostle call such doctrines fables seeing
1. They were from God.
2. Necessarily imposed upon God’s own people in pain of death and cutting off from His people in case of contempt, yea or omission.
3. They included in them that evangelical truth whereby both they and we are saved.
Yet for all this he termeth them so.
1. Because even these legal constitutions of God Himself, when they were at the best, were but actual apologies, or shadows of things to come, carrying a show or figure of truth, but not the body, nor the truth itself: to the same effect, saith Paul (Galatians 4:24), that they were allegories; that is, being the things that they were, signified the things that they were not.
2. Because those constitutions, although they had their times and seasons, yet now were they dated: and now to teach or urge them was as vain, as void of ground out of Scripture, as void of profit, as void of truth, as if they had taught the most vain, fictious, and unprofitable falsehoods that men could possibly devise. (T. Taylor, D. D.)
That turn from the truth
Rules to preserve us from being turned from the truth
1. Entertain it not for outward respects; neither for the laws of the land, nor the encouragement it hath, etc., as very many do, but for the love of itself: for that we affect, we easily turn not from it, no, nor are driven from it; and if we love it for outward respects, as those outward respects change, so will our affections. For example, if we love it for the prosperity of it, times of persecution will make us fall off, with Demas. If we hold it because we would hold our temporalities, the loss of it will be light in comparison of loss of goods, dignities, country, world, liberty and life, the least of these will the heart fasten upon, although with the loss of the truth, and with it of salvation also.
2. Practise so much of it as thou knowest, and the more thou practise, the more thou knowest, and the more thou knowest thus, the more thou lovest, and the surer dost thou bind it upon thyself; and this is the surest hold (John 7:17), when as in religion, faith and good conscience are joined together, for such as thy conscience is, such shalt thou be found in religion; without which, hear every hour a sermon, read over the Bible as often as he did, who gloried that he had read the text and gloss also fourteen times over, all this knowledge will not lift thee up to heaven.
3. Call no ground of this Divine truth into question, suspect not that which thou canst not reach, but accuse thine own weakness and ignorance: our first parents yielding at the first onset of Satan to call into question the truth of God, were turned away from all that image of God which stood in truth and holiness.
4. Beware of indifference in God’s matters; many think it good wisdom and policy to be on the yielding hand, and as wax fit to take all forms and the print of any religion; but the truth is, that such persons as are not rooted and stablished in the truth, when winds and storms arise, or the evil day approach, they shall not be able to stand; but as they have been long tottering, so their fall shall be great. (T. Taylor, D. D.)