Verse 6
And he said unto them, Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written, This people honoreth me with their lips, But their heart is far from me. But in vain do they worship me, Teaching as their doctrines the precepts of men.
The Scripture to which Jesus here referred is Isaiah 29:13. Jesus charged his critics with two violations of God's law: (1) they were hypocrites, pretending a piety they did not have, affirming a love of God they did not have, and voicing a religious concern which was non-existent within them; (2) they had substituted the precepts of men for the word of God.
REGARDING HUMAN TRADITION IN WORSHIP
As clearly as Christ could have stated it, the principle is laid out here that the worship of God which consists in the observance of human precepts and traditions is vain and useless. Thus, the question of overwhelming importance regarding the worship of God must ever be the question of authority. Would not Jesus say the same thing of many so-called Christian observances of our own times? Are not the traditions and precepts of men the principal guidelines that men follow? Where has God ever commanded all of the things that people are doing in the name of His holy religion? In numerous innovations which human beings have imported into God's worship, in the actions which they have substituted for the baptism that Christ commanded, in the systems of government that they have invented for the control of their churches, and in the countless human opinions that have been substituted for the plain teachings of the word of God, in all these things and many others, people are operating under the traditions and precepts of men, rather than under the teachings of the Lord. The warnings of this passage should be heeded. For further comment on human tradition in religious worship, see my Commentary on Matthew, pp. 225-226.
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