Understanding Pharisaic Fuss About Defilement and Holiness

This brief series of articles arises from the concern that conservative Christianity is in danger of the sin of idolatry.  I’ll go a bit further here to say that Christians who do not describe themselves as traditional or conservative are equally in danger of idolatry.  Admittedly, I’m dropping these provocative statements to keep you reading, but the danger is real.

What’s All the Fuss About?

The previous article, Unmasking the Idolatry of Traditionalism, explored the concept of defilement and holiness in relation to Jesus’ conversation with the Pharisees in Mark 7, specifically regarding the issue of hand washing and tradition.  Holiness and defilement are major categories of thought and existence in the Old Testament.  Why is holiness such a big deal in the Old Testament?  What’s the fuss all about?

God is holy, and his people must be holy also.

“Consecrate yourselves, therefore, and be holy, for I am holy.  You shall not defile yourselves . . .  you shall therefore be holy, for I am holy.” (Leviticus 11:44–45).

Israel must be holy.  This meant that Israel was to treat God’s Day as holy.  They were a distinct people because they treated God as distinct.  They sanctified themselves by sanctifying God.  Part of this pursuit of holiness affected physical spaces.  The spaces where God’s presence rested were to be treated as holy.  God’s space was not common space.  It was God’s space, sanctified by God’s presence, and human beings were not permitted to enter it.  To enter God’s presence, you had to be holy.  That’s why the holy anointing oils were placed on the priest.  It sanctified the priests—no other person had the holy oil on him—so that they could enter the sacred space—a space like no other on earth where God’s presence rested.  Nothing unholy or common could enter God’s presence for God was not a common being.  If any commoner entered God’s space, it would become common space, open to all beings, and that would denigrate the holiness of God. 

To keep God’s space holy, the law set Israel off from all the other nations.  God’s laws made Israel, the nation in whose midst God dwelt, unique.  The principle was that only a people like God could enter God’s presence.  God’s law shaped Israel into a unique people, specifying distinct ways of dealing with skin disease, building homes, observing festivals and feasts, and imposing dietary scruples. 

Because God dwelt in her midst, Israel must be distinct from all the other nations.  God’s holy presence with Israel not only sanctified her but also required her to sanctify herself.  For God to continue to dwell in her midst, Israel must be holy. 

Like all the Nations

God warned Israel when he brought her into the land that if she profaned herself, making herself like all the other nations, God would treat her like all the other nations.  He punished them for their sins and destroyed them.  If Israel determined to be like the nations, she too would perish like them (Deuteronomy 8:19–20). 

This is what Israel did.  Throughout her history, she repeatedly profaned herself.  Israel adopted the sinful practices and customs of the nations.  It blossomed in the days of the judges when the people demanded a king “like all the other nations.”  Israel disregarded God and his laws and became like the nations.  That meant that for God to show himself holy, distinct from all the false gods of the nations who really did not care much about their people’s sins, God must deal with his people.  To preserve his holiness, God must act toward his people’s unfaithfulness to the covenant.  That meant Israel was driven out of God’s land.  It meant that God abandoned his holy space in Israel’s midst. 

An Empty Shrine

Now that she had profaned herself and God had abandoned his temple, Israel was no longer a holy people.  She was just like all the nations.  Israel’s temple was no different to the temples of all the other nations—an empty shrine.

Time passed, and the nations crowded into Israel.  First, the Babylonians, then the Persians.  The Greeks, the Syrians, and the Egyptians all played their part.  Particularly troublesome to Israel was the influence of Greek and Roman culture.  Under the influence of these invaders, God’s people began acting like the nations. 

What would it take to make these Jews distinct from the nations so that God’s presence would return?  How could the Jews manifest that they were God’s people when the influence of the nations dragged them down to look like all the rest? 

Recreating Holiness

A school of thought emerged in the centuries preceding Christ’s appearance.  The thinking ran that if the land of Israel could be cleansed of the influence of the nations, God would return to his temple.  Some went about this work of reformation through military force.  They were called the Maccabees.  Others sought to reclaim Israel’s holiness and recall God’s presence through personal distinction.  If the law had defined the holiness necessary for God’s people if he were to dwell amongst them, some of the Jews, specifically the Pharisees, determined that law-keeping would increase Israel’s holiness. Perhaps God’s presence could be regained.  If God did return, Israel could reclaim its position among the nations as unique, distinct, and holy, the one nation in whose midst dwelt the God of heaven and earth. 

As time passed, zeal for the law increased.  Additional requirements beyond the demands of the law soon sprang up.  It was a way to extend the boundaries of the law to avoid even approaching the line of breaching it.  These additional requirements were known as the tradition of the elders, and it was handed down alongside the law to each succeeding generation. 

As an example, if the law demanded no work on the Sabbath, the tradition of the elders demanded that you could carry no handkerchief on the Sabbath.  The reasoning went like this.  If you happened to pull the handkerchief out and a gust of wind caught it out of your hand and it landed on the ground, you might bend down to lift it and labour in the lifting, and so desecrate the Sabbath day, making both it and yourself unholy. 

The tradition of the elders also demanded washings.  These washings drove away defilement and increased holiness.  These regulations concerning washings and purification ran to 30 chapters in the Mishnah.  The irony of all this was that the law of Moses prescribed nothing for the common man regarding ceremonial washings.  The only washing the law demanded was for the priests in their labour to offer sacrifices. 

Intolerance and Uniformity

To achieve their goal of creating a holy people, the Pharisees had become quite aggressive.    All the people must become holy, lest one desecrate the land and dispel God’s presence.  The Pharisees couldn’t tolerate Jesus’ disciples eating with unwashed hands.  They came to him and asked why his disciples were not following the tradition of the elders. 

Influence of Pagan Culture

We must remember that the Jews lived under Roman oppression.  The influence of Roman and Greek culture was everywhere.  To go into the marketplace defiled a Jew.  Not that it made him sinful, but that he had walked on the same ground as these nations.  The marketplace in Israel was not distinct.  Entering the marketplace was akin to venturing abroad into the land of other nations.  It made you common.  You weren’t an occupant of the one holy land where God and his people dwelled together.  Going to the marketplace made you common. 

Struggle for distinctness

To counteract this, to separate themselves, to step out of the world of the common and into the world of the holy once again, Jews would wash themselves when they returned home.  It wasn’t so much that they thought water could wash away defilement as much as it was that no one else washed themselves.  By washing myself, I put myself in a category different to all the rest of humanity.  I preserve my home as holy.  It’s the place where the hand-washers dwell.  Hand-washers and only hand-washers live here.  We are distinct.  Handwashing and the elders’ tradition lifted Jews out of the pit of the common and profane and onto the higher plane of the holy.  It was this that the leaders were concerned about in the practice of Jesus’ disciples. 

In the following article, I’ll explore Jesus’ interaction with the Pharisees in Mark 7.  We will discover the fundamental worldview difference between Jesus and the Pharisees.  We will then be able to diagnose our own idolatry in the final article.

---

All verses quotations come from the ESV Bible unless otherwise noted.

Photo by Kajetan Sumila on Unsplash