Truth or Tradition

DEVOTION

THE GOSPEL OF JOHN

TRUTH OR TRADITION

John 18:28-32

28 Then the Jews led Jesus from Caiaphas to the palace of the Roman governor. By now it was early morning, and to avoid ceremonial uncleanness the Jews did not enter the palace; they wanted to be able to eat the Passover. 29 So Pilate came out to them and asked, "What charges are you bringing against this man?" 30 "If he were not a criminal," they replied, "we would not have handed him over to you." 31 Pilate said, "Take him yourselves and judge him by your own law." "But we have no right to execute anyone," the Jews objected. 32 This happened so that the words Jesus had spoken indicating the kind of death he was going to die would be fulfilled.

NIV

It is interesting that although their intent was to have Jesus killed, they wanted to be ceremonially clean in order to eat the Passover. Were they that sure of themselves in thinking Jesus was a criminal and that justice must be served and it was actually a righteous act for them to hand him over to the Roman governor? With all that has been revealed to us through all the gospel accounts we are sure their act was not righteous, nor were their motives. The fact is they hated Jesus with every fiber of their being. They were the leading authority over the people in all spiritual as well as traditional matters. They were the teachings of the Law, they interpreted the Law for the people. They held power over the people and Jesus was taking apart all their authority and power by teaching the people the truth. They were hypocrites of the worst kind because they were using God as their excuse to kill Jesus. Their traditions were more important than the truth. Jesus even taught that very concept calling them whitewashed tombs. They looked good on the outside but were dead men inside. There was no righteousness within them although they acted as if they were righteous, they may have actually thought their attempts to live by their interpretations of the law made them righteous. The problem was their interpretations were wrong, they had created their own set of traditional beliefs and tried to force their ideas of righteousness on the people. It was the blind leading the blind, as Jesus put it. It is unfortunate that it seems this kind of thinking has been in the church throughout the ages and still exists today. The church or rather some people in the church have set up their lists of traditional concepts to live by rather than living by the truth. These traditions have been developed in an effort to appear different than the surrounding community. Those lists of don’t are not based on truth but rather either misinterpretations or use of the scripture or traditions passed down from others. When we say Christians don’t do this or that, is it based on the truth within scripture or just a tradition? Should we not be more focused on what a Christian should be doing, again based on the Word, and not on traditional concepts? As an example, we should be loving each other and if we based that love on how it is defined for us in the letter to the Corinthians we would be in the truth rather than tradition.  It is true we do certain things each Sunday and at certain times of the year, such as a Good Friday and Easter service.  It is true we have baptisms, and times of anointing with oil, but those things are based on the truth. The Pharisees, chief priests, and teachings of the Law misused the scriptures they had and ignored or rather hated the truth Jesus taught. We cannot afford to live in that same manner, we have to live out our faith based only on the truth, thus forfeiting tradition. Those traditions do not make us righteous, as the Pharisees thought, only Jesus makes us righteous and He is the Truth.