The mission of Jesus was at least in part to create a new covenant which did not rest upon strict obedience to ritual laws: what matters most is what is one’s heart, not one’s adherence to traditions and rules. Of course, there is a lot of danger in such a position because a person can readily come to believe that obedience to any laws is irrelevant.
Many Christians over the centuries have done just that and adopted a position known as antinomialism. The end result was that Christian political leaders imposed all sorts of religious and moral rules on people, insisting that one couldn’t be “good Christian” or a “good citizen” if they didn’t adhere to those regulations.
Their argument was that a person with a “good heart” would naturally want to follow those rules, but such insistence on obedience to religion-based laws contradicts the spirit of what Jesus appears to be talking about: requiring people to adhere to religious rules doesn’t guarantee real piety because it’s easy for a person to pay lip-service to them without holding true to them in their heart.
Although there is a lot of validity behind such a position, it’s worth paying close attention to how Jesus presents it. First, he doesn’t simply explain it to the Pharisees who complained but instead waited until he had “called all the people” to come listen. It’s not even clear whether the Pharisees were around — didn’t he want to help them understand, too?
Second, we are again faced with the fact that Jesus told the first part — the parable — to the “people” but then sent them away without explaining it. He did, however, explain it to his disciples. We saw this trend begin in chapter 4 where Jesus told his disciples that “Unto you it is given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God: but unto them that are without, all these things are done in parables: That seeing they may see, and not perceive; and hearing they may hear, and not understand; lest at any time they should be converted, and their sins should be forgiven them.”
Thus, only the disciples are allowed to find out what he really means. One might think that he didn’t explain all the details to the people because he wanted to encourage them to work it out for themselves — a reasonable idea, if true. This earlier passage makes it clear, however, that the parables are designed to get the ideas out there but no one is supposed to understand them, because otherwise their sins might be forgiven. Strange, isn’t it?
