Mark 7:6-9
And he said to them, "Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written,"
"‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’"
"You leave the commandment of God and hold to the tradition of men."
And he said to them, "You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to establish your tradition!"
In this pointed rebuke, Jesus confronts the religious leaders of His day, quoting Isaiah 29:13 to expose the hypocrisy of prioritizing human traditions over God’s true commands, God's very word. The Pharisees and scribes had elevated their oral laws, rituals like ceremonial handwashing, to the status of divine doctrine, all while neglecting the weightier matters of justice, mercy, and faithfulness (Matthew 23:23). Their worship was lip service: outwardly pious but inwardly detached, a hollow performance that failed to engage the heart.
Now, why do you suppose that is?
Can we find any evidence, from scripture and historical sources that suggests they had lost touch with the Spirit of God, which then in turn led them to backfill that void with their human traditions?
Let's begin with the New Testament scriptures:
Acts 7:51-52"You stiff-necked people! Your hearts and ears are still uncircumcised. You are just like your ancestors: You always resist the Holy Spirit! Was there ever a prophet your ancestors did not persecute? They even killed those who predicted the coming of the Righteous One. And now you have betrayed and murdered him."
Scripturally, the evidence is stark. The Pharisees’ resistance to the Holy Spirit is explicitly called out in Acts 7:51, where Stephen accuses the Jewish leaders, many of whom were Pharisees or aligned with them, of perpetually resisting the Spirit, just as their ancestors did. Why did the Pharisees elevate human traditions, like ceremonial washings and oral laws, above God’s commands? At its core, this stems from a spiritual disconnection, a loss of attunement to the Holy Spirit, which created a vacuum filled by rigid, man-made structures. Both Scripture and historical sources illuminate this dynamic, showing how the absence of prophetic guidance in the intertestamental period led to an overreliance on traditions as a substitute for divine leading.
Perfect example:
Their resistance is manifested in their failure to recognize the Spirit’s work in Jesus. In Matthew 12:22-32, when Jesus casts out demons by the Spirit of God, the Pharisees attribute it to Beelzebul, prompting Jesus’ warning about blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, an unforgivable sin that reveals their spiritual blindness. Similarly, in John 3:1-10, Nicodemus, a Pharisee, meets Jesus at night but cannot grasp the concept of being "born of the Spirit," highlighting a profound disconnect from spiritual realities. And this wasn't for lack of study, they knew about God's Word and were well educated on these things.
Jesus later tells the Pharisees in John 5:39-40
"You study the Scriptures diligently because you think that in them you have eternal life. These are the very Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life."
Their focus on the letter of the law, without the Spirit’s illumination (2 Corinthians 3:6), turned worship into vain ritual, as Isaiah prophesied. This scriptural pattern ties into a historical void. The intertestamental period, often called the "400 silent years" between Malachi (c. 420 BC) and John the Baptist, marked a cessation of prophecy, no new divine revelations or prophets arose to guide Israel. During this time, Judaism faced Hellenistic influences and foreign domination, prompting groups like the Pharisees to emerge around the mid-2nd century BC from scribes and sages committed to preserving Jewish identity. With prophecy silent, they filled the gap by emphasizing the Oral Torah—traditions they believed were given to Moses alongside the written law—to adapt and apply Scripture to their daily lives. They were attempting to fabricate Spiritual activities that were not present for them. And as Jesus critiqued, this led to hypocrisy: traditions became a crutch for spiritual authority, masking a heart far from God.
In essence, without the Holy Spirit’s convicting and guiding presence, promised in the Old Testament (Ezekiel 36:26-27) but resisted by these leaders, the Pharisees defaulted to human ingenuity. And of course, left to his own spirit, man will become cruel and heartless. Without God's guiding influence his worship, his prayer life, his faith and expressions of faith will become cold and pagan like. They ultimately not only neglected justice and mercy but this also set the stage for rejecting the Messiah. Today, this warns us: when the church loses sensitivity to the Spirit, traditions can subtly become idols, echoing the Pharisees’ error.
The Heart of Stone: Cruelty and Coldness Without the Spirit
Romans 1:22-25"Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen."
Without the Holy Spirit’s convicting and guiding presence, humanity defaults to its own ingenuity, leading to cruelty, heartlessness, and a faith that devolves into cold, pagan-like expressions. As promised in Ezekiel 36:26-27, God offers to replace our "heart of stone" with a "heart of flesh" and put His Spirit in us to move us toward obedience. Yet, when resisted, as with the Pharisees and even in our traditional orthodox churches. This absence creates a void where self-reliance reigns, and the results are devastating. Scripture vividly illustrates this descent. In Romans 1, Paul describes how suppressing God’s truth leads to futile thinking, darkened hearts, and idolatry, resulting in every form of wickedness: envy, murder, deceit, malice, and heartlessness (Romans 1:28-31). Left to our own spirit, we exchange the Creator for created things, and our worship becomes not just empty but degrading, echoing pagan rituals marked by cruelty and perversion. Without the Spirit’s renewal, our innate tendencies amplify, turning prayer into rote recitation, faith into rigid dogma, and expressions of devotion into lifeless rituals that prioritize form over transformation.
We saw this phenomenon during Israel’s wilderness wanderings, the absence of wholehearted reliance on God’s Spirit led to the golden calf incident (Exodus 32), where worship devolved into pagan revelry and idolatry, complete with sacrifices that foreshadowed cruel human practices. Later, under many wayward kings, Israel adopted Baal worship, involving child sacrifice and ritual prostitution, cruel expressions of faith devoid of God’s guiding influence (2 Kings 17:16-17; Jeremiah 19:5).
This pattern persists beyond Scripture. When faiths lose divine vitality, rituals can become cold habits without meaning, as seen in various religious traditions where external forms eclipse inner renewal. In church history, periods marked by quenched Spirit, such as the formalized excesses leading to the Inquisition or Crusades, saw Christianity twisted into instruments of cruelty, far from the Spirit’s fruit of love and kindness (Galatians 5:22-23). All under the supposed watchful eyes of the Papacy. These pagan-like elements emerged when the human spirit dominates: think of ancient religions’ brutal sacrifices or modern nominalism where faith is just cultural performance, not Spirit-led life. Ultimately, without God’s influence, our worship risks becoming pagan-like, self-centered, manipulative, and void of true communion.
The Holy Spirit counters this by convicting, guiding, and producing genuine fruit, transforming cruel hearts into compassionate ones.
But how does this happen?
Why is their worship void of the Spirit?
The Descent into Spiritual Void: How Worship Loses the Holy Spirit
Ephesians 4:30-32"And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you."
Biblically, this happens through a process of grieving and quenching the Spirit, deliberate or unwittingly gradual resistance to His convicting and guiding work, which empties faith of its divine vitality and opens the door to human corruption. Scripture outlines clear mechanisms for this descent. First, we grieve the Holy Spirit through sin and disunity, as in Ephesians 4:30-31, where bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, slander, and malice fracture the body of Christ and harden hearts. This grieving occurs when we knowingly engage in moral wrongs, suppressing His conviction and using Him to excuse our failings instead of yielding to transformation. Similarly, quenching the Spirit (1 Thessalonians 5:19) involves stifling His fire, relying on human resources over divine power, neglecting prayer, resisting His promptings, despising His gifts, or suppressing spiritual emotion and fruit. Attitudes like pride, cynicism, ungratefulness, and irreverence further hinder His work, turning worship from heartfelt response to mechanical ritual. Without the Spirit’s illumination, Scripture becomes a dead letter (2 Corinthians 3:6), and faith always ends up devolving into external forms (idols) devoid of inner renewal.
Why does this render worship void?
Jesus taught that true worship must be "in Spirit and truth" (John 4:23-24); the Holy Spirit is its essential enabler, convicting of sin, revealing Christ, and producing fruit like love and kindness (Galatians 5:22-23). When resisted, through discord, lack of expectation, or failure to invite His presence, worship loses its source, becoming self-centered and manipulative, akin to pagan idolatry where rituals serve human agencies and agendas rather than serving God’s glory.
This process unfolds gradually: It begins with ignoring the Spirit’s gentle convictions, progresses to hardened attitudes that prioritize church traditions or power (rule), and culminates in outright cruelty towards others. Misguided zeal for orthodoxy and traditional practices results in an abuse of authority, twisting faith into instruments of torture and plunder, far from the Spirit’s compassion. These cruel eras, often under papal oversight, quenched the Spirit through institutional pride and human ingenuity, resulting in pagan-like brutality, sacrifices of lives in the name of orthodoxy, echoing ancient rituals but cloaked in Christian veneer. And it all stems from resisting the Spirit’s call to humility and unity, allowing cruelty to flourish where love should reign.
The Holy Spirit counters this by persistently convicting, guiding toward repentance, and transforming hearts, replacing stone with flesh (Ezekiel 36:26), but only when we yield.
So why don't the churches lean on the Spirit? It seems obvious that they should and would. Is there something stopping them from examining their ways, and seeking His guidance?
Barriers to the Spirit: Why Churches Resist Yielding
Thessalonians 5:19-22"Do not quench the Spirit. Do not treat prophecies with contempt but test them all; hold on to what is good, reject every kind of evil."
If the Holy Spirit’s role is so vital and transformative, convicting, guiding, and renewing hearts (Ezekiel 36:26), why don’t churches more readily lean on Him? It seems intuitive that we should examine our ways and seek His guidance, yet history and Scripture reveal persistent barriers that hinder this yielding. These obstacles often stem from human nature, institutional inertia, and spiritual resistance, leading to a quenching of the Spirit rather than full dependence.
In the early church, this manifested in treating prophecies with contempt or failing to discern good from evil, as Paul often warned against. Jesus Himself encountered this with the Pharisees. Today, similar dynamics persist: pride and self-sufficiency cause churches to prioritize programs, traditions, or logic over the unpredictable leading of the Spirit, fearing loss of control or division.
Proverbs 16:18"Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall."
Religious traditions often create mental blocks, where established doctrines or rituals overshadow the Spirit’s personhood, treating Him more as a concept than a living guide. Fear plays a significant role, fear or lack of understanding of the supernatural, emotional excess, or the unknown, leading congregations to depend on rationalism and human intellect rather than divine empowerment. Traditional teachings all too often emphasize the Father and Son while neglecting the Spirit, viewing Him as secondary or His gifts as ceased (cessationism), which stems from misinterpretations of Scripture like 1 Corinthians 13:8-10. Some churches overemphasize the Word at the expense of the Spirit, or vice versa, forgetting that true vitality comes from both (John 4:23-24). Additionally, neglecting prayer, Bible study, or the gifts of the Spirit shuts down His voice, allowing human agendas to dominate. These barriers aren’t inevitable; they reflect a failure to yield, often rooted in a lack of intentional examination.
So, what's a body to do?
Assess your church’s practices: Are fear, tradition, or sin hindering reliance on the Spirit? Encourage open discussions on His role, incorporate times for listening in services, and commit to personal yielding through daily prayer. Start small, invite the Spirit into decisions and watch for His guidance.
James 4:7-10"Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up."
In the face of the barriers we’ve explored, mental blocks from traditions, fear of the supernatural, neglect of the Spirit’s personhood, imbalances in teaching, and a lack of intentional yielding; The answer lies in humble, intentional action. We must actively submit to God, drawing near to Him through repentance and openness, as James urges. These obstacles aren’t insurmountable; they dissolve when we choose to yield, creating space for the Holy Spirit to convict, guide, and empower us.
Scripture provides a roadmap for this. Begin with self-examination and repentance: Lamentations 3:40 calls us to "examine our ways and test them, and let us return to the Lord." This means confronting fears, sins, and traditions that quench the Spirit head-on, perhaps through fasting or communal confession. Then, cultivate dependence through prayer and study: Acts 1:14 shows the early disciples "all joined together constantly in prayer," awaiting the Spirit’s arrival. And address cessationism by having an honest and open dialogue about how your traditions may be a stumbling block for The Spirit.
Practically, churches can foster renewal by encouraging testimonies of the Spirit’s work, teaching on His gifts without excess or neglect, and creating "listening times" in services where silence allows for His promptings. History reminds us this works. Revivals begin with a simple yieldedness to the Voice of Truth, breaking through and moving beyond nominalism, emotionalism, filioque, charisma, icons, mystical union (theosis), sacrament, and fear.
Ultimately, yielding isn’t passive; it’s an active choice to prioritize the Spirit’s voice over human agendas, leading to vibrant, compassionate communities. Heed the call to assess your church’s practices: Identify if fear, tradition, or sin is hindering reliance on the Spirit, perhaps through a small group discussion or anonymous survey. Encourage open dialogues on His role, maybe via Bible studies on pneumatology (the study of the Holy Spirit). Incorporate listening times in services, setting aside moments for quiet reflection or sharing prophetic words. Commit personally to daily prayer, inviting the Spirit’s guidance in routines and decisions.
Begin meetings with, "Holy Spirit, what do You say?" and watch for His leading in unexpected ways. Track these experiences in a journal to build faith and share with others.
At the end of the day, the Holy Spirit bridges the divine and human realms, enabling Christ’s incarnation, ministry, and ongoing presence in the church. The Spirit is not subordinate but is the agent who actualizes Christ’s work, ensuring Christology is pneumatologically informed. Through Scripture. As the bond of love between Father and Son. He proceeds from the Father and the Son through liturgy, through worship, through bible study, through prayer, through Christian faith in action. The Spirit makes Christ experientially present, empowering justice, healing, and mission. This interplay reminds us that knowing Christ fully requires openness to the Spirit’s guidance in all these circumstances.
Prayer
Holy Spirit, we humble ourselves before You, repenting of barriers that have quenched Your work. Help us draw near, examine our ways, and yield fully to Your guidance. Break through fear and tradition in our churches, renew our dependence on You, and lead us into vibrant life. In Jesus’ Holy name, Amen.
