Jesus soon went away from the place where He had fed the four thousand, moving to the other side of the lake. The disciples could not buy food to take with them during this voyage. When Christ talked to them about the leaven of the Pharisees and the Sadducees that poisons the thoughts, they thought that He meant the leaven of bread. They had their mind set on the things of this world and He had His mind set on the things of heaven, for He had placed all His concerns in His Father’s hands.
Jesus reproved His disciples for thinking about bread more than spiritual things. He pointed to the five thousand fed with five loaves, and the four thousand with seven loaves. Why did they worry about bread while He was with them? Jesus, again, made clear to them that the legalism of the Pharisees and the liberalism of the Sadducees were not in conformity with God’s love in the New Testament, the love that guides man by the Holy Spirit into the service of sacrifice. Jesus pressed upon His followers the necessity to guard against hypocrisy and guard against having a form of godliness only. He urged them to confess their sins and serve God by His grace.
This disagreement between the worship of God based on self-righteousness, by keeping the law, and the freedom of Christ’s love based on His atonement and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, is deeply rooted. It appears as a violent struggle throughout the Acts of the Apostles. In this book, the apostle Paul became the well-known fighter for the sake of freeing our minds from seeking righteousness by law. He testified to the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in our hearts, made possible by Christ fulfilling all the requirements of righteousness on the cross. What a pity, that even now, some believers do not recognize the error of justification by one’s own deeds. It is a dominant Jewish thought from the heart of the Old Testament, whereas righteousness by faith is the basis of the worldwide message of the New Testament.