Christian fasting - what does the Bible say?

Prayer and fasting

On several occasions the Book of Acts mentions fasting in connection with prayer. In one instance (Acts 14:23), the apostles chose elders in each assembly in this region but then, interestingly, commended the other believers to the Lord (not to the elders). Whilst oversight was useful and necessary (and its official institution possible while there were apostles on earth), each believer had and retained a direct relationship with the Lord in whom they had believed. The apostles’ prayer with fasting shows the intensity of their desire that each of these young believers should prosper spiritually, in direct communion with the Lord.

Fasting should not be undertaken with a view to obtaining merit, nor in an attempt to make God intervene in a specific manner, nor to ‘show off’ before others (Matt. 6:16), but it can help us to pray more fervently in intercession or in seeking the Lord’s mind (see Acts 13:2). Paul’s letter to the Corinthians shows that he fasted often (2 Cor. 6:5; 11:27).

"Moreover, when ye fast,..."

As already mentioned, the Lord Jesus neither gives a commandment to fast, nor does He forbid it here. He leaves fasting as a personal exercise of the heart but gives the warning not to do it in a hypocritical manner (as with giving alms and praying). The hypocrites are of sad countenance in order to appear as pious as possible (cp. Luke 24:17), and to make people see how earnest they are. But as we have already seen in verses 2 and 5, our God and Father won't give us any reward if we seek to obtain it through the mere appearance of piety, and recognition by men.

Fasting means to abstain from eating and drinking for a certain time. It is mentioned several times in Scripture and is known until now in many parts of Christendom. Yet when we open our Bibles we will not find a commandment for it either in the Old or in the New Testament. Nor does the Lord Jesus command His disciples to fast in Matthew 6:16-18, just as He did not command the giving of alms in verses 2-4. But He presupposes simply that His disciples are doing it.

Nowadays we hardly know what biblical fasting means. Most of us probably have to confess that we do not give it much thought. Yet let us not make light of it but ask ourselves what this short passage in the "Sermon on the Mount" has to tell us today.

"And when ye fast, be not gloomy-faced as the hypocrites; for they disguise their faces, so that they may appear to men fasting. Verily, I say to you, They have their reward. But thou while fasting anoint thy head, and wash thy face, so that thou mayest not appear to men fasting, but to thy Father that [is] in secret; and thy Father that seeth in secret will recompense thee."

The Lord does not so much enjoin fasting as bring it like prayer under the Christian principle of having to do with our Father in secret. It falls under the individual life of faith. Yet He undoubtedly sanctions and approves of it when so practised; and this independently of the more open and united aim, such as we find in Acts 13:2-3, Acts 14:23. He also intimates its value for spiritual power. Pious men have ever felt and must feel its appropriateness in chastening the soul before God, where public or private need called for humiliation. But even in Mark 9:29 it is well to note that the two most ancient copies ignore "and fasting," as they with other authorities also the entire verse 21 of Matt. 17, nor is there a word corresponding in Luke 9. The apostle however who more than others was given to stand for liberty in Christ speaks (in 2 Cor. 6:5, 2 Cor. 11:27) simply and piously of "fastings" and "fastings often" in his service, to the rebuke of that levity which the Corinthian assembly betrayed, and which characterises modern Christianity, save where superstition and self-righteousness give it an artificial moment in very different eyes.

(3) We now come to the subject of fasting. I believe there is a real value in fasting that few of us know much about. If, on particular occasions which call for special individual prayer, one were to unite fasting with it, I have no doubt the blessing of it would be felt. There is humbling of spirit expressed in it. There are prayers which are most suitably accompanied by standing, others by kneeling. Fasting is one of those things in which the body shows its sympathy with what the spirit is passing through; it is a means of expressing our desire to be low before God, and in the attitude of humiliation. But lest the flesh should take advantage of even what is for the mortifying of the body, the Lord enjoins that means be taken rather not to appear unto men to fast than to permit any display. For although a true Christian would shrink from putting on false appearances, the devil would cheat him into doing it unless he is very jealous in self-watchfulness before God. "Thou, when thou fastest, anoint thy head and wash thy face; that thou appear not unto men to fast, but unto thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly" (vers. 17, 18).

We read in Exodus 34:28 that Moses did not eat bread or drink water for forty days when he was on the mountain of God. This is the first occasion in Scripture where fasting is mentioned. The Lord Jesus too began His ministry on earth with fasting for forty days and forty nights (Matt. 4:2). As a nation, the people of Israel fasted for the first time before they went to war with their brethren, the tribe of Benjamin (Judges 20:26).

We also read in different passages that an Israelite or the whole people fasted in connection with earnest prayer (Neh. 1:4; Dan. 9:3), but also to humble themselves in mourning and repentance (1 Sam. 7:6; 1 Kings 21:27; 2 Chron. 20:3; Ezra 8:21). After the Babylonian captivity several yearly fastings were appointed to remember the captivity of Judah (Zech. 7:5; 8:19).

The significance of fasting is most clearly seen in Psalm 35:13: "But as for me, when they were sick, my clothing was sackcloth: I humbled my soul with fasting." So we see that the fasting which pleased God in the Old Testament was the expression of an inward humbling. Although it is not said explicitly the Jews take the words, "afflict your souls," in Leviticus 16:29 as a commandment of God to fast on the great day of atonement.

But already Isaiah the prophet had to reprove in God's Name hypocritical fasting, and call for real fasting and true repentance (Isa. 58:1-7). The Israelites fasted and practised the most horrible sins at the same time. Such hypocritical and wicked conduct could not please God. The Lord Jesus also condemned it.

And so the people are gathered together to Mizpah. Common needs, common danger, and above all, a common turning to God will bring His people together. All other gatherings are worthless and worse. Here they pour out water before the Lord and fast and acknowledge their sin afresh. The pouring out of water and fasting seem to be but two sides of the same act, expressed probably in the words which follow: "We have sinned against the Lord." The pouring out of water seems to be an acknowledgment of their utter helplessness and worthlessness. "We are as water spilled upon the ground which cannot be gathered up again." They had spent their strength for naught and were indeed as weak as water. This weakness had come from their sinning against God. So it is proper that fasting should accompany this solemn act, no mere religious form or unwilling abstinence from food, as though there were some merit in that, but that intense earnestness of spirit which is so absorbed in its purpose that necessary food is for the time forgotten, or refused as an intrusion upon the more important business before the soul. Fasting, as a means to produce certain desired effects, savors too much of ritualism and fosters self-righteousness in its devotees but as a result, — as an indication of the state of soul — it is always the mark of a truly earnest seeker after God.

Fasting involves the setting aside of self. And not only self looked upon as connected with the evil within; but it is the setting aside of the claims of nature itself in order to have to do with God. It is a recognition that there are spiritual things on hand of deeper importance than even rightful claims of the body. And then there is a wider sense in which the believer goes through this world abstaining from everything in it. He is "anointed" and "washed." His heart is right and his life is right. He does not appear "of a sad countenance," for the joy of Heaven fills his heart while upon the earth, and the Father who seeth in secret rewards him.

In short, fasting embraces self-denial, so that the needy of all sorts around may be helped and blessed. If Isaiah 58 were faithfully carried out it would mean constant self-denial, and this would prove a most acceptable form of fasting of a very practical nature. If the Christian, young or old, practised Isaiah 58 they would realize in detail what fasting means.

The Lord did not condemn fasting as a practice. He instructed His disciples that it should be undertaken in secret, as before God, rather than before men (Matt. 6:16-18). It was to be united with prayer for the effectual expulsion of unclean spirits in certain cases (Mark 9:29). There was a season of prayer and fasting in the early church when Paul and Barnabas went forth on their first missionary tour (Acts 13:3). Nothing in scripture appears to warrant the present general abandonment of the practice by Christians, though indeed there is a sense in which we may say the Lord is still with us (Matt. 28:20). Self-denial in the spirit of Nazariteship, of which food-fasting is but a single phase, should, however, be practised by the believer habitually and not only on special occasions.

Fasting appears to be expressive of an occupation of the spiritual nature with heavenly subjects to such an intense degree that the instinctive cravings of the physical nature for food and relaxation are disregarded or unheeded for the time. In its purest form therefore fasting is involuntary. It is surely needless to say that the perfunctory or the Pharisaic fast is valueless before God.