How to fast - what does the Bible say?

Verse 16. — Here we come to the third component of "your righteousness" with which the chapter began. The first is alms; the second, prayer; the third, fasting. Do not let what you give, be before men; let your prayers be in secret, and do not let your fasting appear before men. The hypocrites wanted to advertise themselves, and they had their reward; they were esteemed very pious people. Fasting itself may be an evil thing. Writing to the Colossians the apostle condemns neglecting the body; but we may well conceive a soul with such a burden on the heart before God that it takes no food but remains before Him that is true fasting. Do not let there be anything to promulgate it. Let it be a secret between your soul and God. It will be a blessing to you if there is reality, and it is a real expression of your soul before God. There is a great desire for the nation now to spend a day of humiliation and prayer; if only a form it will be a very poor thing, but if there is really a humbling before God, it will correspond with Nineveh.

(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).

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).

"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.

In Matt. 9:14, etc. the Lord shows its true place and time in answer to the disciples of John saying, "Why do we and the Pharisees often fast, but Thy disciples fast not? And Jesus said to them, Can the sons of the bride-chamber mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them; but days shall come when the bridegroom shall be taken away from them, and then will they fast." Neither those who were only disciples of John had any real appreciation of the Bridegroom's presence, nor still less the Pharisees filled with forms and self-righteousness. It was joy to the believing disciples of Jesus. Feeble as they were, they had left their all for Him, and they tasted a divine bliss in Him wholly unknown to the others, who were wholly unprepared for the awful purport to them and the Jews of His being taken away, little as the true disciples as yet comprehended that solemn approaching fact with its immense consequence. The joy of Messiah's presence made fasting altogether inappropriate. Those who tasted none of it were blind to Him whom God's grace had given and sent. Greater still would be their darkness, when the Bridegroom should be taken away. Then would those that believed and loved Him fast, both spiritually and literally.

It might not be like Jews accompanied by rending of garments or with sackcloth and ashes, but deeper communion with God's mind than could be known before the Holy Spirit came to make it good. And fasting among Christians is all the more striking because of the peace, joy, and boundless delight they have in the love of Christ, and fellowship with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ. Still if loyal to Christ we cannot but have the constant sense of His rejection, and of the judgment ever impending and certain to fall on the guilty world, and all the more because it pays Him the hollowest of lip homage. Yes, days are come when the Bridegroom thus ignominiously taken away is still absent, and fasting lends itself to mourners, whatever their even enhanced joy in being united to Him as members of His body, a privilege never dreamt of before, and the joy of grace in the revelation and active working of a Saviour God to lost sinners, Gentile no less than Jew.

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.

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.

No Commandment to Fast

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.

The place of fasting in connection with prayer.

Fasting may be mentioned here in connection with devotional exercises as that which refers to the needs of the body. It is the result of the person being sustained in the presence of God in such holy intimacy as to forget for the moment the bodily needs and even when they make their rightful appeal they are for the moment quietly postponed. Stated times for this are most precious where there is energy for it. Holy watchfulness is needed however, for it is well-known that the enemy has wrought great havoc here by leading many into practices hurtful to spiritual well-being and also to bodily health. It is better apart from prearrangement though none dare to lay down rules. Which ever way it may be done let us be careful to follow Scripture lest Satan get an advantage over us in that which is most holy.

We read of the Lord fasting forty days and forty nights in the wilderness (Matt. 4:2); of the prophets and teachers at Antioch fasting when they chose Barnabas and Saul for the ministry (Acts 13:2-3)— doubtless actual and literal refraining from food for the time being, so that they might be undistracted in their spiritual exercises.

But there is a practical and constant side to fasting that we ought to have our attention drawn to. We refer to Isaiah 58:3-8. Fasting is not merely external, as Isaiah asks, “Is it to bow down his head as a bulrush, and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him?” If fasting is just a matter of food, attitude, dress, it is pure hypocrisy. Alas! how much there is of this.

What is fasting? you may enquire. It is not abstaining from sin. Be clear as to that. There must be no quarter given to sin, be it the sin of murdering the precious hours God gives us in things that can only weaken and defile, or by sinning in any other way.

What is fasting? Physical fasting is the abstinence from food for a time. Now food is right. God gives us all things richly to enjoy. Food is necessary for the due sustenance of the body, but a man may abstain from food for a time with a benefit in view. But physical fasting is doubtless typical of moral fasting.