what did jesus say about the sabbath

The Evangelist proceeds to show that the Lord justified His followers on another ground — by the enunciation of a weighty truth concerning the sabbath which the Pharisees had nullified by their tradition. The distinction of this utterance from the Lord's historical allusion to the Old Testament is marked in the narrative by the phrase, "And he said unto them." For He proceeded to introduce to them a new phase of the subject, illuminating it by the truth of God, as it could emanate from Himself only. In their ignorant zeal, under a thin veneer of piety, they had made the sabbath a yoke of bondage grievous to be borne. The Lord pronounced authoritatively, "The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath." The object of the institution of the septenary season of rest was not the punishment of man, but his blessing.

298 Let us now see what the New Testament directly affords us on the sabbath. Is any hint as to its sacredness to be found? Matthew 12:1 is evidently of great consequence here. The Pharisees complained of the disciples' plucking and rubbing the ears of corn. The Lord's answer is remarkable. It is not to rebuke the Pharisees as He does elsewhere, but to shew that the sabbath and other ceremonial enactments have been set aside for sufficient cause, and that a greater than any obligation of the sabbath was there. Could God say, I am greater than a moral commandment? Would that be a divine way of putting things if it were a question of hating a brother or coveting another man's wife? Such a thought would revolt at once. But that is the Lord's reasoning as to the sabbath. First a rejected Messiah made all common, for another obligatory commandment, the sabbath, gave way under God's own eye. Christ was greater than the temple; and if they knew God's heart, they would not have condemned His disciples. All this proved the Pharisees wrong and unjustifiable. But, besides, the Son of man was Lord of the sabbath. Surely this could not be said of a commandment as to right and wrong! He had a title to dispose of the sabbath, through the dignity of His person and office. Could all this have been said if the Lord were insisting on the maintenance of its authority? He adds that it is lawful to do well on the sabbath. The parallel passage in Mark adds, The sabbath was made for man.

Matthew's gospel gives us dispensational changes, and, on that ground, Christ's person as divine; and the place He took as Son of man laid the ground for dealing with the sabbath as Lord of it. Here Christ is the servant-prophet, and we have another ground laid: the sabbath was made for man. It was in favour of — for — man; and hence He who ordered all for man, as the head of the race according to God, was Lord of it. It was a benefit conferred on man for his advantage, and the Son of man was the competent disposer in the matter. Could this be said of a divinely binding law?

He sums this up by announcing principles of vita! significance in verses 27 and 28. The sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath. It was in man's best interests to have a day during the week when he might rest, yet often he will not do this unless he is virtually forced to. God was seeking the blessing of man in providing him with one day of rest during the week. Now Pharisees were turning it into a virtual curse for man by their rigid traditions. More than this, the Son of Man is Lord of the sabbath: His authority is far higher than that of the sabbath, and certainly infinitely higher than the assumed authority of Pharisees, little as the Pharisees were willing to recognize it.

(Vv. 23-29). In the incident that took place on the Sabbath, we see a further intimation that the whole system, represented by the Sabbath, was about to be set aside. In raising the question of the Sabbath, the Pharisees profess great zeal for the outward observance of a day, while wholly indifferent to the fact that the Lord of the Sabbath, and His disciples were left to hunger. They assumed to be glorifying God at the very moment when they were rejecting His witness. The Lord exposes their unreality by recalling the history of David and his companions, who in the day of their rejection were left to hunger. In these circumstances, when God's anointed was rejected, and hunted, and hungered, the shewbread ceases to have its value in His sight, and therefore no sin was committed though David and his companions acted contrary to the letter of the law in eating of the shewbread. So with the Sabbath: it was for the blessing of men, and not for increasing the sufferings of hungry men. Moreover, "The Son of Man is Lord also of the sabbath," and therefore above the Sabbath that He instituted.

The Lord, after He has thus drawn out of Scripture the true lesson for the day, brings out the general beneficent object of God in the Sabbath for all days. "The Sabbath was made on account of man." The Pharisees thought and spoke as if man was made for the Sabbath, to be put under it thus; but the Sabbath was made for man's good and rest, raising his thoughts above the mere labour of his hands. But He brings in another principle: "The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath also." He connects that with the Sabbath being made for man, but breaks out into a greater truth: the person of Christ is above all ordinances. His glory, even as the rejected man, eclipses all the twinkling rites instituted by the Lord Himself. I have no hesitation in saying that the Lord who gave the law at Sinai, and He who afterwards was born and lived a man upon the earth, was the same blessed Divine person. He who always acted throughout the Old Testament in government, who came down and suffered and died upon the cross in grace, He now maintains, not merely that He is Lord of the Sabbath in virtue of being Divine, but of being Son of man; and what is the importance of this? "Son of man" is the title of His rejection. "Son of man" is the name that He assumed when the Jews refused Him as the Messiah. You will find a remarkable proof of this in Matt. 16:13 and Luke 9:18 (the same fact recorded in the two different Evangelists). He forbids His disciples to say that He was "the Christ." He leaves aside for a while the glory of His Messiahship: as such He had come and presented Himself to the Jews, but they would not have Him. Now He says, as it were, It is too late: I have given them ample proof — miracle, prophecy, My own ways and words. Everything shows that I am the Messiah, but they will not have Me. It is not that proof is wanting, but their hearts are steeled against all evidences. They are the enemies of God, and proved to be such by refusing what God has fully vouchsafed. Now He takes another character altogether — "Son of man." And what may well and deeply affect us is this — it is as Son of man that He suffers on the cross. "The Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders, and chief priests, and scribes, and be slain, and be raised the third day." "The Christ" was a title in particular connection with Israel after the flesh. He was their Messiah. He belonged to no other nation. He was the promised King of the Jews. But the Jews would not have Him. Well, says the Lord, you cannot deny that I am Son of man. It is a lowly name, but, after all, the Son of man opens the way to His magnificent rights and glory over all mankind. The Son of man comes in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. The Son of man takes the kingdom over all tribes, and nations, and tongues. What leads to it all? His rejection as Messiah. He suffers as Son of man first, because it is determined, according to God's counsels and grace, to have companions with Him in the very same glory. It is through that very same fact that Christ has suffered as the Son of man, and has surely taken His glory because of it, that we shall be with Him — that all Christians will be without a spot or stain, or any such thing, all through the suffering Son of man. But if I have Him humbled, I have the glorious Son of man.

In the present case, however, the Lord does not go further than "The Son of man is Lord also of the Sabbath." He accepts His rejection, but He pleads for His disciples before those who boasted and disputed about the Sabbath, while they were dishonouring the Lord of the Sabbath. Could they deny what David had done, and God had sealed, sanctioned, and recorded for Israel's instruction? That is the first defence. The next is that the Sabbath was made for man, not man for it. The third plea, which is rather a consequence, is that He who was a blessed Man — the Son of man — is Lord of the Sabbath. It is the glory of His person as the rejected, suffering Man: as such, and not only as God, He is above the Sabbath Day — its Lord.35

A man is present with a withered hand. They desire now to find some new ground of accusation again Him. Their first attempt had failed. He had read their evil thoughts, and by His answer He had shown that He anticipated the question they now put to Him, "Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?" Awful motive, which stands alongside of the question, showing the depths of Satan "that they might accuse Him." The question also discloses the fact that they believed in His healing power. We may well imagine the scene in that synagogue. The Lord in His divine calmness, the unfortunate man with the withered hand, the malicious, accusing Pharisees with their Satanic desire. And now the stillness broken by His voice, "What man shall there be of you who has one sheep, and if this fall into a pit on the Sabbath, will not lay hold of it and raise it up?" There was no answer; of course none could stand up and declare he would not deliver his one sheep out of the pit. "How much better then is a man than a sheep! So that it is lawful to do well on the Sabbath." What a divine logic! How unanswerable this statement!

Now another matter concerning the sabbath brings out even more glaringly the bitter animosity of the Pharisees against Him. Though He had reminded them that the priests carried out their duties for the help of Israelites on the sabbath day, yet the Pharisees were adamant in their opposition to His healing on the sabbath. They raise the question as to whether it is lawful to heal on the sabbath days, since a man with a withered hand is present. But their object is to accuse Him. He answers by referring to their own practice. For them to rescue a sheep out of a pit was certainly harder physical work then for Him to heal, yet they would do this on a sabbath day. If a sheep should be shown such consideration, how much more so should a man, who is of far more value! He finalizes this with the emphatic announcement, "it is lawful to do well on the sabbath days." What honest man could dare to object to this?

Jesus knew their machinations (Luke 6:8), but was not to be diverted out of His course of "doing good." He bade the afflicted man to rise and stand out in the midst in sight of the whole company. Then the Lord, desirous of awakening the dormant consciences of the Pharisees and scribes to a sense of their own guilty motives, asked them, "Is it lawful to do good on the sabbath or to do harm? to save life or to kill?" (Mark, Luke). To this piercing question, which exposed the hidden sophistries of their minds, they had no reply, and were dumb before Him. They had reasoned within themselves that, since the commandment of God forbade all work on the sabbath, Jesus, by healing the withered hand, would be working, and therefore breaking the sabbath. But the Lord's words put the matter on a different plane altogether. The question was not, as they supposed, one between activity and passivity; it was between doing good and doing harm, between saving a life and destroying a life by refraining from saving it. The law of God was given for the repression of evil, not for the repression of good. "There is none good save one, that is, God," and it is inconceivable that He, "the Goodness of goodness," would promulgate a law which would prevent the doing of good. Indeed to refrain from doing good when opportunity is offered is to display unlikeness to God. "Whoso has this world's good, and sees his brother have need, and shuts up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwells the love of God in him" (1 John 3:17)?

We have seen that the sabbath was made for the purpose of ministering to the needs of men. Now the Lord in the synagogue encountered a man who was in manifestly serious need. But his need meant nothing to the Pharisees compared to their zeal for the sabbath day. Knowing His compassion, they suspect that He will heal the man in spite of their opposition. He does not tell the man to meet Him elsewhere out of sight of the Pharisees, but makes a decided issue of the matter. For they were contesting God's right to show mercy. Having the man stand forth, He asked them a simple question that was fully to the point. Did the law allow one to do good on the sabbath days or to do evil? -- to save life or to kill? So far as they were concerned, they would rather see one die on the sabbath than to see him healed. They would not answer, for they knew that an answer either way would incriminate them, unless they gave up their foolish prejudice.

But this produces indignation in the synagogue: for it is the sabbath; and a man must not use the power of God upon the sabbath day! What! the Lord says: is it to preserve the rest of God unbroken, to keep a daughter of Abraham in bondage to Satan? Notice the emphasis He lays upon this, that she is a daughter of Abraham. How unseemly for one who inherits Abraham's faith to be kept bowed together; and this is, doubtless, how we are to take Christ's plea for her, as in the case of Zacchaeus afterwards (Luke 19:9). This perfects the picture: work there is none, but God's work, and the synagogue in vain would tie His hands. It was, in fact, but loud-voiced hypocrisy: for they had no difficulty in leading away their beasts to the water. They only prized man at less than the beast.