What does it mean that Jesus is the Lord of the Sabbath?

"The Son of man is Lord also of the sabbath." In these words, to the confusion of the unbelieving Pharisees, the Servant of Jehovah asserted His claim to an absolute authority over the sabbath. In virtue of His own rights He was competent to decide what might or what might not be done on the sabbath, for He was Lord of the sabbath.

This was an important revelation of the dignity of His person, and we find the saying recorded in each of the Synoptic Gospels in connection with the incident before us. But here it is especially instructive to observe that the Servant of Jehovah, so perfect in His dependence, so untiring in His energy, so exquisite in His sympathy, and so tender in His compassion, quietly and unostentatiously, using the simplest form of speech, claimed an unqualified authority which no man ever possessed previously. For, let it be remembered, this Lordship implied more than the Adamic supremacy over the lower creation. This was Lordship over a divine institution which Adam never had. The Son of man, who had power on earth to forgive sins, had power on earth to regulate the sabbath also, for, even as Peter said to Cornelius, "He is Lord of all."

The ideal sabbath is yet to come. So the apostle in the Epistle to the Hebrews, after showing that the rest of God did not come about in Old Testament times, declares, "There remains therefore a sabbath-rest for the people of God" (Heb. 4:9). Of this sabbatism the Son of man is Lord, as He is the true Joshua to lead His own into that rest, and to maintain them in it. At that day both the heavens and the earth will participate in the sabbath of Jehovah, whose glory shall fill the whole earth throughout the millennial day. This period to which the prophets witness will be the true sabbath when the second Adam, the Son of man, will rule, and both the heavenly and the earthly departments of His kingdom will enjoy this rest.

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

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.

On that Sabbath, then, the disciples, in passing through the cornfields, "were plucking the ears of corn, and eating [them], rubbing them in their hands." This was always allowed, and is still, in Eastern countries round the Holy Land — no doubt a remaining trace of the old traditional habit of the Jews. It is allowed as an act of charity to the hungry. What a condition for the followers of the Lord Jesus to be in! What a proof of His shame and of their need!

But nothing moved the Pharisees: religious bitterness steels the natural heart. "But some of the Pharisees said to them, Why do ye that which is not lawful to do† on the sabbath?"137 The Lord answered instead of the disciples, "Have ye not read so much as this, what David did when he hungered, he and those who were with him; how he went into the house of God, and took the showbread, and ate and gave to them also who were with him; which it is not lawful that [any] eat unless the priests alone? "The Spirit of God here takes up only David — not the priests of whom also Matthew treats, which was very suitable. He, writing for Jews, would use a proof of the folly of their objection which was before their eyes every day. But Luke refers to the moral analogy in the history of the great king David, who, after his anointing, and before coming to the throne (which was just the Lord's position now), was reduced to such excessive straits that the holy bread was made profane for his sake. God, as it were, refused to hold to ritual where the anointed king and his followers were destitute of the barest necessaries of life. For what did it imply? The depth of evil that ruled the nation. How could God sanction holy bread in such a condition? How could He accept of the showbread of the people as the food of His priests, when all the foundations were clearly out of course? Was not this evident in the hunger of His anointed and of His trusty band? Was not the rejected Son of David as free as the rejected David? (Verse 2) "To them so AE, etc., 33, 69, Amiat., Syrr. Edd. omit, after ℵBCpmL, etc., Old Lat., Memph., etc. †"To do": so ACEL, with later uncials, Syrr., Memph.; but Edd. omit, as BDR, 69, and Amiat.

The Lord closes this part of the subject with the declaration that "the Son of man is Lord of the sabbath also." Thus there is another reason yet more powerful. David was not the Son of man as Jesus was. The Son of man had, in His own person and position, rights altogether superior to any ritual. He was entitled to abrogate it. He would do so formally in due time; for this attached to His personal glory. "The Son of man is Lord of the sabbath also," which David was not. Codex Bezae Cantab. transposes verse 5 to the end of verse 10. But this licence is small compared with the singular addition which it exhibits in place of that transposed verse 5: — Τῃ αὺτῃ ἡμέρᾳ θεασάμενος τινὰ ἐγαζόμενον τῳ σαββάτῳ εἶπεν αὐτῳ Ἂνθρωπε, εἰ μὲν οἶδας τί ποιεῖς τί ποῖες, μακὰριος εἶ, εὶ δὲ μὴ οἶδας, ἐπικατάρατος καὶ παραβατὴς εἶ τοῦ νόμου. On the same day having beheld one working on the sabbath, he said to him: Man, if thou knowest what thou art doing, thou art happy; but if thou knowest not, thou art cursed and a transgressor of the law." It is surprising that any thoughtful Christian should be rash enough to regard this insertion as authentic; for while the Lord always met the faith of the Gentiles or Samaritans to whom grace gave a deeper perception of His personal glory above law, He does not anticipate, in His dealings in the Gospels, that deliverance of the believer from law which is based on His own death and resurrection as now revealed (B.T.). See, further, note 138 in Appendix.

Verse 5 emphasizes His Person. Man, as originally created, was made lord over the earthly creation. The Son of Man is Lord over a far wider sphere. He was not bound by the sabbath, the sabbath was at His disposal. Who then is this Son of Man? That was what the Pharisees did not know, but the Lord indicated His greatness by this claim which He made.

Second, the sabbath was instituted for man's benefit, and not the reverse. Hence man takes precedence of the sabbath; and the Son of man, who holds dominion over all men, according to Psalm 8, must be Lord of the sabbath, and hence competent to dispose of it according to His will. Who were the Pharisees to challenge His right to do this? — even though He had come amongst men in the form of a Servant.

"The sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath." This, after all, was a very wonderful truth. But when we get Christ, truths come out; for He, the God that made, and the Man that takes up the blessings, has a right to teach them. God sanctified it because He rested in it, yet was it made for man. Here was He who made it, and who was a Man. But what a truth! Compare Proverbs 8. If God works and rests, even in His own delight, it is for man. No wonder man is exalted - and, no wonder, degraded and ruined, if he departs from Him. Christ takes this up, and fulfils it, takes up all these rights of man in God, in Himself in righteousness. "The Son of man is" therefore "Lord of the sabbath also." It is not only, then, as God He has gone beyond any Jewish expectation of Messiah visiting them, and in grace, but as Man passing, beyond all Jewish conventional appropriation of it, into the portion of man as of God, and in God's own thought, and entering, as we have seen, by their rejection of Him in that, into the full title and glory of this. The despised, rejected Son of man is not under (His own institutions) but Lord of the sabbath as Man. It was made for Him, as well as by Him as God, and, for the first, being who He is, He is Lord of it. "The Son of man is" - this is a wonderful truth - most wondrous!

Then there is that important verse (8), "The Son of man is Lord also of the sabbath day." He is not only greater than the temple but He who in grace became the Son of man is Lord also of the sabbath. If He is Lord you see He is the One to regulate, and to order, and to say what should and should not be. David was the anointed king, and if he was so circumstanced that he had not food, what was the value of the showbread to God if His own "anointed" had need? If that was true of the type, what of the Lord Himself?

Mark 3. This theme is followed up by the two sabbaths, the first of these sabbath days bringing clearly out to view that God no longer owned Israel, and this because that Jesus was as much despised in this day as David had been of old. Such is the point referred to here. The disciples of Christ were starving. What a position! No doubt David and his men suffered lack in that day. What was the effect then as to the system which God had sanctioned? God would not maintain His own ordinances in presence of the moral wrong to His anointed, and those that clave unto Him. His own honour was at stake. His ordinances, however important in their place, give way before the sovereign dispositions of His purpose. The application was evident. The Lord Jesus Christ was a greater than David; and were not the followers of Jesus quite as precious as those of Jesse's son? If the bread of priests became common, when they of old were hungry, would God now hold to His sabbath when the disciples of Jesus lacked ordinary food? Besides, He adds, "The sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath. Therefore the Son of Man is Lord also of the sabbath." Thus He asserts the superiority of His own person, and this as the rejected man; and therefore the title, "Son of Man," is especially brought in here.

FROM THE HEIGHTS reached in the last chapter, we descend into the depths of human folly and blindness as displayed by the Pharisees. In this chapter we see Him very definitely rejected by the leaders of the Jews, and not merely by the cities of Galilee. In the first two instances the contention raged round the sabbath. The Lord defended the action of His disciples on at least four grounds (ver. 3-8).

When David, God's anointed king, was in rejection, his needs took precedence over a matter of tabernacle order, and his followers were associated with him in this. David's greater Son was now refused, so should not the needs of His disciples be met, even if it infringed their sabbath regulations? But, second, the temple had taken precedence over the sabbath, for the priests had always worked on the sabbaths; and Jesus claimed to be greater than the temple. God was indeed in Christ in infinitely fuller measure than He ever had been in the temple. Third, there was that word about mercy in Hosea 6, to which previously He had referred; that applied in this case. And, fourth, Jesus claimed that as Son of Man He was Lord of the sabbath: in other words, the sabbath had no binding power over Him. He was its Master, and He could dispose of it as He saw fit.