The Lord of the Sabbath

RIVERSIDE INDONESIAN FELLOWSHIP
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The Lord of the Sabbath

Riverside Indonesian Fellowship
Published by Stanley Pouw in 2013 · 7 April 2013

Matthew 12 shows us how much the leaders of Israel hated our Lord. This chapter focuses on the rejection of the Messiah. In many ways, it is a turning point; the growing unbelief of Israel reaches its climax in rejection. And in the latter half of this chapter, we see the blasphemy that follows their rejection.

We saw it in Matthew 5:20, when the Lord said to the people of Israel, "Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you'll never enter My Kingdom," and then He showed in chapters 5-7 how wrong their religion was. And in Matthew 9:3, they accused Him of blasphemy, in verse 11 of spending His time with sinners, and in verse 34 of being demon possessed.

Jesus confronted them, most of all, about their sin. They were unwilling to respond to His message of sin and salvation; they believed that their works in following the law saved them from sin. First, they doubted, then they criticized; and then it became indifference. And now, it has become open rejection, blasphemy and they are filled with hatred.

As we study Matthew 12:1-14, they begin to plot His murder. We can see how that ultimately leads to Calvary's cross. It starts with a particular incident in verse 1, "At that time, Jesus went on the Sabbath Day." They rejected Christ because He violated their Sabbath; that was the last straw for them.

The Sabbath Day, to them, was the greatest example of their religious system. Everything in their legalistic system ultimately focused on that one day, and when Jesus violated their rabbinical traditions on the Sabbath, He was attacking the heart of their system.

The word 'Sabbath' basically means they stopped doing what they did on other days. Remember when God created the world, it says in Exodus 20:10, “the seventh day is the Sabbath of the LORD your God. In it you shall do no work “ Verse 11, “For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day.” It is the only commandment that is a ceremonial command.

The Sabbath commandment was unique between God and Israel as a ceremonial rule; all the other nine are moral absolutes. We know this because in the New Testament, every other command is repeated except this one regarding the Sabbath. It is not repeated because it was a specific covenant; much like circumcision was, only between God and Israel.

At the time of Jesus the Sabbath was the ceremonial law of God. It is not a binding law for the church, but it was law for Israel. So the Lord would honor the Sabbath, as would His disciples, insofar as God intended it to be honored. But the Pharisees had added so many other things to the Sabbath that the meaning changed totally.

The Sabbath became a day of burden instead of it being a day of rest. We don’t have time to tell you all the many laws. In the Talmud, there are 24 chapters listing all the Sabbath laws. One rabbi spent 2.5 years just trying to understand one chapter. Accordingly, it would take approximately 60 years to figure out all the rules of the Sabbath.

For example, you could only travel up to 3,000 feet from your house, other wise it becomes work. But if there was food there, it also could be considered your house and you can travel another 3000 feet. You could never carry a burden that weighed more than a dried fig, or you could carry something that weighed half a dried fig twice that day.

There was a long list of things you couldn't eat on the Sabbath, and forbidden food on that list could be consumed as long as it was no larger than an olive. If you put half an olive in your mouth, but found out it was rotten, and spit it out, you couldn't eat the other half because your mouth had tasted it as if it was a whole olive.

Nothing could be sold or bought, nothing could be washed, a letter could not be sent even if you put it in the hand of a non Jew for delivery. No fire could be lit, and that's why conservative and Orthodox Jews have a time switch on their lighting systems so that the lights go on automatically on the Sabbath. An egg could not be boiled, even by laying it in the sun in the sand, which was common practice.

You couldn't take a bath for fear water would spill onto the floor and wash the floor as it fell off you. A woman couldn't look in a glass, because she might see a gray hair and pluck it out. Jewelry couldn't be worn, because it weighed more than a dried fig. There were 24 chapters of this; the law goes on endlessly about wine, honey, milk, and spitting.

So the Sabbath became a heavy burden where you could not do anything. Now you understand what it meant when Jesus said in Matthew 11:28, "Come to me all you who labor and are heavy-laden and I will give you rest." That's what the Sabbath was supposed to be. So Jesus came along and paid absolutely no attention to all those rules and it infuriated the religious leaders.

Matthew 12:1, “At that time, Jesus went through the grain fields on the Sabbath and the disciples began to be hungry and they began to pluck the ears of grain to eat.” Here was a problem, because Jesus shouldn't be going places on the Sabbath; you couldn't go more than 3,000 feet. But He and His disciples are moving along, because God's law didn't say that, though the rabbinical law did. The fields were everywhere; and the grain was planted in great long rows.

The Lord had made a provision for the traveler in Israel in Deuteronomy 23:25, "When you come into your neighbor's standing grain, you may pluck the heads with your hand, but you shall not use a sickle on your neighbor's grain." In other words, you are allowed to pluck some of the grain and that is what they did.

But the Pharisees had taken this concept of not reaping on the Sabbath and gave it a more detailed explanation. You couldn't even pull a handful of grain and this became the incident that triggered their fury, because they did not allow that on the Sabbath. They said a man could only eat on the Sabbath if he were starving to death.

They even said that on the Sabbath when a man was ill, you could stop him from dying but couldn't help him to get any better. They also said you could put a bandage on a man, but not a medicated one. In other words, you could keep someone from dying but certainly couldn't make him better on the Sabbath. That was also a fine line.

Matthew 12:2 says, “And when the Pharisees saw it, they said to Him, “Look, Your disciples are doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath!” Here are these Pharisees who were also walking more than 3000 feet themselves yet they still had legalism without understanding its purpose. They had buried God's law so deeply under their tradition that it was unbearable.

Some people think that being a Christian requires a lot; just compare this to Pharisaic Judaism - theirs is a really heavy yoke. The yoke of Christ, even with the standards that He has, even with all that His lordship implies, isn't anything like this. So they indicted the Lord with their traditions and distorted the intention and motive of God's Sabbath.

First Jesus says that the Sabbath law was never intended to restrict needs of necessity. Second, it was never meant to restrict service to God. And thirdly, it was never meant to restrict acts of mercy. The Sabbath was to reflect what the other nine commandments reflected: love toward God and love toward your fellow man.

The first four of the Ten Commandments talks about our love to God through loyalty, faithfulness, reverence and holiness. The second six talks about love to our fellow man through respect, purity, unselfishness, truthfulness and contentment. This is summed up in the Mark 12:30-31, “you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, strength, and your neighbor as yourself.” Romans 13:8-10 says that love fulfills the law.

Look at the illustration Jesus uses in Matthew 12:3, “Have you not read what David did when he was hungry?" David was fleeing for his life. In 1 Samuel 21 Saul was going after him. He didn't have any food and he and his men were very hungry. So he went in to Ahimelech, the high priest, and asked him for food. And they ate the showbread off the table in the tabernacle.

Every week they baked 12 loaves of bread to represent the 12 tribes of Israel, and every Sabbath, the loaves would be taken away and new ones were put in place. And according to Leviticus 24:5-9, they were to be eaten by the priests only. This 'showbread' was picture of God's providing relationship to His people.

Still, David ate the showbread. Matthew 12: 4, “David entered the house of God and ate the showbread which was not lawful for him to eat, nor for those who were with him, but only for the priests.” Because God never created a law that was intended to overrule human need.

God will even violate one of His own ceremonial law, not His moral laws, if He has to meet a need, because God is love. The Pharisees didn't understand this, "That the Sabbath was made for man," so he could rest and have his needs met. Jesus said to them, "If David can violate a divine law, so can One greater than David violate a rabbinic tradition to express the heart of God in meeting need."

Jesus gave them a second illustration in verse 5, "Or have you not read in the law that on the Sabbath the priests in the temple profane the Sabbath, and are blameless?" Every Sabbath, all the priests worked; they lit fires, they slaughtered animals and lifted them up on the altar, and those animals were much heavier than a dried fig. Preachers and teachers also work hard on Sunday, but they do not violate the Lord's Day.

And now look at verse 6, "Yet I say to you that in this place there is One greater than the temple." Jesus said, if in the tabernacle, David could eat the showbread; and if, the priests can violate the Sabbath laws to serve God in the temple; then I am allowed to do it as well because I am greater than both of those.”

Verse 7, "But if you had known what this means, 'I desire mercy and not sacrifice,' you would not have condemned the guiltless." Jesus says, you are condemning these guiltless disciples, and you wouldn't have done it if you had known what God really wanted – a merciful heart, not a mere ritual.

People think Christianity is rigid and hard. No, God has given us standards but He doesn't want those to overrule meeting our needs, serving Him, or showing mercy. Kindness and self-sacrifice are what God wants. God wants an obedient heart, and the Pharisees were far away from that. They were serving the Lord, but their rules had to be met first.

Verse 8 says, "For the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath." Jesus says, I initiated it and I will interpret it. He says, you are not in charge of the Sabbath; I am in charge of the Sabbath. He would not allow perversion of His purpose for the Sabbath. He wrote it, He would interpret it, and He would fulfill it.

Why do we not keep the Sabbath anymore? Because Jesus fulfilled it. Hebrews 4 says that because of Christ, we have entered into rest. Romans 14 says, some people want to keep the Sabbath and some don't. It's no big deal; don't offend them, let them. That's why Paul says in Colossians 2:16-17, “So let no one judge you in food or in drink, or regarding a festival or a new moon or Sabbaths, 17 which are a shadow of things to come, but the substance is of Christ.”

That's why Jesus rose on the first day of the week. The disciples met together on the first day of every week (Acts 2:1), regularly breaking bread on the first day (Sunday) of the week (Acts 20:7), and they were to collect their offerings when they came together on the first day of the week (1 Corinthians 16:1). Why? Because that was the day that they commemorated and celebrated the resurrection of Christ!

Jesus closes with an illustration in verses 9-13. He goes right into their synagogue to illustrate the lesson He just gave. There is a man there who had a paralyzed hand, and this man meant nothing to them until he became an opportunity to catch Jesus. Verse 10, “And they asked Him, saying, 'Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?' that they might accuse Him.”

That question tells me that they believed that Jesus could heal that man, but it didn't influence them. Isn't that amazing how blind they were? The reason they picked a man with a paralyzed hand is because it wasn't a life and death issue. Their laws said you could prevent someone from dying on the Sabbath, but not make him any better.

Verse 11, "Then He said to them, 'What man is there among you who has one sheep, and if it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will not lay hold of it and lift it out?'" Now, this was just one sheep, so they would bring together enough people so that each guy could lift just a little, enough to save that sheep.

He is confronting them and saying, "You tell me. Is it lawful to do good on the Sabbath?" If they say yes, then they cannot find fault with Jesus. If they say no, it is not lawful to do good on the Sabbath, then it shows how misguided they were. So they don't answer.

Verse 13, “Then Jesus said to the man, 'Stretch out your hand.' And he stretched it out, and it was restored as whole as the other.” Was that a good thing to do for that man? The true meaning of the Sabbath was to show the goodness of God and to bless others. In fact if you have an opportunity to do good and have the ability to do good, and you are not doing good, that is evil, that is a sin.

Verse 14, "Then the Pharisees went out and plotted against Him, how they might destroy Him." Why? Because Jesus was good and they were evil, that's why. Jesus connected the Sabbath with the heart of God - benevolence, mercy, and goodness. The only function that ceremony ever has is the illustration of a right attitude toward God and toward your fellow man.

Why do you come to church? Why do you worship? What's your purpose? What do you do every day outside the church? Are you defining your spirituality in terms of a bunch of little rules you do or don't do? Legalism can never stand in the way of meeting needs, serving God, and showing mercy, because that violates the love of God. I hope that we understand what is truly important in our daily life and not become like those blind Pharisees. Let's pray.



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