Matthew 12:9-13 - What is Lawful on the Sabbath?
Translation & Sermon by
Nate Wilson for Christ the Redeemer Church, Manhattan, KS, 06 May 2012
Translation
12:9 Then, transitioning from there, He came into their synagogue.
12:10 And, look, there was a man, his hand in a withered
condition.
And they questioned Him in order that they might bring
charges against Him, saying, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbaths?”
12:11 Then He said to them, “Is there a man from among y’all
who, if he has one sheep, and if that one happens to fall into a pit on the Sabbaths,
is it not so that he will grab hold of it and lift up?
12:12 Therefore, how much more value does a man carry than a
sheep?
Thus it is lawful on the Sabbaths to be doing good.”
12:13 Then He said to the man, “Start stretching out your
hand,”
and He stretched it out, and it was restored – as healthy as
the other!
Review
Last week, we looked at the origin and role of law. We saw
that:
- God is the origin of law, and Jesus is the ultimate
lawgiver and judge, so He has authority to define and interpret law as
God.
- The role of law is to bless and lead to freedom. We saw
this applied to the Sabbath law, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man
for the Sabbath.”
- Therefore we must fight the urge to pervert the use of law
to condemn and control people. WE fight that urge by:
- Studying the scriptures – even the O.T. stories,
- Seeking to understand the meaning,
- Seeking mercy/compassion/love first,
- Loving others enough to prophetically call them down for
something that Jesus has clearly condemned as wrong. (This is compassionate
if it is done with an attitude of wanting to protect your brother or
sister from the chastisement that will surely come to them if they continue
to walk contrary to Christ.)
- Ultimately, submiting to the Lord Jesus who is the
lawgiver and judge.
This week, I want to delve deeper into how to fulfill the
law. What can we actually do to be pleasing to God in regards to the demands of
His law? I will be applying this particularly to the 4th Commandment,
“Remember the Sabbath Day to keep it holy…” And we will be using Jesus’
handling of the issue of Sabbath observance as our example.
But before we get into that passage, I want to offer a
general template for obeying God in any area - not just for the Sabbath: In
Malachi 6:8, we are told what the good things are that the Lord God requires of
us:
- Do justice – figure out what is right and do it, never
yielding God’s holiness to compromise
- Love mercy – Forgive, show compassion, and seek for God
to be merciful when confronted with evil and the fallout of sin.
- Walk humbly with God – Never attempt to do justice and
love mercy by your own wisdom and effort, but rather maintain your
personal relationship with Jesus Christ, following in His footsteps,
drawing on His wisdom and His power.
- Mystics focus on the third thing, and are often
self-absorbed in worship experiences. The relationship with God is good,
but to the extent that they fail to study the law of God and to exercise
merciful love toward fellow men, they are not following true Christianity.
- Liberals often focus on the second thing - “love
and mercy” - and don’t pay enough attention to God’s standards of right
and wrong or to the personal relationship with God. A man-centered attempt
at works of mercy without regard to God is not Christianity.
- And The Pharisees and other Fundamentalists (who
probably look a lot more like us that the other two camps) tend to focus
on doing justice – what’s right, and we often try to support God’s
standards with a few more rules of our own as guardrails to keep us from
disobeying God’s law, and anybody that falls short of these standards had
better buck up!
- Each of the three are good, but incomplete without the
other two. Only when we can balance the practice of what is right with a
love for mercy in a relationship with Jesus Christ can we fulfill what the
Lord requires of us in any of His laws. Now, let’s see how Jesus did
it:
Mat 12:9 Then,
transitioning from there, He came into their synagogue.
και μεταβας εκειθεν ηλθεν εις την
συναγωγην αυτων
- The parallel passage in Luke 6:6 tells us that this was on
a different Sabbath day from the one in which his disciples were eating in
the grain field, and that after Jesus entered the synagogue, He taught there.
- Here we see that Jesus’ personal observance of the Sabbath
day:
- was on the Jewish seventh day, which we would call
Saturday,
- It included gathering with fellow believers,
- and it included teaching (which is the best way to make
disciples).
- Notice also whose synagogue He entered:
- “Their synagogue” indicates that this religious meeting
of Jews was somehow associated with the very Pharisees who were giving
Jesus a hard time in the grain field!
- Instead of avoiding these annoying Pharisees after they
had so irritatingly nit-picked at Him, He went to church with them so
that He could make disciples even of them!
- “We must not, for the sake of private feuds and personal
piques, draw back from public worship... Satan gains the point if, by
sowing discord among the brethren, he prevail to drive them… from… the
communion of the faithful.” ~M. Henry
- Jesus’ example shows that at least part of Sabbath
observance includes gathering together with God’s people, even if some of
them have been harshly judgmental of you, and entering into the teaching
of God’s word together anyway.
Mat
12:10 And, look, there was a man, his hand in a withered/shrivelled
condition. And they questioned Him in order that they might [accuse] bring
charges against Him, saying, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbaths?”
και ιδου ανθρωπος [ην την-א,B,C,W,Vulg.] χειρα εχων ξηραν και επηρωτησαν αυτον λεγοντες ει εξεστιν τοις σαββασιν θεραπευειν ινα κατηγορησωσιν αυτου
- So, in the synagogue there is a man whose hand is “withered”
– the Greek word xeran has to do with being “dry” and therefore
dead and dysfunctional. The muscles were atrophied.
- The Apocryphal Gospel of the Hebrews says that this
man was a stonemason named Jason who had recently injured his hand and
could no longer work as a stonemason, so he was facing the shame of
having to be a beggar for the rest of his life.
- Whether that’s accurate information or not, this guy had
a significant problem. The parallel passage in Luke 6 informs us that it
was his right hand, and the right hand is more significant in Arab
culture than in ours. It meant he could neither receive anything from
anybody or give anything to anybody directly, because it is rude to do so
with the left hand.
- The Pharisees see Jesus and the withered-hand man eyeing
each other and they ask Jesus, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?”
- This question is a good one in-and-of-itself. It has to do
with the first plank of Micah 6:8 - justice. It is right and good for us
to ask ourselves concerning anything we do, “Is this lawful? What does God
say about this activity? Should we be doing it?”
- If someone were to ask you what it is lawful to do on the
Sabbath, what would you say? Let’s look at the Biblical law itself:
Overview on the Biblical law of the Sabbath
- The word “Sabbath” is rooted in the Hebrew verb “He commanded,”
but it is also similar to the Hebrew word for “seven.”
- The first time we meet with the Sabbath is the
second chapter of the Bible: “Thus the heavens and the earth were
completed, and all their hosts. By the seventh day God completed His work
which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work
which He had done. Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because
in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made.”
(Genesis 2:1-3 NASB)
- In the second book of the Bible, we see this weekly
cycle of rest reflected in God’s provision of manna to eat even before
the 10 commandments were given: “’Six days you shall gather it, but on
the seventh day, the sabbath, there will be none.’ It came about on the
seventh day that some of the people went out to gather, but they found
none. Then the LORD said to Moses, ‘How long do you refuse to keep My commandments
and My instructions? See, the LORD has given you the sabbath; therefore He
gives you bread for two days on the sixth day. Remain every man in his
place; let no man go out of his place on the seventh day.’ So the people
rested on the seventh day. The house of Israel named it manna, and it was
like coriander seed, white, and its taste was like wafers with honey.”
(Exodus 16:26-31 NASB)
- Then in Exodus 20 we get the 10 Commandments,
the 4th of which commands that God’s people: “Remember the
sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your
work, but the seventh day is a sabbath of the LORD your God; in it you
shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter, your male or your
female servant or your cattle or your sojourner who stays with you. For in
six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is
in them, and rested on the seventh day; therefore the LORD blessed the
sabbath day and made it holy.” (Exodus 20:8-11 NASB)
- Later on, God emphasized the covenantal nature
of the Sabbath with the children of Israel in Exodus 31: “You shall
surely observe My sabbaths; for this is a sign between Me and you
throughout your generations, that you may know that I am the LORD who
sanctifies you. Therefore you are to observe the sabbath, for it is holy
to you. Everyone who profanes it shall surely be put to death; for whoever
does any work on it, that person shall be cut off from among his people.
For six days work may be done, but on the seventh day there is a sabbath
of complete rest, holy to the LORD; whoever does any work on the sabbath
day shall surely be put to death. So the sons of Israel shall observe the
sabbath, to celebrate the sabbath throughout their generations as a
perpetual covenant. It is a sign between Me and the sons of Israel
forever; for in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, but on the
seventh day He ceased from labor, and was refreshed.” (Exodus 31:12-17
NASB)
- An additional point is mentioned at the end of Exodus
about kindling a fire: Moses assembled all the congregation of
the sons of Israel, and said to them, “These are the things that the LORD
has commanded you to do: For six days work may be done, but on the seventh
day you shall have a holy day, a sabbath of complete rest to the LORD;
whoever does any work on it shall be put to death. You shall not kindle a
fire in any of your dwellings on the sabbath day.” (Exodus 35:1-3 NASB)
- Some Jews interpreted this as not prohibiting the
continued fueling of a fire started before the Sabbath.
- Related to this, in Numbers 15:32-36, a man is caught
gathering wood on the Sabbath day and executed for it.
- It has been suggested that
wood-collecting was normally the work of women and children, so the fact
that it was a man gathering wood indicated that he was not merely
trying to help with his family dinner, but was actually engaged in a
resale business to other families that would pay him for gathering wood
for them on the Sabbath.
- Leviticus mentions that the seventh day is for meeting
together or “convocation,” however, it was also to be observed within the
home as well: “For six days work may be done, but on the seventh day
there is a sabbath of complete rest, a holy convocation. You shall
not do any work; it is a sabbath to the LORD in all your dwellings.”
(Leviticus 23:3 NASB)
- Special things were done in the temple worship as well, such as
putting out new loaves of showbread in the holy place (Lev. 24:8) and
offering extra animal sacrifices (Num. 28:10).
- The command to rest
was also applied to other holy days, such as the Passover: “On the first day you shall have a holy assembly,
and another holy assembly on the seventh day; no work at all shall be
done on them, except what must be eaten by every person, that alone may
be prepared by you… For seven days you shall eat unleavened bread, and on
the seventh day there shall be a feast to the LORD.” (Ex. 12:16…13:6
NASB),
- the feast of Trumpets, the day of atonement, and the
feast of Booths: “On exactly the tenth day of this seventh month is
the day of atonement; it shall be a holy convocation for you, and
you shall humble your souls and present an offering by fire to the LORD.
You shall not do any work on this same day, for it is a day of atonement,
to make atonement on your behalf before the LORD your God. If there is
any person who will not humble himself on this same day, he shall be cut
off from his people… It is to be a perpetual statute throughout your
generations in all your dwelling places. It is to be a sabbath of
complete rest to you, and you shall humble your souls; on the ninth of
the month at evening, from evening until evening you shall keep your
sabbath… On the fifteenth of this seventh month is the Feast of Booths
for seven days to the LORD. On the first day is a holy convocation;
you shall do no laborious work of any kind. For seven days you shall
present an offering by fire to the LORD. On the eighth day you shall have
a holy convocation and present an offering by fire to the LORD; it
is an assembly. You shall do no laborious work.” (Leviticus
23:27-36 NASB)
- Note the significance of the first day of the week
(Sunday) as well as the seventh day (Saturday) in all of these
feasts as a holy day for meeting together for worship.
- Next, the Sabbath was applied to entire years, which is
where we get the concept of the sabbatical, and, every fiftieth
year, there was a very special Sabbath year called Jubilee: “When you
come into the land which I shall give you, then the land shall have a
sabbath to the LORD. Six years you shall sow your field, and six years you
shall prune your vineyard and gather in its crop, but during the seventh
year the land shall have a sabbath rest, a sabbath to the LORD; you shall
not sow your field nor prune your vineyard. Your harvest's aftergrowth you
shall not reap, and your grapes of untrimmed vines you shall not gather;
the land shall have a sabbatical year. All of you shall have the sabbath
products of the land for food; yourself, and your male and female slaves,
and your hired man and your foreign resident, those who live as aliens
with you. Even your cattle and the animals that are in your land shall
have all its crops to eat. You are also to count off seven sabbaths of
years for yourself, seven times seven years, so that you have the time of
the seven sabbaths of years, namely, forty-nine years. You shall then
sound a ram's horn abroad on the tenth day of the seventh month; on the
day of atonement you shall sound a horn all through your land. You shall
thus consecrate the fiftieth year and proclaim a release through the land
to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you, and each of you
shall return to his own property, and each of you shall return to his
family.” (Leviticus 25:2-10 NASB)
- When Moses finally reviews the 10 commandments in the
book of Deuteronomy, an additional command is given to associate
the Sabbath day with the Exodus from slavery in Egypt: “You shall
remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the LORD your God
brought you out of there by a mighty hand and by an outstretched arm; therefore
the LORD your God commanded you to observe the sabbath day.” (Deuteronomy
5:15 NASB)
- The prophets also interpret the meaning of the Sabbath
for us: Isaiah and Jeremiah in particular are helpful in further
understanding what the Sabbath was all about:
- The opening chapter of Isaiah makes it clear that God
is not interested in the mere formalities of the Sabbath but rather in genuine
worship from people who are not lovers of iniquity: Isa. 1:13 “Bring
your worthless offerings no longer, Incense is an abomination to Me. New
moon and sabbath, the calling of assemblies-- I cannot endure iniquity and
the solemn assembly.”
- But the Sabbath is not for
that reason meaningless. It is part of walking humbly with your God in a
covenantal relationship, and in that context, God encouraged
Sabbath-keeping not only for Jews but for gentiles as well in chapter 56:
“To the eunuchs who keep My sabbaths, And choose what pleases Me,
And hold fast My covenant, To them I will give in My house and
within My walls a memorial, And a name better than that of sons and
daughters... Also the foreigners who join themselves to the LORD, To minister
to Him, and to love the name of the LORD, To be His servants, every one
who keeps from profaning the sabbath And holds fast My covenant;
Even those I will bring to My holy mountain And make them joyful in My
house of prayer… For My house will be called a house of prayer for all
the peoples.” (Isaiah 56:4-7 NASB)
- Later on, God speaks through Isaiah against some of
the specific oppressive things that the Jews of his day were doing on the
Sabbath: “Look, in your fast day, y’all find pleasure and y’all drive
all your laborers. Look, it is for strife and fighting that y’all fast
and for striking with a wicked fist. Do not fast like today to make your
voice heard in the height! … Is it for this you call a fast and a day of
acceptance for Jehovah? Isn’t it this – a fast I choose: to open the
manacles of evil, to spring the bindings of the yoke and to send forth
the oppressed [as] freemen, and tear off every yoke? Isn’t it to split
your bread for the hungry, and bring home the poor vagabonds? … 13. If,
on the Sabbath, you make your foot turn away from doing your pleasure
during my holy day and you call the Sabbath “a delight,” Jehovah’s holy
thing “honorable,” and you honor it instead of making your ways – instead
of finding your pleasure… Then you will indulge yourself over Jehovah,
and I will make you ride upon the high places of earth …” (Isaiah 58:3-14
NAW)
- Jeremiah also addressed Sabbath-keeping in chapter 17,
warning the farmers not to carry produce in to town on the Sabbath to
sell – and warning craftsmen not to carry their wares out of their house
to sell on the Sabbath : Thus says the LORD, “Take heed for
yourselves, and do not carry any load on the sabbath day or bring
anything in through the gates of Jerusalem. You shall not bring a load
out of your houses on the sabbath day nor do any work, but keep the
sabbath day holy, as I commanded your forefathers. Yet they did not
listen or incline their ears, but stiffened their necks in order not to
listen or take correction. But it will come about, if you listen
attentively to Me,” declares the LORD, “to bring no load in through the
gates of this city on the sabbath day, but to keep the sabbath day holy
by doing no work on it, then there will come in through the gates of this
city kings and princes sitting on the throne of David… and this city will
be inhabited forever… But if you do not listen to Me to keep the sabbath
day holy by not carrying a load and coming in through the gates of
Jerusalem on the sabbath day, then I will kindle a fire in its gates and
it will devour the palaces of Jerusalem and not be quenched.” (Jeremiah
17:21-27 NASB)
- The history books of the
Old Testament describe God’s punishment upon Israel for profaning the
Sabbaths – they skipped 70 sabbath years during the Israelite monarchy
(which would be about half of all the Sabbath years they should have
kept), and God sent the nation into exile for 70 years specifically to
make up for this: “The LORD, the God of their fathers, sent word to
them again and again by His messengers, because He had compassion on His people
and on His dwelling place; but they continually mocked the messengers of
God, despised His words and scoffed at His prophets, until the wrath of
the LORD arose against His people, until there was no remedy. Therefore He
brought up against them the king of the Chaldeans... Those who had escaped
from the sword he carried away to Babylon; and they were servants to him
and to his sons until the rule of the kingdom of Persia, to fulfill the
word of the LORD by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had enjoyed its
sabbaths. All the days of its desolation it kept sabbath until seventy
years were complete.” (2 Chron. 36:15-21, NASB, cf. Lev. 26:34ff)
- Thus far an overview of the O.T. law regarding the
Sabbath
- The Jews, however added their own laws as guardrails to protect
people from violating God’s laws.
- “…unless in peril of life, they [the Pharisees] allowed
not any medical operations on the sabbath day.” ~M. Henry
- The rule that only in such cases in which a man’s life
was actually in danger would it be permissible to heal him on the Sabbath
was widely endorsed. (Yoma 8:6)
- Historical accounts of the
Jews by the Maccabes (1 Mac. 2:31) and Josephus (Antiquities 14:63)
record that Jews would not even fight to defend themselves on Sabbaths
from the Greek and Roman armies, so their enemies scheduled attacks on
Saturdays. (The Maccabes eventually wised up on this, though and started
defending themselves.)
- The Jews in this synagogue expected that the right answer to this
question was, “No, it’s not lawful to heal on the Sabbath.” This man was
not in eminent danger of dying from his hand injury, and any kind of
medical procedure would smack too much of work.
- Note the motivation of the Pharisees: They asked
this question in order that they might “accuse” or bring charges against
or make a slanderous accusation about Jesus.
- When you accuse others, always check your attitude. Are
you trying to puff up your pride? Do you resent that person? Bite your
tongue if Pharisaism shows up in your attitude check.
- If Jesus had responded by saying, “No, I guess you’re
right,” then Jesus would have given up His authority over the Sabbath to
the Pharisees.
Instead, the Lord of the Sabbath begins to teach some more.
Mat 12:11 Then He said to
them, “Is there a man from among y’all who, if he has one sheep, and if that
one happens to fall into a pit on the Sabbaths, is it not so that he will grab
hold of it and lift up?
ο δε ειπεν
αυτοις τις [εσται-C,L,F13] εξ υμων
ανθρωπος ος
εξει προβατον
εν και [εαν-D,f13]
εμπεση τουτο
τοις σαββασιν
εις βοθυνον
ουχι κρατησει
αυτο και
εγερει
- Now, if you only had one sheep, you would pay special
attention to it, wouldn’t you?
- Greek grammar (ouk + Indicative) expects a YES
answer. “Of course he would do a little work to rescue that unique and
valuable sheep.”
- Prov. 12:10 “A righteous man has regard for the life of
his animal…” (NASB)
Mat 12:12 Therefore, how
much more value does a man carry than a sheep? Thus it is lawful on the
Sabbaths to be doing good.”
ποσω ουν [μαλλονΘ,f13,lat.] διαφερει
ανθρωπος προβατου
ωστε εξεστιν
τοις σαββασιν
καλως ποιειν
- a fortiori argument reasons from the lesser (the
sheep) to the greater (a man), assuming that a man has higher value to God
than a sheep.
- The parallel passages in Luke 6:9 and Mark 3:4 record
additionally that Jesus said, “Is it lawful to do good or to do harm? to
save a life or to destroy it?”
- JFB notes, “this is a startling alternative: not to do
good, when it is in the power of our hand to do it, is to do evil…”
- Calvin added, “If anyone takes care of his bretheren in need, he is
not violating the rest commanded by the Lord. Those who do not trouble to
help the needy are little different from murderers.”
- God’s law is perverted when it is twisted to prevent
good!
Mat 12:13 Then He said to
the man, “Start stretching out your hand,” and He stretched it out, and it was
restored – as healthy [wholeKJV/ normalNAS/ soundNIV]
as the other!
τοτε λεγει
τω ανθρωπω
εκτεινον την
χειρα σου και εξετεινεν
και
αποκατεσταθη υγιης
ως η αλλη
- The parallel accounts say that
Jesus first had the man stand up in the middle of the synagogue audience
and that Jesus glared at everybody with anger because of the blindness of
their hearts.
- Note that it took faith for the man to obey Jesus and
start stretching out a hand that he knew he could not stretch out. But he
started trying in front of that crowd, out of obedience and faith, and his
hand moved. And it was all well again!
- The way Jesus did this, it would be hard for even the
scrupulous Pharisees to find fault: Stretching out one’s hand was a normal
hand-motion for prayer (Gen. 14:22 & 19:10), and Jesus merely said
some words, which was also normal for teachers to do in synagogues.
- But by Jesus’ teaching, we learn that “there are more ways
of doing well upon Sabbath days than by the duties of God’s immediate
worship. Attending the sick, relieving the poor, helping those who are
falling into sudden distress, and call for speedy relief; this is doing
good, and this must be done from a principle of love and charity…” ~M.
Henry
- Jesus could have avoided the ire of the Pharisee
delegation by ignoring the man with the withered hand that day, but
instead Jesus healed the man, knowing how offensive it would be to the
leadership. From this we learn that, “Duty is not to be left undone, nor
opportunities of doing good neglected for fear of giving offense.” ~M.
Henry
Let us pause here, but in the next section, I want to tie up
some loose ends (such as why the Christian Sabbath shifted to Sunday) and draw
some more practical conclusions about how we should fulfill the law of the
Sabbath.