The Life of Christ in the Synoptic Gospels
THE LAWFUL USE OF THE SABBATH
The Life of Christ in the Synoptic Gospels
THE LAWFUL USE OF THE SABBATH
Lesson Plan:
1. Jesus and the Sabbath (Lk. 13:11, 12; 14:1-6)
2. Sabbath Teachings of Jesus (Lk. 13:15-17)
Lesson Setting:
Time: Probably January, A.D. 30.
Place: Perea beyond Jordan.
Research Thoughts: Christ example regarding the Sabbath. Name the things recorded that He did on the Sabbath. The true principles underlying Jewish Sabbath keeping. What difficult problems do we meet keeping the Lord’s Day? Is there any difference between the Old Testament fourth commandment law, and the principles enunciated by Jesus? What is the best way of keeping the Lord’s Day? What blessings were the fruit of keeping the Sabbath holy?
Scripture Reading: Luke 13:11-13; 14:1-6
1. Jesus and the Sabbath
The Example of Jesus, regarding His method of keeping the Sabbath: (a) He worshipped in the synagogues and Temple, both equivalent to us worshipping today on the Lord’s Day (Sunday, the first day of the week) with the body of Christ in a building or place of worship. The only incident related to His boyhood is that He went to a great religious meeting at Jerusalem, and was attracted to the Temple and its services (Lk. 2:41-52). Their Sabbath worship services were something like a combination of our usual worship service combined with Bible school. Jesus recognized the Temple as His Father’s house, and He went there to learn His Father’s business. He found learned men there who had studied the Bible, and He both heard them and asked questions. He was an ideal Bible school student, and one result was that “he increased in wisdom and in stature, and in favor with God and man.” At least thirty-eight times in the brief story of the Gospel it is stated that Jesus went into a synagogue or Temple (For example, Matt. 4:23; 13:54; 21:12; Mk. 1:21, 29; 3:1; 11:11; Lk. 2:46; 4:16; 13:10; Jn. 7:14; 18:20). (b) Jesus taught in the Synagogues, as revealed in several of the above references. It is a great privilege to follow Jesus in the work of teaching. Everyone who is able should seek this privilege. If preachers of the gospel truly realized the blessing and opportunity God had conferred upon them, they would leap and shout for joy, crying, “I am a preacher of the Gospel; I am a preacher of the Good News of Jesus Christ.” Likewise, if Bible school teachers realized their privilege, the blessedness of teaching, of guiding children into the ways of life, they would exult, and glory, and give thanks, crying with joy, “I, too, am a teacher of children; I have a class in the Bible school.” And crowds would press upon the shepherds, the elders, asking for the privilege. (c) Jesus went about doing good on the Sabbath. He healed the sick on the Sabbath; several in the synagogue (see former lesson titled, “Use of the Sabbath”).
Two instances are given in our present lesson. In one of the synagogues, while Jesus was resting and teaching on the Sabbath, one of His hearers “was a woman which had a spirit of infirmity eighteen years” (v 11). It is called a spirit of infirmity, because it is all-pervading, with one center of disease.
v 11 ... “and she was bowed together, and could in no wise life up herself.” “Her case seems to have been such an one as is not unfrequently met with in the present day, even in the streets, in which there is a gradual wasting and relaxation of the muscles and ligaments of the back by which the trunk is held erect, so that the body falls forward, without there being any disease either of the brain or spinal cord, or any mental impairment. Such cases are chiefly met with in the aged, and are progressive and permanent in character, admitting of very little relief by medical science” (Sir Risdon Bennett, M.D.). Note: Not even great bodily infirmity kept this woman from the house of God. And, like her, those who attend public worship under great difficulties receive peculiar blessings. In Jesus' day, the synagogue was the place where the suffering, heavy laden, the weary, the simple, and the restless would go to be uplifted and aided by fellow-worshippers, to receive the Word of God through the lips and heart of the teacher.
v 12 ... “And when Jesus saw her.” Her infirmity was her appeal without words, and her very presence was a sign and proof of her faith, however small. She was doubtless bashful and retiring, perhaps neglected by the other worshippers. Therefore Jesus does not wait for her to come of herself but “when Jesus saw her, he called her to him,” and announced that the time of her redemption had come.
v 13 ... “And he laid his hands on her; and immediately she was made straight.” Laying His hands on her showed His personal care; confirmed her faith; drew her toward Him in gratitude and love; and called attention to Himself as the source of healing, and the manifestation of all His Father’s love. It seems to have been usual with Jesus to cause all His healings of disease to be an aid, a type, and a means of healing the soul from sin. The second instance took place on another Sabbath in the home of one of the rulers who was a Pharisee (Lk. 14:1-4).
We now turn to chapter 14: “They were watching him,” (v 1), not necessarily to find fault, but with interest to know what He would say and do. Among the onlookers at the dinner was a man afflicted with the dropsy, who had come perhaps in the hope that Jesus would heal him. The word “behold” seems to imply that his presence was unexpected (Int. Crit. Com.). His very coming, if with this hope, was a proof of his faith.
v 3 ... “And Jesus answering” the thought of their hearts, or their whispered question of what Jesus might do. The lawyers and the teachers of the Jewish law and the Pharisees asked “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath day” or not (R.V.)?
v 4 ... “But they held their peace.” And Jesus “took him, and healed him, and let him go.” He frankly expressed His own opinion by what He did. Seven Miracles of Mercy are recorded as wrought by Jesus on the Sabbath: Matthew 12:10-13; Mark 1:21-26; Luke 4:38, 39; Luke 13:10- 16; Luke 14:1-6; John 5:5-11; and John 9:1-14. Besides these, Jesus healed many on a Sabbath evening, fulfilling Isaiah’s picture of the promised Messiah (Matt. 8:16, 17; Lk. 8:38-41). Jesus dined with a ruler of the Pharisees on the Sabbath (Lk. 14:1). We know of no case in which Jesus refused an invitation, no matter from whom it came. It gave Him the opportunity and possibility of influencing for good those whom He could not otherwise reach. Social gatherings are Christian opportunities. “Sabbath banqueting was common, and became proverbial for luxury” (Int. Crit. Com.). To eat bread on the Sabbath day, as a guest, was a usual practice; such entertainments on the Sabbath day were very usual; they were often luxurious and costly. The only rule observed was that the food provided was cold, everything having been cooked on a previous day. Jesus always carried His religion with Him, for it was a part of Himself. Jesus walked in the fields, and around Jerusalem, on the Sabbath (Mk. 2:23-28; Jn. 5:1-10). Through the fields He was probably on His way to church, for the very next verse states that He entered into the synagogue; and in His walk around Jerusalem He healed an unfortunate man at the pool of Bethesda, and a blind man at the pool of Siloam. In all cases He was with His disciples. In all these things He disregarded the precepts and theories of the Pharisees, but in no case did He vary one iota from the plain directions in the Fourth Commandment.
Scripture Reading: Luke 13:15-17
2. Sabbath Teachings of Jesus
In order to understand the words of Jesus regarding the Sabbath we must clearly see the circumstances in which they were spoken. The Ten Commandments were a chief means of keeping the Jews separate from those practicing idolatries and immoralities. Of these commandments the one that made the most visible separation was the keeping of the Sabbath. In the exile, and among those who were dispersed among the nations ever after, the Sabbath was kept. “The keeping of the Sabbath became the special sign that distinguished Jew from Gentile, and the Sabbath, combined with the synagogue (an institution that grew up during the exile), played a large part in saving Israel from absorption in the ungodly world around them. After the return these two institutions, the Sabbath and the synagogue, were the main bulwarks of Judaism, and two of the leading factors that made Israel the people of the law” (Hastings Bible Dictionary).
No institution was held in higher reverence. In their efforts to uphold and magnify this great bulwark of their nation, the Pharisees gradually accumulated a great body of decisions as to what could and could not be done on the Sabbath. They lost the spirit in the letter. “Anyone who desires to see what a divine institution may become in the hands of spiritually unsympathetic men has only to study the rules for Sabbath observance contained in the Talmud. There are two treatises in particular which, although they belong to the century subsequent to our Lord’s ministry, may fairly enough be regarded as reflecting the habits of thought and the practices of the spiritual guides of Israel with whom he came in contact” (Hastings Bible Dictionary). “As our Lord reminds His hearers, it was allowed to loose an ox or an ass from the stall and lead it out to the water; but by a refinement of ingenuity it was forbidden to draw water and carry it in a pail to a beast, although the water might be poured into a trough for the animal to come and drink of its own accord.” One will find an immense number of ridiculous ways of breaking the Sabbath in Edersheim’s Life of Christ, Appendix, xvii. “It was seriously argued that to walk upon the grass with nailed shoes was a violation of the Sabbath, because it was a kind of threshing, and to catch a flea upon one's person was a violation, because it was a kind of hunting; and it was gravely debated whether one might eat a fresh egg on the first day of the week, since, in the order of nature, it had probably been prepared by the hen on the seventh.” “To break the Sabbath, rather than suffer hunger for a few hours, was guilt worthy of stoning. Was it not their boast that Jews were known over the world by their readiness to die rather than break the holy day? Everyone had stories of grand fidelity to it.” The result was a slavery to forms and details, a loss of the very spirit of the Sabbath day. The stress was on externals. They tried to establish rules to guide conduct in every detail. Jesus’ teaching conformed to His example.
While living among men, Jesus in no degree disregarded the Fourth Commandment. On the contrary, He taught the true interpretation of Sabbath law. He rescued it from false interpretations put upon it; from being a mere form to being a spirit and a life. Jesus swept away the cobwebs, but did not tear down the house, though many of the Jewish leaders thought He desired to do so. Our Lord only removed the rubbish with which the Pharisees had encumbered it. Jesus tore down the scaffolding, so the house itself might be more convenient and beautiful to live in. He kept the jewel, but washed away the dirt which had accumulated upon it, dimming and destroying its radiance. He swept away the evils that had grown upon the law from without, from man’s additions. They had made the Sabbath law like the sea-god Glaucus in Plato’s illustration. The god had been so long in the sea that seaweeds, barnacles and shellfish had grown all over him so thickly that they almost concealed his true nature. Does any of this bring thought and reflection regarding possible rubbish and scaffolding of men added to the church of our Lord over more than two thousand years? (a) Jesus taught that the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath (Mk. 2:27, 28). It was made for the whole of man. The Sabbath was very dear to Jesus; He had such ownership of it that He could not desecrate what was so precious. He cared vastly more for it than the Pharisees did or could. (b) Jesus taught (Mk. 2:23- 26) a lesson concerning the Sabbath, from King David, who they revered. David, fleeing from Saul (1 Sam. 21:1-6), went into the Temple with his little band and asked bread of the priest; who, when there was no common bread found, gave David and his young men the hallowed ‘shewbread’ which ‘is not lawful to eat but for the priests.’ The priest gave them this bread in defiance of the letter of the ceremonial law, because there was a higher law present which made it necessary for him to feed the hungry. Better to break the letter of a hundred ceremonial laws than that a child of God should go hungry in a time of need like this. Showing that there were higher laws than the mere letter or form, that sometimes work would accomplish the purpose of the Sabbath better than outward obedience to its usual law, as in the case of the ox and the ass that had fallen into a pit: and the case of those who serve in the Temple and Synagogue to aid in the worship, and enable great numbers to keep the Sabbath in the best and most helpful way. (c) Jesus taught certain lessons in connection with the release of the woman who was incurably bowed together, but was now made straight on the Sabbath (Lk. 13:10-16). The ruler of the synagogue was moved with indignation, that Jesus on the Sabbath and right in the synagogue should interrupt the service by such an act. Let people come on other days to be healed, and not do secular work on Sabbath days. But Jesus might not be there on other days. He was moving on toward Jerusalem. Jesus, too, was moved with righteous indignation, and said “Hypocrites!” (v 15). As if an act of mercy which led the woman to glorify God, had doubtless also most of the worshippers, and which expressed the very spirit of religion, was a desecration of the synagogue.
The Pharisee’s objection contradicted His own rules and conduct. “It was meanly indirect because, while it was aimed at Jesus, the implied notion that it was a crime to allow one’s self to be healed on the Sabbath day, springs from an abyss of Pharisaic falsity which could hardly have been conceived. It was the underhand ignorance and insolence, as well as the gross insincerity of the remark, which called forth a reproof exceptionally severe” (Farrar). The Pharisees made an exception to their Sabbath rules.
v 15 ... “Doth not each of you on the Sabbath loose his ox or his ass from the stall, and lead him away to watering?”
v 16 ... “And ought not this woman, being a daughter of Abraham,” a child of the covenant on which your whole nation is founded ... “whom Satan” the great adversary of your nation, the leader of the whole kingdom of evil, your deadly enemy “hath bound, lo, these eighteen years, be loosed from this bond on the Sabbath day!” There was no answer to this; and ...
v 17 ... “all the people rejoiced for all the glorious things that were done by him.” Thus Jesus taught that deeds of mercy and kindness and love, to man or to beast, to body and to soul, are peculiarly expressive of the Sabbath spirit. “It is lawful to do good on the Sabbath days” (Mk. 3:4), and that is the best good which while it helps the body and mind, leads the soul up toward God, as was the case in the healing of the body by Jesus. (Note: For additional material refer to lesson titled, “Use of the Sabbath”).
