The Life of Christ in the Synoptic Gospels
USE OF THE SABBATH
The Life of Christ in the Synoptic Gospels
USE OF THE SABBATH
Lesson Plan:
1. Self-Interests on the Sabbath (vs 23-28)
2. Helping Others on the Sabbath (vs 1-6)
3. Lord's Day and Sabbath in Our Nation
Lesson Setting:
Time: Early summer, A.D. 28.
Place: Some field and synagogue in Galilee; probably in Capernaum.
Place in the Life of Christ: In the midst of the early Galilean ministry; in the middle of the second year of His public life.
Inductive Study of the Lesson:
a. Read Mark 2:27, with parallel passages, Matthew 12:1-14; Luke 6:1-11.
b. About the Jewish right to pluck grain read Deuteronomy 23:25; and compare Exodus 12:16.
c. For the story of David and the shewbread see 1 Samuel 21:1-6; Exodus 25:23-30; Leviticus 24:5-9.
d. Compare with our lesson the healing of the infirm man by the Pool of Bethesda, John 5:1-10; 7:21-23.
e. Read and compare the principal Bible passages on the Sabbath: Genesis 2:2, 3; Exodus 16:5, 22-30; 20:8-11; 31:13-17; 35:3; Leviticus 19:30; Deuteronomy 5:12-15; Nehemiah 9:14; 10:31; 13:15-22; Psalm 118:24; Isaiah 56:2; 58:13, 14; Jeremiah 17:21-27; Ezekiel 20:12, 13; Amos 8:4, 5; Matthew 12:8; Mark 2:27; Luke 4:16, 31; 23:56; Hebrews 4:4; Revelation 1:10.
Christ's Use of the Sabbath, and What We Learn From Him
Introduction: Why are we studying the Sabbath? – Hopefully, by learning how our Lord honored Saturday, the Sabbath, we can better honor Sunday, the Lord's Day. Sunday, the Lord's Day, is our weekly commemoration of the day of Christ's resurrection, the first day of the week (Lk. 23:56; 24:1), instead of the Jewish Sabbath, Saturday, the sad day when Christ lay in the grave. In the early 1st century church of our Lord, Christians observed both days. It is not known just when the definite change was made, but it was very early in the history of the church and by apostolic authority. Such a change was natural and inevitable. Thus, the observance of Sunday becomes one of the great historical proofs of Christianity. Only a very real series of events could so alter an important institution.
Why study observance of the Lord's Day with special care? – Because one-seventh of our time is involved, and because the right or wrong use of that seventh will make life a success or a failure. This one-seventh of our time will finally affect all our days, determining our bodily strength, our mental energy, our worldly prosperity, our character, and our destiny. "The longer I live, the more highly I esteem Sunday, and the more grateful I feel toward Him who impresses its importance on the world" (Dr. Harrison).
How is this lesson important regarding Christ's life? – It represents the beginning of opposition to Him, because it indicates the beginning of His outspoken opposition to the great evils of His country. While He spent His time in healing the sick and speaking words of comfort to the sorrowing, His popularity constantly grew; but as soon as He began to point out the formalism and hypocrisy of the Jewish rulers, they turned against Him with the bitter hatred that finally brought Him to the cross. We will study two examples of this conflict, which are especially instructive to us because they bring out two leading principles of wise Lord's Day-observance: (a) In the Cornfield, or, Self-Interests on the Sabbath (vs 23-28) – Necessary work Rest and recreation; Worship, food for the soul. (b) In the Synagogue, or, Helping Others on the Sabbath (vs. 1-6) – Care for the Sick; Visits to the Aged and lonely; Preaching and mission work; Teaching in Bible School; Other helpful ministries
Scripture Reading: Mark 2:23-28
1. Self-Interests on the Sabbath
Note: Regarding Genesis 2:2, God did not get so tired from six days of labor that He needed to recover. No, He simply completed His creation and quit working on the 7th day. The 'Sabbath' does not mean 'day' or '7th,' but a 'rest' ordained by God that was to be observed on the 7th day of the week, because that is the day on which God ceased His creative work.
When Jesus walked the earth, many people were very legalistic regarding Saturday, the Sabbath. But today, practically all the Lord's Day problems arise because so many of us use Sunday, the Lord's Day, like other days of the week, selfishly for ourselves. The great question with most people is not, "How can I use Sunday, the Lord's Day to accomplish the most good in the world?" but, "How can I find more ways to use Sunday, the Lord's Day, for my own personal desires and interests?"
How did Christ's disciples once use the Sabbath for their own interests? – They were walking through the "Corn fields on the Sabbath day" (v 23). The fields in Palestine were often unfenced, and traversed by public paths. The "corn" was barley or wheat; probably the latter in this case, as the former ripens earlier. The disciples were hungry, and helped themselves to the grain, rubbing off the chaff and eating the kernels, as both law and custom gave them a perfect right to do [see: Inductive Study b. above]. Christ allowed it, but did not join them in the act; though doubtless He was as hungry as they were. Rather than offend popular prejudice, He always held His own rights in abeyance, though He was bold enough, as in the scene that followed, in insisting on the rights of others.
Why did the Pharisees object to this? – They were sneaking along after Christ, watching Him suspiciously – a hint of the annoying espionage to which He was exposed continually. Now they come forward with poorly concealed triumph. "Reaping and threshing on the Sabbath!" they exclaimed in horror; for the Pharisaic refinements upon the Fourth Commandment regarded plucking grain with the hands as a kind of reaping, and rubbing off the husk as a kind of threshing.
Illustrations of Pharisaic Sabbath Laws – By ingenious constructions and by stretch of words the Jews had turned the Sabbath into a day of bondage, and made it a monument of superstitions. No Jew could kindle a fire on that day, nor light a candle. There were thirty-nine principal occupations which, with all that was analogous to them, were forbidden. Men must not fling more corn to their poultry than will serve that day, lest it may grow by lying still, and they be said to sow their corn upon the Sabbath. They may not carry a flap or fan to drive away the flies. That would be a species of labor. It is unlawful to carry a handkerchief loose in the pocket; but if they pin it to the pocket, or tie it round the waist as a girdle, they may carry it anywhere. At the very time that the rabbis were devising restrictions on the one side, they were shrewdly outwitting the law by cunning devices on the other. A Sabbath-day's journey was two thousand paces, measured from one's domicile. But by depositing food at the end of the first two thousand paces on a previous day, and calling that place a domicile, they were suffered to go forward another Sabbath-day's journey. Thus superstitious rigor led to evasions and hypocrisy. One of these rules forbade even a blind man to carry a staff on the Sabbath, for that would be bearing a burden. A man might not wear a sandal with nails in it, for that would be bearing burdens. A Jew might employ a Gentile servant to do domestic work on the Sabbath, but must himself refrain; yet he might indulge in hilarious amusements and feasting. In extreme cases of Sabbath-breaking the punishment was death. One could hardly turn around on the Sabbath day without running against one of the Pharisaic laws. If a woman looked into a mirror on the Sabbath, she might see a gray hair and be tempted to pull it out. To wear false teeth on the Sabbath was to carry a burden.
How did Christ answer this charge? – In two ways: one suited to the precedent-seeking minds of the Pharisees; the other adapted to the more open minds of His disciples.
What was His first answer? – Christ reminded the Pharisaic critics how David, when fleeing from Saul, persuaded Abimelech the priest to feed him and his hungry followers with the twelve symbolic loaves of bread kept on the golden table in the Holy Place of the tabernacle to signify that God was the provider of the people's food. Moreover, this was done on the Sabbath, the day when the loaves were changed [see: Inductive Study c. above], and no one but the priests was allowed to eat that sacred food. Christ was indeed "great David's greater Son," and the Pharisees were hunting Him and His followers with a hatred as implacable as ever Saul showed toward David; but probably Christ did not expect even His disciples to gather at this time the force of the comparison in its details. However, even the Pharisees could see from the illustration that the Scriptures recognize human need as more important than any ceremonial requirement of outward form, however sacred.
What other illustration does Matthew report? – The example of the priests in the temple (Matt. 12:5, 6), for whom the Sabbath is the busiest day of the week; but they are justified, because they are serving God. "Now, I," declared Christ boldly, "am greater than the temple," and so His followers were justified in gathering the grain on the Sabbath because they were seeking new strength to use in His service.
What was Christ's second answer, addressed more directly to His disciples? – A broad statement of the purpose of the Sabbath, that it was "Made for man, and not man for the Sabbath" (v 27). With the corollary for the immediate occasion that He Himself, in His representative capacity as Son of man, was ...
v 28 ... "Lord also of the Sabbath." Christ was both God who made the Sabbath and man for whom the Sabbath was made. Surely He could best use the Sabbath and show men how to use it. In the second part of our lesson we shall see from His own example just how Christ would have us use the first day of the week, Sunday, which He established for our benefit.
What did Christ mean when He said that man was not made for the Sabbath? – That man was not created in order to observe the Sabbath, but the Sabbath was created in order to help man. The principle is of the widest application: man was not made for the purpose of observing any outward regulation or ceremony, but these were established in order to build man up and bless him, that they might train and discipline man till he should be ready to serve God from the free impulses of his spirit.
Illustration: The carpenter was not created for his saw, hammer and chisel, but these tools were formed to help the carpenter. To be sure, the carpenter must obey the laws of the saw, hammer and other tools and must use them well or he is a failure; but he is lord of his tools; they are not lord over him.
How may we apply this principle practically? – What in good conscience should we do for ourselves on Sunday, the Lord's Day? Some ideas: (a) Any really necessary work, such as taking care of the heating/cooling system, shaving, preparing a meal, keeping open a drug store, etc. (b) Rest and recreation; that is, renewing of bodily strength and mental vigor. (c) Make a sharp difference between Sunday, the Lord's Day, and other days of the week or we will soon have no Lord's Day to use for our own good. (d) Using the Lord's Day for necessary work, rest and renewing, we must never interfere with the use of it by anyone else for these purposes. A Christian will never allow his Sunday to spoil or injure another man's. (e) The Christian's chief use of Sunday, the Lord's Day, should be in worship, remembering the Lord's death, burial and resurrection, getting food for the soul, which is even more necessary than food for the body, and rest for the soul, which is even more necessary than rest for the body. All our life on earth is only a pin-point to eternity. Is it too much to spend one-seventh of our time here in preparation for endless time hereafter? The child spends from twenty-one to twenty-five years in preparation for forty years of life and work in this world. Sundays are to furnish our education for all eternity. The church is the university and the Bible is the textbook. Is it not the height of folly to neglect this schooling?
Examples: Everyone must apply these principles for himself, with the aid of an honest and enlightened conscience. If a teacher, preacher or elder should lay down a set of Lord's Day rules, it would be imitating the Pharisees. But we shall be making no mistake if we live close to Christ and ask ourselves on every occasion of doubt what He would have us do. He allowed His disciples to pluck and eat the wheat grains, but what would He say to the elaborate Sunday dinners that make Sunday the hardest day of the week for our family and keep some wives home from church? He took a quiet walk through the fields on the Sabbath; but what would He say about a day-long trip in a car, or a Sunday excursion to the river, or spending the day fishing or hunting? What would He say to an idle Friday afternoon and Saturday, and a Sunday filled with personal interests and anxious considerations regarding Monday's requirements? We can safely do for ourselves on Sunday anything in which we can be sure that Christ would gladly join us, as He joined the disciples on that Sabbath walk. Can we safely do anything else?
Scripture Reading: Mark 3:1-6
2. Helping Others on the Sabbath
In the first part of our lesson, Christ merely defended the liberty of His disciples; we come now to His positive example.
What illustration did Christ give of His way of keeping the Sabbath? – He performed one of His seven recorded Sabbath miracles. Luke says that it was on another Sabbath, and that our Lord was teaching in the synagogue. In the audience was a man – according to tradition a stone- mason, whose hand was withered. It was probably not merely paralyzed in the sinews, but dried up, the result of a partial atrophy. Such a malady, when once established, is incurable by any human art. Luke, the physician, observed that it was his right hand, the hand most useful to him; and one may easily believe the tradition that the misfortune had reduced him to extreme want.
What led Christ to heal this man? – The sly glances of the scribes and Pharisees, who were there watching Him, as Luke says, in the same hateful way in which they dogged His steps through the cornfield. They were evidently seeking a chance to accuse Him, probably before the judgment, the local tribunal. "He knew their thoughts," Luke declares. Indeed, hatred and malice and suspicion seldom need to be put into words, even for us, who are without Christ's supernatural insight. Besides, they had gone so far as to raise the question (Matthew), "Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath day?"
How did Christ answer that question? – In a dramatic way, by bidding the man with a withered hand "Stand forth" (v 3), as he was coming out of the throng into an open space in front where all could see him. Then our Master answered the sly question of the scribes and Pharisees with a most pointed query of His own ...
v 4 ... "Is it lawful to do good on the Sabbath days?" Any honest, kind hearted man would have replied immediately, "Yes! and all the good one can do!" But the scribes and Pharisees were neither honest nor kind hearted, and so, unwilling to give Christ any handle in the debate ...
v 4 ... "they held their peace." No wonder Christ looked sternly at them, and was "grieved" (v 5) at their hard hearts. It is seldom that we read that Christ, the meek and lowly, was angry. Then, even as now, nothing so filled Him with righteous wrath as harshness toward the suffering and weak.
How did Christ point out the inconsistency of His critics? – By reminding His hearers (Matthew) of the common custom of helping a sheep out of a pit when it chanced to fall into one on the Sabbath. "How much more valuable is a man than a sheep!" Christ exclaimed; and here was a man who had fallen into a deep pit of trouble. Should Christ allow him to remain in it even one more day?
How did Christ help the man out of the pit? – By a simple, quiet command, "Stretch forth thine hand" (v 5). The arm was probably paralyzed as well as the hand, and Christ would seem to be commanding an impossibility, but the man obediently made the attempt, and found to his great joy that he could do it. One can always do what Christ commands, however impossible it may seem.
v 5 ... "And his hand was restored whole as the other." The shrunken hand instantly acquires a healthful color, and swells into its right proportions. In his joy the man shuts and opens it; moves the pliant fingers, and holds the miracle aloft to the gaze of a crowd dumb with astonishment.
How did the Pharisees receive the miracle? – "They were filled with madness," Luke tells us. They could not proceed legally against Christ, for He had only spoken two or three quiet words; nor against the stone-mason, for he had only stretched out his hand. There had been no practicing of medicine on the Sabbath. And yet the Pharisees perceived the act to be what it really was, a bold defiance of them and indignant protest against their bigotry and hardness of heart and petty restrictions that made religion a burden instead of a help and delight. Therefore they went from the synagogue muttering with scowling faces, and at once began the iniquitous plotting that culminated in our Lord's death ...
v 6 ... "taking counsel with the Herodians," the court party, which consisted probably of the Sadducees, with whom under most circumstances the Pharisees would have nothing to do.
What the healed man may have said when he reached home:
What should we do for others on the Lord's Day? – We may be sure that Christ "went about doing good" on Saturday, the Sabbath, even above all the other days of the week; and every true Christian will try to fill his Sundays with loving ministries to others. It is right to visit the sick on the Lord's Day, when they need our sympathy and when we can carry to them blessing or cheer. It is right to visit those who are in affliction when we can carry comfort to them; to visit the poor when we can relieve their distresses. Especially is it right to go out among the unsaved, when we can do anything to bring them to Christ.
Illustration: One earnest Bible school teacher was accustomed to taking two from his class of teenage boys with him every Lord's Day afternoon to visit some sick or unfortunate person. The boys eagerly awaited their turn for the trip. Always there was a little gift carried. This teacher would take advantage of the time going to and coming from the visit to instill into their hearts the truest purity of the Christ-like soul.
Illustration: Another teacher with a class of teenage girls took one of her students each Lord's Day afternoon to the local home for the aged to visit the elderly. Every student can make the Lord's Day a brighter day for someone. Lighten the cares of the mother whose family may be sick, or injured, or who perhaps has lost a loved one. Read to your wife, or husband, or child. Write a happy letter or card to some lonely soul that does not expect such a token of fellowship. Every child may find many chances to do good on Sunday, the Lord's Day if he or she looks for them earnestly and takes them when they present themselves.
3. Lord's Day and Sabbath in Our Nation
Why is it right for the nation and States to impose Lord's Day and Sabbath laws upon those that do not recognize religious obligations? Because in the Old Testament, God wrote the necessity of a special day, the 7th day of the week, Saturday, the Sabbath, as well as a special day, the 1st day of the week, Sunday, the Lord's Day, in the New Testament. God has placed a special day upon the very constitution of man, i.e., we physically need rest from our weekly labors. The bodily energy used up during the day is not fully restored by the night's sleep, so that we must have an additional rest for a whole day once a week, or physical strength gradually lessens. In America the worker is blessed to have not one, but two days of rest each week. The Jewish Sabbath (Saturday) and the Christian Lord's Day (Sunday) laws are both the laborers best friends. The fierce competition of modern business forces Saturday and Sunday upon the reasonable majority if the grasping minority insist upon it. Under our American civilization the liberty of rest for each is secured only by a law of rest for all.
Illustration: "President Roosevelt has rendered no greater service to the Christian forces of the country this summer than by giving the public an example of regular (worship) attendance. Not a single Sunday absent from the sanctuary – what a fine report that is from Oyster Bay. And I believe that the President enjoys church-going just as he does everything else that is worth doing" (Boston Transcript, Sept. 26, 1908).
Referring to Sunday as the 'Christian-Sabbath,' i.e., the Christian's day of rest: (a) The New Testament does not speak of Saturday or Sunday as a day of rest for Christians. The nearest thing to it is found in Hebrews 4:11 – but there the reference is to the Christian's rest from his labors (See F. F. Bruce, The Epistle to the Hebrews 'NICNT', Eerdmans, 1964, pp. 76-79 for details). (b) Sabbath keeping was an Old Testament institution incorporated into the Law of Moses and made binding on the Israelites. The Old Covenant was done away at the death of Christ (Heb. 8:7-10:18; Col. 2:13-17). Therefore, not even the Ten Commandments, including the 4th, are binding today simply because they are under the Old Covenant. That Covenant was finished at the cross. (c) Jesus taught, and even intensified, the principles of nine of the Ten Commandments. But He did not, in principle or specifically, teach the keeping of the Sabbath by His people under the New Covenant. There is no more Biblical basis for speaking of a 'Christian Sabbath' with reference to Sunday than there is for speaking of a 'Christian Passover' with reference to the Lord's Supper. (d) "There is enough confusion in the religious world, including ours, concerning the relationship of the Old Testament to the New Testament without adding to it by using terminologies that do not draw sharp distinctions between the two covenants and their respective institutions." (Dr. James E. Priest).
Conclusion: We shall not properly observe Sunday unless we fully recognize and appreciate its sacred character as one of our Saviors choicest gifts to the world. Much help is to be found, therefore, in calling it by its rightful name, the Lord's Day. If we realize it to be His, we shall recognize and prize it for His sake, honoring Him by observing it 'In His Name.'
