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************God Bless Open Eyes And Hearts, Amen************
"At that time Jesus went on the Sabbath day through the corn; and His disciples were an hungred, and began to pluck the ears of corn, and to eat. But when the Pharisees saw it they said unto Him, Behold, Thy disciples do that which is not lawful to do upon the Sabbath day. But he said unto them, Have ye not read what David did, when he was an hungred, and they that were with him; How he entered into the house of God, and did eat the shewbread, which was not lawful for him to eat, neither for them which were with him, but only for the priests! Or have ye not read in the law, how that on the Sabbath days the priests in the temple profane the Sabbath, and are blameless! But I say unto you, That in this place is one greater than the temple. But if ye had known what this meaneth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice, ye would not have condemned the guiltless. For the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath day. And when he was departed thence, He went into their synagogue: And, behold, there was a man which had his hand withered. And they asked Him, saying, Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath days? that they might accuse Him. And He said unto them, What man shall there be among you, that shall have one sheep, and if it fall into a pit on the Sabbath day, will he not lay hold on it, and lift it out? How much then is a man better than a sheep? Wherefore it is lawful to do well on the Sabbath days. Then saith He to the man, Stretch forth thine hand. And he stretched it forth; and it was restored whole, like as the other. Then the Pharisees went out, and held a counsel against Him, how they might destroy Him." Matthew 12:1-14.
There are a series of incidents in this chapter that begin a growing bitterness of hostility on the part of the "guardians of traditional and ceremonial religion"...namely, the Pharisees
There are two Sabbath incidents. In the first, the disciples are the transgressors of the sabbatic tradition, and in the second, Christ's own action is brought into question. The scene of the first is in the fields, and that of the second is in the synagogue. In the one, Sabbath observance is set aside at the call of personal needs; in the other, at the call of another's calamity. So the two correspond to the old Puritan principle that the Sabbath law allowed "works of necessity and of mercy."
Jesus, the Master, did not fare any better than His disciples!...just look how the disciples were hungry and Jesus had no food to feed them nor did He have any for Himself...having begun their j0urney days before this Sabbath Day, and coming through a path in a corn field and having something right there to feed on and fill their bellies...somewhat...(a glimpse into their condition of a need, to eat because they were hungry). His reference to David and his hungry men suggests that 'He was an hungred' as well as 'they that were with Him.' As they traveled through the field of corn, they gathered a few ears, as the merciful provision of the law allowed, and began to eat the grains. As soon as they began to glean, the "eager to prosecute!" Pharisees, who seem to have been at their heels, call Him to 'behold' this dreadful crime, which, they think requires His immediate protest. If they had had the same heart for men's necessities as they did their "lack of" concerning their faults, they might have given them food which it was 'lawful' to eat, and would have prevented this (what they believed to be) an iniquity. But that is not the way of Pharisees. Moses had not forbidden such gleaning, but they "decided" that plucking the ears was reaping, and reaping was work, and work was forbidden.
Jesus did not question the authority of the tradition, nor did He ask where Moses had forbidden what His disciples were doing. He doesn't even touch the sanctity of the Jewish Sabbath. He accepts the Pharisees' position, for the time, and gives them a perfect answer on their own ground..."Have ye not read?" He replied...and they could not produce one Scripture that supported their forbiding. Jesus quotes two instances in which "ceremonial obligations" gave way before "higher law". The first, that of David and his followers eating the shew-bread, which was a taboo to all but priests...and His reference paralleled the circumstance between Himself, the true King, unrecognized...and hunted with His followers by these "bruts!"
Our Lord's purpose of showing that even a divine prohibition, if it relates to mere ceremonial matter, dissolves...even before bodily necessities. How dare such a carnal thing as hunger rightfully nullify a sacred ritual! The law of right...inflexible...that of external ceremonies...flexible. Better that a man should die than be broken...better that the other should be thrown to the dogs than if hungry should go unfed.
Jesus appealed to Scripture to bear out His teaching that Sabbath observance must bend to personal necessities. In His former answer, He appeals to compassion to confirm the principle that it must give way to the duty of relieving others. His hearers could only answer it in one cold-blooded way...they say, 'Don't lift the poor brute out of his misery, instead, throw him some bones, and something for him to lie upon, and leave him until tomorrow.' Nice.
Christ goes on to His conclusion. Man's superiority to animals makes his claim for help more imperative. 'You would not do less for one another than for a sheep in a hole.' He does not say, 'It is lawful to heal,' but, 'It is lawful to do well,' thus showing the true justification of healing, namely, that it was an act of charity...and it covered over a whole class of other cases as well. "To do well" here means, not to do right, but to do good, to benefit men. Meeting the needs of men is appropriate with the true design of that DAY of rest. He permits the pressing condition of one's own necessities and of others' need of help.
Jesus healing on the Sabbath...Not even the Pharisees could accuse Him of breaking any Sabbath law by such a cure. What had He done? Told the man to put out his hand, that was not unlawful. What had the man done? Stretched it forth, that was not unlawful. So they were driven off, unable to argue, and baffled in their attempt to find ground for laying a charge against Him. But neither His gentle wisdom nor His healing power could reach these hearts made of stone...and all that their contact with Jesus did was to drive them into deeper hostility and hatred toward Him, and to send them away to plot His death.
"And it came to pass, that He went through the cornfields on the Sabbath day; and His disciples began, as they went, to pluck the ears of corn. 24 And the Pharisees said unto Him, Behold, why do they on the Sabbath day that which is not lawful? 25 And He said unto them, Have ye never read what David did, when he had need, and was an hungred, he, and they that were with him? 26 How he went into the house of God in the days of Abiathar the high priest, and did eat the shewbread, which is not lawful to eat but for the priests, and gave also to them which were with him? 27 And He said unto them, The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath: 28 Therefore the Son of Man is Lord also of the Sabbath." Mark 2:23-28.
"And He entered again into the synagogue; and there was a man there which had a withered hand. 2 And they watched Him, whether He would heal him on the Sabbath day; that they might accuse Him. 3 And He saith unto the man which had the withered hand, Stand forth. 4 And He saith unto them, Is it lawful to do good on the Sabbath days, or to do evil? to save life, or to kill? But they held their peace. 5 And when He had looked round about on them with anger, being grieved for the hardness of their hearts, He saith unto the man, Stretch forth thine hand. And he stretched it out: and his hand was restored whole as the other." Mark 3:1-5.
These two Sabbath scenes bring to a climax the preceding paragraphs, where Jesus asserted His right to brush aside Rabbinical "ordinances" about eating with sinners and about fasting. Here, He goes much further, in claiming power over the divine ordinance of the Sabbath. Those who rigorously adhere to their established rules of ceremony are moved to holy horror by a more free handling of the formality, by departing from their dogmatic beliefs. This just shows how the Pharisees' suspicions were exacerbated to murderous hate by these two incidents. These two incidents deal with the two classes of "works" which Christian theology has now recognized as legitimate exceptions to the law of the Sabbath rest...namely, works of necessity and of mercy.
Whether the disciples were clearing a path through standing corn, or they simply gathered the ears of corn on the edge of a made path as they went...the point of the Pharisees' objection was that they broke the Sabbath by plucking, which was considered a kind of reaping. According to Luke, their breach of the Rabbinical exposition of the law was an event more dreadful in the eyes of these narrow-minded, uncaring, heartleass rule keepers, for there was not only reaping, but (in their minds), also the act of winnowing and grinding, for the grains were rubbed in the disciples' palms. How dare they sin! like that!!! What impious defiance of law! But of what law? Certainly NOT! that of the Fourth Commandment, which simply forbade "labor", but that of the "schoolmasters'" definition of the commandment, by laying out, with clever, contrived imaginations, their OWN! decision on what was labor and what was not. The foundations of that structure, found in the Talmud, were absolutely laid before Christ.
But what is important to understand here, is Jesus does not avail Himself of the distinction between God's commandment and men's definition of it. At appropriate times He disputed Rabbinical authority, and branded their determination of what was right and what was wrong as binding, distressing, burdens on men...and here He allows their assumptions and their comments to pass unchallenged, and accepts the statement that His disciples had been doing what was unlawful on the Sabbath, and vindicates their breach of law.
Understand that His answer deals first with a similar example of this breach of ceremonial law, and then goes on to lay down a broad principle which governed that precedent...vindicates the act of the disciples...and draws for all ages a broad line of demarcation between the obligations of ceremonial and of moral law. Clearly, the example He uses (David's act in taking the shewbread), implies that the disciples' reason for plucking the ears of corn wasn't to clear a path but simply to fill a need...to satisfy their hunger. It also suggests that He was also hungry, and partook of the food. Such sinners!!!! How dare them!!!!
"Did ye never read?"...("In all your study of the letter of the Scripture, did you never take heed to that page?") The principle on which the priest let the hungry soldiers and their king eat the sacred bread, was the subordination of ceremonial law to men's necessities. It was good and right to let the loaves sit on the table in the Presence, but it was even better! to take them and feed the starving servant of God and his followers with him. Out of the very heart of the law which the Pharisees appealed to, Jesus drew an example of freedom with His disciples' case.
Jesus goes on to bring out the principle which shaped the instance he gave. He puts it right out there, and confines it to the matter in hand—Sabbath obligations. Ceremonial law in all its parts is established as a means to an end—the highest good of men. Therefore, the end is more important than the means...and the means must give way that the end may be secured. External observances are not of permanent, unalterable obligation. They stand on a different footing from primal moral duties, which remain equally imperative whether doing them leads to physical good or evil. David and his men were bound to keep these, whether they starved or not; but they were not bound to leave the shewbread lying in the shrine, and starve.
Man is made for the moral law. It is supreme, and he is under it, whether obedience leads to death or not. But all ceremonial regulations are merely established to help men to reach the true end of their being, and may be suspended or modified by his necessities. The Sabbath comes under the class of such ceremonial regulations, and may therefore be elastic when the pressure of necessity is brought to bear.
Jesus defines the limits of the obligation. "The Sabbath was made for man"...not fora nation or an "age", but for all time and for the whole race. Those who want to "sweep under the rug" the observance of the weekly Sabbath Day of rest just LOVE! quoting this text...(don't you now...?)...but they give little heed to its first clause, and do ignore! that their favorite passage upsets their main contention, and establishes the law of the Sabbath as a possession for the world for ever. It is not a burden, but a privilege, made and meant for man's highest good. Amen.
Christ's conclusion that He is "Lord even of the Sabbath" means this....that He Who has in charge all man's higher interests, and Who IS! the perfect representation of the ideal of manhood, has full authority to modify and suspend the ceremonial observance if in His unerring judgment the suspension is desirable...as "He IS! LORD...EVEN! of the Sabbath!"
This is not to abolish the Sabbath...on the contrary...but a confirmation of the merciful appointment. It does not give permission to keep or neglect it, according to whim or for the sake of amusement, but it does draw, strong and clear, the distinction between a positive rite which may be modified, and an unchangeable precept of the moral law which it is better for a man to die than to neglect or transgress. Amen.
The second Sabbath scene deals with the same question, only from another point of view. Works of necessity justified the supercession of Sabbath law; works of beneficence are no breaches of it. There are circumstances in which it is right to do what is not "lawful" on the Sabbath, for such works as healing the man with a withered hand are always "lawful".
The cruel lack of concern to the sufferer's calamity characteristically accompanies a religion which is mainly a matter of outside observances. What did it matter to the Pharisees whether the poor cripple was healed or not? They wanted him cured only that they might have a charge against Jesus. Note, too, the condition of their mind, which recognized Jesus' awesome, miracle working power, and yet considered Him a blasphemus sinner.
Jesus made sure everyone saw the miracle too! He requests the man stand out in the middle of them all...before all the cold, calculating eyes and stony hearts of the Pharisees..."...for there was murder in their hearts..." (verse 6). There they sat with solemn faces, posing as sticklers for law and religion, and all the while they were seeking grounds for killing Him...Which would be the "Sabbath-breakers?"...He Who cured the shrunken arm, or they who had full intentions of accomplishing His death...?
Good omitted is equivalent to evil committed. If we can save, and do not, the responsibility of loss lies on us. If we can rescue, and let die, our brother's blood reddens our hands. Good undone is not merely negative. It is positive evil done. If, in respect to the Sabbath we refrained from doing a kind deed alleviating a brother's hunger...pain or sorrow, we would have certainly done something by the very act of not doing anything...and what we would have done is pure evil.
No wonder they "held their peace". They wouldn't dare abandon their position...so their was nothing to be said. That silence indicated conviction and obstinate pride...rooted in hatred...Jesus looked on them...
...the emotions in His heart as He looked at their "lowering faces" ...(a vision of Jesus' grief mingled with His anger)...a precious glimpse into that tender heart, which in all its tenderness is capable of righteous indignation, and in all its indignation does not set aside its tenderness!
Not even the most rigid prohibitions were broken by the process of cure. It was no breach of the strange restrictions which had been engrafted on the commandment, that Jesus should bid the man put out his hand. Nobody could find fault with a man for doing that. These two things, a word and a movement of muscles, were all. So He did "heal on the Sabbath", and yet did nothing that they could charge Him with.
Power to obey follows as a result of the desire and effort to obey.
It is simple, the pharasees accused Jesus of breaking the sabbath, Jesus showed us what the Sabbath means.
The pharasees are the ones that dictated the one day a week nonsense so any argument over Sunday or Saturday is saying we must cling to the pharasees way of observing the Sabbath.
Jesus did NOT do anything on the day that the PHARASEES decreed the sabbath that he didn't do ALL WEEK. Jesus showed us that we are to pick up our cross daily and do the work of the Lord everyday.
So if someone says observe the sabbath and designates that to be one day of the week or burn in hell if you don't is nothing but a pharasee.
It is simple, the pharasees accused Jesus of breaking the sabbath, Jesus showed us what the Sabbath means.
The pharasees are the ones that dictated the one day a week nonsense so any argument over Sunday or Saturday is saying we must cling to the pharasees way of observing the Sabbath.
Jesus did NOT do anything on the day that the PHARASEES decreed the sabbath that he didn't do ALL WEEK. Jesus showed us that we are to pick up our cross daily and do the work of the Lord everyday.
So if someone says observe the sabbath and designates that to be one day of the week or burn in hell if you don't is nothing but a pharasee.
Jesus kept the Sabbath...and He only showed that it was lawful to "heal" another...that it was lawful to "eat" if an hungered...and to "save." He was teaching the Pharisees that their "traditions"...their pious ceremonies...where wrong if it meant for them, or others to not "do well" for another. Jesus taught that it is good "to do well" on the Sabbath...some just do not "hear" His words.......
God so often complained that all His worship is neglected or overthrown, when the Sabbath is either neglected or transgressed...
Jeremiah 15:1 Then said the LORD unto me, Though Moses and Samuel stood before me, yet my mind could not be toward this people: cast them out of my sight, and let them go forth.
2 And it shall come to pass, if they say unto thee, Whither shall we go forth? then thou shalt tell them, Thus saith the LORD; Such as are for death, to death; and such as are for the sword, to the sword; and such as are for the famine, to the famine; and such as are for the captivity, to the captivity.
3 And I will appoint over them four kinds, saith the LORD: the sword to slay, and the dogs to tear, and the fowls of the heaven, and the beasts of the earth, to devour and destroy.
4 And I will cause them to be removed into all kingdoms of the earth, because of Manasseh the son of Hezekiah king of Judah, for that which he did in Jerusalem.
5 For who shall have pity upon thee, O Jerusalem? or who shall bemoan thee? or who shall go aside to ask how thou doest?
6Thou hast forsaken me, saith the LORD, thou art gone backward: therefore will I stretch out my hand against thee, and destroy thee; I am weary with repenting.
7 And I will fan them with a fan in the gates of the land; I will bereave them of children, I will destroy my people, since they return not from their ways.
8 Their widows are increased to me above the sand of the seas: I have brought upon them against the mother of the young men a spoiler at noonday: I have caused him to fall upon it suddenly, and terrors upon the city.
9 She that hath borne seven languisheth: she hath given up the ghost; her sun is gone down while it was yet day: she hath been ashamed and confounded: and the residue of them will I deliver to the sword before their enemies, saith the LORD.
10 Woe is me, my mother, that thou hast borne me a man of strife and a man of contention to the whole earth! I have neither lent on usury, nor men have lent to me on usury; yet every one of them doth curse me.
11The LORD said, Verily it shall be well with thy remnant; verily I will cause the enemy to entreat thee well in the time of evil and in the time of affliction.
12 Shall iron break the northern iron and the steel?
13 Thy substance and thy treasures will I give to the spoil without price, and that for all thy sins, even in all thy borders.
14 And I will make thee to pass with thine enemies into a land which thou knowest not: for a fire is kindled in mine anger, which shall burn upon you.
15 O LORD, thou knowest: remember me, and visit me, and revenge me of my persecutors; take me not away in thy longsuffering: know that for thy sake I have suffered rebuke.
16 Thy words were found, and I did eat them; and thy word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of mine heart: for I am called by thy name, O LORD God of hosts.
17 I sat not in the assembly of the mockers, nor rejoiced; I sat alone because of thy hand: for thou hast filled me with indignation.
18 Why is my pain perpetual, and my wound incurable, which refuseth to be healed? wilt thou be altogether unto me as a liar, and as waters that fail?
19 Therefore thus saith the LORD, If thou return, then will I bring thee again, and thou shalt stand before me: and if thou take forth the precious from the vile, thou shalt be as my mouth: let them return unto thee; but return not thou unto them.
20 And I will make thee unto this people a fenced brasen wall: and they shall fight against thee, but they shall not prevail against thee: for I am with thee to save thee and to deliver thee, saith the LORD.
21And I will deliver thee out of the hand of the wicked, and I will redeem thee out of the hand of the terrible.
Ezekiel 20:19 I am the LORD your God; walk in my statutes, and keep my judgments, and do them;
20 And hallow my sabbaths; and they shall be a sign between me and you, that ye may know that I am the LORD your God.
21 Notwithstanding the children rebelled against me: they walked not in my statutes, neither kept my judgments to do them, which if a man do, he shall even live in them; they polluted my sabbaths: then I said, I would pour out my fury upon them, to accomplish my anger against them in the wilderness.
24 Because they had not executed my judgments, but had despised my statutes, and had polluted my sabbaths, and their eyes were after their fathers' idols.
God placed this commandment in the midst of the two tables, because the keeping of it is the best help to the keeping of all the rest. The conscionable keeping of the Sabbath is the mother of all religion and good discipline in the church. Take away the Sabbath...and what will become of religion, and that peace and order...
1 Corinthians 14:33 "...For God is not the author of confusion, but of peace, as in all churches of the saints..."...and...
40 "...Let all things be done decently and in order."
...which God will have to be kept in his church?
The Sabbath-day is God's day, for the week's provision; wherein He will have us to come to him, and buy of him without silver or money...
Isaiah 55:1 Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money; come ye, buy, and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.
2 Wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not bread? and your labour for that which satisfieth not? hearken diligently unto me, and eat ye that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness.
...the bread of angels, and water of life, the wine of the sacrament, and milk of the word to feed our souls; tried gold to enrich our faith...
Revelation 3:18 I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see.
...precious eye-salve, to heal our spiritual blindness; and the white raiment of Christ's righteousness, to cover our filthy nakedness...he who can dispense with his conscience to break the Sabbath for his own profit or pleasure, his heart has never yet felt what the fear of God truly means; for, of this commandment may the words of James be verified, "He that faileth in one, is guilty of all." James 2:10.
Seeing that God has fenced this commandment with so many moral reasons, it is evident that the commandment itself is moral.
A seventh day (Saturday) Sabbath cannot be a simplt ceremony, but an essential part of God's worship, enjoined to man, when there was but one condition of all men. And if it was necessary for our first parents to have a Sabbath-day, to serve God in their perfection...and seeing God himself kept this day holy, how can any man be holy that wilfully profanes it?
Keeping the Sabbath is one of the commandments which God spake with his mouth, and twice wrote with his own fingers in tables of stone, to signify their authority and perpetuity (Exodus 34:10) All that God wrote, were moral and perpetual commandments, and those are reckoned ten! in number (Deuteronomy 4:13). If this were a simple ceremony, then there were only nine! commandments. The ceremonial that was to be abrogated by Christ, were all written by Moses (Deuteronomy 4:2). But this of the Sabbath, with the other nine, written by God himself, were put into the ark; no ceremonial law was put, to show that they should be the perpetual rules of the church, yet such as none could perfectly fulfil [the ceremonial laws] and keep, but only Christ (1 Kings 8:9; Hebrews 9:4)
Christ professes, "that he came not to detroy the moral law," (Matthew 5:17), and that the least of them should not be abrogated in his kingdom of the New Testament. Insomuch, that "whosoever breaketh one of the least of these ten commandments, and teacheth men so, he should be called the least in the kingdom of heaven," (Matthew 5:19)...that is, he should have no place in his church. Now the moral law commands one day of seven to be perpetually kept a holy Sabbath. And Christ himself expressly mentions the keeping of a Sabbath among his Christians, at the destruction of Jerusalem, about forty-two years after his resurrection. By which time, all the Mosaical ceremonies, except eating of blood, and things strangled (Acts 15:19,20,21,24,28), were by a public decree of all the apostles quite abolished, and abrogated in Christian churches. And therefore Christ admonished his disciples, "to pray that their flight be not in the winter, nor on the Sabbath-day." (Matthew 24:20). Not in the winter; for by reason of the foulness of the ways and weather, their flight then should be more painful and troublesome to them: not upon the Sabbath; because it would be more grievous to their hearts, to spend that day toiling to save their lives, which the Lord had commanded to be spent in holy exercises, to comfort their souls.
Now if the sanctifying of the Sabbath on this day had been but ceremonial,there would have been no grief to have fled on this day, any more than on any other day of the week; but in that Christ does greive of them being driven to fly on the Sabbath-day, and therefore He wishes His followers to pray to God to prevent such an occasion, He plainly demonstrates that the observation of the Sabbath is no ceremony, but a moral commandment, confirmed and established by Christ among Christians.
If you would know the day whereupon Christ appointed Christians to keep the Sabbath, John will tell you, that it was on the Lord's day (Revelation 1:10) If you will know on what day of the week that was, Paul will tell you, that it was on every first day of the week (1 Corinthians 16:1).
...the commandment of the Sabbath is spiritual and moral.
God Bless Your holy Word. Amen.
In Christ's love...and prayerfully inHis truth,Verna.
it was on the Lord's day (Revelation 1:10) If you will know on what day of the week that was, Paul will tell you, that it was on every first day of the week (1 Corinthians 16:1).
"The Lord's day" denotes a state of being in His spirit, not a time or season.
"The Lord's day" denotes a state of being in His spirit,...
yes, but according to what little elmer believes, the Sabbath is not to be kept holy...according to the doctrine of Jesus Christ, it is absolutely to be set aside as a specific, holy day of rest in Him. I'll believe God's words...through Jesus Christ.
Quote:
Originally Posted by little elmer
...not a time or season
...see what I mean...?
In Christ's love...and prayerfully in His truth,
Verna.
yes, but according to what little elmer believes, the Sabbath is not to be kept holy...according to the doctrine of Jesus Christ, it is absolutely to be set aside as a specific, holy day of rest in Him. I'll believe God's words...through Jesus Christ.
Actually you are simply modifying what the pharasees did in order to try to say you are not doing the same thing.
The fact remains Jesus example and his words speak to the spiritual that residing in the spirit is a constant sabbath that time cannot restrain.
To demand a physical day is to be a pharasee, just say no to pharasees.
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