The legalists were out to snare Jesus. Among other things his disciples were picking corn to satisfy their hunger on the Sabbath day. Jesus owned the Sabbath; he said to them, “For the Son of man is lord even of the Sabbath day” (Mat 12:8). The Sabbath day is a day of rest. No work was lawful on the Sabbath day, but Jesus Himself did work:
13 Then
saith He to the man (with the withered hand), “Stretch forth your hand.” And he
stretched it forth; and it was restored whole, like as the other. 14
Then the Pharisees went out, and held a council against him, how they might
destroy him. 15 But when Jesus knew it, He withdrew himself from there:
and great multitudes followed Him, and He healed them all. (Mat 12:13-15)
When the disciples picked corn,
that did not diminish Jesus. It did, however, remove their hunger. If anyone
would save the life of even a lamb, that would be the merciful thing to do.
Then Jesus had mercy on the man with the withered hand and restored it to be
like the other. His final point was made when “the multitudes followed Him, and
He healed them all.”
Following Jesus was work. It was
against the Law to move about, “The Lord has given you the Sabbath, therefore He
giveth you on the sixth day the bread of two days; abide you every man
in his place, let no man go out of his place on the seventh day” (Exod 16:29). Make
your bread on another day and stay put, to make it clearer. However, they
were following Jesus on the Sabbath day of rest, which in itself was breaking
the Law.
Of course, the Pharisees were
right. The disciples should not have picked corn. The Law was that God would
give them two days of food on the sixth day. Throughout the gospels, Jesus
called those who believed in Him to follow Him. Jesus rested in the tomb on the
Sabbath day. He prepared Himself on the sixth day for that time of ‘rest.’ Death
for Jesus was merely sleep, albeit dying was agony.
But did Jesus truly rest on the
Sabbath? Although His Body was at rest, His Spirit — the Holy Ghost — was quite
busy, delivering sin and Satan to Hell! Paul wrote, “Now that He ascended, what
is it but that he also descended first into the lower parts of the Earth?”
(Ephes 4:9).
Even while Jesus rested, He broke
the Sabbath for a great cause — the healing of the nations. Jesus revealed to
the legalists that good things were still allowable.
The difficult thing for the
Pharisees was discerning what was good! They thought that following the Law to
a tee was the greater good whereas Jesus made allowances for both essential
things and human improvement, as well as following Him.
Because they were following
Jesus, the disciples could pick corn to nourish their bodies. Without food, they
could not have followed Jesus.
The Lord said to pray a certain
way, “Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts, as we forgive
our debtors” (Mat 6:11-12).
Jesus gave His followers their
daily bread, even on the Sabbath day. (He allowed them to pick corn.) If they had
prayed, He had already given them permission to gather corn, and even said to
ask God to forgive their debts, or ‘trespasses’ as some versions say it.
The Pharisees never were able to
add one plus one and get two. It was still unlawful to pick the corn, but Jesus
had the power and grace to forgive such simple things. The Law, therefore, had
a point; that although people break the Law, the Lord still has the grace to
forgive.
Then, Jesus Himself broke the Law
when he restored the hand of the man that followed Him. I’ll show them,
He may have thought. What if Jesus had done what the doctors do? See you on Monday,
friend.
Jesus is not confined by time.
God did rest on the seventh day, but to be honest, God does not need rest when
it comes to healing. He broke His own Law to heal the man, and then broke it to
heal the ailments of the multitude.
When Jesus healed the ‘multitudes’
that means so much! It was not just the Jews that He healed, nor even just the
Gentiles, but whosoever believed in Him to the extent that they would
even break the Law to follow Him. The Law was not meant to prevent Christians
from following Jesus, and therefore, they could both pick the corn and follow
Jesus because Jesus, they knew, would forgive their trespasses, or lawbreaking.
Neither was Jesus a respecter of
persons. The Pharisees missed the point! They followed Jesus wherever He went
to monitor Jesus and His followers breaking the Law, ostensibly to condemn them
when the time came to try Jesus. The Pharisees, by following Him, were also
breaking the Law, but neither did Jesus condemn them, even at the crucifixion
for those who would kill Him, “Know not what they do” (Luke 23-34).
Just as Jesus said to the woman
who prostituted herself, “Neither do I condemn thee: go and sin no more” (John
8:11), He did not condemn the disciples, the multitude, nor even the Pharisees.
They were all permitted to follow Him and break the Sabbath Law.
The Law was meant for breaking! Mankind
was sinful, and genetically, because of original sin, keeping even one Law, let
alone all the Law, was never possible. Just following Jesus made them all lawbreakers,
and that was not necessarily a bad thing because it revealed that they all
needed Jesus to forgive their trespasses.
A debt, or trespass, is
essentially violating the Law on God’s ‘Estate.’ The Law of God is doing the Will
of God. It is His Will that He be followed, despite breaking another Law.
The legalese in modern times is a
‘priori’ — logically concluding from a general principle to the expected
facts or effects.
The general principle is that
Jesus is the Authority who decides the motive for lawbreaking, given the facts
or effects. A priori was that following Jesus would be a better
principle than not breaking the Law. Jesus allowed them to break the Law for
the better purpose of trusting Him rather than the Law. In fact, Jesus wrote
the Law, and as the Author, or Authority, He could abridge the Law whenever it
would be good to do so.
Resolving hunger was more
important than resting. The restoration of a withered hand was more substantial
than rest, and the healing of the souls of man was tantamount to preserving the
Law, not that the Law is not God’s Will, but that He has abundant grace!
Technically, going to church on Sunday (the Christian Sabbath) is breaking the Law, but a priori is to be with the Spirit of Jesus.
Next, the healing of the
multitude will be examined more closely.
(picture credit; Art and Faith Matters)
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