SERIES: The Gospel of John
Sabotaging the Sabbath
SPEAKER: Michael P. Andrus
Note: This sermon was preached in Wichita in 1979 in a previous series on John.
Introduction: While we have given considerable attention to the healing miracles of Jesus in this series, there is one fact about Jesus’ healings which we have not focused on, and that is the day of the week in which He did most of them. And that’s the subject of our message today.
Perhaps you feel that such a topic is of insufficient profundity to consume an entire message. Well, the issue is a bit broader than that, for the day Jesus chose to do most of His healings was the Sabbath, and Sabbath-keeping was nearly the most important thing in the world to the Pharisees. They had taken the simple and straightforward commandment of God, number four in the Decalogue, and had erected upon it a host of legalistic requirements for a right standing with God.
God hates legalism. And the clearest evidence of that fact is what Jesus did to the Sabbath of the Pharisees. He sabotaged it and left it in shambles. But at the same time, it is critical for us to understand that He did not break the Fourth Commandment. The Sabbath that He sabotaged us not God’s Sabbath, but rather the Pharisees’ Sabbath.
We will begin today by noticing first …
The frequency with which Jesus violated the Sabbath of the legalists
I have decided to read six major NT passages this morning. I know that is a lot of Scripture for one service, but I strongly encourage you to listen carefully, for the impact will increase with the repetition.
John 5:9-18: 9 At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked.
The day on which this took place was a Sabbath, 10 and so the Jewish leaders said to the man who had been healed, “It is the Sabbath; the law forbids you to carry your mat.”
11 But he replied, “The man who made me well said to me, ‘Pick up your mat and walk.’”
12 So they asked him, “Who is this fellow who told you to pick it up and walk?”
13 The man who was healed had no idea who it was, for Jesus had slipped away into the crowd that was there.
14 Later Jesus found him at the temple and said to him, “See, you are well again. Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you.” 15 The man went away and told the Jewish leaders that it was Jesus who had made him well.
16 So, because Jesus was doing these things on the Sabbath, the Jewish leaders began to persecute him. 17 In his defense Jesus said to them, “My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I too am working.” 18 For this reason they tried all the more to kill him; not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.
John 9:13-16: 13 They brought to the Pharisees the man who had been blind. 14 Now the day on which Jesus had made the mud and opened the man’s eyes was a Sabbath. 15 Therefore the Pharisees also asked him how he had received his sight. “He put mud on my eyes,” the man replied, “and I washed, and now I see.”
16 Some of the Pharisees said, “This man is not from God, for he does not keep the Sabbath.”
But others asked, “How can a sinner perform such signs?” So they were divided.
Luke 6:1-5: One Sabbath Jesus was going through the grainfields, and his disciples began to pick some heads of grain, rub them in their hands and eat the kernels. 2 Some of the Pharisees asked, “Why are you doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath?”
3 Jesus answered them, “Have you never read what David did when he and his companions were hungry? 4 He entered the house of God, and taking the consecrated bread, he ate what is lawful only for priests to eat. And he also gave some to his companions.” 5 Then Jesus said to them, “The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.”
Luke 6:6-11: On another Sabbath he went into the synagogue and was teaching, and a man was there whose right hand was shriveled. 7 The Pharisees and the teachers of the law were looking for a reason to accuse Jesus, so they watched him closely to see if he would heal on the Sabbath. 8 But Jesus knew what they were thinking and said to the man with the shriveled hand, “Get up and stand in front of everyone.” So he got up and stood there.
9 Then Jesus said to them, “I ask you, which is lawful on the Sabbath: to do good or to do evil, to save life or to destroy it?”
10 He looked around at them all, and then said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He did so, and his hand was completely restored. 11 But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law were furious and began to discuss with one another what they might do to Jesus.
Luke 13:10-17: On a Sabbath Jesus was teaching in one of the synagogues, 11 and a woman was there who had been crippled by a spirit for eighteen years. She was bent over and could not straighten up at all. 12 When Jesus saw her, he called her forward and said to her, “Woman, you are set free from your infirmity.” 13 Then he put his hands on her, and immediately she straightened up and praised God.
14 Indignant because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath, the synagogue leader said to the people, “There are six days for work. So come and be healed on those days, not on the Sabbath.”
15 The Lord answered him, “You hypocrites! Doesn’t each of you on the Sabbath untie your ox or donkey from the stall and lead it out to give it water? 16 Then should not this woman, a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has kept bound for eighteen long years, be set free on the Sabbath day from what bound her?”
17 When he said this, all his opponents were humiliated, but the people were delighted with all the wonderful things he was doing.
Luke 14:1-6: One Sabbath, when Jesus went to eat in the house of a prominent Pharisee, he was being carefully watched. 2 There in front of him was a man suffering from abnormal swelling of his body. 3 Jesus asked the Pharisees and experts in the law, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath or not?” 4 But they remained silent. So taking hold of the man, he healed him and sent him on his way.
5 Then he asked them, “If one of you has a child or an ox that falls into a well on the Sabbath day, will you not immediately pull it out?” 6 And they had nothing to say.
These are not the only Sabbath healing events in Jesus’ ministry, but they should be sufficient to demonstrate that, if anything, He went out of His way to heal on the Sabbath. I believe His purpose was to elicit a confrontation with the Pharisees. And it certainly worked.
The reaction of the Pharisees when Jesus violated their Sabbath
They demonstrated incredible insensitivity to human needs. Do you recall that not once in all the accounts we read of Jesus healing on the Sabbath did the religious leaders express one iota of compassion for the victims Jesus healed. Not once did they express one iota of joy over the sight granted to a man born blind, or the straightening of the body of woman who had been crippled for 18 years, or the fact that a man could walk after being absolutely helpless for 38 years!
Their reaction instead was to treat the healed persons as criminals or as victims of some demon-possessed charlatan, or, as in the case of the man born blind, they actually excommunicate him from their fellowship. If it weren’t so pitiful, it would almost be humorous to read about the Pharisee in Luke 13:14, who said to the people after Jesus healed the crippled woman, “There are six days in which work should be done; therefore, come during them and get healed, and not on the Sabbath day.” He’s angry over this woman’s healing because the procedure was irregular!
It’s as though this Pharisee were claiming that any Monday through Friday, 9 to 5, the sick and disabled had but to drop by his office in the Synagogue and get healed. But if that were the case, why had these pitiful persons been plagued year after year after year? What about the lame man who couldn’t even get into the pool, much less get to this synagogue official’s office? This Pharisee wouldn’t be found dead down by the pool of Siloam for fear of defilement by the riff-raff! But Jesus went to the pool and healed the man. He had great compassion, while the Pharisees reacted with indifference to human needs.
The second basic reaction of the Pharisees is that …
They hated Jesus for breaking their traditions. In John 5 we are told that the Jews persecuted Jesus for healing on the Sabbath and sought to kill Him because of His Sabbath activities and His justification for His actions. In John 9 they flatly declared that Jesus was not from God because He didn’t keep the Sabbath. In Luke 6 they were filled with rage and discussed how they might do away with Jesus. Why should healing such as Jesus performed ever stir up such hatred? There is only one explanation: legalism. It is such a deadly disease that it renders people totally irrational.
I’ve used this word legalism several times already. Perhaps it’s time for us to define it. And for this purpose the best definition I’ve found is that of Dr. Charles Ryrie: “Legalism is a fleshly attitude which conforms to a code for the purpose of exalting self.” [i]
Let’s examine that definition briefly. Note first, that legalism is not so much an act as it is an attitude. Two individuals can both live by the same standards and one of them can be legalistic while the other is not. The reason for this resides in the last phrase of our definition, “for the purpose of exalting self.” One can follow a set of rules for pragmatic reasons like health; one can follow rules because he believes his testimony will be enhanced by them; or one can follow rules out of a sense of pride, i.e., to appear more spiritual to others. Only the latter person is guilty of legalism.
I might also comment on the middle part of the definition: “conforms to a code.” It’s not always legalistic to conform to a code. Every believer, in fact, is required by Scripture to conform to a code—the Law of Christ. But almost invariably the legalist has his own code which replaces the biblical code, or at least adds to it.
The Pharisees’ legalism over the Sabbath didn’t stem from the fact that they obeyed the Fourth Commandment, which told them to keep the Sabbath holy.
Rather it stemmed from the multitude of traditions which they added to the Fourth Commandment. They had a list of 39 things a person couldn’t do on the Sabbath, and that list had the full authority of Scripture in their minds.
Isn’t it amazing how legalists love lists? They have their Nasty Nine or their Terrible Ten that you’d better not violate, for their list is not only for themselves—it’s what they expect everyone else to live up to also. And can they ever be critical of other Christians!
We still have people in the Church today who love religion more than people, who are more concerned about the method of church government or the order of service than they are about the worship of God or the service of others. It is all too tragically true that more trouble and strife arises in churches over legalistic details of procedure than for any other reason. It’s the same old disease the Pharisees had when they hated Jesus for breaking their traditions.
They demonstrated sheer hypocrisy in their dealings with people. In the 13th chapter of Luke, just after the indignant synagogue official had rebuked the crippled woman for accepting healing on the Sabbath, Jesus said to him, ““You hypocrites! Doesn’t each of you on the Sabbath untie your ox or donkey from the stall and lead it out to give it water? 16 Then should not this woman, a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has kept bound for eighteen long years, be set free on the Sabbath day from what bound her?” Jesus accused him of hypocrisy.
By the way, what is hypocrisy? The Greek word for hypocrisy comes from the theater, where the actors were always men, and therefore wore masks when they played female parts. The term hupocrinomai or hypocrisy, can be translated literally, “to speak from under a mask.” It later came to be used of anyone who pretended to be what he wasn’t. So, when Jesus called the Pharisees hypocrites, He was alleging that under their mask or façade of adherence to the rule book, they were really something quite different. They only kept the rules when it benefited them or when it contributed to their pious reputations.
Hypocrisy is still, by the way, a common characteristic among legalists. While straining at a gnat, he will often swallow a camel. While demanding adherence to his own set of rules, he doesn’t mind cheating on God’s rules, especially the one which says, “Do not judge your brother.” The Pharisees were professional hypocrites.
Jesus has been severely challenged in respect to His Sabbath activities, but He doesn’t leave His critics unanswered. So we turn now to …
The justification Jesus gave for sabotaging the Sabbath
In the passages I read earlier I see at least five distinct justifications Jesus gave for His actions on the Sabbath. The first two both relate to the OT, which is of great significance, since the Pharisees were nearly bibliolaters, putting great stock in their understanding of the OT Scriptures. But Jesus derails them by pointing out that …
The OT assumed Sabbath violations on the part of those serving others. Following one of the Sabbath controversies, that recorded in Matthew 12, Jesus justified His actions by asking the Pharisees, “Have you not read in the law that on the Sabbath the priests in the temple break the Sabbath, and are innocent? But I say to you, that something greater than the temple is here.”
What Jesus is arguing is that it’s not wrong for every person to work on the Sabbath, for that was the busiest day of the week for the priests, and no one held them guilty for violating the Sabbath. The same could be said for pastors today, or nurses and doctors, or soldiers, or institutional cooks. When people are serving others, they are perfectly justified in not observing the Sabbath rules.
His second justification is this:
The OT authorized Sabbath violations in cases of necessity. Turn to Luke 6:1-5 for Jesus’ argument on this point. After being challenged by the Pharisees because He and His disciples gathered some grain, threshed it with their hands and ate it—all on the Sabbath—Jesus answers, “Have you never read what David did when he and his companions were hungry? 4 He entered the house of God, and taking the consecrated bread, he ate what is lawful only for priests to eat. And he also gave some to his companions.” 5 Then Jesus said to them, “The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.”
The incident Jesus refers to comes from 1 Samuel 21, where David is fleeing from Saul. He arrives at Nob and requests food from Ahimelech the priest. It so happened that the only bread available was the shewbread, and which no one was allowed to eat except the priests. But the basic needs of David and his men overrode the legal niceties of the situation, and no one blamed David for this technical breach of the law. Human need must not be subjected to barren legalism. Jesus’ point is that if they didn’t denounce David and his men for eating consecrated bread, why should they denounce Him for picking grain on the Sabbath?
The truth of the matter is that we are always willing to make exceptions for those we admire, like David, but the Pharisees didn’t admire Jesus, in fact, they hated Him, so they weren’t willing to make any exceptions for Him.
Jesus’ third justifications is that …
Mercy demanded it. Sabbath “violations” were not only expected for those serving others and authorized in cases of necessity; they were demanded by mercy. This is the point Jesus makes concerning the woman who was crippled for 18 years. Doesn’t mercy demand that everything possible be done for such a pitiful person, no matter what day of the week it is?
Back in Matt. 12, a passage we looked at earlier, Jesus told the Pharisees, “If you had known what this means, ‘I desire compassion and not a sacrifice’ (quoted from Hosea 6:6), you would not have condemned the innocent.” God isn’t nearly as interested in the outward forms of religion as He is in one’s heart attitude. He’s not as concerned about your attendance here this morning as He is about how you behave at work tomorrow. He’s not as concerned about the check you put in the offering today as He is about the mercy and compassion you show a needy person during the week. Yes, mercy sometimes overrides the legal niceties of the Sabbath.
Jesus’ fourth justification is this:
The very purpose of the Sabbath permitted “violation.” In Mark 2:27 Jesus makes a very profound statement: “The sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath.” His point is this: when God established the Sabbath, He did not do so with the view in mind of adding one more restriction on mankind—rather it was for the benefit of mankind to keep him healthy, make him happy, and render him holy.[ii]
Now if the Sabbath was made for mankind’s benefit, then when it is clear and obvious in some special case that violating the Sabbath is to greater benefit, then there should be no objection. We must be careful, of course, not to assume that all of God’s laws have similar exceptions, and we must be careful not to rationalize the willy-nilly “violation” of those laws which do have exceptions.
The final justification Jesus gives is the most important one.
His Lordship settled it. If there were still any argument left in the Pharisees, Jesus destroyed it with an appeal to His Lordship. At least three times in the Gospels Jesus declared that “the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.” The logic of His argument seems to be as follows:
The one who is lord over anything has the right to use it as he wishes.
He, Jesus, is Lord of the Sabbath.
Therefore, He has the right to use the Sabbath as He wished.
In other words, the very fact that Jesus did a particular act on the Sabbath was its own justification for the act, because the Sabbath belonged to Him.
But I want us to examine the Scripture reading in John 5 for further discussion of this Lordship issue. Jesus’ defense before the Pharisees in John 5:16ff rests upon the intimate relationship He had with His Father. The very fact that Jesus spoke of God as “My Father” enraged the Jews, for when speaking of God, they always said “our father” or added some other expression, like “in heaven,” to remove the suggestion of too much familiarity. But Jesus spoke to God in terms of the closest possible relationship.
Jesus points also to the unceasing activity of His Father: “My Father works continually, right up to this very moment!” True, God rested from His creative work on the seventh day, but He certainly didn’t rest from all His work. If God ceased working for even a second the whole world would dissolve into utter chaos, for it is by His power that all things hold together. (Col. 1:17) So also, Jesus works continually. The Sabbath cannot be allowed to interfere with the work of such a one as Christ.
Through these five arguments Jesus justified His Sabbath-sabotaging to the Pharisees. True, He had broken the Sabbath outwardly by healing on that day, but He had never broken the spirit of the Sabbath.
Still, the question is perhaps in our minds, “What does this have to do with me?” I’d like to answer that as we examine our final point this morning:
The application of Jesus’ Sabbath-sabotaging to us today
I have three exhortations for us:
We must avoid the legalism of the religious hypocrites. We may not practice today the same forms of legalism that the Pharisees practiced, but we still have legalism in the Church. There are those who feel that if you don’t use the KJV you’re not reading God’s Word. There are others who denounce their fellow Christians for going to movies. Still others feel it’s a sin to eat in a restaurant that serves liquor. But hypocrisy is almost always involved. The guy who claims that the KJV is the only true Bible often neglects reading it because he can’t understand its premodern English. The one who would never go to a movie theater watches the same movies at home on TV. And the person who refuses to eat at a restaurant that sells alcoholic beverages will go into a Quick-Trip where pornography is sold. You see, if you live by a rule book of legalistic laws, you must either become a hermit or you inevitably become inconsistent or hypocritical.
We must nevertheless have a healthy respect for the Lord’s Day. Jesus’ point in all these controversies over the Sabbath is not that man has carte blanche to break whichever of God’s laws he chooses. And my purpose this morning is certainly not to turn anyone in the direction of lawlessness. On the contrary, we must be very concerned about God’s laws, and we should live by very high standards. What we must be careful to avoid is exalting ourselves through our law-keeping or judge others who don’t measure up to our extra-biblical list of rules.
Let’s examine this question of Sabbath observance in its broader context for a moment. The Sabbath law is the only one of the Ten Commandments which is not repeated in the NT, and it is the only one to which Jesus gave exceptions. The Apostle Paul went even further in Romans 14:5 to say that a person could choose his own day of worship or even treat every day as a day of worship. His principle was this: “Let each man be fully convinced in his own mind.” That’s something Moses could never have said; it’s a new area of freedom for the NT believer.
Some, however, have taken advantage of that freedom and done with the Sabbath what Paul never intended. I’d like to suggest some guidelines for us to consider:
- The early church uniformly observed Sunday as the day of worship, and we ought to have good reason before overthrowing that strong Christian tradition.
- The principle of one day of rest out of seven goes all the way back to creation week, and Christ’s fulfillment of the Mosaic Law does not vitiate the fact that we need one day of rest in seven.
- The Lord’s Day is of great pragmatic value in building families, fellowshipping with believers, and serving others.
- The Lord’s Day is of great spiritual value in exposure to God’s Word and meditating upon His goodness.
In my humble opinion, to the extent that we have lost our respect for the Lord’s Day, we have also lost a great deal regard to family solidarity, biblical education, and even effective testimony. If we’re going to give God just one hour between 11:00 and 12:00 and then proceed to use the rest of the day to make more money or pursue more pleasure, then perhaps we ought to speak of observing the Lord’s Hour instead of the Lord’s Day.
We must, above all, recognize that salvation comes not by law but rather by grace. The great mistake the Pharisees made was believing they could earn a right standing with God through obedience to His laws. And nearly every false religion or modern cult makes the same mistake. But the Bible denies that one can earn salvation by any amount of obedience. Ephesians 2:8-9 says, “For by grace you have been saved, through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is a gift of God, not by works, lest anyone should boast.” You can keep every law God has laid down in the Bible, plus 1000 of your own and still not be right with God. His grace is your only hope.
I’d like to close this morning by challenging you to accept the undeserved grace of God in your life. He sent His one and only Son to die in your place, and salvation is yours if you will receive Him as your Savior.
DATE: June 17, 1979
Tags:
Sabbath
Legalism
Tradition
Hypocrisy
Mercy
Lord’s Day
[i] Charles Caldwell Ryrie, Balancing the Christian Life, 159.
[ii] The principle of resting one day in seven has proved itself to be a boon to people spiritually, psychologically, economically, and socially. Shortly after the French revolution, the social engineers of the day decided to give people one day off in ten rather than seven, but before long they abandoned the concept because productivity dropped off dramatically.