Sabbath Controversy

Well, last time we looked at the first of three incidents in which Jesus is clearly in controversy with the religious establishment of his time. And I don’t know, but last time you may have felt this way, and this morning, as we look at these two passages, you may also feel the same—namely, that at first glance these incidents are simply of marginal interest. It’s important, I think, for us to pause and read them, since I’ve already forgotten to do that.

Mark 2:23:

“One Sabbath Jesus was going through the [corn]fields, and as his disciples walked along, they began to pick some [ears of corn]. The Pharisees said to him, ‘Look, why are they doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath?’

“He answered, ‘Have you never read what David did when he and his companions were hungry and in need? In the days of Abiathar the high priest, he entered the house of God and ate the consecrated bread, which is lawful only for priests to eat. And he also gave some to his companions.’

“Then he said to them, ‘The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.’

“Another time he went into the synagogue, and a man with a shriveled hand was there. Some of them were looking for a reason to accuse Jesus, so they watched him closely to see if he would heal him on the Sabbath. Jesus said to the man with the shriveled hand, ‘Stand up in front of everyone.’

“Then Jesus asked them, ‘Which is lawful on the Sabbath: to do good or to do evil, to save life or to kill?’ But they remained silent.

“He looked [round] at them in anger and, deeply distressed at their stubborn hearts, said to the man, ‘Stretch out your hand.’ He stretched it out, and his hand was completely restored. Then the Pharisees went out and began to plot with the Herodians how they might kill Jesus.”

Amen.

Well, let me just tell you how this study goes, in case I get lost again. First of all, we will have an introduction, which we actually began to introduce a moment or two ago inadvertently. But we have an introduction in which we’re seeking to discover the nature of the dispute that is unfolding. Then we’ll look at the first incident briefly and discover in it a declaration of Christ’s authority over the Sabbath. Then we’ll look at the second incident and see there a demonstration of Christ’s lordship over the Sabbath. And then we will have a conclusion, in which we will consider the applicability of what we are reading now to our lives and to our ministry.

The Nature of the Dispute

So, at first glance, as I said to you, these things may appear to be at best of marginal interest—perhaps the record of a dispute between Jesus and the Pharisees, an illustration of what might be regarded as theological hairsplitting, and with no obvious relevance for us today. I confess that if I were coming to this passage cold—if I was coming, perhaps, to Parkside Church as a visitor, if I was here just because I decided to come along or someone had invited me—and somebody stood up and read about somebody walking through cornfields and a man with a shriveled hand in a synagogue, I think I’d be immediately saying to myself, “I think I came on the wrong Sunday. There can’t be anything of applicability whatsoever in these little incidents for me.” After all, few of us came here through cornfields or will go through cornfields on the way home, and when it comes to issues of shriveled hands either appearing on men or on women, modern medicine is able to take care of that. We have the University Hospitals; we have the Cleveland Clinic. So why would we even study it?

Well, here is an instance where immediately we must beware of missing the forest for the trees. And I think 3:6 is the key. If we go there, then we can reverse back into it. Because here we find this dramatic statement: “Then the Pharisees went out and began to plot with the Herodians how they might kill Jesus.” And the fact is that neither the Pharisees nor the Herodians had any time for each other. The Pharisees were the religious establishment; the Herodians really were part of the social establishment. But now we find that they are prepared to get together and try and hatch a plot that will bring about the death of Jesus.

Now, even with a superficial reading of these two incidents, don’t you think that verse 6 seems a bit of an overreaction? Here’s somebody doing something in the cornfields that apparently they shouldn’t be doing, and a man with a shriveled hand is healed, and the result is that the groups get together and decide, “We’re going to have to kill Jesus for this.”

Well, we need to keep in mind what we’ve already been learning—namely, that Jesus has been challenging, all the way through, the Pharisees’ approach to life and, in particular, to religion. They have been concerned with him. They want to know who he thought he was, saying to a man, “Your sins are forgiven.”[1] On the occasion when he had called Levi to become a member of his disciple band and had then gone to a party at his house, they were very concerned—you can see this in 2:16—just why it would be that Jesus would go to the house of such an individual and would actually eat with tax collectors and with sinners, thereby making it clear to us that the fundamental dispute that we have here is not a dispute about fasting, and it is not actually a dispute about the Sabbath. The fundamental dispute has to do with how God forgives sin and how he brings men and women into a relationship with himself. The Pharisees had one view; Jesus had another.

For the Pharisees, acceptance with God was based upon an individual’s willingness to and ability to keep God’s law. The Pharisees were so fastidious about this and wanted so much for this to happen that they had actually added to the law of God all kinds of rules and regulations of their own so as to make sure that those who were on the inside of this system were able to stay, as it were, in the middle of the fairway all the way through the eighteen rounds of life.

Essentially, for the Pharisees, religion was an insiders’ club. When I was thinking about this, it made me smile when I realized that we announced that the website newsletter is going to be called the Insider. Just made me wiggle a little bit when I heard it. After all, it is the Pharisees who had established the insiders’ club, and Jesus was particularly concerned with those who were so obviously outside of the club. And here he had already cast out demons from some. He had raised a man who was paralyzed. He had cured a leper. He had added to his band the most unlikely of characters, this Levi, who was in cahoots with the authorities and was as good a cheat as anybody you could find. He was clearly not calling the insiders, and that was enough to increase the ire of the Pharisees to begin with.

It is the Pharisees who had established the insiders’ club, and Jesus was particularly concerned with those who were so obviously outside of the club.

Instead, what he was doing was proclaiming what we just sang about in this song. He was proclaiming largely and loudly, “Whoever comes to me, I will never turn them away.”[2] “Whoever comes to me.” Not “If rule keepers come to me…” Not “If good people come to me…” Not “If religious people come to me, I will never turn away,” but “Whoever comes to me I will never turn away.” And the Pharisees didn’t like that, because they decided who could come, and how they could come, and when they could come, and, once they had come, how they could stay in the position in which they found themselves. Their message was so radically different that there was no way in the world that it would be possible to amalgamate what Jesus was saying and what they were proclaiming.

And Jesus brought that out very forcibly with the little nuggets in 21 and 22 of chapter 2, where he talks about sewing a patch, a new patch, onto an old garment or pouring new wine into old wineskins. And Jesus made it clear that the story that he was telling was so phenomenally different that it couldn’t be stitched into the fabric of Pharisaical legalism, and the new wine that he was proclaiming—the story of free forgiveness and grace and a welcome to himself to those who were sinful—that that could never be contained in the old wineskins that these Pharisees were carting around with them, which had become brittle and unpalatable and unhelpful.

Now, that is essentially the conflict. If we get that in our minds, then it will be easier for us to deal with these two incidents. It’s not difficult to imagine that the Pharisees got together with one another, as it were, in between 22 and 23, and in talking with one another, they’d made it clear to each other—one said to the other, “You realize, of course, that what we’re saying and what Jesus is saying is entirely different.” And someone would have said, “Well, yes, it’s obviously very, very different. And that’s why,” he said, “I think we ought to watch him. I think we ought to just make sure that everywhere he is and everywhere his disciples are, we’re there. Because eventually, this will all collapse like a pack of cards. Whatever it is he’s on about, it will eventually crumble and fail. And if we can just watch out, then we’ll be able to take care of things.”

I found it quite interesting this week, in studying this passage, that here in 3:6, so early on in the Gospel record, you have this unholy alliance forming between the Pharisees and the Herodians—an unholy alliance which would eventually be represented in the combined approach of both Caiaphas as the high priest and Pilate as the Roman governor when at the end of the day they combine their unholy interest to put Jesus Christ to death on the cross. No, you see, what is at issue here is the radical difference between man’s attempts to make himself acceptable with God and the activity of God opening up the way of acceptance to men and women.

A Declaration of Christ’s Authority

Well, that by way of introduction. Now we come to this first incident—the “cornfield incident,” we might refer to it as—in which Jesus declares his authority as Lord of the Sabbath: “One Sabbath Jesus was going through the [corn]fields, and as his disciples walked along, they began to pick some [ears of corn].” It’s a perfectly natural scene. It’s quite a happy scene, I think—the kind of scene that would just have instinctively ticked off the Pharisees. Pharisees don’t really like happy scenes, just by nature. They like unhappy scenes. They don’t like people, as it were, tiptoeing through the cornfields,[3] to quote Tiny Tim of old. They just don’t like that thought. They like people burdened and going on their way. And here we have the disciples going along. It’s the Sabbath day. They’re in the corn, and so they pick some ears of corn.

Now, I don’t think we should be surprised by the fact that the Pharisees were there. After all, they had a plot that was already in their minds, and they were beginning to work through it. What we do need to know, though, is that it was perfectly legitimate according to the law of God for the disciples of Jesus to be doing what they were doing. And you can check this for yourselves in Deuteronomy chapter 23, when, in verse 25, it reads as follows: “If you enter your neighbor’s [cornfield], you may pick [the ears] with your hands, but you must not put a sickle to his standing [corn].” Seems imminently sensible and practical, doesn’t it? In other words, if you go through the cornfields, you’re allowed to have a wee bit as you’re going, but you can’t come in there with a combine harvester and take the whole thing down to the bare bones. That just wouldn’t be right.

I find some legitimacy in this when I’m playing certain golf courses in Scotland and I come on all these beautiful raspberry bushes which are clearly not mine. I don’t know if I’m allowed to eat them or not. And Deuteronomy 23, I think, affords me the opportunity to have just a few while I’m going along. What it does not allow me to do is take a chainsaw with me in my golf bag and cut a couple of them down and take them home. Okay? There’s an immense practicality, I think, about the approach of the law in this instance.

So what in the world is sticking in the craw of the Pharisees? If it’s legitimate to do what they’re doing, what’s the big deal with the Pharisees? Well, it’s simply because of the day, and because they deemed that what these disciples were doing was actually violating one Sabbath law which said that there was to be no reaping or harvesting on the Sabbath. And they looked at them, and they said, “Eating equals reaping. Reaping is not allowed on the Sabbath. Therefore, you folks are in violation.”

You realize how small-minded some people are? I mean, how they get up in the morning and spend a nice day looking for little things like this? “Let’s go and see if we can find the disciples doing something naughty today,” they said to one another, and so on. What a miserable kind of life! But that was it: “Eating, reaping. Reaping equals working. Working on the Sabbath. Now you’re in trouble!”

Now, Jesus doesn’t take them on. He doesn’t enter into some kind of dialogue or debate. In fact, he does something that is really quite interesting. He essentially says to them, “Well, I wonder: Have you been reading your Bibles lately? Did you ever read the part where David and his companions went in, when they were very hungry, and they ate the consecrated bread, which only the priests are supposed to be eating?” And what is he saying? He’s saying this: that on that occasion, David and his companions did not break the spirit of the Sabbath. They didn’t break the spirit of the Sabbath. They did something. The ceremonial was set aside by the necessity. And the point that he’s making by inference is fairly straightforward: “And if you realize that that’s the case, you will also realize that my disciples aren’t breaking the Sabbath either. So that’s really enough from all of you.”

Jesus makes it clear to them that the Sabbath was given to man. That’s the significance of verse 27: “The Sabbath,” he said, “was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.” In other words, the Sabbath was given to man for his benefit and for his blessing. The Sabbath was written into creation. The Sabbath was not given to Israel. The Sabbath was not given to the Jews. The Sabbath was given to creation. And God himself “rested.”[4] He didn’t need to rest. “Rest” there simply means that he ceased from what he had been doing on the other six days. And the Sabbath principle is established right in the doctrine of creation. And our frenetic world in which we live, with people working, working, working, working, working, might do well to pay attention to the thought of the Sabbath principle written into the very fabric of humanity by God. But that’s something for another time.

The Sabbath, says Jesus, was given to man for his benefit and for his blessing. It was not given so that he would be weighed down under the kind of regulations and the kind of rigmaroles that these Pharisees had added to the law of God. The Sabbath was not given to reduce man into a rule-keeping robot—which is exactly what these Pharisees sought to do: “The more rules, the better.”

Our frenetic world in which we live, with people working, working, working, working, working, might do well to pay attention to the thought of the Sabbath principle written into the very fabric of humanity by God.

That’s the significance of verse 27. Verse 27 is not a verse in the Bible to justify American Christianity reducing the Ten Commandments to nine commandments. It’s not in the Bible to be propped up as a mechanism for us saying, “I can do what I want any day of the week, and not least of all on the Lord’s Day.” That’s a matter for another time. But I want you to know that verse 27—if that’s where you are, verse 27 is not your legitimacy.

What Jesus is saying in saying this is that “this Sabbath was given as a means of benefit and a means of blessing, and you characters have no right to turn it into a burden. You have no right to suggest that the way that the Sabbath principle operates is to bow down people underneath your dreadful restrictions.”

And he says, “The Son of Man”—which is a reference that goes way back into the Old Testament, into the book of Daniel, and it is a self-designation. It’s the second time we’ve seen it, even in the first two chapters. It’s a reference to the identity of Jesus as the Son of God. “So the Son of Man,” he says, “is Lord even of the Sabbath.” “Some of you were asking about my authority to forgive sins. We’ve already dealt with that. Now you’re asking about authority in relationship to the Sabbath. Well, let me tell you: the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.” In other words, says Jesus, “I have the prerogative to guard the Sabbath for the purposes God ordained it and to guard it against all of your Pharisaical additions and all of your Pharisaical distortions.”

The Demonstration of Jesus’ Authority

And it is with this issue of distortion that the next incident deals. In the first incident, Jesus Christ declares himself authoritative over the Sabbath. In the second little incident, in the opening five verses of Mark chapter 3, Jesus demonstrates his authority as Lord of the Sabbath. Okay?

And so now they’re in the synagogue. It’s a perfect setup, isn’t it? It’s the synagogue, it’s the Sabbath, and it’s the shriveled hand—three s’s, just to help me in my notes: synagogue, Sabbath, and shriveled.

And again these miserable characters are there. How bad do you have to be to seize on opportunities like this to try and score points against Jesus? To take the issue of somebody who is disabled in this way and use him simply as a pawn in your great chess game? That’s exactly what they’re doing! They’re watching, “looking for a reason,” “some of them,” says verse 2, “to accuse Jesus,” and “so they watched him closely to see if he would heal him”—now, here’s the key phrase—“on the Sabbath.” “On the Sabbath.”

Now, notice something carefully. There is no disagreement here in principle as it relates to the Sabbath. Jesus is not suggesting that the Sabbath is not the Sabbath. Jesus is not suggesting that the Sabbath does not mean the cessation of work. Jesus is not suggesting that the Sabbath is not about rest. It is not a disagreement in principle. It is a disagreement in terms of practice. The area of disagreement has to do with what was or what was not permissible to do on the Sabbath, which, along with the Pharisees, he agreed was part of the law of God.

Now, it’s important that you recognize that, because Jesus is not, as some suggest, in this incident canceling the use of the Sabbath. He is correcting the abuse of the Sabbath. And there’s a big difference between the two. Some people read this, and they go, “You see, that’s all canceled there.” No, Jesus isn’t canceling anything! There’s no disagreement on the principle. The disagreement is on the practice. He is correcting the abuse that the Pharisees had foisted on this Sabbath principle.

And recognizing that they had him, Jesus takes the man, and he asks him to “stand up in front of everyone”—verse 3. He would never have done that if the outcome wasn’t going to be what it is. See, Jesus would never have engaged in their nasty little game of human chess.

No, but once the man was in position, he asked the $64,000 question: “Which is lawful on the Sabbath: to do good or to do evil, to save life or to kill?” And then, notice, “they remained silent.” Their silence was the occasion of Jesus’ anger and distress at the very stubbornness of their hearts. Any sensible, honest person who did not have an agenda would have had to answer the question, and they would have had to answer in the affirmative: “Well, clearly the only proper thing to do is to do good. The only right thing to do is to heal.” “But they remained silent.”

Now, just remember what I said at the beginning. The fundamental issue here is not an issue about the Sabbath. It’s not an issue about fasting. It’s an issue about how God forgives and how he brings people into a relationship with himself. And do you see that organized, externalized religion rejects the notion of unmerited favor and of grace—and, indeed, when push comes to shove, is prepared to stand against it, so strongly does it hold to the notion of man’s own ability to make himself acceptable to God?

Now, technically, according to the law of God, healing was only deemed permissible if the illness was life-threatening, and there’s no indication that the illness was life-threatening here. But Jesus, who has already declared himself as Lord of the Sabbath, regards it as sinful to leave this man in his pitiable condition just because it is the Sabbath. In other words, Jesus would have healed the man on any other day. Is he going to allow the fact of the Sabbath to prevent him from doing good?

Elsewhere, you’ll remember, he says to the same Pharisees, “If you had a beast of burden, if you had a cow or an oxen or something, and it fell down into a pit on the Sabbath, would you get it out?”[5] Of course you would get it out! “Well, would you do that for a beast and you wouldn’t do it for a man?” In other words, he points out their hypocrisy, the way in which their externalism allows them to shift the pieces on the chessboard every time they don’t like what’s going on.

And so he says to the man, “stretch out your hand.” And “he stretched it out, and his hand was completely restored.” I always loved the fact that he said, “Stretch out your hand,” and then it says, “He stretched it out.” Because that was the one thing he couldn’t do was stretch out his hand, ’cause his hand was shriveled. But you see, the very power that Jesus speaks is a life-giving power. Jesus calls us to come to him, and we can’t come to him, and we come to him. How does that work? Because his voice speaks power to us, enables us. The voice that calls, draws.

This week I had the privilege of being with one of my dearest friends, Sinclair Ferguson, and he has a comment on this little section here that I thought was so good that I wanted to mention it to you. He made the observation, at the end of this little section in Mark 3 here, that the “law concerning the Sabbath”—the law concerning the Sabbath—“permitted this man great joy.”[6] Okay, he had a shriveled hand, but the law concerning the Sabbath permitted him great joy. It was the joy of rest. It was the joy of the blessing and benefit that the Sabbath exists to bring. But, says Ferguson, the law permitted him great joy, but what the law could not do was heal the man and restore him to his joyful condition for which he had been created. Only Jesus could do that. Only Jesus could bring about the transformation in the life of this man. The law allowed him to enjoy the benefit of the Sabbath, but the law couldn’t heal him.

And in the same way, the law of God, which shows us to be in the wrong with him—which shows us that we have not loved him with all of our hearts and minds and souls and strength, which shows that we have not always told the truth, which shows that we do have covetous hearts, which shows us how easy it is for us to be adulterous in our thoughts—all of that law cannot cleanse us from the stain in our lives as a result of breaking the law. Only Jesus can do that. Only Jesus can give us the grace to enter into the joy of obedience to God’s commands. Let me say that sentence to you again. Only Jesus can give us the grace to enter into the joy of obedience to God’s commands.

Yes, the joy of obedience. Do you remember what Jesus said? “If a man loves me, he will keep my commandments.”[7] And it is grace which produces that obedience, not legalism. You see, if grace does not produce obedience in your life, then the only way that you will ever make a stab at being obedient is as a result of legalism. You will think as a religionist, which goes like this: “I obey; therefore, I am accepted.” No! Not if you understand Jesus and his death on the cross. Religion says, “I obey; therefore, I am accepted.” Christianity says, “I am accepted; therefore, I obey.” And the two are diametrically opposed to each other.

Only Jesus can give us the grace to enter into the joy of obedience to God’s commands.

You take, now, and read your Bible all the way through the New Testament, and you won’t come very far into the letters, into the Epistles, before you find that in the early church, the issue that is before the church is this exact same issue: How does a man or a woman experience forgiveness? How are they welcomed into the presence of God? And the Judaizers, who were there, in the book of Galatians, in fine form, were going at it hammer and tongs with Paul. And this was their way of thinking it: “Belief plus obedience equals justification.” And Paul says no. It is not belief plus my obedience that puts me in a right position with God. Not “Belief plus obedience: justified.” No. “Belief, justified: obedience.”

Now, if you don’t understand the distinction, you better sit around all afternoon until you do, because it is the difference between life and death. It is the difference between condemnation and justification. It is the difference between external religion and genuine Christianity. It is the difference between heaven and hell. And I fear that not a small number of our routine morning congregation at Parkside is on plan A: “Belief plus all my good stuff, plus all my attempts, plus all my contributions, plus everything I do—belief in Jesus plus all I do—equals justification.” Uh-uh. Either Jesus does it all, or Jesus does nothing.

Jesus here takes the Pharisees on at the most fundamental point of distinction that runs throughout all of Scripture and throughout all of history, and that is: How may a man or a woman be put right with God? And the hymn writer finally encapsulates it in the hymn made more famous by the Billy Graham crusade than by any other thing, when the writer, who—was it Charity Lees Bancroft, from memory? I’ll have to check now—when she writes the line “Just as I am…” “Just as I am…” Rebellious me. Sinful me. Messed-up me. Law-breaking me.

Just as I am, without one plea,
But that thy blood was shed for me,
And that you bid me come to thee,
Lord Jesus Christ, I come.”[8]

Loved ones, you dare not put anything in between believing in Jesus and justification. If there is one stitch—to quote Spurgeon from last week—if there is one stitch in the fabric of that robe of righteousness which we insert by our own good deeds, by our own law keeping, by our own external religion, then in actual fact, we are relying on something other than the finished work of Jesus.[9]

And here in the infancy of Christ’s ministry, as he looks into the eyes of these fastidious religionists, he’s angry, and he’s “deeply distressed,” because of their stubborn hearts. People are not just apathetic to this message; we are by nature antagonistic to this message. And only Christ’s redeeming love breaks down that arrogant antagonism and brings a man or a woman to the point where we say, “If I would know you, God, it must be by grace alone, and faith alone, and Scripture alone, and Christ alone.”

Well, I hope that’s where you are—and that if it isn’t, that you will be aware that it isn’t and that you today will cast yourself wholly and solely upon Christ’s mercy. If you would like a little booklet that explains what it means to become a Christian, they’re in the prayer room through the doors to my left (to my right and your left), and they are also available in our bookstore, if you would like just to go and pick one up.

Our God and our Father, we thank you now for the privilege of coming to sing your praise and to study your Word. We commend ourselves to your mercy. We pray that we may be prepared to say, “‘Nothing in my hand I bring, and simply to your cross I cling, naked come to you for dress, and helpless come to you for rest.’[10] And in all of my mess, in all of my rebellion, in all of my worship of substitute gods, I run to you and to the fountain which you supply, so that I might know what it is to be cleansed and forgiven and accepted with you solely on the basis of what Christ has accomplished on behalf of sinners.”

May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit rest upon and remain with each one, now and forevermore. Amen.

[1] Mark 2:5 (NIV 1984).

[2] John 6:37 (paraphrased).

[3] Joe Burke and Al Dubin, “Tiptoe through the Tulips” (1929).

[4] Genesis 2:2 (NIV 1984).

[5] Matthew 12:11; Luke 14:5 (paraphrased).

[6] Sinclair B. Ferguson, Let’s Study Mark (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1999), 36.

[7] John 14:15 (paraphrased).

[8] Charlotte Elliott, “Just as I Am, Without One Plea” (1834). Lyrics lightly altered.

[9] Charles H. Spurgeon, Morning and Evening, revised and updated by Alistair Begg (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2003), May 23 morning reading.

[10] Augustus Toplady, “Rock of Ages, Cleft for Me” (1776). Lyrics lightly altered.