Jesus and the Sabbath

Exodus 20:8-11; Isaiah 58:13, 14; Mark 2:23 – 3:6

GOLDEN TEXT: “And He said unto them, The sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath.”—Mark 2:27

OUR Golden Text is a key to a proper understanding, not only of divine law pertaining to the Sabbath, but to all of God’s laws. The Sabbath was made for man; that is, the keeping of the Sabbath by man is for his own good. As we saw in last week’s lesson, the command to the Israelites that they worship no other god was not for the benefit of Jehovah, but rather for their good. So it is with all of God’s laws, they are designed for the good of those who obey them. The benefit to others is, of course, obvious. The command, “Thou shalt not kill,” may save the life of another, but certainly the one who is restrained from committing murder is benefited too.

Man, apart from divine revelation, has learned the advantage of periodical days of rest—that it is detrimental to human health and happiness to continue working day after day, uninterruptedly, with either mind or body. Experiments have been made with a day of rest in ten, rather than one in seven, but even this has not proved to be satisfactory. Any attempts man may make to improve God’s ways are sure to fail.

But to think of the Sabbath merely from the standpoint of its being one day in seven in which to rest is limiting its full meaning. Isaiah 58:13 gives us a clue as to its deeper meaning, namely, that its true observance means turning away from doing our own pleasure—working for ourselves. It was a real test to the Israelites to do this. They had their land to till and their merchandising to do. Upon this work depended their living, or so they thought. To cease these activities even for one day in seven, because their God asked them to do so, should have reminded them of their dependency upon Him and that no matter how hard or continuously they worked they still needed Him.

The law of the Sabbath is Scripturally associated with the Genesis account of creation in which we are told that God rested on the seventh day, “from all His work.” We are not to suppose that the seventh day on which God rested was a period of twenty-four hours. Our day of twenty-four hours is governed by the rotation of the earth in relation to the sun, and the sun did not appear until the fourth creative day. However, God dial rest on the seventh day, and the lesson for us in the principle involved is the important consideration.

In Hebrews 4:1-10 the apostle presents the meaning of Christian Sabbath keeping. He explains that those who believe “enter into rest,” and that they “cease from their own works as God did from His.” The lesson of faith is emphasized by the apostle, that our rest in Christ and His finished work is in proportion to our faith in Him. As the “great salvation” (Hebrews 2:3) is the reward of faith, it is safe to conclude that our own works here referred to are those by which we might attempt to gain salvation through our own efforts. We must cease from these works of our own, if we are to enjoy rest by faith in Christ.

The analogies of this lesson go still further. When God ceased from His creative works, He also put His trust in His beloved Son to carry on with the plan of recovering man from the fall. Thus seen, God’s day of rest is not yet over. Hebrews 4:3 shows that God was still resting in the days of ancient Israel—His works being finished “from the foundation of the world”—and He is resting now, and will be until the close of the Millennium, when Christ turns over the Kingdom to Him.—I Corinthians 15:28

Two incidents in our lesson reveal the Master’s viewpoint of the Sabbath as a day of rest. It was when He was upbraided by the Pharisees for permitting His disciples to pluck and eat wheat (translated “corn” in our lesson) on the Sabbath that Jesus uttered the words of our Golden Text—“The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.” The lesson of faith and trust in God which the Sabbath taught would have its meaning destroyed if one could not accept of God’s bounties on that day, as the disciples had done. Our obedience to all of God’s laws will be more whole-hearted and enthusiastic in proportion to our understanding of why they were made for our good.

Jesus was also condemned because He healed the sick on the Sabbath. Again His accusers failed to understand what is involved in true Sabbath keeping. Jesus healed the sick for their good, not for His own. He thus was working for them, not for Himself. He was seeking their pleasure, and the glory of God, not His own. This was permissible even with the typical Sabbath enjoined upon the Jews; and for the Christian it is the chief objective of life.

As Christians we are to spend seven days a week doing those things which will glorify God and bring blessings to others. We are not to spend any time selfishly doing our own will. We are not to live unto ourselves at all, but unto God. We can do this, if we put our trust fully in Him who has promised to supply all our needs through the riches of His grace in Christ Jesus.

From another standpoint, the entire six thousand years since creation has been man’s work-week of struggle against sin and death. We are already living in the beginning of the seventh day—the seventh one-thousand-year period. Soon the blessings of the Sabbath, as illustrated by Jesus healing the sick on the seventh day, will become available for all. Before this greater Sabbath is over, all the sick will be healed, and all the dead will be raised.

QUESTIONS:

What general lesson do we get from today’s Golden Text?

Is the Sabbath intended merely as a day of rest?

How long has God been resting, and does this mean He is idle?

What was illustrated by Jesus healing the sick on the Sabbath?

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