Involved in Conflict

MEMORY SELECTION: “Blessed is he, whosoever shall not be offended in Me.” —Matthew 11:6

SELECTED SCRIPTURE: Matthew 12:1-14

THE first advent of Jesus marked a time that was both critical and difficult for the nation of Israel, for the time had come for the ending of the Jewish Age and the Law Covenant, and the beginning of Gospel Age and the Covenant of Grace.

The religious conflicts that developed among the Jews resulted from the inability of the Jewish people, particularly the scribes and Pharisees, to accept or adjust to the changed purposes of God.

For centuries the Jews had been taught the precepts of the law. Many of these precepts had been embellished, and new and unauthorized rules and regulations had been added, until the whole arrangement was oppressive and impossible to bear. Our Lord, speaking of the scribes and Pharisees, stated, “For they bind heavy burdens and grievous to be borne, and lay them on men’s shoulders; but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers.” (Matt. 23:4) And so our Lord found the observance of the Sabbath day so encrusted with rabbinical evasions, restrictions, and embellishments that it bore little resemblance to that which was authorized by the law.

In our lesson, Matthew 12:2, is given an example of the embellishment of certain features of the law. The text records the reaction of the scribes and Pharisees to the disciples’ plucking heads of grain. They were perverse enough to interpret the plucking and subsequent eating of the kernels as a sort of reaping and dressing of the grain, which was indeed forbidden on the Sabbath.

In an endeavor to demonstrate the error of the scribes and Pharisees, Jesus pointed to the fact that David, when he was hungry, entered the house of God and ate the stale showbread. (When the new loaves were brought, the stale ones were taken away, but were to be eaten by the priests only.) David ate these loaves out of necessity and was not condemned. By comparing I Samuel 21:1-6 and Leviticus 24:5-9, it appears that David’s experience also occurred on the Sabbath.

Then the Lord gave a second illustration to demonstrate the error of the scribes and Pharisees. He pointed out how the priests of the temple were obliged, on the Sabbath days, to perform such servile work in the temple as would have been a profanation of the Sabbath but really was not so because it was necessary to the proper worship of God, on account of which the Sabbath was instituted. It was so ordained that on the Sabbath two lambs, in addition to the regular sacrifices, were to be offered, which meant that the servile work of the priests was double that of the other days of the week, and this without blame.—Num. 28:9; Exod. 29:38

The key thought in our lesson is our Lord’s statement in Matthew 12:6-8: “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.”

The temple, to the mind of the Jews, was symbolic of their relationship with God through the Law Covenant. It was the center of their religious and civil life. Yet Jesus said that he represented an arrangement that was greater than the temple. He represented the kingdom of God, and as Head of that kingdom he has dominion of all things in the earth. He is even Lord of the Sabbath.

The title “Son of man” refers back to the first man in the sense expressed in I Corinthians 15:45-47. The first man Adam had dominion in the earth, which was lost because of disobedience. The second man Adam, or the “Son of man,” was given this dominion. But the right to exercise this dominion and return it to mankind is held in abeyance until the work of providing the ransom price for all and the subsequent selection and development of the church is completed.—Heb. 2:6-18

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