Sabbath Controversy

Alistair Begg: Does God accept us because we obey Him, or do we obey Him because He has accepted us? Your answer to that question can profoundly affect how you enjoy the Sabbath. We'll find out why today on Truth For Life. Alistair Begg is wrapping up a study in the Gospel of Mark. We're in chapter 2, beginning with verse 23. 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 hair splitting, and with no obvious relevance for us today. 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 be aware of missing the forest for the trees. And I think verse 6 of chapter 3 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. 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. 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. Essentially, for the Pharisees, religion was an insider's 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. Instead, what He was doing was proclaiming largely and loudly, "Whoever comes to me, I will never turn them away. 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. 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 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 have to watch him. I think we have 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. Now, 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. 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 cornfields, 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. 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 eminently 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. 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 if you've 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. 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 rigmarole 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. 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, 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 and 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 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." 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 Luke 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. And again, these miserable characters are there. How bad 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 1 to 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 instance, 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. Jesus would never have engaged in their nasty little game of human chess. Now, 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, and 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. While 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 ox or something, and it fell down into a pit on the Sabbath, would you get it out?" Of course you would get it out. 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 love 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, because 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. 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. Remember what Jesus said? "If a man loves me, he will keep my commandments." 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. 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. 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? Loved ones, you dare not put anything in between believing in Jesus and justification. 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're relying on something other.