Don't Sell Your Soul To The Marketplace Of Thieves

Is it lawful to do good on the sabbath?

In this blog post, I am going to try to answer this question by responding again to the traditional objections towards those of us who don’t believe Christians are obligated to keep a sabbath and to respond to the applications made by those who are sincerely trying to obey the command, but are in effect dishonoring it in the same way the Pharisees had done, by adding to it or by deducing from it, twisting its very nature. As we follow along in Walter Chantry’s book “Call The Sabbath A Delight,” to make our case against these objections and promotions, he uses Matthew 12:1-14 to twist what Christ was doing with the commandment to promote what he calls good on the sabbath. Now, much of what Walter has said on this is true, but when he tries to re-establish and apply it, he derails the train from the tracks. Therefore because he is looking at the priests’ false applications, we too will look at how he makes those very same false applications by misinterpreting how Christ responds to those false applications. Walter comments, ‘When our Lord convinced the Pharisees of exacting too much regarding the Sabbath, we must realize that he was exposing the errors in their interpretation of the Old Testament teaching on the Sabbath.’ Now, this comment responds to the Pharisees’ accusation of Christ’s disciples, who in their mind were dishonoring the Sabbath by plucking and eating grain as they walked through the field. Mr. Chantry states, ‘Our Lord Jesus, in renouncing ‘their standards,’ was not saying that the fourth commandment had become obsolete and must now be discarded. At this time in our Lord’s earthly ministry, Jesus was pledged to fulfill all righteousness even under the Mosaic judicial and ceremonial laws. It was he alone who perfectly lived by the system given under Moses. He and his disciples could not sweep away any Old Testament law as irrelevant if Jesus were to fulfill his mission as Messiah. Our Lord is not suggesting to the Pharisees that it is permissible to break the law because the law must be changed.’ Now, believe it or not, I give a hearty Amen. But are you hearing the law? This is going to be Christ’s point.

Matthew 12:1–8 (NKJV)

1 At that time Jesus went through the grainfields on the Sabbath. And His disciples were hungry, and began to pluck heads of grain and to eat. 2 And when the Pharisees saw it, they said to Him, “Look, Your disciples are doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath!” 3 But He said to them, “Have you not read what David did when he was hungry, he and those who were with him: 4 how he entered the house of God and ate the showbread which was not lawful for him to eat, nor for those who were with him, but only for the priests? 5 Or have you not read in the law that on the Sabbath the priests in the temple profane the Sabbath, and are blameless? 6 Yet I say to you that in this place there is One greater than the temple. 7 But if you had known what this means, ‘I desire mercy and not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the guiltless. 8 For the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.”

Does the law make anything good? ‘But if you had known what this means, ‘I desire mercy and not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the guiltless!’ (vs.7). It is true that Christ is not changing the law but fulfilling it at that very moment. Christ is making the law good by doing what is lawful on the sabbath. What was the sacrificial system for but to show mercy where the letter of the law kills? It is not directly addressed here, but the gleaning law is applicable to justify Christ’s response to the accusation. But what Jesus first mentions is the mercy shown to David as he was fleeing from Saul’s threats to kill him. And in this battle, the priest who fed David and his men with mercy became David’s substitute in violating the law of the showbread, which foreshadows and pictures Christ. Christ is the high priest who possesses the holiness to eat the bread of substitution and is the king who has the political power to show mercy, for he is also the Lord of the Sabbath. He is greater than the temple and all that it represents by making the Sabbath holy and good to those who feast at the table of his divine grace. Therefore in that moment, Christ is adding to the commandment by making ‘the sign’ of the Old Covenant system obsolete by declaring his own authority over it. Just because Christ was ‘born under the law’ doesn’t mean he was required to be less than Moses (Dt.18:15-22; Gal.4:3-5).

You don’t think Christ was being presumptuous, do you? He knew he was greater than Moses and the covenant. Nevertheless, he was fulfilling it by applying the gleaning laws to them (Lev.23:22). They were hungry because they had been traveling with Jesus, for they went through two previous towns preaching judgment into Capernaum (Matt.11:21, 23). I’d say that’s a lot of traveling on foot, and they were very hungry, and in the previous passage, Jesus promised them mercy and rest (Matt.11:28-30). Jesus didn’t tell them to go to the temple to find rest or to try to find mercy and understanding from the doctrines of the Pharisees, but where did he point to that would surely give them rest (Matt.11:28)? Here, it obviously appears that it will not be the sabbath law, for the letter of that law kills. But now Christ brings the sign (of himself) as God in the flesh that makes alive (Dt.32:37-39; 2Kgs.5:5-8)!

Now, we are going to address Walter’s misinterpretations of the misinterpretations of the Pharisees. Mr. Chantry says, of the Pharisees, ‘Their views were entirely mistaken and couldn’t be defended from Old Testament Scriptures.’ But ‘. . . our Prophet is defending his practice because it is in complete harmony with Old Testament standards.’ My dear friend, let me ask you again, do you not hear the law (Gal.4:21)? The Pharisees heard, and that is why they tried to justify themselves another way, for while [the law is good] in God’s purpose, the law made nothing good (Heb.7:11; 10:1-10; Rom.7:1-6). So, no, Christ increases the standard! Have you not read what the Spirit says about the priests who serve in the temple do to the honor of the Sabbath (v.5)? It is written that they defile it! And that is why they were in bondage to Rome. God was not listening to their sacrifices because they were using the Sabbath unlawfully. But why were the priests exempt from the sabbath (guilt) as they stood (daily) making sacrifices in the temple (Heb.7:26-27; 10:11-13)? It is because they were to learn the distinction between the sacrificial, ceremonial system from the letter of the laws that condemned sinners to death.

Therefore I cannot entirely agree when you say, ‘Jesus’ pattern of behavior is in full compliance with the Sabbath law.’ For if Jesus were in full compliance, he would have had to kill them according to the letter (Num.15:32-36). Now, it is precisely because Jesus is also Lord of the Sabbath that he can kill or show mercy on the Sabbath. But this is a question of what constitutes doing good on a sabbath. God did not send Christ into the world to send men to their deaths in hell (Jn.12:47), which was the purpose of the first covenant (Rom.9:15-18), for it separated the Jews as a holy nation from the Gentiles who were spiritually unclean as I labored to establish in my last post. However, whoever sought refuge in the nation of Israel was to be honored with a sabbath, even if they were slaves, especially if they were slaves, so the Jews were commanded to show the same mercy God showed them (Dt.5:13-15). But the legalism of the Pharisees wanted not only to interpret every letter of the law but to apply it to the letter, but this they could not do without fulfillment of the Prophet, High Priest, and King. So you are right to say, ‘the priests were the chief profaners of the Sabbath!’ . . . and, ‘When did a priest in the temple work harder than on a sabbath?’ But who made them innocent, Walter? And were they always made innocent of eating the showbread and working on the sabbath (1Cor.4:3-5; 11:27-29)?

But let’s address again how the Puritan tradition tries to correct this error of the Pharisees by committing the very same sin. You make exceptions of what is permissible to do on a sabbath, but the Pharisees understood the letter of the law in that its purpose was for rest, yet they added restraints to the command by going beyond revelation to establish what was permissible activity such as how far a person could walk on a sabbath. Yet the Puritan traditions do the very same thing by changing the commandment from one day to another and adding works of service on top of it, which the heart of the commandment is rest. This I also thought I established in a previous post. Walter complains further to those of us who don’t believe we are under a sabbath obligation by stating, ‘It is not a day for human dormancy or repose in which you are to become passive. If it were as the Pharisees conceived of it, the best Sabbath-keeper would be the one who assumed the most complete state of inertia!’ And yet, brother, the best Sabbath-Keeper was nailed to a cross by the handwriting of requirements written in stone that sealed his burial on a sabbath (Col.2:13-17). A high sabbath, for that matter, being the highest and the last sabbath he would ever have to keep as a substitute for sinful man, for he truly entered ‘his Father’s rest.’

And since Christ is the Lord of the Sabbath, who are you to judge what qualifies as works of piety that are good in his sight, when without a king, everyone does what is right in their own eyes? Who set you up as Lord of another man’s sabbath to tell him what he is to do with it? Jesus did clearly say, ‘the sabbath was made for man, and not a man for the sabbath,’ but you set yourself up as Lord over the conscience by moving the covenanted sabbath to a new day that requires service. Understand me, I don’t deny that the Lord’s Day requires acts of worship and service, but these things are done in the power of the Spirit and not by conformity to the letter of the law of sin and death. Yet, the Puritan tradition insists that the sabbath is transferred for a new purpose. But its purpose has always been to offer the weary rest, and do we really want ‘spiritually’ lazy people to illustrate and demonstrate for us what the image of God’s rest is? Why not let the ‘spiritually’ lazy sit at Christ’s feet until they learn what worship is, by first receiving a new heart so that when they do worship, it will be in Spirit and in truth with the whole heart (2Cor.9:7).

Now, we are going to look at how Walter is defining works of necessity on a sabbath, but what he calls the Lord’s Day Sabbath. So we return again in continuation of the priests being made innocent of the sabbath in order to offer up sacrifices of intercession for sins of the nation. This is truly one work of necessity on the sabbath, but again this was under the Old Covenant, with the sabbath serving as a sign with Israel to all the nations of their holy union. This is not, therefore, a Christian sign of our union to the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. And so while I labored to show in a previous post, the Christian is not under obligation to a sabbath, however, the principle is still holy, righteous, spiritual, and even good to those who do all things to the glory of God, but a man was not made for it, but rather it was made for the man as he needs it. When Christ entered his rest he sat down at the right hand of the Father, but the Old Covenant priests did not perfect anything because they continually ‘stood’ offering sacrifice and had no place to sit down in the temple. There was no rest given to the priests to show that works of piety do not carry the remission of sins, for the wages of sin requires death, and the law only increased that burden upon the shoulders of the priests with every sacrifice, but it is Christ who fulfilled it (Num.7:9; 2Chr.35:3; Isa.9:6; 46:3-10).

So how can you say, Walter, that piety, ‘is the main intent of the sabbath day’? Our Lord defended the intercession of the priests as a work of necessity, not their application of the sabbath observance as the necessity as Walter implies, ‘Our Lord also defended works of necessity.’ But it’s troubling to think how Walter applies necessity to what the sabbath law actually represents. For he states, ‘Meeting the human needs for food, sleep, and cleanliness are in full accord with sabbath rest. A failure to meet these necessities will distract from worship and service to God.’ Forgetting to brush my teeth on the sabbath day is hardly going to distract my worship and service to God, Walter. It might distract my wife, though. It might distract those I’m serving, but it’s not going to distract me when my mind is steadfast upon the Lord (Rom.7:14-25). But this is not my point against regarding what qualifies as works of necessity on the sabbath. For that, we have to go back to the law as it was given in its historical context.

Numbers 15:30–36 (NKJV)

30 ‘But the person who does anything presumptuously, whether he is native-born or a stranger, that one brings reproach on the Lord, and he shall be cut off from among his people. 31 Because he has despised the word of the Lord, and has broken His commandment, that person shall be completely cut off; his guilt shall be upon him.’ ” 32 Now while the children of Israel were in the wilderness, they found a man gathering sticks on the Sabbath day. 33 And those who found him gathering sticks brought him to Moses and Aaron, and to all the congregation. 34 They put him under guard, because it had not been explained what should be done to him. 35 Then the Lord said to Moses, “The man must surely be put to death; all the congregation shall stone him with stones outside the camp.” 36 So, as the Lord commanded Moses, all the congregation brought him outside the camp and stoned him with stones, and he died.

Now why is this so severe for the apparently innocent, simple act of gathering sticks? In that culture, sticks were a necessity to daily life (1Kgs.17:10), but (the sign) of the Sabbath was extremely significant to their relationship to Yahweh, who was the power of their deliverance from Pharaoh (Ex.16:11-35). But this incident of gathering sticks happened in the wilderness of their testing before they entered the promised land (Jos.5:9-12). Therefore it was considered a presumptuous act to gather the sticks on the sabbath when God had been miraculously providing the necessities of the children of Israel during their time of testing to bring them into subjection to the greatness of his holy name--Yahweh. Yet, they persisted in unbelief with continual grumbling against his name. So the Lord was not in the business of showing mercy during that time because of the disposition of their complaints. Therefore ‘the Lord of the Sabbath’ chose justice on that day to the letter of the law, which is his divine right as Lord over all, to demonstrate his great name among those who covenanted with him the day he spoke from the fire at Sinai (Dt.5:1-6). There was no excuse to be gathering sticks, which would have been most likely to make a fire to make bread, but their bread was to be prepared on the sixth day (Ex.16:27-30). This was about learning to obey God’s voice (Ex.19:5; 23:21; 1Sam.15:22; Heb.3:7-19), not a specific pattern of work and rest that applies equally to everybody in all times and cultures. Therefore, Christ Jesus of Nazareth commands, ‘Come to me, all you who labor and are weary, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.’ Notice that this is about rest, not only from works, but for their souls. The law gave no rest to the soul. Therefore the created weekly sabbath is made for man, but he is no longer obligated to make himself a slave of it, for it has become a matter of conscience. But no one who truly loves Lord is suggesting that we are to abandon Christ and the signs of his new covenant.

Therefore as Christ has said, ‘It is lawful to do good on a sabbath’ (Matt.12:12), but this is because Christ has made the thoughts and intents of the heart good of those who love him. But the sabbath principle, as I already tried to establish, isn’t just made for the righteous person, but for sinners who are even still estranged from the covenants. I’m running out of time for this post to address the remainder of Walter’s objections, so I am going to wrap this up here, but if you take anything away from this, remember that the sabbath is a gift for you to use for ‘your’ good, but it is the spiritually unclean fool who doesn’t return to thank him (Lk.17:11-19). Therefore the Law is good, but it made nothing clean. Christ, however, establishes the law of faith to go in the power and measure that he supplies to be a holy sacrifice in his reasonable service (Rom.12:1-2), not just in the temple, but to the uttermost parts of the courts of his intercession (Mk.11:17). So don’t make the Father’s house and the Lord’s Day a marketplace for thieves!