Jesus: Sabbath Healer Or Law Breaker?

The Gospels record several instances of Jesus healing people on the Sabbath, including Simon Peter's mother-in-law, a man with a withered hand, a man born blind, a crippled woman, and a demon-possessed man. These acts of healing enraged the Pharisees, who accused Jesus of breaking the Sabbath law. However, Jesus refuted their accusations, stating that he was working just as his Father was working.

Jesus did not break the Sabbath law as outlined by God under the Old Covenant. Instead, he challenged the Pharisees' interpretation of the law, which had become burdened with man-made rules and traditions. By healing on the Sabbath, Jesus demonstrated God's goodness, exposed the Pharisees' hardness of heart, and ultimately revealed the full healing from sin that would be made possible through his sacrifice on the cross.

Jesus did not break Sabbath law, but the Pharisees' interpretation of it

Jesus did not break the Sabbath law, but he did break the Pharisees' interpretation of it.

The Pharisees had added many rules and traditions to the Sabbath law, elevating their interpretation to the level of God's instructions. For example, they accused Jesus's disciples of breaking the Sabbath law when they picked and ate grain as they walked through a field (Luke 6:1-2). They considered this "harvesting" and "threshing", which was forbidden.

Jesus did not keep the Pharisees' Sabbath law, but he did keep God's law. He stated, "Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them" (Matthew 5:17).

Jesus challenged the Pharisees' interpretation of the Sabbath law by healing people on the Sabbath. He argued that it was lawful to do good on the Sabbath and that helping people was more important than following strict rules (Matthew 12:11). He also pointed out the Pharisees' hypocrisy, noting that they were willing to help animals on the Sabbath but not people (Luke 13:15-16).

Jesus' actions and teachings revealed the hardness of the Pharisees' hearts and showed that their interpretation of the Sabbath law was not in line with God's intention for it. The Sabbath was meant to benefit people and bring glory to God, not be a burden (Mark 2:27).

Jesus' disciples picked grain on the Sabbath, which was allowed by Torah law

The Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke all record an incident in which Jesus's disciples were accused of breaking Sabbath law. As the story goes, the disciples were hungry and began to pick heads of grain to eat as they walked through a field. The Pharisees accused them of breaking Sabbath law because they were "harvesting" and "threshing".

However, this interpretation of the law was not shared by Jesus, who argued that the law existed to enrich human life, not diminish it. He pointed to the example of David, who ate the consecrated bread, and the priests, who worked in the Temple on the Sabbath. Jesus also stated that the Sabbath was made for humankind, not humankind for the Sabbath.

Jesus's disciples did not break Torah law by picking grain on the Sabbath. The Pharisees' interpretation of the law was overly rigid and failed to account for the underlying rationale of the law, which was to bring life.

Jesus' actions were motivated by compassion and a desire to help people

Jesus' miracles on the Sabbath included healing Simon Peter's mother-in-law (Mark 1:29–31), a man with a withered hand (Mark 3:1–6), a man born blind (John 9:1–16), a crippled woman (Luke 13:10–17), a man with dropsy (Luke 14:1–6), a demon-possessed man (Mark 1:21–28), and a lame man (John 5:1–18).

Jesus' actions angered the Pharisees, who accused him of breaking the Sabbath law. However, Jesus' response to their accusations was always logical and compassionate. He argued that it was lawful to do good on the Sabbath, and that helping people was more important than following strict rules. He pointed out the Pharisees' hypocrisy, noting that they would help an animal in need on the Sabbath but not a person.

Jesus' actions were motivated by a desire to help those in need, regardless of the day of the week. He believed that the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath, and that doing good and saving lives was always lawful, even on the Sabbath. He stood against the man-made traditions of the Pharisees, which had become more important to them than God's actual Word.

Jesus' compassion and desire to help people extended beyond physical healing. He also wanted to help people spiritually, by challenging their understanding of the law and reminding them of the importance of compassion and love for their fellow man. He elevated the law to a new level, demonstrating that love and compassion should always come first.

Jesus challenged the Pharisees' beliefs as being from man, not God

The essential problem lay in their different understanding of the nature of God. For the Pharisees, God is primarily one who makes demands. For them, the Scriptures of the Old Testament were a set of rules that must be kept at all costs. For Jesus, as well as the Old Testament believers, God is primarily “gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love” (Psalm 145:8).

Also, for the Pharisees, God looked only at their external compliance with the law of God. For Jesus, God looks at the heart (1 Samuel 16:7). That is why, for example, Jesus would equate the lustful look, which actually expresses the desire of the heart, with the actual committing of adultery (Matthew 5:27–28).

The most proximate cause of the Pharisees’ antagonism toward Jesus, however, lay in His ignoring of their hundreds of elaborate but petty rules that they had devised for interpreting the law of God. Not only did they devise these hundreds of man-made rules, but they had also elevated them to the level of Scripture, so that to break one of their rules was to violate the law of God itself. And yet these rules not only obscured the true intent of God’s law but also, in some cases, actually violated it (see Mark 7:9–13).

What really got the Pharisees upset with Jesus was the way He ignored their trivial and burdensome rules for keeping the Sabbath. In Matthew 12:1–8, the Pharisees objected to the disciples of Jesus plucking and eating heads of grain as they walked through the grain fields on a Sabbath. According to their oral tradition, plucking the heads of grain and eating them was work—a violation of the Sabbath.

Almost immediately afterward, on that same Sabbath day, Jesus entered their synagogue, where there was a man with a withered hand. Now, eager to again accuse Jesus of breaking the Sabbath, they asked Him, "Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath days?" (Matthew 12:10).

Jesus responded by asking which of them, if his sheep falls into a pit on the Sabbath, would not lift it out. If, then, it is lawful to relieve the misery of a sheep on the Sabbath, how much more is it lawful to relieve the misery of a fellow human being who is more valuable than a sheep?

In both instances—that of the disciples eating the grain and of Jesus healing the man’s withered hand—the scriptural principle that Jesus applies is God’s Word that “I desire mercy and not sacrifice” (Matthew 12:7).

Jesus did not break the Sabbath law, as outlined by God under the Old Covenant. As He publicly stated, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them” (Matthew 5:17). The Pharisees had so conflated their own standard of holiness with God’s that they accused Jesus of breaking the Sabbath law. They were furious over Jesus’ actions, yet it was only their Sabbath law He did not keep. Jesus kept God’s law, and He had done nothing to violate the Sabbath.

Jesus' healings on the Sabbath revealed the hypocrisy of the Pharisees' religion

Jesus' healings on the Sabbath exposed the hypocrisy of the Pharisees' religion. The Pharisees had added numerous rules and traditions to the Sabbath law, elevating their own rules to the level of God's instructions. They had turned the Sabbath into a burden rather than a blessing.

Jesus' healings on the Sabbath were acts of compassion and revealed the hardness of heart of the Pharisees. He showed that their Sabbath law was incompatible with God's goodness and that their rules were not from God but from man.

Jesus' healings on the Sabbath also served to remind people of God's original purpose for instituting the Sabbath—to benefit people and to glorify Him. It was meant to help people recuperate after a week of work and to redirect their focus from the daily routine to God.

The Pharisees' Sabbath restrictions included a long list of forbidden activities, such as writing, erasing, tearing, conducting business transactions, shopping, cooking, baking, gardening, doing laundry, and carrying anything for more than six feet in a public area.

Jesus' healings on the Sabbath revealed the Pharisees' hypocrisy in that they were willing to help animals on the Sabbath but not people. Jesus pointed out their inconsistency, asking, "Doesn't each of you on the Sabbath untie your ox or donkey from the stall and lead it out to give it water?" (Luke 13:15). He challenged their religious rules by asking, "Which is lawful on the Sabbath: to do good or to do evil, to save life or to kill?" (Mark 3:4).

Jesus did not break the Sabbath law as outlined by God in the Old Covenant. He kept God's law and had the authority to overrule the Pharisees' traditions and regulations that they had placed on the Sabbath.

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