[Each weekday morning the General Conference family gathers in our chapel for a fifteen-minute worship before taking up the duties of the day. Recently Eric Syme, who for a number of years engaged in evangelistic labors in England and who is now pursuing graduate study at American University in Washington, D.C., was asked to lead out in these periods of morning devotion for one week. His studies were an excellent example of Christ-centered teaching and were greatly appreciated by the General Conference family. We are happy to share two of them with the readers of THE MINISTRY. Although these studies were obviously prepared for an Adventist audience, the approach can easily be adapted for evangelistic use.—Ed.]
From the time of its creation the Sabbath was intended by God to have a functional purpose in man's life. Both man and woman were created on the sixth day. They were to be a help to each other; they were to provide for each other's social necessities. The Garden of Eden had already been formed to provide for the physical needs of man. It was to provide him with that type of interesting and creative work best suited for his highest development. At the same time the creation of the tree of knowledge of good and evil would place on man the necessity of restraint and self-control. He would be forced to exert his mental powers, and govern his body and appetite by his mind. By the end of the sixth day man was provided for socially, physically, and mentally, but not spiritually. On the seventh day the Sabbath was created, blessed, and set apart for this purpose. It had to be above man and not subject to any changes he might want to make in it, for its function involved the matter of worship, and thus only God could control there. At the same time it "was made for man, and not man for the sabbath."
By the time of Christ the Jews had lost this concept. The Sabbath had become a burden, a national fetish, an idol—anything but what God had intended it to be. It was a barren custom fenced in with the most absurd and fanatical restrictions. Consequently it was constantly being broken, even in the act of observance. Far from being an expression and manifestation of the great law of love, it had become the main ground for a constant search for heresy, and a means by which the people were ground underfoot.
Six Outstanding Sabbath Acts
This factor was thoroughly brought out by the miracle at Bethesda. Jesus healed a man on the Sabbath day (John 5:9). This fact immediately brought a storm of persecution upon Jesus. The question might be asked, Why did Jesus perform this action of mercy on the Sabbath, knowing as He must have that it would provoke this tremendous weight of opposition? Previously the people had waited until evening before coming to Him to be healed. But He sought this man out and deliberately healed him on the Sabbath, although the man had been in this place for years. Christ's reply to the Jewish attack is truly pregnant with meaning. "My Father worketh hitherto, and I work" (John 5:17). God's sun shines and His rain falls on the Sabbath. The healing processes operate on the Sabbath just as they do on any other day. If a man breaks a bone, it will continue to set on the Sabbath, just as at any other time. In performing this miracle Jesus implied that He was entering into the same ministry that His Father was constantly carrying forward. They had no answer to this defense, and in the way that small natures will, they immediately shifted the ground of their attack. Now they persecuted Him, not only because He had broken the Sabbath (in their opinion), but because He had made Himself equal with God (John 5:18).
The consequences of this miracle were immediate and disastrous to His work in that region, and changed the tenor of His remaining years. "After these things Jesus walked in Galilee: for he would not walk in Jewry, because the Jews sought to kill him" (John 7:1). It is quite clear that this homicidal attitude of the Jews arose from this Sabbath issue, for later in this same chapter Jesus asked the people why they sought to kill Him (John 7:19). In
the discussion that followed He again tried to explain His position. It is so important that we will quote it at length.
"I have done one work, and ye all marvel. Moses therefore gave unto you circumcision . . . and ye on the sabbath day circumcise a man. If a man on the sabbath day receive circumcision, that the law of Moses should not be broken; are ye angry at me, because I have made a man every whit whole on the sabbath day?" (John 7:21-23).
We have noticed already that because of this constantly growing opposition in Judea, Jesus walked in Galilee. However, it would seem that even here many spies were dogging His steps constantly, to see what He would do on the Sabbath day. It was not long before they found a charge that they could press home to the disciples. To satisfy their hunger the disciples had plucked the ears of corn as they pushed their way through the cornfields. With a gesture of contempt toward the disciples the Pharisees said to Him, "Why do they on the sabbath day that which is not lawful?" (Mark 2:24). Jesus immediately protected His disciples with both His personal approval and His decisive support. It was at this point that He used a most interesting argument. First He reiterated the truth concerning the functional character of the Sabbath. It was made for man, not man for it. Then He drove home an allied truth, and a fresh emphasis from what He had already said. "Therefore the Son of man is Lord also of the sabbath" (Mark 2:28). The truth had now to be taught that all worship to God must be through the Son of man. Jesus had become man that He might bring men back to God. The Sabbath is an instrument of worship, but even the Sabbath cannot of itself bring a man to God. The Son of God is the focus of all worship, and the only way whereby sinful men can approach a holy God. Therefore all things and all functions find their place and their meaning in Him. The Father has made all things subject to Him as the Son of man. Thus He is Lord also of the Sabbath day.
The circumstances of the account given to us in the third chapter of Mark's Gospel bring to us a very strong supposition that the man with the withered hand had been planted in the synagogue to provide a trap for Him. We are told specifically that "they watched him, whether he would heal him on the sabbath day; that they might accuse him" (Mark 3:2). Jesus again met this issue squarely, solidly, and dramatically. He was more than ready to make a test issue from the trap that had been set for Him. First He told the man with the withered hand to stand forth in the midst. Then He again forced before them the question that He first posed to them at the time of the Bethesda incident. "Is it lawful to do good on the sabbath days, or to do evil? to save life, or to kill?" (Mark 3:4). Once again they had no answer to His question. But the actions that they took after He healed the man were as disastrous to His continued ministry in Galilee as the Bethesda incident had been to His ministry in Judea. They "took counsel with the Herodians against him, how they might destroy him" (Mark 3:6). Hitherto He had escaped the gathering malice of the Pharisees in Judea by moving up into Galilee, where they had little power. But now they enlisted the powerful influence of the Herodians in the northern province against Him.
The final recorded incidents concerning the Sabbath take place during the last circuitous journey, after Jesus leaves Capernaum by a route concerning which we are not entirely clear, making His way slowly back to Jerusalem, where the final scenes of the passion would take place. It is evident that tremendous publicity attended this final journey. Seventy disciples went forth two and two to announce His coming and to prepare the way for His final ministry in areas that had hitherto been less frequented by Him.
Two incidents occurred during the course of this journey. The first was when Jesus healed a woman who for eighteen years had been bent double by some disease. The ruler of the synagogue then rebuked the perfectly innocent multitude, telling them that there were six days when they might be healed, without choosing the seventh day. The point is noted by Dr. Farrar that since the woman does not appear to have even asked Jesus to heal her, this address was tantamount to saying either, "You sick people must not come into the synagogue on the Sabbath day, for someone might heal you," or "If anyone wants to heal you on the Sabbath day, then you must decline." It would seem that the Jewish leader did not dare to address his remarks directly to the Lord, thus bringing upon himself the most crushing expression of Christ's indignation.
"Hypocrite, doth not each one of you on the sabbath loose his ox or his ass from the stall, and lead him away to watering? And ought not this woman, being a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan hath bound, lo, these eighteen years, be loosed from this bond on the sabbath day?" (Luke 13:15, 16).
The reaction to this statement by Christ is particularly illuminating. "And when he had said these things, all his adversaries were ashamed: and all the people rejoiced for all the glorious things that were done by him" (verse 17).
The remaining incident occurred soon after. Jesus was invited to a feast of the Pharisees. Among the unbidden guests who stood about the room was a man afflicted with dropsy. His prominent position in the room and the keen watchfulness of the Pharisees indicated that he was yet another trap. Jesus once more met the situation boldly by asking them the same question, which they had never yet been able to answer. "Is it lawful to heal on the sabbath day?" (Luke 14:3). He then again reinforced His point by saying, "Which of you shall have an ass or an ox fallen into a pit, and will not straightway pull him out on the sabbath day?" (Luke 14:5). The statement must have made it clear to them that they were regarding property above humanity, and that their alleged piety and religious carefulness were in fact both inconsistent and hypocritical.
Why?
Why then did Jesus perform these acts of healing on the Sabbath day, deliberately and ostentatiously before many witnesses, when He must have known the storm of opposition that would thus be raised against Him? He knew that it would certainly hinder His ministry, and even bring Him to His death. Why then did He not avoid the Bethesda miracle in the first place? Why did He not refuse to fall into the trap carefully provided by the presence of the man with the withered hand in the synagogue? The answer is as obvious as the fact that it is so often missed. He was determined that this issue should be thrashed out before the people, whatever the cost to Him personally. He had come to magnify the law and make it honorable. This was the best and most effective way of doing it, even if it was to become one of the contributing factors that brought Him to the cross. But how sheerly fantastic in face of this to say that it was His intention to change the Sabbath, or to do away with it. What a struggle and what a tremendous storm to accomplish nothing at all! If the day and its observance were due soon to pass anyway, why not avoid the issue altogether, in order that more important aspects of His mission might not be impeded? Even a novice in strategy would have had that much knowledge, but our Lord had knowledge not open to ordinary men.
No, if men wish to avoid the obligation of observing God's Sabbath, they would be wise not to attack it on this point. It would be far easier to assail the question of the inspiration of the Bible, or to take some other radical line, rather than try to prove the unprovable. It is as clear as anything can be that Jesus staked everything, including His life, in order that He might teach men how the Sabbath should be observed. The importance of the Sabbath must be set against what it cost the Son of God to rescue the jewel from the heaps of rubbish that the men of His nation and time had placed upon it. If Christ dwells in our hearts by His Spirit, we shall value the Sabbath as He valued it. It will be a day of joy and of good works, a day when we shall worship our God, and love and help our fellow men!
