JESUS CHRIST stated that "the Son of man is Lord even of the sabbath day" (Matt. 12:8). Two other Gospel writers have recorded that significant fact (Mark 2:28 and Luke 6:5). What did He mean by it? The narrative relates that Jesus "went through the corn fields on the sabbath day; and his disciples began, as they went, to pluck the ears of corn" (Mark 2:23). "His disciples were an hungred" (Matt. 12:1), and they extracted the grains of cereal from the heads by "rubbing them in their hands" (Luke 6:1).
Certain Pharisees saw the disciples doing this, and they demanded: "Why do ye that which is not lawful to do on the sabbath days?" (verse 2). And turning to Jesus, they said: "Behold, thy disciples do that which is not lawful to do upon the sabbath day" (Matt. 12:2).
The Gospels contain no record of any disagreement between Jesus and the Pharisees concerning which day of the week was the Sabbath. The seventh day of the week, which they observed as the Sabbath day, was also the day which He and His disciples observed as God's holy day (Mark 1:21; Luke 4:16, 31; 23:56). There was controversy between Him and the Pharisees concerning the manner in which the Sabbath day should be kept. Those Pharisees questioning the conduct of Jesus and His disciples on the Sabbath accused them of doing "that which is not lawful to do" on that day.
Jesus, in defending His disciples against the charge of Sabbath-breaking, cited first the fact that David and his men, when hungry, had eaten of the consecrated shewbread of the sanctuary, which no one but a priest was permitted by Mosaic law to eat (1 Sam. 21:1-6; Lev. 24:5-9; Ex. 29:31-34). David had not stolen that bread, but the chief priest had given it to him after being informed of their dire need for food. Under such circumstances, David was not considered guilty of either theft or sacrilege for having eaten of the sacred bread (Matt. 12:3, 4).
Christ's hungry disciples, under the present circumstances, were permitted by the law of Moses to eat the grain that they had consumed, and thus they were not guilty of having stolen it (Deut. 23:24, 25). Neither were they guilty of desecrating the Sabbath day. They had not been harvesting or threshing the grain for wages, nor storing it up for future use. They were only satisfying their immediate need for food, for they were hungry. In doing this, they did no more necessary labor in eating that food on the Sabbath than did their accusers in taking the food from their dishes on their tables when they dined at the accustomed hour on that day (Luke 14:1; Josephus, Life, chap. 54).
Christ cited also the fact "that on the sabbath days the priests in the temple profane the sabbath, and are blameless" (Matt. 12:5). In the Mosaic law the Lord required that the priests perform more work at the sanctuary on the Sabbath day than on any other day of the week. On each Sabbath day they were to replace the loaves of shewbread in the holy place with fresh ones (Lev. 24:5-8; 1 Chron. 9:32). The number of burnt offerings presented for the morning and the evening services of the Sabbath day was double that of each of the other days of the week (Num. 28:4, 9, 10). However, the priests were doing on the Sabbath the sacred work that God Himself had appointed them to do, and because they were not performing their own secular labor, they were blameless.
"But I say unto you," added Jesus, "that in this place is one greater than the temple" (Matt. 12:6). Those Pharisees who had arraigned the Master and His disciples before the judgment seat of their legalistic notions of what was and what was not proper observance of the Sabbath, needed to understand that the Messiah, the "one greater than the temple," was there in person before them (see Heb. 3: 1-6; Haggai 2:7, 9; Mal. 3:1). The very redemptive work that He was to perform for mankind was prophetically foreshadowed by the sacrificial offerings and the priestly services performed at the Temple. The service of God for the salvation of men is of paramount religious importance, and that which needs to be done on the Sabbath in the accomplishment of this sacred work is in accord with the law of the Sabbath. To that ministry Christ's disciples had been appointed by Him, and they were associated with Him in it when He was teaching the people on the Sabbath day.
Now Jesus, as "one greater than the temple," asserts His authority by saying: "If ye had known what this meaneth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice [quoting Hosea 6:6], ye would not have condemned the guiltless" (verse 7). God's justice is tempered by His mercy. "The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath," the Master added (Mark 2:27). Sabbath observance was intended to be a blessing to man. The seventh-day Sabbath was blessed by God for that purpose in the beginning (Gen. 2:2, 3; Ex. 20:11; Isa. 56:2). The Pharisees would forbid the famished followers of Jesus to relieve their immediate hunger on the Sabbath day. In fact, they objected to His ministry to the sick and afflicted by relieving their suffering on God's holy day even when it was done with pitying love and with no thought of remuneration (Luke 6:6, 7; 13: 14-17; 14:1; John 5:16-18; 7:21-23; 9:14- 16)'
The climactic point in Christ's defense of His disciples against the accusations by the Pharisees was reached when He declared that "the Son of man is Lord even of the sabbath day". The One greater than the Temple is also "Lord even of the sabbath day." By that statement He implied that the Pharisees, as self-appointed custodians of the consciences of their fellow men and as self-constituted judges condemning the conduct of Christ and His disciples on the Sabbath, had been usurping prerogatives that belonged to Him, the Lord of the Sabbath.
Christ's claim to lordship over the Sabbath day is a very valid one. His authority for saying that the Sabbath is His day rests upon the fact that He, as God and Creator, made it when He made the world. While He lived upon earth, Jesus repeatedly spoke of having previously dwelt in heaven (John 6:38, 42; 8:42; 13:3), and of having existed previously together with God the Father (John 17:5, 24). Sacred prophecy had spoken of Him long before His birth in Bethlehem as One "whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting (Micah 5:2). And Jesus Him self said: "Before Abraham was, I am" (John 8:58). In the Messianic prophecy of Jeremiah 23:5, 6 "the Lord" (Yahweh) declared that the Branch which would come out of David would also be called "the Lord" (Yahweh).
By Isaiah it was foretold that His name in Hebrew would be "Immanuel" (Isa. 7: 14), which literally means "With us God" (Matt. 1:22, 23), and that "his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace" (Isa. 9:6).
Indeed, "the Jews sought the more to kill him, because he not only had broken the sabbath, but said also that God was his Father, making himself equal with God" (John 5:18). They said: "For a good work we stone thee not; but for blasphemy; and because that thou, being a man, makest thyself God" (chap. 10:33).
Christ's followers worshiped Him (Matt. 28:9, 17; Luke 24:52). The apostle Thomas called Him "My Lord and my God" (John 20:28). Peter points us to Him as "our God and Saviour Jesus Christ" (2 Peter 1:1, R.S.V.). Paul lifted Him up as "our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ" (Titus 2:13, R.S.V.). We belong to "the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood" (Acts 20:28). God the Son is the One who shed His blood to ransom us (1 Peter 1:18-20). The Father has said to the Son: "Thy throne, O God., is for ever" (Heb. 1:8), and has commanded the angels to worship Him (verse 6). "In him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily" (Col. 2:9, R.S.V.).
God "created all things by Jesus Christ" (Eph. 3:9). He has "spoken unto us by his Son, ... by whom also he made the worlds" (Heb/1:2). He is one of the Divine Beings who counseled together saying: "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness" (Gen. 1:26). "For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth . . . ; all things were created by him, and for him" (Col. 1:16).
"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made" (John 1:1-3). He was "in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not. . . . The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us" (verses 10-14).
Inasmuch as Jesus Christ is our Maker, the Creation story speaks of Him in saying that "on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made" (Gen. 2:2, 3).
The seventh day was not made the Sabbath by priest or prophet or ecclesiastical official. It was not appointed by any Sanhedrin or church council. The Sabbath was instituted by Jesus Christ as our Creator, when "in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it" (Ex. 20:11).
As the Creator of this world and, therefore, as Lord of the Sabbath, Jesus could say to the Pharisees that "the Son of man is Lord even of the sabbath day." To Him, and not to the Pharisees, were His disciples accountable for the manner in which they kept the sacred day. The Father "hath committed all judgment unto the Son" (John 5:22), for "it is he which was ordained of God to be the Judge of quick [living] and dead" (Acts 10:42). The day is coming when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ, "For we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ" (Rom. 14:10). "For the Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father with his angels; and then he shall reward every man according to his works" (Matt. 16:27).
Thus Jesus Christ has been the Lord of the Sabbath, and the Sabbath has been the Lord's day, from its very beginning, because He Himself, as our Creator, chose the seventh day of the first week of our world's history, rested upon it, blessed it, and hallowed it.
