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168
From Heaven With Love
through a field, an orchard, or a vineyard, was at liberty to gather
what he desired to eat. See
Deuteronomy 23:24, 25
. But to do this
on the Sabbath was held to be an act of desecration. Gathering the
grain was a kind of reaping, the rubbing of it in the hands a kind of
threshing.
The spies at once complained to Jesus, “Behold, Thy disciples
do that which is not lawful to do on the Sabbath day.”
Mark 2:24
.
When accused of Sabbathbreaking at Bethesda, Jesus defended
Himself by affirming His Sonship to God, declaring He worked in
harmony with the Father. Now that the disciples were attacked, He
cited Old Testament examples of acts performed on the Sabbath by
those who were in the service of God.
In the Saviour’s answer to His accusers there was an implied
rebuke for their ignorance of the Sacred Writings: “Have you not
read what David did when he was hungry, he and those who were
with him: how he entered the house of God, and took and ate the
bread of the Presence, which it is not lawful for any but the priests
to eat?” “And He said unto them, The Sabbath was made for man,
and not man for the Sabbath.” “Or have you not read in the law how
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on the Sabbath the priests in the temple profane the Sabbath, and
are guiltless? I tell you, something greater than the temple is here.”
“The Son of man is Lord of the Sabbath.”
Luke 6:3, 4
, RSV;
Mark
2:27, 28
;
Matthew 12:5, 6, 8
, RSV.
If it was right for David to satisfy his hunger by eating the bread
set apart to a holy use, then it was right for the disciples to pluck
grain on the Sabbath. Again, the priests in the temple performed
greater labor on the Sabbath than on other days. The same labor
in secular business would be sinful, but they were performing rites
that pointed to the redeeming power of Christ, and their labor was
in harmony with the Sabbath.
The object of God’s work in this world is the redemption of
man. Therefore that which is necessary to do on the Sabbath in
the accomplishment of this work is in accord with the Sabbath law.
Jesus then crowned His argument by declaring Himself the “Lord
of the Sabbath”—One above all questions and all law. This infinite
judge acquitted the disciples of blame, appealing to the very statutes
they were accused of violating.