Jesus is the Lord of the Sabbath!
“One Sabbath Jesus was going through the grainfields, and his disciples began to pick some heads of grain, rub them in their hands and eat the kernels. Some of the Pharisees asked, ‘Why are you doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath?’ Jesus answered them, ‘Have you never read what David did when he and his companions were hungry? He entered the house of God, and taking the consecrated bread, he ate what is lawful only for priests to eat. And he also gave some to his companions.’ Then Jesus said to them, ‘The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.’” (Luke 6:1–5)
While meditating on the words, I desire to receive the teaching that is given to me:
(1) When I read Luke 6:1–5, the first thing that came to my mind was my childhood memories of growing up hearing all kinds of “don’t” rules related to the Sabbath (Sunday, the Lord’s Day)—rules like “Don’t use money,” “Don’t study,” and so on (For reference, I am the second son of a pastor in the Korean Presbyterian Church—HapDong—and I grew up in the church my father planted). Of course, besides these prohibitions, I faintly remember hearing “do” rules as well, such as “Be sure to pray before you eat,” “On Sundays you must go to church and worship,” etc. In the end, looking back, as I grew up living in the church parsonage, worshiping God every Sunday and learning the Bible at children’s Sunday school, what remains strongly in my memory regarding the church is the “Don’ts” and the “Do’s.”
(a) So, it seems that people attending church naturally came to focus on “doing” in their church life. And although I surely must have learned at church who Jesus is and who God is (I do not remember learning about who the Holy Spirit is), what remains in my memory is not what I learned about God or Jesus, but only those “don’ts” and “dos,” the “commands.”
(i) When I think about this, I am reminded again of what Jesus said to the Pharisees in Mark 7: “Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you hypocrites; as it is written: ‘These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain; their teachings are merely human rules.’ You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to human traditions… You have a fine way of setting aside the commands of God in order to observe your own traditions… Thus you nullify the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And you do many things like that” (Mk. 7:6–9, 13).
· And I think that the “don’ts” and “dos” I learned growing up were “human commands”—or in the words of a modern-language Bible, “laws that people invented” (v. 7). It seems the church taught us these human-made laws as if they were the Lord’s own teachings (v. 7). If we borrow the words of Jesus, the Sunday school education we received as children may have been an education that “abandons the commands of God and clings only to human traditions” (v. 8). Perhaps we even abandoned the commands of God in order to keep human traditions (vv. 8–9).
- If this is correct, then the Sunday school education we received turned us into “hypocrites” (v. 6), and as a result we honor the Lord with our lips while our hearts are far from Him (v. 6).
(b) Personally, I believe that the focus of Christian education should not be on “doing”—such as “do this” and “don’t do that”—but on “being,” such as “What does the Bible say about who I am?”
(i) For example, the Bible tells us who believe in Jesus that we are “children of God” (Rom. 8:16), and also “heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ” (v. 17). And Scripture says, “If indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory” (v. 17). Therefore, I believe the church, before teaching believers “Receive suffering,” should first teach, “We are God’s children, heirs of God, and co-heirs with Christ.” This is Christian education focused on “being.” After this is taught, the church should then teach believers that—as God’s children and heirs and co-heirs with Christ—we must share in suffering in order to share in Christ’s glory (a message of hope), which is the “doing” that naturally flows from our identity.
· My reason is that “doing” should naturally arise from “being.” Doing that does not arise from being is nothing but pretense and hypocrisy.
- For this reason, even in the doctrine of God, I believe our faith should focus on God’s “being” (who God is), not primarily on God’s “doing” (what God does). If we focus more on what God does rather than who God is, we are in great danger of falling into the devil’s temptation and sinning. But if our faith focuses on God’s being, then we can accept God’s doing by faith.
n For example, God is love (1 Jn. 4:8, 16). If our knowledge of the God of love grows and our faith matures, then even when God’s actions are beyond our understanding, we can accept the circumstances before us by believing, “The God of love can only act toward me in love.” But if knowing the God of love is not our priority, our faith in the God of love does not grow, and we instead focus only on God’s actions, then we will fall into questions and doubts—“How can a God of love treat me like this?”—and eventually fall into unbelief and into the sins of grumbling and complaining, like Israel during the Exodus.
(c) When I served on the Exam Committee of the Korean Southwest Presbytery in the PCA (Presbyterian Church in America), I would first read the “Application for The Korean Southwest Presbytery,” which contains various theological questions. One of these questions is: “Do you have any stated differences or scruples with the Westminster Confession of Faith?”
(i) Applicants often list differences regarding Chapter 21 (“Of Religious Worship and the Sabbath Day”), section 8: “This Sabbath is then kept holy unto the Lord, when men… prepare their hearts, and… observe an holy rest, from their own works, words, and thoughts, about their worldly employments and recreations… and are taken up the whole time in the public and private exercises of His worship, and in the duties of necessity and mercy” (WCF 21.8).
· For example, here is a quote from an online post: “WCF 21.8 says that engaging in recreational activities on the Sabbath is sin, but I do not believe Scripture actually teaches this. While avoiding recreation and focusing on God should indeed be our goal on the Lord’s Day, I believe that forbidding all recreational enjoyment actually deprives us of fully delighting in the Lord.”
- While pastors and licensure applicants may state exceptions to WCF 21.8, I suspect many laypeople also take exceptions concerning “vocation” and “worldly employment,” and thus end up working at their jobs or in their businesses on Sunday.
(2) When I read today’s passage, Luke 6:1–5, I also compared it with Matthew 12:1–8 and Mark 2:23–28. Meditating on them together, I desire to receive five lessons:
(a) First, on a certain Sabbath, as Jesus was passing through the grainfields, His disciples, who were hungry, picked heads of grain, rubbed them in their hands, and ate them. Seeing this, some Pharisees criticized Jesus: “Look! Why are your disciples doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath?” (Lk. 6:1–2; Mt. 12:1–2; Mk. 2:23–24)
(i) This action itself was not sinful, for the Law clearly permitted it: “You may go into your neighbor’s grainfield and pick kernels with your hands, but you must not put a sickle to his standing grain” (Deut. 23:25).
· This gracious law allowed a hungry person to enter another’s field and eat enough to satisfy hunger, out of the spirit of generosity and compassion. But the Law also forbade taking more than needed or harvesting another person’s crop. The Law of God is full of both love and justice. Therefore, the disciples’ act itself was not the issue. The issue was that they did this on the Sabbath. According to the Jewish Mishnah, “To pluck even enough grain to fill one’s mouth is a sin on the Sabbath” (M. Shabbat 7:4). The legalistic Jews charged two sins: plucking (reaping) and rubbing (threshing).
- At that time, strict Sabbath observance was one of Judaism’s major duties. The rabbis created thousands of fine regulations. As a result, Sabbath-keeping had become completely formalistic. Thus, the Pharisees, who clung to such formality, criticized Jesus, who emphasized the true meaning of the Sabbath (Hochma).
n Even today, such criticism abounds within the church. Even if not spoken aloud, it exists in our hearts. Sabbath-keeping has partly collapsed into formalism. Jesus criticized such formalism and emphasized the essence of the Law—love, mercy, and justice. In Matthew 23, Jesus rebuked the Pharisees: “You clean the outside of the cup, but inside you are full of greed and self-indulgence,” and “You have neglected the more important matters of the law: justice, mercy, and faithfulness.” Jesus demands an internal, genuine faith that follows the heart of God, not mere external observance.
(b) Second, so Jesus said to them, “Have you never read what David did when he and his companions were hungry? Under Abiathar the high priest, he entered the house of God and ate the consecrated bread, which was lawful only for priests, and he also gave some to his companions” (Lk. 6:3–4; Mt. 12:3–4; Mk. 2:25–26).
(i) When the Pharisees criticized Jesus, saying that Jesus’ disciples were doing what ought not to be done on the Sabbath, Jesus asked them whether they had read—and accurately discerned the meaning of—the account of David recorded in 1 Samuel 21:1–6, and whether they had correctly understood it. Here, “the deed of David” refers to the event in which David, fleeing with several of his guards from King Saul—who sought to kill him—after receiving help from Jonathan, grew hungry, entered the house of God at Nob, and received from the priest the bread of the Presence so that he and the men with him could eat together [The bread of the Presence “consisted of twelve loaves arranged in two rows on the golden table in the sanctuary, corresponding to the number of the twelve tribes of Israel (Exod. 25:30; Lev. 24:5–8). These loaves were not a sacrificial offering but symbolized the life-giving fellowship with Yahweh, and ultimately prefigured the Lord’s holy Supper” (Hochma)].
· Excerpt from the Hochma Commentary: “The Law commands that inside the sanctuary, on the gold-plated table, twelve freshly baked loaves of the bread of the Presence be arranged in two rows every Sabbath. These twelve loaves are offered with incense, and they remain there until the next week’s bread of the Presence is placed upon the table. When the newly baked bread replaces the previous week’s bread, the bread previously offered is removed from the sanctuary and eaten by the priests (Exod. 25:30; Lev. 24:5–9). Therefore, for this reason, the act of eating the bread of the Presence itself is not unlawful. This is precisely the point Jesus emphasizes. That is, when David—who as a human being bore the heart of God—was suffering severely from famine, he sought help from the priest and received the bread of the Presence that had been offered to God. In fact, it was forbidden for laypersons to eat the bread of the Presence (Lev. 24:9). However, in David’s situation at that time, life had to be preserved even if it meant eating the holy bread dedicated to God, and God willingly permitted this. This was an example of the proper application of God’s more fundamental natural law, which stands above the positive law of the Mosaic legislation. Therefore, for this reason—and even more so—Jesus and His disciples’ plucking of grain is not illegal but lawful; and the grain kernels they rubbed in their hands and ate were truly necessary to satisfy their hunger and preserve their lives” (Hochma).
- Jesus cited the event in which David and his companions, when hungry, ate the bread of the Presence—food designated by the Law solely for the priests (1 Sam. 21:1–6)—in order to teach the Pharisees that what is more important than observing the Law in a merely literal manner is the fundamental spirit of the Law: love and justice (Hochma).
(c) Third, Jesus continued: “Or haven’t you read in the Law that on the Sabbath the priests in the temple desecrate the day and yet are innocent? I tell you that something greater than the temple is here. If you had known what these words mean, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the innocent” (Mt. 12:5–7).
(i) Jesus rebuked the Pharisees for misunderstanding Scripture—specifically the Fourth Commandment (Exod. 20:8–11; Deut. 5:12–15).
· Despite the Sabbath regulations that stipulated that the priests were to do no work, the priests nevertheless performed several tasks inside the temple every Sabbath as they carried out the ceremonies of worship to God—for example, replacing the bread of the Presence (Lev. 24:8) and offering two lambs as a sacrificial offering (Num. 28:9–10). This legal provision means that, according to the Old Testament itself, the law concerning the Sabbath is a lower law, while the law concerning the temple is a higher law, and that in order to keep the higher law, it is permissible to transgress the lower law (Hochma).
- Excerpt from the Hochma Commentary: “The disciples’ act of violating the Sabbath is, in the same way that the priests violate the Sabbath regulations by offering sacrifices on the Sabbath, something that cannot be regarded as a fault if one understands their actions within the same context as assisting the redemptive work of Jesus and the proclamation of the gospel, just as temple worship itself is understood. Indeed, if the priests, despite the Sabbath, committed themselves to temple duties in order to conduct the temple sacrifices and yet incurred no legal blemish, then the actions of Jesus’ disciples—who ‘broke’ the Sabbath for the sake of Jesus, who is the very essence of the temple and its worship, and for the sake of His ministry—could not in any way be considered a problem” (Hochma).
n Just as the law of the temple takes precedence over the law of the Sabbath, so also the activity of Jesus, the Son of God and the Lord of the temple, takes precedence even over the temple law (Mt. 12:6; Hokma). Therefore, by His divine authority, Jesus declared the disciples’ act of plucking and eating grain on the Sabbath to be “innocent” (Mt. 12:7; “people who have committed no sin,” Modern Korean Bible).
· Furthermore, Jesus rebuked the Pharisees because their attitude toward the Law was no different from that of the people in Hosea’s time—who were superficial and hypocritical, concerned only with religious rituals. The superficial and hypocritical religious observance they pursued consisted of offering sacrifices and performing ritual acts mechanically and habitually, without the “mercy” the Lord desired [According to Hochma, the Greek word for mercy, ἔλεος (eleos), refers to acts of kindness and charitable help toward those in distress; at its core lies love, compassion, and devotion—pious actions aligned with God’s will].
- In other words, Jesus rebuked the Pharisees for caring only about formal and habitual religious rituals while knowing nothing of the true meaning of the Law—love for God and love for one’s neighbor (Jesus’ twofold commandment: Matt. 22:37, 39). He also rebuked them for wrongly condemning Jesus’ innocent disciples as sinners (Ref.: Hochma).
n I believe that this rebuke of Jesus applies to us as well. If, according to Jesus’ words, we set aside the commandments of God in order to hold fast to human traditions (Mk. 7:9), and if we fail to practice Jesus’ twofold commandment—love for God and love for our neighbor—while caring only about performing religious rituals in a merely formal and habitual way, then Jesus’ rebuke, “If you had known what these words mean, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the innocent” (Mt. 12:7), will apply to us also.
(d) Fourth, Jesus said, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath” (Mk. 2:27).
(i) When I meditated on Jesus’ words, “The Sabbath was made for man,” the passage in Genesis 2:2–3 came to mind: “By the seventh day God completed the work which He had been doing, and He ceased from all His work on the seventh day. God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on that day He rested from all the work of creating that He had done.”
· As I meditated on Genesis 2:2–3 in connection with Mark 2:27, I came to realize that the Sabbath exists for human rest. In other words, just as God rested on the seventh day, we also ought to rest on the Sabbath, the Lord’s Day.
- The words of Hebrews 4:4, 9–11 came to mind: “For somewhere He has spoken about the seventh day in these words: ‘And on the seventh day God rested from all His works.’ … There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God; for the one who has entered His rest has also rested from his own works, just as God did from His. Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by following their example of disobedience.”
n I then reread the meditation I wrote on October 13, 2010, titled “The One Who Enters God’s Rest (Psalm 95)”. I will share a few portions: “… We must all gather together and offer praise to God—our Rock of salvation, the great God, and the mighty Creator. We must praise Him with thanksgiving, and we must joyfully sing praises to the Lord. When we truly enter God’s eternal rest, we will forever offer Him praise with thankfulness and joy. … The one who enters God’s rest worships God. And the one who truly worships God listens to His voice and obeys His commandments. A genuine worshiper never hardens his heart when he hears God’s Word. Rather, such a worshiper diligently breaks up the fallow ground of his heart, softening it, so that he may quickly hear the Word of God. Because he knows the ways of God, his heart is not led astray. Therefore, he does not cause God grief; instead, he is a worshiper who brings joy to God’s heart. And he is one who enjoys rest. You and I are those who journey toward the place of eternal rest. Therefore, as we long for the eternal rest that God gives, we are already, in part, enjoying that eternal rest even while living in this world. As those who enjoy that rest, let us today also praise God and worship Him” (Ref.: https://blog.naver.com/kdicaprio74/222109231134).
(ii) When I meditated on Jesus’ words, “The Sabbath was made for man” (Mark 2:27), the passage John 4:23–24 came to mind: “Yet a time is coming, and has now come, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship Him. God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and in truth.” Perhaps the reason is that the Sabbath (the Lord’s Day), which God has given us as a gift, has provided us not only rest from labor but also the opportunity to worship (cf. Hochma).
· A portion from a meditation I wrote on October 14, 2010, under the title “Worship–Witness”, based on Romans 12:1–2 (“Therefore, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, I urge you to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may discern what is the good, pleasing, and perfect will of God.”): “True spiritual worshipers whom God seeks worship being led by the Spirit of truth and by the truth of the gospel (the good news of salvation in Jesus). Ultimately, spiritual worship is God-centered worship, and God-centered worship is always offered in the name of Jesus and through the Holy Spirit. In short, spiritual worship is Trinitarian worship (Frame). Spiritual worship is the worship that gives thanks, praise, adoration, and devotion to God in recognition of the unique works performed by God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit for our salvation.”
- The three things pursued by spiritual worshipers who offer such spiritual worship are these: (1) They present their bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God. (2) They seek transformation by the renewing of their minds. (3) They obey the will of God.
n However, believers like the Pharisees place far more importance on human-centered worship that highlights human glory than on doing good deeds with a merciful heart for the sick on the Sabbath (the Lord’s Day). The reason is not only that they do not understand the meaning of Jesus’ words, “I desire mercy, not sacrifice,” but also that they prioritize human-made laws over the words of Jesus, the Lord of the Sabbath. Jesus’ teaching is that “it is right to do good on the Sabbath” (cf. Mt. 12:7–12).
(e) Fifth and final, Jesus said, “So the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath” (Lk. 6:5; Mt. 12:8; Mk. 2:28).
(i) When Jesus said, “The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath,” He meant that He is the Lawgiver of the Sabbath—because He, together with the Father, created the heavens and the earth (Gen. 1:26) and rested on the seventh day (Gen. 2:1–3), and because He is the one who restores this fallen world and gives eternal rest to His people (Heb. 4:1–11).
· Judaism tried to guard the Sabbath by binding every area of life with Sabbath regulations, resulting in narrow legalism. Thus, Jesus declared Himself Lord of the Sabbath so that the Sabbath might be newly understood according to His will and purpose (Hochma).
- Calvin says this declaration frees people from being bound to Sabbath rules that are impossible to bear, inviting them instead to come to Christ, who gives rest (Calvin, Hochma).
n The Sabbath belongs to the Lord, and the Sabbath is given for humanity. But hypocritical Pharisees act as though people exist for the Sabbath, accusing others of doing what is “unlawful,” and making themselves the masters of the Sabbath.
n The Pharisee within me watches others to see whether they are committing a Sabbath offense—forgetting that the Lord, not we, is the Master of the Sabbath (Lk. 6:2, 5, 7).