THE KING’S BUSINESS
1008
(Rev. 1 :10), the first day of the week (Acts 20:7), resurrection day, a day not merely of rest, but of resurrection, life and activity. Those who are under the law keep the seventh day, the day of the old creation, but let those who are under grace keep the first day (Gal. 3:10). Thursday, November 4. Luke 6 :6-ll. Here we have another conflict between Jesus and the Pharisees, and over the same; question, that of Sabbath observance. He was in the synagogue again teaching and the Scribes and Pharisees were watching for something to find fault about, especially watching “whether He would heal the sick on the Sabbath Day.” They were trying to find something that they might use as the basis of an accusation against Him. We learn from the parallel question in Matthew (cf. Matt. 12:10) that they put to Him the direct question, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath Day ?” Luke tells us that Jesus had already read their thoughts and what was in their mind and what was their object in asking the question, and answered to the question first by bidding the man in phys ical need before Him to rise up and stand forth in the midst. Then Jesus put to them a question, a very searching and suggestive one under the circumstances: “Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good, or to do harm? To save a life or to destroy it ?” They could answer nothing. Any answer that they could make would condemn them out of their own mouths, and as it was, they were condemned by their silence. Mark tells us that Jesus was angered at them and grieved at the hardening of their hearts (Mark 3 :5). He was angered at them because of their display of an utter lack of love. They showed themselves as men who had no pity for the poor fellow with a withered hand, but who saw in his misery nothing but a chance to entrap the man sent from God, whom they hated. They were very religious, gteat sticklers for the letter of the law, but utterly withered in heart. Instead of be ing rejoiced at the deliverance of a fellow- man they were only filled with madness at
tions of the poverty of the disciples and the simplicity 'of their lives. Their. ■ supplies were so scant that they had to get their meals in the way the Jewish law allowed for the poor, as they went through the corn fields picking th,e ears of corn and rubbing them out in their hands. More apostolic simplicity would be a good thing in the lives of most of us. It would be conducive to most apostolic tenacity in our faith, more apostolic enthusiasm in our preaching and more apostolic efficacy in our prayers. But the critics found nothing to admire, but something to complain about not only in the conduct of the disciples, but even in the com. duct of the disciples, but even in the conduct of God’s Son. In this case, the critics at first glance seemed to have a good show of reason on their side. The action of Christ’s disciples seemed like a violation of at least the letter of the fourth commandment (Deut. 5:14; Ex. 31:15), yet the criticism of the Pharisees, though apparently scrip tural, was- founded upon an incomplete knowledge of the Scriptures. Jesus, in meeting their criticism, brought a complete view of Scripture against a one-sided view of the Scripture, a view of the teaching of fhe Bible as a whole, against the view built upon isolated passages. He showed by the very Scripture to which they appealed them selves: First, that ceremonial prescriptions must give way before the needs of man, which they were ordained to subserve. In illustration of this, Jesus brings forth the case of David. Second, that the Sabbath was made for man, therefore that the Son of Man, the consummation and head of the race, was Lord even of the Sabbath (cf. Mark 2:27, 28). The scope of this princi ple that the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath, was not fully comprehended Until after He had died and risen again, and many do not comprehend it even now. As Lord of the Sabbath, our Lord Jesus, the Son of Man, has entirely abrogated the Sev enth Day Sabbath which was but a shadow of things to come and which belonged dis tinctly to the old creation (Col. 2:16, 17), and brought in a new day, the ‘L/Drd s Day
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