Month: November 2019

Jesus and Sabbath

Many Christians are of the opinion that Jesus broke the Sabbath commandments regularly, and thus endorsed the ignoring of the Law. I used to think that myself. But a closer study of the relevent passages changed my mind.

In every case where Jesus is accused of breaking the Sabbath, he responds to his accusers. And his response in never along the lines of “The Sabbath is no longer operational.” He always comes back with something that implies, “I know the Sabbath laws better than you do.”

Let’s look at a couple of examples. In Luke 6 there are two instances of the Pharisees accusing Jesus of breaking Sabbath laws. In the first, some of his disciples began to pick some heads of grain, rub them in their hands, and eat the kernels. It was not Jesus doing this, but his disciples. Nevertheless, it drew an accusation from the religious leaders.

Jesus responded with a story from I Samuel 21 about David and his hungry companions receiving permission to eat the consecrated bread that was supposed to go to the priests. (Lev. 24:5-9) The point Jesus was making here was that the Sabbath regulations are flexible enough to meet human need. The moral he draws is that, “The son of man is lord of the Sabbath.” I don’t think he is referring to himself by using that title, although he does elsewhere. He clarifies in the parallel passage in Mark 2 that “the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.” The term “son of man” is a Hebrew idiom that means the human one. He is saying that the Sabbath is not intended to cause hardship for humans, but to be a blessing.

Also in Luke 6 is the story of Jesus encountering a man with a shriveled hand while he was teaching in the synagogue on the Sabbath. He knew that the religious leaders were looking to accuse him. So he asks them, “Which is lawful on the Sabbath: to do good or to do evil, to save life or to destroy it?” His question is specifically about biblical Sabbath laws.

Here he is making the same point as in the previous instance, that the intention of the Sabbath is to help people, not to harm them. He knew the intent behind the laws better than they did.

There are several other examples in the gospels of the leaders being skeptical of Jesus healing on the Sabbath. But Jesus points out that they feed their animals on the Sabbath, which he parallels to his healing work.

Lest we think that Jesus really did ignore the idea of the Sabbath, or taught his followers to do so, we should note what happens after his crucifixion. At the end of Luke 23 the women who had been following him “went home and prepared spices and perfumes. But they rested on the Sabbath in obedience to the commandment.”

These were women who had been listening to Jesus teaching for months or years. If Jesus had even hinted that Sabbath commands need not be followed, they would have been the first to go to the tomb on the Sabbath, but the actions of his followers are a pretty reliable indicator of the content of his teaching.

Jesus taught his followers to observe the seventh-day Sabbath, although according to his understanding, not that of many of the religious leaders. Those who claim to follow him today should continue to follow his teaching and example in this area.

Jesus and Torah

What was Jesus’ position on the Torah, the Law of God given through Moses? It’s a question that we don’t often ask, but it’s crucial for understanding Jesus and being a follower of his.

First, Jesus was a fully Torah-observant Jew. If he were not, he wouldn’t qualify to be a sinless sacrifice. The first epistle of John (3:4) states that “Everyone who sins breaks the law; in fact, sin is lawlessness… And in him is no sin.” So it’s clear that Jesus kept the law in its entirety.

But did he advocate for others to keep it? There are certainly instances like when he healed a man of leprosy (Matt. 8:4), and then sent him to the priest to offer the gift Moses commanded. And after his resurrection, when he commissioned the apostles to make disciples of all nations (Matt. 28:19-20), the essence of that discipleship was obeying the commandments.

But the signature teaching of Jesus concerning the law is found in his Sermon on the Mount, recorded in Matthew 5. In verses 17 and 18 he says, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished.” I can’t imagine a stronger statement of the Law’s continuity than that.

Some would say that Jesus “fulfilled” the Law by his death and resurrection, and after that it was abolished. Certainly Jesus fulfilled the Law by keeping it completely. But there are a few things to note here. One is that the Greek word for “accomplished” is not the word for prophecy being fulfilled; it literally means “until everything happens,” presumably until the end of time.

In connection with this, we should note that the time frame that Jesus refers to is not two or three years until his passion, but “until heaven and earth disappear.” If you are reading this, that hasn’t happened yet.

In addition, Jesus resorts to extreme language. He talks about the smallest letter or stroke of a letter, a jot or tittle in the old terminology. This clearly is done to add emphasis to his statement of the Law’s continuity.

There are some things that Jesus says or does at other times that some take as changing or abrogating the Law. We will look at them in subsequent postings. But his intent in this passage is so clear and emphatic that it’s impossible to mistake.

But just in case it could, Jesus continues by saying, “Anyone who breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, (sounds like a lot of the Christian church) but whosoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.” I want that to apply to me! Do you?

Ruth’s Example

In the book of Ruth we are introduced to a young woman who is a Gentile, a Moabite, yet she joined herself to Israel and to Israel’s God. She provides an example for those of us Gentiles who have embraced the God of Israel today.

Ruth never becomes a Jew; she is referred to throughout the book as “Ruth the Moabitess.” Yet she very specifically identifies with at least two things, the God of Israel, and the people of Israel. “Your people will be my people, and your God my God.” She becomes fully part of the covenant people to the extent that she becomes an ancestor of King David, and by extension, of the Messiah.

We see something similar in the New Testament. In Ephesians 2 Paul reminds Gentile believers in Jesus that they were once separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel, and foreigners to the covenants of the promise. But now in Christ they are brought near to God, included in citizenship in Israel, and beneficiaries of the covenants.

Paul expresses the same thing a little differently in Romans 11 where he represents believing Gentiles as wild olive branches being grafted into a cultivated olive tree. The olive tree clearly represents Israel, and through faith these Gentiles become a part of that. But they are not Jews, not cultivated olive branches. They are always wild branches that have been grafted in.

I used to think that the idea of Gentiles identifying with Israel and becoming part of the covenant people was exclusively a New Testament concept. After all, Paul emphasizes that the mystery of the gospel “is that through the gospel the Gentiles are heirs together with Israel.” (Eph. 3:6)

But then I discovered, by the reading of an excellent book, “fellowHeirs” by Tim Hegg, that to some extent this situation had been the norm throughout the life of Israel. When Moses led the Israelites out of Egypt, they were a mixed multitude. (Exodus 12:38) There were both native-born and foreigners. The Hebrew word “ger” is used to designate foreigners who had joined themselves to Israel. Many times in the books of Torah it is mentioned that there is one law for both the native-born and the foreigner. (e.g. Num. 15:14-16; Lev. 24:22)

These foreigners living among Israel and embracing God and his commands and people were analogous to the Gentile believers in Jesus in the first century. They were recipients of God’s grace and members of the covenant community.

Suppose, for the sake of argument, that during the wilderness wanderings, these foreigners had multiplied and become far more numerous than the native-born Israelites. Suppose further that these foreigners turned against the native-born and started considering them as their opponents. Suppose also that these foreigners abandoned God’s Law, considering it obsolete, but still considered themselves followers of God and his promises. That would have been a major disaster. But that was essentially what happened to the Gentile church in the second and third centuries.

If we Gentile believers in Jesus understood that our identity, like Ruth and the foreigners in Israel, depended on our connection with Israel, as well as with Israel’s God, we would be less likely to, as Paul says in Romans 11:18, “boast over those branches. If you do, consider this: You do not support the root, but the root supports you.”

Resurrection Timing

All four canonical gospels record the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Can we determine from these accounts when during the week the resurrection occurred? I think we can.

Of the four gospels, Matthew is the only one that seems to mention actual resurrection events. The other three gospels talk about effects of the resurrection, the moved stone, the empty tomb, and appearences of Jesus. These things could have been encountered at any time subsequent to the resurrection. Matthew alone mentions the earthquake, which would have marked the time of the resurrection. So it’s to Matthew that we should go for chronological details.

Most translations of Matthew 28:1 say something like, “After the Sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week…”. The translators here tend to render the words based on their assumptions, rather than the underlying Greek text. There are two words in particular that they tend to translate unnaturally, to fit what they think happened.

The first of these is the word that is often translated “after”. In all the other occurrences this word means “late”, specifically, “in the evening”. If it were translated faithfully here, it would almost certainly say, “late on the Sabbath”, that is, on Saturday evening toward sunset.

Often translation errors and misunderstandings occur because we don’t understand the Jewish concept of the day as starting and ending at sunset. This is consistent with the account in Genesis where each day of creation is described as, “the evening and the morning”. That concept is key here.

The other word that is commonly mistranslated is a Greek word that only occurs twice in the New Testament. It contains the Greek word for “light”, and that makes translators think it refers to “dawning”. In reality, it is a Greek idiom that means “draw near” or “approach”. This is made clear by its only other use, in Luke 23:54. This passage refers to Jesus being taken down from the cross because the Sabbath was approaching. It was evening, and the word can’t possibly be referring to dawn.

I light of this (so to speak), the passage in Matthew 28:1 would be more naturally rendered, “Late on the Sabbath, as the first day of the week was approaching.” This would point to a time around sunset on Saturday evening. Luke points out (23:56) that after preparing spices, the women rested on the Sabbath in obedience to the commandment. It’s only natural that they would have set out as early as they could, once the Sabbath was over, or almost over.

Another factor in favor of understanding the resurrection taking place Saturday evening is that it makes sense of Jesus’ discussion of the sign of Jonah in Matthew 12:40. “For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.”

It’s impossible to get three days and three nights into a time frame of a Friday evening crucifixion and a Sunday morning resurrection. But with a Saturday evening resurrection, we can calculate backwards to a Wednesday evening crucifixion, and have three days and three nights.

But wasn’t Jesus removed from the cross because the Sabbath was approaching? Yes, but this wasn’t necessarily the weekly Sabbath (Saturday). The first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread (the day after Passover) was to be regarded as a Sabbath, and no work was to be done on it. This day was apparently on a Thursday that year.

From the account in the gospel of Matthew, we see that it’s very likely that the resurrection of Jesus occurred shortly after sunset on Saturday evening. There were no doubt encounters and appearances to various people at several times during the night and morning, as recorded in the gospel accounts. But it makes sense to think of the resurrection actually occurring immediately after the Sabbath, on Saturday evening.

Sunday Observance

It comes as a surprise to many, but there is not even a hint in the New Testament of Sunday being a special day, let alone a replacement for God’s chosen Sabbath. Certainly the first day of the week is mentioned a few times, but every time, without exception, the significance of the mention is that it is not the Sabbath.

The first day is mentioned in the gospels in connection with the resurrection narrative. I can’t prove it, but it seems very likely to me that the reason God waited until after the Sabbath to raise Jesus is that he didn’t think it was appropriate to do on the Sabbath. It did represent his day of rest, after all.

But aside from the resurrection accounts, there are only two mentions of the first day in the New Testament, one in Acts 20:7 and the other in I Cor. 16:2. Neither one involves a gathering for worship.

In the Acts 20 passage we see Paul arriving to join his companions at Troas. Paul was in a hurry to continue on to Jerusalem for the feast of Shavuot (Pentecost), as all Jewish men were commanded in Deuteronomy 16:16 to go to Jerusalem three times a year. He wouldn’t be leaving on the Sabbath, so he planned to set sail the day after the Sabbath, what we would think of as Sunday.

Acts 20:7 says, “On the first day of the week we came together to break bread.” Our first reaction, given our culture, is often that this was a Sunday morning communion service. But we need to remember a couple of things. First, the Jews reckoned a day as being from sunset to the next sunset, consistent with the Genesis account of creation, where “the evening and the morning” were the first day. This gathering in Acts 20 occurs fairly late in the evening, since Paul continues talking until midnight. It seems obvious that this is a late Saturday evening gathering.

The second thing we need to be aware of is that preparation of cooked food was forbidden on the Sabbath. In order to have a banquet for Paul’s going-away, they needed to wait until after the Sabbath to prepare the food. Since this was in early spring, just after the feast of unleavened bread, sunset would bave occurred about six o’clock. Then, with an hour or two to cook the food, they could have gathered about eight or nine in the evening.

We also need to be aware that the phrase “break bread” is an idiom for having a meal together. It is used several times in the gospels and Acts. Nowhere does it clearly mean taking communion, and in some places it can’t possibly mean that. It’s more natural to take this event as a pot-luck supper on Saturday evening to celebrate Paul’s departure.

The passage does say that Paul talked until midnight, which might make us think of a long sermon, especially since somebody fell asleep and fell from a window. But the primary Greek word for Paul talking is the word from which we get the word “dialogue”. It’s likely that Paul was not giving a speech, but just conversing with other people there.

To repeat, the reason this gathering was held on the “first day of the week” was because hot food was not to be prepared on the Sabbath, so another day had to be chosen.

The other mention of the first day is in I Cor. 16:2 and the circumstance is similar. It was the understanding of Jews that money was not to be handled on the Sabbath. So Paul instructs his readers to put aside money weekly, i.e. on the first day of the week, so it will be ready when he comes.

This is not an offering in a meeting, but a setting aside of money at home on a regular basis, perhaps on payday. Paul is encouraging people to make a voluntary contribution toward the needy in Jerusalem.

There is one more passage that bears mentioning. In Revelation 1:10 the author writes, “I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day.” It’s true that Sunday began to be called “the Lord’s day”, but that was considerably later than this time. Since the subject of the book of Revelation is the events of the time the prophets called the “day of the Lord”, it seems best to take the statement as John saying that he was spiritually transported to a future day of judgment.

Those who try to use these passages to support a practice of revering Sunday as a special, divinely-favored day are doing it without any biblical warrant whatsoever. God designated the seventh day as the Sabbath at the time of creation, and reiterated it at the giving of the law at Mt. Sinai. Jesus and the apostles kept the seventh-day Sabbath, and as his followers, we are expected to do so as well. Even the writer to the Hebrews reminds us of this when he writes, “There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God.” (Heb.4:9)