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Matthew 12:9-14

Matthew has shown that while most Jews in Galilee were indifferent to the message of Jesus, the religious
rulers were becoming actively opposed to it.

As chapter 12 began, we saw that the Pharisees specifically confronted Jesus about what they perceived to
be a violation of the Sabbath, on the part of Jesus’ disciples - plucking heads of grain, and eating them -
which the Pharisees equated with reaping and threshing - working, on the Sabbath.

Jesus provided two examples from their Scriptures which demonstrated that the One who created the
Sabbath had the authority to define its rest, and to make exceptions to it. And who was it who created the
Sabbath? That’s the LORD God; He rested on the seventh day, from the work of creation, and then
commemorated the Sabbath rest in the Law that He gave to His nation Israel.

Addressing the Pharisees, Jesus claimed that authority - over the Sabbath - for Himself: “the Son of Man is
Lord even of the Sabbath” (12:8). This was a claim to Deity, which the Pharisees were sure not to have
missed.

As Lord of the Sabbath, Jesus had the right to define its rest, and to except people from it. But would He
ever have done so capriciously? Of course not.

The disciples were ministering with Jesus, and didn’t have time to prepare a meal. They got hungry; they
ate heads of grain, in accordance with the provision made by the LORD in the Law. Doing so wasn’t work.

The disciples were learning from Jesus; learning what it was to find rest for their souls, in Him (11:29).
The verdict of Jesus was that the disciples were “not guilty” - despite the accusation of the Pharisees.

As we continue in verse 9, we find Matthew now records another confrontation with the Pharisees.

[Matthew 12:9-14]

In Matthew’s account, this episode follows directly after the previous one, almost making the two events
sound like they occurred on the same Sabbath.

Mark and Luke indicate they actually occurred on different Sabbaths. But all three of these gospel writers
group the two events together, to emphasize the intensity of the opposition to Jesus on the part of the
Pharisees, particularly over the Sabbath.

Although only Jesus and the Pharisees are mentioned by Matthew, in his typical abbreviated way, the other
accounts bring out more details: the disciples of Jesus are with Him (Mk 3:7), there are also scribes present
(Lk 6:7) and the synagogue is apparently filled with Jews, for Jesus taught the people, before healing the
man with the withered hand (Lk 6:6).

And behold - there the man was. He just happened to be right there, in the sight of Jesus. Or did that just
happen? Although we cannot go so far as to say this was a complete set-up on the part of the Pharisees,
they certainly saw in this man the perfect test-case for Jesus.

Jesus had pronounced Himself the Lord of the Sabbath, suggesting that He had the authority to have the say
over what was done, on that sacred day - what was permitted, and what was unlawful.
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So what would Jesus do, in this case? The Pharisees intended this as a challenge, to Jesus - and notice,
they don’t plan to just debate the issue; they are looking to accuse Him; that is, to bring a charge against
Him, in the legal sense - something that would have been done, at the synagogue - their synagogue, as
Matthew indicates (v. 9) - how convenient!

But we wonder, whatever would be the charge? Could healing someone be considered work? Not
according to the Law of Moses. There was no actual law forbidding the giving of medicine, or healing, or
any other acts of mercy on the Sabbath.

And healing wasn’t even in one of the 39 forbidden categories that the rabbis had added, to the Law. But
by Jesus’ day, the general consensus was that healing was not permitted on the Sabbath; the strictest
religious Jews even forbade praying for healing, on the Sabbath. How sad is that?

So these Pharisees knew they had the religious authorities of the day behind them, concerning healing on
the Sabbath.
Now, notice that their testing of Jesus was to see if He would heal this man, on the Sabbath. That makes it
evident that they know that Jesus is able do it.

Now, just think about that for a moment. The Pharisees know - for a fact - that Jesus can miraculously heal
this man; how do they know this? Because Jesus has healed everyone, of everything!

These Pharisees could not escape the fact that Jesus had supernatural ability to heal any and every affliction
- Divine power - and despite that, they refused to submit themselves to Him; they would not repent. That’s
how much they had hardened their hearts, against God.

Now, the Pharisees did not bring just any man to Jesus, to be healed; they brought this man, with the
withered hand. Luke, with a physician’s attention to bodily details, records that it was the man’s right hand
that was withered. That would have been a greater disability, for most people, as that was usually the
dominant hand.

So what does it mean, that the hand was withered? The word in the Greek literally means “dried”; like a
shriveled-up plant. The term is generally used in cases of paralyzed limbs - here it would be the man’s
right arm. The hand was withered because the muscles had atrophied. In an agrarian culture, this would
have been a significant disability. But - on the other hand, his disability wasn’t life-threatening, was it?
No.

Now, some of the rabbis made exception for healing on the Sabbath, in the case of imminent danger of
death. And that’s exactly why the Pharisees settled on this man - because with a withered hand, he was not
in any danger of dying. There was really no logical reason why he had to be healed, on the Sabbath. His
hand could certainly wait another day.

But the Lord of the Sabbath saw it quite differently. Let’s read that again, beginning in verse 11.

v. 11-12 What’s humorous here is to realize that Jesus was apparently familiar with the rabbinical
discussions, of the day - He was referring to some of them, here.

Now, there is nothing in the Law of Moses that addresses what to do if your sheep falls into a pit, on the
Sabbath. Well, the teachers of Israel felt that the Law needed more definition, there - so they created it
themselves.
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The older rabbinical writings declared it was unlawful to lift an animal out of the pit, if it was the Sabbath.
But the rabbinical consensus had shifted by this day. Hmm… shifting truth!

In Jesus’ day, some of the teachers permitted throwing things into the pit to enable the animal to climb out;
others permitted feeding the animal in the pit, and then lifting it out the next day. The idea behind this was
that alleviating the animal’s suffering overrode the Sabbath regulation.

The question Jesus asks in verse 11 presumes that no man would allow his animal to just remain in a pit -
Sabbath or no. Out of compassion, they would lift the animal out. Wordlessly, you know that everyone in
the synagogue was agreeing with Jesus on that.

Then Jesus points out the obvious - that a man is more valuable than a sheep. That’s true; but why is it
true? Because only a man has the capacity to become a son of God; a man is more valuable, based on
God’s creation and purpose for men - to become born-again children in His family. All men naturally
understand they are more valuable than animals.

What Jesus was bringing out with this illustration of compassion is that love is always the highest law (Matt
22:36-40; Ja 2:8) - God’s love; the love which gives what is needed, for the other’s good. The Sabbath was
made for man - to provide rest and fellowship with God. But that rest is always to be overruled, by the
actions of love.

For Jesus, the need of this disabled man - which He could meet - was greater than the need to rest.
Therefore Jesus would act, and act promptly. Jesus would hasten to meet the man’s need, on the Sabbath,
out of His compassion for the man. His love would not wait.

As Jesus concludes His statement to the Pharisees, which was opened up to all the Jews in the synagogue,
notice He doesn’t just say, “Therefore, it is lawful to heal on the Sabbath” - in response to their
interrogation of Him. No - Jesus goes further - painting the Sabbath with the broadest stroke imaginable. It
is lawful, not just to heal - but to do good - any good - on the Sabbath.

Well, what’s a Pharisee to make of that? Jesus had just given the people carte blanche; now, whatever they
think is good, that’s what they’ll do. They’ll rationalize anything they want to do as good, and feel they
have the freedom to do it. Why, they’ll all be threshing grain with their hands!

But is that what Jesus said? Did He say it is lawful to do whatever they think is good, on the Sabbath? No;
Jesus said they are permitted to do good on the Sabbath. That’s different. What they do must actually be
good; not just something they think is good.

Hmm. How are they to know what is truly good? People get good and evil confused all the time. You
think something is good, and it turns out to be terrible. You think something is awful, and later, you see
that it was actually good.

Who’s the only One who knows what’s good? God. In order to do good on the Sabbath, the people would
have to go to God - to learn what actually is good for them, to do. That’s personal, isn’t it? That requires
fellowship with the Lord.

Well, that’s just what Jesus has been offering the Jews, isn’t it (11:28-30)? It’s what God has always
desired of His people, from the beginning - to come to Him, believing, and receive peace with God; then to
learn from Him, so that peace can rule over their hearts. The Lord of the Sabbath was ready to give them a
relationship with God, in which they could rest.
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There was one present that day who seemed ready to enter into that relationship. And for that purpose,
Jesus would lay hold of him in the pit and lift him up.

v. 13 We know almost nothing about this man, do we? We just know him by his disability. That’s often
how people see such a person - through their disability. That’s how the Pharisees saw him; and worse, they
sought to exploit his disability, to entrap Jesus. For them, there was nothing personal about it.

But for Jesus, it was all about the personal. Jesus did not see a disabled man. Jesus saw someone with the
potential to become a son of God. Jesus saw someone he could heal - spirit, soul and body.

Mark indicates in his gospel that Jesus looked around at the Pharisees, and was angry with them - grieved,
because of the hardness of their hearts (Mk 3:5). And we think, how could it be that they had no
compassion for this man?

Yet what son of Adam ever considers anyone but themselves? And when this is joined with religious pride
and self-righteousness, the result is monstrous, indeed. But the love of Jesus would not be swayed.

We see that Jesus gave the man a command, to obey: “stretch out your hand”. We should think about that
for a moment. Jesus didn’t just say “hold out your hand”; He said to “stretch” it out; the idea is to extend it
straight out. There was no way this man could obey that command.

If indeed his arm was paralyzed, he would have been powerless to lift his hand from his side. Even if only
his hand was affected, it was contorted and atrophied from the paralysis; he was incapable of stretching it
out, as Jesus was indicting.

But what do we read, here? The man stretched it out. No doubt, this man had heard about Jesus, like
everyone in the region. No doubt, he had heard about Jesus’ ability to heal anything; and everyone. And
now, the man had a choice; to continue to live by the seen and the felt, by what he always knew - that he
could not stretch forth his hand; or to believe Jesus, to do it.

And we see that the man put his faith in Jesus. By faith, he stretched forth his hand - and as he did, his
hand was instantly healed - it was as whole as the other. Just like that, the disability had been completely
and forever changed to ability; he now had the power to use his hand. Jesus had lifted him out of the pit of
despair.

Not another word was said, about this man in any of the accounts. Circumstances brought him to Jesus; he
chose to believe in Him; Jesus made him completely whole. His story is our story, isn’t it?

And it could have become the story of everyone in the synagogue, that day. It could have become the
Pharisees’ story, too; but instead, they hardened their hearts the more, against Jesus.

v. 14 So the Pharisees went out. From the synagogue, right? Their synagogue. The very place that they
viewed as their own ground. Why did they leave? Well, think about what the reaction of the Jews in the
synagogue must have been after Jesus healed the man.

They would have been astounded by the miracle, recognizing it to be the work of God. They would have
been affirming Jesus, who taught it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath - contrary to what their teachers the
Pharisees had always told them. The Pharisees had lost their ground - even if only temporarily. So they
left.
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But they left, enraged. Jesus was encroaching on their authority; their power and prestige, with the people.
They had appointed themselves as teachers of the Jews - they had secured that position for themselves - and
now Jesus was exposing their teaching as being contrary to God’s thinking. The Pharisees found this
intolerable, and resolved to destroy Jesus.

But how exactly how would they do this? What were they plotting? While it is true that the Law of Moses
indicates that breaking the Sabbath is punishable by death (Ex 31:14), Jewish courts had been stripped of
executing the death penalty by Rome, who reserved that judgment for themselves.

In addition, this was Galilee. These Pharisees were part of just a local synagogue, which had limited
authority. And the Pharisees in general had little political power at this time; their main influence was as
the religious teachers of the people.

So in what way did they plot to destroy Jesus, then? Certainly they sought to ruin His reputation, and thus
His authority, with the people. Getting Jesus to heal on the Sabbath was an attempt at this - though it
failed, for the people recognized the good, in the healing.

There would be many more attempts on the part of the religious rulers to undermine Jesus, with the people
- His character, His authority, His teaching.

But it is also possible here that, in their rage, these Pharisees - the self-appointed keepers of the Law - were
considering taking the law into their own hands, and putting Jesus to death - much as Jesus’ home town,
Nazareth, had sought to cast Him over a cliff (Lk 4:28-29).

The likelihood of this is seen as the passage continues in verse 15, for when Jesus heard of what they were
plotting, He withdrew from the region. We’ll be looking into that next time.

For the remainder of this week, I want to spend a little more time thinking with you about the Sabbath.
There are people in our day who believe that the church is to keep the Sabbath - except not on Saturday,
according to most - on Sunday, right?

And some today can be just as legalistic as the Pharisees about the Sabbath - with their own mental list of
things that must not be done, on that day. So as believers in Jesus - Christ Ones - are we to keep the
Sabbath? And if so, how do we keep it?

Well, first let’s recall a few things we learned last week. When God finished creating the heavens and the
earth, forming and filling it, God Himself rested on the seventh day, and He sanctified that day, setting it
apart as holy (Gen 2:1-3).

But God gave the Sabbath to His nation Israel to keep - the people of His possession - the privilege of
resting with the LORD their God, in His finished work of creation - a day to pursue their relationship with
Him - a day of refreshment.

And the Sabbath had even greater meaning to Israel, for we learned it was given to the nation as a sign - a
prophetic indicator. The Sabbath not only commemorates the past work of creation; it points forward to the
future work of redemption.

Throughout His life, Jesus rested in His Father’s will, in perfect obedience. He was obedient to death; even
the death of the cross (Phil 2:8). And what was it that Jesus cried out, marking the end of His travail on the
cross? It is finished (Jn 19:30); the work of redeeming men had been completed.
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The following day was the Sabbath. As the Jews rested from their work, the body of Jesus rested in the
grave, His work complete on behalf of all men - both Jew and Gentile.

The next morning, Jesus broke His rest. He arose from the grave, in a new resurrected body of spirit-life.
Jesus was the firstborn from the dead, the beginning of a new creation - the sons of God. And then Jesus
began a new work, on the earth - to reconcile men to God, which He continues doing through the members
of His Body, to this day.

So we see that the Sabbath as a sign pictures entering into the finished work of God by faith; resting in it -
believing that you are solely a product of God’s work - created by Him as part of the old creation in Adam;
but then redeemed by Him, a new creation in Christ. In believing, you enter into the finished work of God
on your behalf, and you rest in it - a completed son of God.

This was as true in ancient Israel’s time as it is for us today - for the Lamb was slain from the foundation of
the world (Rev 13:8). Israel was shown this truth in picture form - through the ceremonial Law, through
the Tabernacle service, even through their wilderness experiences.

The writer to the Hebrews said that the gospel was preached to us as well as to them. The problem was that
Israel did not mix the word with faith - so as a nation, they did not enter into His rest.

Turn to Hebrews chapter 4. The writer was exhorting his Jewish listeners not to harden their hearts against
God, as Israel did throughout their history - but to believe into the work that God has done on their behalf,
through Christ.

It was for this reason that Israel never entered into His rest - because of unbelief (3:18). Therefore, the
writer indicates a promise remains of entering into His rest - for those who will believe.

[Hebrews 4:1-10]

v. 1 The idea here is a holy fear; a reverential awe of God. When God found previous generations of Israel
fell short of believing in Him, He did not allow them to enter His rest. God will do the same with these
Jews, if they will not believe.

v. 2 Again, the writer is referring to all of the pictures shown to Israel through their Scriptures of their
Coming Messiah, and the work that He would do on their behalf, to redeem them. This is how the gospel
was preached to Israel.

v. 3-5 This is why the Sabbath reflects both God’s work of creation and redemption; from God’s eternal
perspective, His work is all finished.

v. 6-7 The rest of God was still being offered in David’s day; Israel had still not entered into it.

v. 8 This is speaking of Joshua taking the second generation of Israel into the land. They believed God to
go into the land, but that generation still did not believe God for their Coming Messiah, to enter into God’s
rest for them, in His kingdom.

Now the writer will open this up to the Jews he is writing to, in that day.
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v. 9-10 The invitation remained open in that day, as it still is today. When Israel refused their Messiah at
His coming, God set them aside, and took out a new people for Himself, who would enter into His rest -
and who is that? The Body of Christ, the church - those who simply trust in Jesus, to save them.

As members of the Body of Christ then, we have entered into the reality of the rest that was just pictured in
the Sabbath.

When Jesus came, He perfectly fulfilled the Law, through His righteous life, and His sacrificial death. The
new covenant was ratified in His blood, making the first covenant - the covenant of the Law - obsolete
(Heb 8:8-13). So being united with Christ through faith, we always keep the Sabbath - for we rest - in Him.

But what about church on Sunday? Well, we do see two occasions in the NT showing that the local church
met on the first day of the week - which was Sunday (Acts 20:7, 1 Cor 16:2).

This is the day when Jesus was raised from the dead. His resurrection marked the finished work of
redemption, and it may be the early church met on Sunday in honor of this. It may also have been known
as the Lord’s day (Rev 1:10).

But this doesn’t mean that they only met on this day. There is no command given to the church to keep the
Sabbath, or to meet on Sundays. The only command that pertains to this specifically is that believers are
not to forsake the gathering of themselves together (Heb 10:25).

This leaves believers free to congregate at any time - to learn, to fellowship - and to worship their Lord.
Does this mean that routinely gathering together on Sunday is a bad idea? By no means!

Jesus said the Sabbath was made for man; it was intended by God as a respite to serve all men; as a time of
fellowship and refreshment, with the Lord. And what that looks like in the lives of believers may vary.

To this, Jesus added that man was not made for the Sabbath (Mk 2:27); man was never intended by God to
be restricted by innumerable, unbearable Sabbath rules. That would be bondage; no freedom to rest there!

So where does that leave you then? What should you do? Well, you have chosen to respond to the
invitation of Jesus, to come to Him, by faith - and He has given you rest. Now you are learning from Him,
to live by faith - to always rest, in His perfect will for you.

As the Lord of the Sabbath, Jesus can show you exactly what is good for you - and how to rest with Him.
All you need to do is ask Him!

Reading: Matthew 12:15-21; Isaiah 42; 49:1-6; Phil 2:5-11

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