In the fullness of time God sent forth his Son to be the Saviour of the world. He who fulfilled this mission of infinite benevolence was both the Son of God and the Son of man. He was with the Father before the world was, and by him God created all things.[244] The Sabbath being ordained at the close of that great work as a memorial to keep it in lasting remembrance, the Son of God, by whom all things were created, could not be otherwise than a perfect judge of its true design, and of its proper observance. The sixty-nine weeks of Daniel’s prophecy being accomplished, the Redeemer began to preach, saying, “The time is fulfilled.”[245] The ministry of the Saviour was at a time when the Sabbath of the Lord had become utterly perverted from its gracious design, by the teaching of the Jewish doctors. As we have seen in the previous chapter, it was to the people no longer a source of refreshment and delight, but a cause of suffering and distress. It had been loaded down with traditions by the doctors of the law until its merciful and beneficent design was utterly hidden beneath the rubbish of men’s inventions. It being impracticable for Satan, after the Babylonish captivity, to cause the Jewish people, even by bloody edicts, to relinquish the Sabbath and openly to profane it as before that time, he turned their doctors so to pervert it, that its real character should be utterly changed and its observance entirely unlike that which would please God. We shall find that the Saviour never missed an opportunity to correct their false notions respecting the Sabbath; and that he selected, with evident design, the Sabbath as the day on which to perform many of his merciful works. It will be found that no small share of his teaching through his whole ministry was devoted to a determination of what was lawful on the Sabbath, a singular fact for those to explain who think that he designed its abrogation. At the opening of our Lord’s ministry, we read thus:—

Such was the manner of the Saviour relative to the Sabbath. It is evident that in this he designed to show his regard for that day; for it was not necessary thus to do in order to gain a congregation, as vast multitudes were ever ready to throng his steps. His testimony being rejected, our Lord left Nazareth for Capernaum. Thus the sacred historian says:—

These miracles are the first which stand upon record as performed by the Saviour upon the Sabbath. But the strictness of Jewish views relative to the Sabbath is seen in that they waited till sunset, that is, till the Sabbath was passed,[248] before they brought the sick to be healed. Thus it is added:—

The next mention of the Sabbath is of peculiar interest:—

The parallel text in Mark has an important addition to the conclusion as stated by Matthew:—

The following points should be noted in examining this text:—

1. That the question at issue did not relate to the act of passing through the corn on the Sabbath; for the Pharisees themselves were in the company; and hence it may be concluded that the Saviour and those with him were either going to, or returning from, the synagogue.

2. That the question raised by the Pharisees was this: Whether the disciples, in satisfying their hunger from the corn through which they were passing, were not violating the law of the Sabbath.

3. That he to whom this question was proposed was in the highest degree competent to answer it; for he was with the Father when the Sabbath was made.[252]

4. That the Saviour was pleased to appeal to scriptural precedents for the decision of this question, rather than to assert his own independent judgment.

5. That the first case cited by the Saviour was peculiarly appropriate. David, fleeing for his life, entered the house of God upon the Sabbath,[253] and ate the shew-bread to satisfy his hunger. The disciples, to relieve their hunger, simply ate of the corn through which they were passing upon the Sabbath. If David did right, though eating in his necessity of that which belonged only to the priests, how little of blame could be attached to the disciples who had not even violated a precept of the ceremonial law? Thus much for the disciples’ satisfying their hunger as they did upon the Sabbath. Our Lord’s next example is designed to show what labor upon the Sabbath is not a violation of its sacredness.

6. And hence the case of the priests is cited. The same God who had said in the fourth commandment, “Six days shalt thou labor and do all thy work,” had commanded that the priests upon the Sabbath should offer certain sacrifices in his temple.[254]

Herein was no contradiction; for the labor performed by the priests upon the Sabbath was simply the maintenance of the appointed worship of God in his temple, and was not doing what the commandment calls “thy work.” Labor of this kind, therefore, the Saviour being judge, was not, and never had been, a violation of the Sabbath.

7. But it is highly probable that the Saviour, in this reference to the priests, had his mind not merely upon the sacrifices which they offered upon the Sabbath, but upon the fact that they were required to prepare new shew-bread every Sabbath; when the old was to be removed from the table before the Lord and eaten by them.[255] This view of the matter would connect the case of the priests with that of David, and both would bear with wonderful distinctness upon the act of the disciples. Then our Lord’s argument could be appreciated when he adds: “But I say unto you, That in this place is one greater than the temple.” So that if the shew-bread was to be prepared each Sabbath for the use of those who ministered in the temple, and those who did this were guiltless, how free from guilt also must be the disciples who, in following Him that was greater than the temple, but who had not where to lay his head, had eaten of the standing corn upon the Sabbath to relieve their hunger?

8. But our Lord next lays down a principle worthy of the most serious attention. Thus he adds: “But if ye had known what this meaneth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice, ye would not have condemned the guiltless.” The Most High had ordained certain labor to be performed upon the Sabbath, in order that sacrifices might be offered to himself. But Christ affirms upon the authority of the Scriptures,[256] that there is something far more acceptable to God than sacrifices, and that this is acts of mercy. If God held those guiltless who offered sacrifices upon the Sabbath, how much less would he condemn those who extend mercy and relief to the distressed and suffering, upon that day.

9. Nor does the Saviour even leave the subject here; for he adds: “The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath; therefore the Son of man is Lord also of the Sabbath.” If the Sabbath was made, certain acts were necessary in order to give existence to it. What were those acts? (1) God rested upon the seventh day. This made the seventh day the rest-day or Sabbath of the Lord. (2) He blessed the day; thus it became his holy day. (3) He sanctified it, or set it apart to a holy use; thus its observance became a part of man’s duty toward God. There must be a time when these acts were performed. And on this point there is really no room for controversy. They were not performed at Sinai, nor in the wilderness of Sin, but in paradise. And this is strikingly confirmed by the language here used by the Saviour: “The Sabbath was made for the man, not the man for the Sabbath;”[257] thus citing our minds to the man Adam that was made of the dust of the ground, and affirming that the Sabbath was made for him; a conclusive testimony that the Sabbath originated in paradise. This fact is happily illustrated by a statement of the apostle Paul: “Neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman for the man.”[258] It will not be denied that this language has direct reference to the creation of Adam and Eve. If then we turn back to the beginning, we shall find Adam made of the dust of the ground, Eve taken from his side, and the Sabbath made of the seventh day.[259] Thus the Saviour, to complete the solution of the question raised by the Pharisees, traces the Sabbath back to the beginning, as he does the institution of marriage when the same class proposed for his decision the lawfulness of divorce.[260] His careful statement of the design of the Sabbath and of marriage, tracing each to the beginning, in the one case striking down their perversion of the Sabbath, in the other, that of marriage, is the most powerful testimony in behalf of the sacredness of each institution. The argument in the one case stands thus: In the beginning God created one man and one woman, designing that they two should be one flesh. The marriage relation therefore was designed to unite simply two persons, and this union should be sacred and indissoluble. Such was the bearing of his argument upon the question of divorce. In relation to the Sabbath, his argument is this: God made the Sabbath for the man that he made of the dust of the ground; and being thus made for an unfallen race, it can only be a merciful and beneficent institution. He who made the Sabbath for man before the fall saw what man needed, and knew how to supply that want. It was given to him for rest, refreshment, and delight; a character that it sustained after the fall,[261] but which the Jews had wholly lost sight of.[262] And thus our Lord lays open his whole heart concerning the Sabbath. He carefully determines what works are not a violation of the Sabbath; and this he does by Old-Testament examples, that it may be evident that he is introducing no change in the institution; he sets aside their rigorous and burdensome traditions concerning the Sabbath, by tracing it back to its merciful origin in paradise; and having thus disencumbered the Sabbath of Pharisaic rigor, he leaves it upon its paradisiacal foundation, enforced by all the authority and sacredness of that law which he came not to destroy, but to magnify and make honorable.[263]

10. Having thus divested the Sabbath of all Pharisaic additions, our Lord concludes with this remarkable declaration: “Therefore the Son of man is Lord also of the Sabbath.” (1) It was not a disparagement to the Sabbath, but an honor, that God’s only Son should claim to be its Lord. (2) Nor was it derogatory to the character of the Redeemer to be the Lord of the Sabbath; with all the high honors pertaining to his messiahship he is also Lord of the Sabbath. Or, if we take the expression in Matthew, he is “Lord even of the Sabbath day,” it implies that it is not a small honor to possess such a title. (3) This title implies that the Messiah should be the protector, and not the destroyer, of the Sabbath. And hence that he was the rightful being to decide the proper nature of Sabbatic observance. With these memorable words ends our Lord’s first discourse concerning the Sabbath.

From this time the Pharisees watched the Saviour to find an accusation against him of violating the Sabbath. The next example will show the malignity of their hearts, their utter perversion of the Sabbath, the urgent need of an authoritative correction of their false teachings respecting it, and the Saviour’s unanswerable defense:—

What was the act that caused this madness of the Pharisees? On the part of the Saviour, it was a word; on the part of the man, it was the act of stretching out his arm. Did the law of the Sabbath forbid either of these things? No one can affirm such a thing. But the Saviour had publicly transgressed that tradition of the Pharisees that forbade the doing of anything whatever toward the healing of the sick upon the Sabbath. And how necessary that such a wicked tradition should be swept away, if the Sabbath itself was to be preserved for man. But the Pharisees were filled with such madness that they went out of the synagogue and consulted how they might destroy the Saviour. Yet Jesus only acted in behalf of the Sabbath in setting aside those traditions by which they had perverted it.

After this, our Lord returned into his own country, and thus we read of him:—

Not far from this time we find the Saviour at Jerusalem, and the following miracle was performed upon the Sabbath:—

Our Lord here stands charged with two crimes: 1. He had broken the Sabbath. 2. He had made himself equal with God. The first accusation is based on these particulars: (1) By his word he had healed the impotent man. But this violated no law of God; it only set at naught that tradition which forbade anything to be done for curing diseases upon the Sabbath. (2) He had directed the man to carry his bed. But this as a burden was a mere trifle,[267] like a cloak or mat, and was designed to show the reality of his cure, and thus to honor the Lord of the Sabbath who had healed him. Moreover, it was not such a burden as the Scriptures forbid upon the Sabbath.[268] (3) Jesus justified what he had done by comparing his present act of healing to that work which his Father had done hitherto, i. e., from the beginning of the creation. Ever since the Sabbath was sanctified in paradise, the Father, by his providence, had continued to mankind, even upon the Sabbath, all the merciful acts by which the human race has been preserved. This work of the Father was of precisely the same nature as that which Jesus had now done. These acts did not argue that the Father had hitherto lightly esteemed the Sabbath, for he had most solemnly enjoined its observance in the law and in the prophets;[269] and as our Lord had most expressly recognized their authority,[270] there was no ground to accuse him of disregarding the Sabbath, when he had only followed the example of the Father from the beginning. The Saviour’s answer to these two charges will remove all difficulty:—

This answer involves two points: 1. That he was following his Father’s perfect example, who had ever laid open to him all his works; and hence as he was doing that only which had ever been the pleasure of the Father to do, he was not engaged in the overthrow of the Sabbath. 2. And by the meek humility of this answer—“The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do”—he showed the groundlessness of their charge of self-exaltation. Thus, in nothing was there left a chance to answer him again.

Several months after this, the same case of healing was under discussion:

This Scripture contains our Lord’s second answer relative to healing the impotent man upon the Sabbath. In his first answer he rested his defense upon the fact that what he had done was precisely the same as that which his Father had done hitherto, that is, from the beginning of the world; which implies that the Sabbath had existed from the same point, else the example of the Father during this time would not be relevant. In this, his second answer, a similar point is involved relative to the origin of the Sabbath. His defense this time rests upon the fact that his act of healing no more violated the Sabbath than did the act of circumcising upon the Sabbath. But if circumcision, which was ordained in the time of Abraham, was older than the Sabbath—as it certainly was if the Sabbath originated in the wilderness of Sin—there would be an impropriety in the allusion; for circumcision would be entitled to the priority as the more ancient institution. It would be strictly proper to speak of the more recent institution as involving no violation of an older one; but it would be otherwise to speak of an ancient institution as involving no violation of one more recent. The language therefore implies that the Sabbath was older than circumcision; in other words, more ancient than the days of Abraham. These two answers of the Saviour are certainly in harmony with the unanimous testimony of the sacred writers, that the Sabbath originated with the sanctification of the rest-day of the Lord in Eden.

What had the Saviour done to justify the hatred of the Jewish people toward him? He had healed upon the Sabbath, with one word, a man who had been helpless thirty-eight years. Was not this act in strict accordance with the Sabbatic institution? Our Lord has settled this point in the affirmative by weighty and unanswerable arguments,[273] not in this case alone, but in others already noticed, and also in those which remain to be noticed. Had he left the man in his wretchedness because it was the Sabbath, when a word would have healed him, he would have dishonored the Sabbath, and thrown reproach upon its Author. We shall find the Lord of the Sabbath still further at work in its behalf in rescuing it from the hands of those who had so utterly perverted its design; a work quite unnecessary, had he designed to nail the institution to his cross.

The next incident to be noticed is the case of the man that was born blind. Jesus seeing him said:—

Here is the record of another of our Lord’s merciful acts upon the Sabbath day. He saw a man blind from his birth; moved with compassion toward him, he moistened clay and anointed his eyes, and sent him to the pool to wash; and when he had washed he received sight. The act was alike worthy of the Sabbath and of its Lord: and it pertains only to the opponents of the Sabbath now, as it pertained only to the enemies of its Lord then, to see in this even the slightest violation of the Sabbath.

After this we read as follows:—

This time a daughter of Abraham, that is, a pious woman,[276] who had been bound by Satan eighteen years, was loosed from that bond upon the Sabbath day. Jesus silenced the clamor of his enemies by an appeal to their own course of action in loosing the ox and leading him to water upon the Sabbath. With this answer our Lord made ashamed all his adversaries, and all the people rejoiced for all the glorious things that were done by him. The last of these glorious acts with which Jesus honored the Sabbath is thus narrated:—

It is evident that the Pharisees and lawyers durst not answer the question, Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath day? If they said, “Yes,” they condemned their own tradition. If they said, “No,” they were unable to sustain their answer by fair argument. Hence they remained silent. And when Jesus had healed the man, he asked a second question equally embarrassing: Which of you shall have an ox fall into a pit and will not straightway pull him out on the Sabbath? They could not answer him again to these things. It is apparent that our Lord’s argument with the Pharisees from time to time relative to the Sabbath had satisfied them at last that silence relative to their traditions was wiser than speech. In his public teaching the Saviour declared that the weightier matters of the law were judgment, mercy, and faith;[278] and his long-continued and powerful effort in behalf of the Sabbath, was to vindicate it as a merciful institution, and to rid it of Pharisaic traditions, by which it was perverted from its original purpose. Those who oppose the Sabbath are here guilty of unfairness in two particulars: 1. They represent these Pharisaic rigors as actually belonging to the Sabbatic institution. By this means they turn the minds of men against the Sabbath. 2. And having done this they represent the effort of the Saviour to set aside those traditions as directed to the overthrow of the Sabbath itself.

And now we come to the Saviour’s memorable discourse upon the mount of Olives, on the very eve of his crucifixion, in which for the last time he mentions the Sabbath:—

In this language our Lord brings to view the dreadful calamities of the Jewish people, and the destruction of their city and temple as predicted by Daniel the prophet;[280] and his watchful care over his people as their Lord leads him to point out their means of escape.

1. He gives them a token by which they should know when this terrible overthrow was immediately impending. It was “the abomination of desolation” standing “in the holy place;” or, as expressed by Luke, the token was “Jerusalem compassed with armies.”[281] The fulfillment of this sign is recorded by the historian Josephus. After stating that Cestius, the Roman commander, at the commencement of the contest between the Jews and the Romans, encompassed the city of Jerusalem with an army, he adds:—

2. This sign being seen, the disciples were to know that the desolation of Jerusalem was nigh. “Then,” says Christ, “let them which be in Judea flee into the mountains.” Josephus records the fulfillment of this injunction:—

Eusebius also relates its fulfillment:—

3. So imminent was the danger when this sign should be seen that not a moment was to be lost. He that was upon the house-top could not even come down to take a single article from his house. The man that was in the field was forbidden to return to the house for his clothes. Not a moment was to be lost; they must flee as they were, and flee for life. And pitiable indeed was the case of those who could not flee.

4. In view of the fact that the disciples must flee the moment that the promised token should appear, our Lord directed them to pray for two things: 1. That their flight should not be in the winter. 2. That it should not be upon the Sabbath day. Their pitiable situation should they be compelled to flee to the mountains in the depth of winter, without time to even take their clothes, sufficiently attests the importance of the first of these petitions, and the tender care of Jesus as the Lord of his people. The second of these petitions will be found equally expressive of his care as Lord of the Sabbath.

5. But it is replied that this last petition has reference only to the fact that the Jews would then be keeping the Sabbath strictly, and as a consequence the city gates would be closed that day, and those be punished with death who should attempt to flee; and hence this petition indicates nothing in proof of Christ’s regard for the Sabbath. An assertion so often and so confidently uttered should be well founded in truth; yet a brief examination will show that such is not the case. 1. The Saviour’s language has reference to the whole land of Judea, and not to Jerusalem only: “Let them which be in Judea flee into the mountains.” The closing of the city gates could not therefore affect the flight of but a part of the disciples. 2. Josephus states the remarkable fact that when Cestius was marching upon Jerusalem in fulfillment of the Saviour’s token, and had reached Lydda, not many miles from Jerusalem, “he found the city empty of its men; for the whole multitude were gone up to Jerusalem to the feast of tabernacles.”[285] The law of Moses required the presence of every male in Israel at this feast in Jerusalem;[286] and thus, in the providence of God, the disciples had no Jewish enemies left in the country to hinder their flight. 3. The Jewish nation being thus assembled at Jerusalem did most openly violate the Sabbath a few days prior to the flight of the disciples; a singular commentary on their supposed strictness in keeping it at that time.[287] Thus Josephus says of the march of Cestius upon Jerusalem that,

Thus it is seen that on the eve of the disciples’ flight the rage of the Jews toward their enemies made them utterly disregard the Sabbath! 4. But after Cestius encompassed the city with his army, thus giving the Saviour’s signal, he suddenly withdrew it, as Josephus says, “without any reason in the world.” This was the moment of flight for the disciples, and mark how the providence of God opened the way for those in Jerusalem:—

This sally of the excited multitude in pursuit of the Romans was at the very moment when the disciples were commanded to flee, and could not but afford them the needed facility of escape. Had the flight of Cestius happened upon the Sabbath, undoubtedly the Jews would have pursued him upon that day, as under less exciting circumstances they had a few days before gone out several miles to attack him upon the Sabbath. It is seen, therefore, that whether in city or country, the disciples were not in danger of being attacked by their enemies, even had their flight been upon the Sabbath day.

6. There is therefore but one view that can be taken relative to the meaning of these words of our Lord, and that is that he thus spake, out of sacred regard for the Sabbath. For in his tender care for his people he had given them a precept that would require them to violate the Sabbath, should the moment for flight happen upon that day. For the command to flee was imperative the instant the promised signal should be seen, and the distance to Pella, where they found a place of refuge, was at least sixty miles. This prayer which the Saviour left with the disciples would cause them to remember the Sabbath whenever they should come before God. It was therefore impossible that the apostolic church should forget the day of sacred rest. Such a prayer, that they might not at a future time be compelled to violate the Sabbath, was a sure and certain means of perpetuating its sacred observance for the coming forty years, until the final destruction of Jerusalem, and was never forgotten by that early church, as we shall hereafter see.[290] The Saviour, who had taken unwearied pains during his whole ministry to show that the Sabbath was a merciful institution and to set aside those traditions by which it had been perverted from its true design, did, in this his last discourse, most tenderly commend the Sabbath to his people, uniting in the same petition their own safety and the sacredness of the rest-day of the Lord.[291]

A few days after this discourse, the Lord of the Sabbath was nailed to the cross as the great sacrifice for the sins of men.[292] The Messiah was thus cut off in the midst of the seventieth week; and by his death he caused the sacrifice and oblation to cease.[293]

Paul thus describes the abrogation of the typical system at the crucifixion of the Lord Jesus:—