Is it Lawful on the Sabbath?
For the Lord’s Day:  the 21^st of November 2004

John 5: 9b-17

Introduction:  Let me begin with a question today:  given the account in Genesis – on what day did the Lord God begin the work of creation?  Again – on what day of the week was the resurrection?  And what evening of the week did Jesus first appear to the disciples?  Finally, on what day of the week – a week later did Jesus meet again with the disciples?  Sunday is the answer of course in every instance, according to our contemporary nomenclature and ordering of the days of the week.

We of course in the Christian Church have been used to calling it “The Lord’s Day” in honor of the resurrection, and as I remember my understanding of why we use Sunday instead of Saturday as the Lord’s Day – it is because Christ appeared to the Church especially on this day after the resurrection when the disciples were gathered together breaking bread in honor of His accomplishment.

Now, I don’t want to make a big deal about this or encourage any former Jewish superstitions or legalistic attitudes – but this is the point I want to firmly establish:  certainly every day is the Lord’s own possession, but since everything is His, He may dignify any one day He desires as one to be set aside – and as the Christian Church understands it, He has even changed the ecclesiastical order of things with the coming of Christ.  From the first Adam to the time of the Second – the Jewish Sabbath was the last day of the week in remembrance of when the Lord God rested from all of His creative work.  Then, with the resurrection of Jesus Christ – the Lord’s Old Covenant work was fulfilled and He began a new work in the administration and rule of Jesus Christ over the present and promised “Kingdom of God” or “Kingdom of heaven” as the present age is variously called in the New Covenant.  I do not think I do the revelation injustice in using my own descriptive term:  “The Kingdom of the Spirit.”  In my use of that term, I have never meant anything other then the present and future age where in the Lord’s Anointed rules from the very throne of God.

What I am getting at in this discourse is simply the fact that the Creator God in the person of Christ is free to do with the ordering of time anything that He proposes.  Even as He is the author of all things from beginning to end, so may He arrange the manifold parts of the whole of creation as He so desires.  However, and this is an important “however” misunderstood by the Jewish Church of the time of Christ – the Lord God in the work of Christ put aside the Jewish Sabbath and established the Lord’s Day to be remembered until the end of time itself.

Development:  What we have going on in our text for today is simply one of several announcements in this regard.  In the few verses before us – we read that Jesus would put away the superstitious regulations of the Old Covenant Church and in so doing manifest Himself as the equal of God, thereby justifying the actions that He has taken before a watching world.  To demonstrate this thesis, let us work through our text verse by verse.

We begin with the last third of verse nine:  “Now that day was the Sabbath.”  We find this announcement immediately after the record of healing in the pool called Bethesda.  The healed cripple had hardly walked away from the presence of Christ before the temple purists accosted him for carrying his bed on the Sabbath, which was clearly against the traditions of men who had interpreted the Covenant for many generations.  Thinking that they had merely a minor infraction of the Sabbath law to deal with, they were probably surprised when the man announced that he was only doing the will of Him who healed him.  Now, here was something more to look into.

Our record tells us that Jesus found the man later in the temple and gave him further instructions to avoid sin in the future.  The man learns Jesus’ name and tells the authorities.  John observes in verse sixteen that it was because of actions such as this healing which caused the Jews to persecute Him – for the healing being accomplished on the Sabbath.  Jesus pours more oil on the fire or resentment and intolerance by simply announcing that “My Father is working until now, and I am working.”

In this answer, R.V.G. Tasker tells us that in these words Jesus is simply announcing that the present and final age has begun.  Jesus own activity, Tasker writes “is paradoxically an expression of the Sabbath ‘rest’ of God, who keeps no Sabbath week by week, because He keeps endless Sabbath.  He needs no special rest on one day in seven, because His activity as the Sustainer of the world He has created, and as the living God, whose purposes and judgments are reflected in the events of human history is ceaseless and effortless.  It is this continuous and perfect activity, the unique characteristic of God, that Jesus claims to be displaying.”

John goes on to explain the obvious in verse eighteen:  “This was why the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him, because not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.”

Before we continue to go over the text, let us make certain that we understand carefully – the understanding of blasphemy detailed by the Jewish authorities.  And I might add that we would be sympathetic generally to their definition if it were applied to anyone other than our Lord Jesus Christ!  Tasker helps us here with this observation:  ordinarily “a man who acted independently of God, or who rebelled against God’s judgments, was said to be placing himself on an equality with God.”  Given, our understanding and familiarity with Eve and Adam’s fall – this is precisely the definition of human rebelliousness.  Or as Satan well spoke through the mouth of the serpent:  “God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” (Genesis 3: 4b-5)

How well we are familiar with this attitude in our own day and time.  Anything but the will and purpose of God is acceptable in our own culture.  The politicos, atheists and socialists of both left coasts rail against the “Jesus freaks” who refused to vote for their chosen candidate and any increasing secularization of our culture.  The worldly dictators and communists of the kingdoms of earth join enthusiastically in that same chorus.  How dare anyone question the rights of the leftists of every stripe to rule this old earth to their favorite end of creating a pagan utopia where the rights and privileges of the few privileged to rule as gods and goddesses might ever be questioned?  This theme is as old as the Greeks, in a telling tale, an old Greek play observes on the rights of the privileged that even in the perfection of Utopia, there must be a class of slaves to serve every whim and pleasure of the benighted, benevolent dictators who would organize their own Republic in the humanistic perfection of what best serves the gentry.

It is in this same plebian atmosphere that the people of Palestine were cast by the Jewish authorities who would use the commandments to control the population so that they could devote their own precious time to studying and attaining perfection in obeying the rules and regulations they imposed upon everyman.  I hope that in these descriptions you may better understand not only the present cultural wars, but also the one in which Christ engaged in His own day and time!  Karl Marx was only half right in his assumption of the reality of ongoing class struggles.  Because of his atheistic orientation – he missed the key point that every human struggle in this life is tainted with sin – even the administration of Christ’s Church by the stewards and regents entrusted with the care and government of the impending Bride of Christ: the visible church.

Application:  As we begin to wind down our meditation on this text, let us remember the two points necessary to understand before we get to our last application of the day.  The first point: needs barely to be stated within the bounds of Christ’s Church and that is:  The Lord God Creator ruling and administering all things now through His only Son Jesus Christ is the final, awesome and only power in the universe – thus He may administer not only the earth and its kingdoms, but also every aspect of the “City of God” as Augustine defines His separate kingdom.

The second point: is like unto the first, even those entrusted with the rule and administration of the visible Church, “the kingdom of God” are just as seriously flawed over the long history of the world as are the worldly princes of every time and place.

Therefore, our final point: for the morning is that only the Lord God of heaven and earth, speaking in the word and through His only Son has final authority over all things: including the administration of any day set aside for His own honor.  Calvin well notes:  “It is true that the ceremony of the Sabbath was a part of the shadows of the Law, and that Christ put an end to it by his coming, as Paul shows” in Colossians 2: 16:-17:  “Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath.  These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ.”  Calvin continues to press home the point that Christ is the final arbitrator and instructor in all things relevant to the life of the Christian and the Church.  “What Christ insists upon is this, that the holy rest which was enjoined by the Law of Moses is not disturbed when we are employed in works of God.”

We therefore err whenever we upgrade any of our own works to any equity to the law of God.  This was the error of the leaders in the Old Covenant Church and indeed whenever any godly body in our day insists upon a form of holiness inconsistent with the freedom and guidance of the Holy Spirit.  Whenever we insist upon the rights and freedom of Christians to be free from working on the Lord’s Day – it is with the insistence that thereby we may be free to do the works of God.  The worldly may do what they wish, and within the limits of conscience instructed by the Word, so too may Christian families order their own activities as well, and by the diversity of conscience – each may honor the Lord according to his understanding and current state of devotion.

We can of course hope for growth in understanding and devotion – but that should always be done in the Spirit of sensing the presence of Christ on the Lord’s Day set aside specifically for that purpose.  This is after all a special day, set aside by Christ for the New Covenant Church and all those worldly things that would keep us from discerning His presence in His Church and in our lives must be considered in the light of our calling to give Him all honor, worship and praise week by week.  The purpose of our text is specifically that we not be blinded by our own habits and traditions in this regard.  The Pharisees, Sadducees and the rest missed the Lord of life specifically because they held His day in more regard than the One who ruled the day as He saw fit.  May we not be guilty of the same crime against the Law and revelations of our God in Christ.  Amen.

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PREACHING RESOURCES 

Calvin, John:  Commentary on the Gospel of John.
Tasker, R.V.G.  Tyndale New Testament Commentaries: The Gospel According to St John.
The Holy Bible:  English Standard Version.

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