July 24, 2000
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Luke 6:6-11 Second Sabbath Debate
Divine Truth Confronts Human Tradition
Luke 6:6-11
There are two things that are distinct about the ministry of Jesus, that He spoke the truth, and that He incited the hatred of people who held tightly to error. The hostility, of course, was primarily focused on a relationship between Jesus and the scribes and Pharisees because they were the architects of the Judaism of the day which was not true Old Testament religion, but was a really a form of Judaism that was apostate and ungodly. It was a works system, a ceremony system, a system of legalism and ritual. Jesus assaulted that system just by virtue of preaching the truth and so He is pitted against the false religious leaders of Judaism who were primarily the scribes and Pharisees. There were other groups, such as the Sadducees but they were pretty much political, it wasn't what Jesus said about religion that bothered them, it was the potential of a political problem that Jesus could have generated against Rome that might cause them to lose their positions that got them involved in the issue. The Sadducees were religious liberals, they weren't concerned about religious issues, they were concerned about political ones.
The architects of the apostate form of Judaism were the Pharisees and the scribes. The truth of God coming through the teaching of Jesus was a direct assault on their system and consequently they were hostile to it. Either they believed it or they resented it. And sad to say, they were hard-hearted and obstinate and unbelieving and so they resented it and they continued to resent it more and more until it turned into a murder plot that was finally fulfilled in the execution of Jesus at the hands of the Romans.
The truth of God is the most important thing in the world. The reason there was conflict in the life and ministry of Jesus that led to His own murder is that He spoke the truth. But He had to speak the truth because the truth is the most important thing. The truth reveals God and brings the message of forgiveness, salvation and the hope of eternal life. It must be spoken and it must be written no matter what the effects may be and the effects are predictable. On the one hand, some people believe and all heaven breaks loose. On the other hand, some people do not believe and all hell breaks loose. Those who teach the truth are going to confront error and there will be a positive result on the part of those who believe the truth, and a negative result on the part of those who hate the truth.
Jesus never danced around the issues. He planned to speak the truth, and staged events to speak truth into the midst of error, to unmask the hypocrisy of the scribes and Pharisees and to strike fatal blows at the core of apostate religion. The more public the opportunity, the more eager He was to take it. He not only wanted to expose error to the people who were in error, who were the purveyors of error, but He wanted to expose error to everybody else who might be considering it and even to those people who had come to truth and might be attracted somehow by it.
When people think about Jesus, they think to sort of characterize Him as a man of love. They need to be reminded, however, that He was the one who made the whip at the beginning of His ministry and cleansed the temple and did it again at the end of His ministry. He was the one who called the religious leaders of His day in Matthew 23 whited sepulchers painted white on the outside, but inside stinking and full of dead men's bones. He never minced words when it came to dealing with false religion. He never minced words when it came to dealing with the leaders of false religious systems. He reserved the most severe diatribe that He ever preached in Matthew 23 for false religious leaders, purveyors of damning error. And what brought about the conflict that ended the life of Jesus was that He spoke truth into every situation and people who were in error and held tightly to that error hated the truth. And so they wanted to silence the one who spoke it.
Let's go back to chapter 6 where we pick up the narrative of Jesus. Jesus was a preacher of truth. He preached the true gospel of grace and faith and forgiveness and eternal life. This brought Him into immediate conflict with Judaism, and particularly with the leaders of Judaism who had a lot at stake. Their power, their prestige, their popularity was at stake and they did everything they could to protect it. Jesus made it very clear, and I think this is important to remind you about, that there was no compatibility between His message and existing Judaism. There is no compatibility between error and truth.
In showing the distinction between the truth and the error of Judaism, Jesus eventually had to get to the heart of Judaism, Sabbath observance. Even today, if you know anything about orthodox Jewish people, everything seems to focus on the Sabbath. God gave the Sabbath law and God did give Sabbath law back in the Ten Commandments in Exodus 20, all He said was, "On the seventh day, rest." That will give you an opportunity to be restored in your body, to be restored a little bit in your family, and primarily a time to worship God. Don't work, that was it. It was a prohibition. There weren't a lot of things you were supposed to do, there was just one thing you weren't supposed to do and that was don't work, time for restoration, recreation, diversion, worship, fellowship, simple, simple command. But the rabbis through the centuries had embellished that simple command with all kinds of rituals and laws. In fact, they had taken it to the place where it made the Sabbath day which was supposed to be a day of rest, the worst, most difficult and most wearying day of the week because they had added to it so many prescriptions that had to be observed.
For example, one of the remarkable indicators of how ridiculous their Sabbath observance had become is found under the uprising under Judas Maccabaeus. In the time of Judas Maccabaeus there was a great revolt against Antiochus who was the Greek who was dominating Israel. And under Judas Maccabaeus certain Jews sought refuge in the wilderness in caves. And historians who tell us that Antiochus sent a detachment of men to attack them, to attack these rebellious Jews and the attack of the Greeks under Antiochus came on Sabbath day. And historians write, "These insurgent Jews died without even a gesture of defiance or defense because to fight would have been to break the Sabbath." First Maccabees tells us how the forces of Antiochus gave them battle with all speed, it says, "Howbeit they answered them not nor cast they a stone at them, nor stopped the places where they lay hid." In other words, they didn't block off the places they were hidden, "But said, 'Let us die in our innocency, heaven and earth shall testify for us that you put us to death wrongfully.' So they rose up against them in battle on the Sabbath and they slew them with their wives and children and cattle to the number of a thousand people." So they all just rolled over and died because they didn't want to violate the Sabbath and let them massacre their children and everything they had.
If Jesus was to expose the bankruptcy and apostasy of Judaism, He had to assault the Sabbath, and He did. Let's go back to Luke 6:6-11, "And it came about on another Sabbath that He entered the synagogue and was teaching and there was a man whose right hand was withered and the scribes and Pharisees were watching Him closely to see if He healed on the Sabbath in order that they might find reason to accuse Him. But He knew what they were thinking and He said to the man with the withered hand, 'Rise and come forward.' And he rose and came forward. And Jesus said to them, 'I ask you, is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save a life or to destroy it?' And after looking around at them all He said to him, 'Stretch out your hand.' And he did so and his hand was restored." Here's the response. "But they themselves were filled with rage and discussed together what they might do to Jesus."
How did Jesus treat the Sabbath? Answer, any way He wanted. Verse 5, "The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath." You won't tell Me what to do on the Sabbath, I will do what I want on the Sabbath. He is the Lord of the Sabbath. He paid absolutely no attention to their regulations. He took a defiant posture against Sabbath law. In essence, was taking a defiant posture against the Judaism of that day. Jesus did exactly whatever He wanted to do on the Sabbath and mostly what He wanted to do was defy their ridiculous works system of ceremony, religion...ceremony, I should say, ritual and tradition. And He specifically staged Sabbath defiance events right in front of the leaders purposely because it was critical that the whole system of ceremony and works and ritual be struck down. John 5:18, "For this cause the Jews were seeking all the more to kill Him because He was not only breaking the Sabbath but was also calling God His own Father, making Himself equal with God." It was the combination of Sabbath violation and calling Himself Lord and God that infuriated them and led to His execution.
Let's see how He staged this event. Verse 6, "It came about on another Sabbath," it doesn't tell us when, it could have been close to the earlier one. Luke doesn't have them together because of chronology, he has them together because he's dealing with Sabbath issues. Some other Sabbath, He's probably still in Galilee, of course, at this time and some commentators think He may well have been at Capernaum which was the headquarters town for His ministry in Galilee. But whatever, it was another Sabbath. And He was in the synagogue, it says He entered the synagogue and was teaching. And I've said this before, I'll say it again, the primary ministry of Jesus was to teach. There was one thing Jesus did on the Sabbath, worship. Essentially that's all He observed. He didn't work and He went to worship. That really is the sum of what God had required for Sabbath observance.
Very often when He went to the synagogue He was asked to teach. His reputation was widespread. They knew Him to be a healer. They knew Him to be one who could cast out demons. They had heard about the message that He was preaching and where He went it would be very hard for Him to be just an observer. There He was and He was teaching, which was His common pattern. "And there was a man there whose right hand was withered." This is perfect, this is the prefect man to stage the event that Jesus wants to stage to assault the Sabbath and therefore to strike the false religion of Judaism at its heart. The man is the main object of Jesus' attention. Only Luke says it was his right hand, maybe because Luke was a doctor and he was a little more observant of those kinds of things. But this man had a right hand that was withered. The word "withered" has to do with something that's shriveled, something that's atrophied no doubt from paralysis. A paralysis had caused some kind of atrophy to take place, it's a word used of dry plants dry dead wood and dried fruits. So this man had a hand that was not able to be used, and probably hadn't been used for a long time, long enough to have shriveled.
Verse 7 says, "And the scribes and the Pharisees... now they were watching Him closely." So now we have the second group of people that are going to play into this. The first character in the drama is the man with the withered hand. And now we meet these relentless scribes and Pharisees who are dogging the steps of Jesus. It says they were watching Him closely. Interesting verb, paratereo. Tereo means to watch carefully. Para means alongside of, it's a preposition, alongside of, beside. So they were as close to Jesus as they could get. I mean, they were looking intently with intensive scrutiny and it has a sort of a sinister tone. Watching Him carefully, this is not casual observance, they're not watching Him, although they would like everybody to think it, with some objectivity, it says here they are watching Him very, very intensely. "They are scrutinizing Him very closely to see if He healed on the Sabbath."
That's what they wanted to see. Would He heal on the Sabbath? This is amazing. You say, "Well maybe they wanted to know if He was the Messiah if He could heal, or if He was God. If He could heal, they might believe He was the Messiah. Wasn't that what His healing was supposed to evidence?" Yes. "Maybe they would know He was God. Maybe they would tend to believe in Him."
No, it says in verse 7, "They wanted to see if He healed on the Sabbath in order that they might find reason to accuse Him." What is so amazing is it just goes right by their obstinate hearts that He could heal. You'd think somebody would have written that they wanted to see Him heal so they could believe in Him. They wanted to see Him heal so they could accuse Him...they wanted to see Him heal so they could get rid of Him...the healing completely escapes them. They are so deep into the darkness of their false religious system. They knew He could heal, they knew that. Back in chapter 5:17, a group of them came and the power of the Spirit of God came upon Jesus for healing, they knew He could heal. Thousands of people in Palestine by this time had been healed in the Galilee area of Israel. They knew He could heal. They also knew that He forgave sin. Chapter 5:20-21, He forgave a man's sin right before them. These things didn't seem to register to them. Here was one who could heal diseases, forgive sin and the evidence that He could forgive sin was that He could heal diseases which are the result of sin in the world. It goes right on by their stubborn obstinate hearts. The only reason they wanted Him to heal to demonstrate that He was God and could create was to that they could indict Him for being a Sabbath breaker. Boy, how convoluted is their thinking? So, do a miracle not so we can know You're Messiah, but so that we can indict You as a blasphemer.
Now you say, "What's the deal? So what if He heals on the Sabbath?" Well, you have to understand the background. That's why I'm here, to tell you the background. The rabbis had determined that it was a violation of Sabbath to make anybody better, to help anybody, to bind up anybody's wounds, to alleviate their suffering. No physician could help a patient, no relatives or friends could help a person who was ill on Sabbath because that was work and you couldn't do it. You can actually find this in Sabbath regulations that are part of Jewish writings in the past.
The sick person would have to wait till the next day, couldn't help them on the Sabbath. The distressed person, the person in trouble, it didn't have to be just a physical malady, you couldn't help them, that would be a violation of Sabbath day so you had no compassion, no mercy on people in need on the Sabbath. Unless...the rabbi said, and I've discovered this in two different sources, Shab(?) 18:3, Yoma(?) 8:6, the rabbis modified the restriction and said you can help them if they were going to die because they might be dead before the next day comes, you can help them if they're going to die. You could also deliver a baby that was being born. This is a nice concession. I don't know what the alternative would be. But they took it so seriously that if you actually moved to better someone's physical condition on the Sabbath, you were a blaspheming lawbreaker. Amazing. They were not objective, devout protectors of the Sabbath law, they wanted Jesus to violate the Sabbath. Overlooking the messianic credentials of such a healing, they saw it as a way to accuse Him of blasphemy.
"But He knew what they were thinking." Now you might have said, "Oh, He knew what they were thinking and He certainly didn't want to offend them. He wanted to make sure there was wonderful harmony, so He refused to heal because it would be an offense." Just the opposite. He knew exactly what they were thinking so He said, stops His teaching, they're just standing there in the synagogue, Jesus is teaching, He stops the teaching cause He reads their minds, and He said to the man with the withered hand, "Arise, come forward, you with the bad hand come forward, you with the bad hand, come forward." Well, Jesus spoke with such authority like no one who ever lived and the guy found himself popping off His bench and he's up there in the front, in front of everybody. The Pharisees haven't said anything, He knows what they're thinking. He knows they want Him to heal somebody and He's going to do it. So He calls up this man and the reason He called a man with a withered hand was because it wasn't a death-threatening issue, or a life-threatening issue. So this was a man you shouldn't help, this man wasn't on the brink of death. He could have waited till Sunday, the next day. He's a perfect candidate to stage this assault on the Sabbath. So He tells him to come forward. He comes forward. I mean, life was difficult for him because in that culture you earned your bread by the sweat of your brow and the use of your hands, right? And this man had suffered, obviously, because of this paralysis.
Jesus sets him in the middle of the synagogue in front of everybody, the stage is set for a direct assault on the Sabbath. And Jesus said to them, He looks right to the Pharisees and scribes who always love to have the chief seats in the front seats so they were the front-row gang, most likely, He said to them, "I ask you, is it lawful..." They probably looked at each other when they heard that much and said, "He's in our zone, lawful - that's us, we know that stuff." That's their thing, lawful. "Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save a life or to destroy it?" Now remember, everybody is listening, this is a guy standing there with this atrophied hand and it's a pretty dramatic moment. "Is it lawful, you guys are the experts," there's a little sarcasm there, "you certainly know the answer to this question, this will be easy for you, you know the law, you're the experts, is it lawful to do good and to provide deliverance to someone in need or to do evil and destroy?"
Jesus is a master at this. He asks the question that you can't answer, they can't answer it. There is no way they could answer it. If they say, "Well, it's lawful to do good and it's certainly lawful to help someone," then they would affirm that Jesus could heal the man and He wouldn't violate the Sabbath and they've got no accusation because they've just given Him official authorization. They can't do that, that doesn't serve their purpose. On the other hand, if they say, "Well no, it's lawful to do evil and destroy somebody," they have just revealed their merciless wicked hearts and they can't do that either. They can't do anything. Jesus pretty much made a career out of asking them questions they could never answer. Either they had to affirm Jesus, or condemn themselves. And they don't want to do that, they don't want to affirm Jesus, and they don't want to condemn themselves, so they just sit there.
There's a right answer to that but they can't give it. You say, "What's the right answer?" Isaiah 1:11, they knew what God desired. Here God is indicting Israel back in Isaiah's time for their superficial, shallow, false religion, same kind of thing that Jesus is addressing. In verse 11, "What are your multiplied sacrifices to Me? Sure, I gave the sacrificial system, but I don't care about your sacrifices, they don't mean anything to Me, says the Lord, I've had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of fed cattle, I take no pleasure in the blood of bulls and lambs and goats." In other words, your whole religious system and all these things that you do is unacceptable to Me, I've had enough of it, I don't want anymore of it. "And when you come to appear before Me, who requires of you this trampling of My courts? How dare you come in here with your sacrifices, how dare you come in here with the externals, the ceremonies, the rituals, the offerings. How dare you come in and in a sense trample My courts. Obviously it's because your hearts are so wretched. Bring your worthless offerings no longer, your incenses are an abomination to Me, new moon, Sabbath, the calling of assemblies I can not endure iniquity and the solemn assembly. I am sick of your Sabbaths, I'm sick of the whole thing." All of that structure was simply a way to give people an expression for their true hearted worship, but there was no true-hearted worship and so the structure itself became abominable in the sight of God. "The whole thing...He says in verse 14...is a burden to Me, I'm weary of it and when you spread out your hands in prayer, I'll hide My eyes from you, when you bring your multiplied prayers, I'm not going to listen because your hands are covered with blood." Verse 16, "Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean, remove the evil of your deeds from my sight, cease to do evil." Verse 17, "Learn to do good, seek justice, reprove the ruthless, defend the orphan, plead for the widow."
Help people, show compassion, show mercy, do good. That's the answer to the question Jesus asked. Is it right on the Sabbath to do good? Yes, it's right on the Sabbath to do good, Isaiah 1 says that. Don't come in here with your sacrifices, and your ceremonies, and your externals and a wicked, evil heart. Clean your heart out and do good and help people and show mercy. Isaiah 58:6, He says, "Okay, you're going to fast? Let me tell you the way to fast. This is the fast that I choose." "Loosen the bonds of wickedness, undo the bands of the yoke, let the oppressed go free and break every yoke." Lighten up, guys. Take the yoke off that you're binding on these people. Verse 7, "Share your bread with hungry people, bring a homeless person into your house. When you see somebody who is unclothed, clothe him and don't hide yourself from your own flesh." You know what that scene is, right? "O no, your mother-in-law is at the door, don't answer it and she'll think we're not here." Don't do that. Do what's right.
They knew what God felt about their ridiculous, external observance. They knew the Sabbath of all days was a day to do good. It was a day to show mercy and kindness. But they had so strangled the Sabbath that there was very little space for that and they certainly couldn't admit that this was right. They couldn't say to Jesus, "Yes, this is the day by virtue of what it says in the Old Testament in Isaiah. This is a day to do good. This is a day to show mercy to someone. This is a day to deliver someone. It is that kind of a day." Then when Jesus healed, they wouldn't have any way to accuse Him. On the other hand, they couldn't say what they really thought or they would have unmasked themselves as wicked, merciless phonies. So they can't say anything.
While Jesus on the surface seemed to be talking about what He was going to do for that withered hand, at least that's what the crowd heard, that's what the synagogue crowd heard, remember now, the crowd doesn't know what they're thinking. They don't know that they've got these murderous intentions, these desires that Jesus would violate the Sabbath so they can accuse Him to get rid of Him. The crowd doesn't know that. So they hear a very simple question, very simple straightforward question...should you do good or not? And they're all saying, "Do good, of course, we would do good, we do good. We deliver, that's what God would want, of course." They can't say that. They're stunned, they're stuck. The real question is...Gentlemen, which of us is honoring God? Is it I who want to do good for this man and deliver him from this life infirmity? Or is it you who want to destroy Me?
Now you're down to the real issue. "Which of us pleases God? Is it I? Or is it you? I want to help a man, you want to destroy Me." I mean, He nailed them. They have nowhere to go. Believe me, Jesus made it clear all through His ministry that the Sabbath observance is no litmus test of faithfulness to God. They observed Sabbath law while plotting to murder the Lord of the Sabbath. It's amazing, isn't it? The religious mind...one writer says, "The religious mind is a curious thing. It's not necessarily interested in common morality, still less in relieving human misery and affliction. It is interested in keeping rules, particularly the rules which spring from its own cherished interpretations of Scripture and tradition and to these interpretations it will attribute the inflexible authority of God." And then he said, "Let God incarnate contrary to its interpretations interpose with a miracle of divine goodness to relieve human misery, and then instead of revising its interpretation, the religious mind would plan to stop such miracles from ever happening again." How twisted. It's more than that, the religious errorists will try to kill the messenger of truth.
They have nothing to say and it's clear in verse 10 that they were in shock. "And after looking around at them all..." That's interesting. There's a delay here. Why does it say, "after looking around at them all," what does that matter? There's some space here and Jesus is waiting for an answer. "Are you the good guys who seek to murder Me? Are you the ones who please God, who seek to kill Me? Or am I the one who pleases God by seeking to relieve this man's misery?" And He just looked at them.
I can imagine they never forgot the eyes of Jesus. I don't think He ever dropped His eyes, I think He had the capability to stare into their eyes in a fixed gaze that penetrated to their souls and indelibly etched them with the vision. Couldn't say anything, nothing to say. They couldn't say, "Yeah, we...we're wicked people and we...we don't want to do good to anybody and we want to kill You." They couldn't say that but that was the truth. And they certainly couldn't affirm that you should do good or they would have let Jesus off their hook. So they said nothing.
After silencing them, verse 10 says, "He said to him," the man's still standing there through all of this, you know, going back and forth between the two in the dialogue, "Stretch out your hand." "And he did so and it was restored." God created a brand new hand an astonishing miracle. God had just endorsed His Son through creative power, astonishing. And you would expect the next verse to read, "And the Pharisees and scribes believed."
Verse 11 says, "They themselves were filled with wonder? Rage, rage." Anoios in the Greek. Noios means "to know," a is what's called an alpha privative, that means it's an "a" or alpha put on the front of a word that negates the word. A Gnostic is somebody who knows, an agnostic is somebody who doesn't know. We have preserved some of that into English. Anoios means to be devoid of understanding, they lost their minds, they were at their wit's end. They flipped out. I mean, it was a kind of rage where they lost their control over their minds, rage. "And they discussed together immediately what they might do to Jesus." We might kill Him....the whole thing of the miracle just completely escapes them. "He that is convinced against his will is unconvinced still." This is the blindness and the obstinacy of the heart of those who were deep in false religion. And their fury is motivated by fear. People don't lose it, they don't lose it to this degree, they don't go out of their minds, become devoid of understanding, go mad unless there's something monumental at stake. They were afraid of Jesus, terrified. He was striking fatal blows at their whole system, striking fatal blows at their power, their prestige, their position, their religion, their credibility. They went into paroxyms of psychopathic rage. I suppose there are some people who might unwittingly think that something Jesus did in the last week of His life caused the Jews to crucify Him. Look, we're almost two years from there here and they already are literally out of their minds with the desire to kill Him. This goes on for a couple of years before they're able to bring their plot to its fulfillment.
This is not because Jesus had defective social skills. This is because Jesus told the truth into every situation. Matthew 12 concludes the story by saying. "He said to the man, 'Stretch out your hand.' He stretched it out, was restored normal like the other, but the Pharisees went out and counseled together against Him as to how they might destroy Him." Jesus said, "Who's the good guy in God's eyes? Am I who seek to do good and save a life? Or are you who seek to harm and destroy?" And He said that to them and Matthew says they went out to decide how they could destroy...same word. And Mark says they did a very interesting thing, "They went out, immediately began to take counsel with the Herodians as to how they might destroy Him." They were going to have to have some help from the Herodians, they were the people in the political power. And the Pharisees hated the Herodians, but they liked them if they needed them to help them to kill Jesus.
So at this point we're only in the sixth chapter of Luke and the position of Judaism, the official position of Judaism on Jesus is fixed. We want Him dead. Their plan to kill Him out of hate fit perfectly into God's plan to kill Him for love's sake, right? By the way, they were amassing all these accusations on the Sabbath against Him. When it came to the final indictment and they took Him before the mocked trial, they never brought up His Sabbath violations. It's interesting, they never brought them up because they wouldn't hold any power with the Romans and they found some better false accusations in the end. But at this point they were planning to use them to get rid of Jesus.
Summing it up, you see Jesus the representative of the truth of God, Pharisees and scribes representative of false religion. The contrast is startling. It's the contrast between divine truth and human tradition. It's the contrast between profound knowledge and madness. It's the contrast between goodness and wickedness, between compassion and indifference, between open honesty and hidden deception, between divine power and impotence, between the Kingdom of God and the kingdom of Satan. So at this point early in the gospel of Matthew [John meant Luke], the storm clouds begin to gather on the horizon that eventually are going to rain down on Jesus on the cross of Calvary. They will not submit to the Lord of the Sabbath. The will rather execute Him, they will hold tightly to damning error and reject saving truth.
Really sad for those Pharisees and scribes, isn't it? But I have just a bit of good news for you. Listen to Acts 15:5, "But certain ones of the sect of the Pharisees who had believed stood up." Ah, grace even penetrated the Pharisees. That's good, isn't it? In fact, one of those Pharisees became the great apostle Paul. This is grace, this is grace, to those who once were part of plotting to kill Christ and in the case of Paul, to kill Christians, came the grace of salvation and forgiveness. I don't know what your attitude has been toward Jesus Christ, but God will forgive you if you will come to Him in faith and receive Him as Lord and Savior.
