Jesus Christ is often falsely thought to have spoken against the Sabbath. He is often portrayed as being hostile to the Sabbath by ministers who believe that he transferred the the Sabbath to what the heathen call the ‘eighth day,’ which is really the first day, Sunday. However, neither Jesus nor the apostles spoke against nor profaned God’s holy Sabbath day, a day that Hebrews 4:9 reminds us remains valid for Christians to keep today. What did Christ really say about the Sabbath, and what changes did he make to the observance of the Sabbath? That subject is what I would like to talk about today.

The Relationship Between The Sabbath And Liberty

All too often it is said that the seventh day Sabbath as established by God at Creation, commanded by God before, at, after Sinai, and practiced by Jesus Christ and the apostles, was a horrible burden to bear. We may think that the Sabbath has nothing to do with liberty, but if we thought that, we would be very wrong. When understood correctly, the doctrine of the Sabbath is deeply connected with liberty. Let us briefly examine how.

For one, every week God commands a rest from work, providing all people, young and old, rich and poor, Israelite and Gentile, freedom from exploitation from their masters or parents or employers. Everyone is free to rest and reflect upon God’s truth for one day every week. In most societies throughout history, leisure has been available only for elites, while everyone else was a wage slave or unfree labor. Under God’s law, everyone is allowed to enjoy leisure like the elites. We are freed by God’s law from the burden of economic oppression by governments and businesses that seek to monopolize our time for their profit.

For another, God freed Israel from slavery at the Passover and Days of Unleavened Bread. He freed mankind from sin and opened the way to salvation and freedom from the tyranny of death at Passover through the death of His Son, the Passover lamb, and His resurrection as the First of the Firstfruits of salvation after three days and three nights in the grave. He gave us His law and His Holy Spirit to free us from ignorance and slavery to sin on the Pentecost. The Feast of Trumpets symbolizes resurrection and the freedom from death into eternal life. The Day of Atonement symbolizes freedom from sin and reconciliation with God. The Feasts of God are all about freedom. Even feasts like Purim and Hannukah are symbols of freedom from oppression and the the threat of genocide by our enemies because of how the truth makes us different from those heathen around us. Nor is that all. Every seven years all debts were forgiven, freeing people from the oppressive burden of debt. All indentured servants were set free, freeing people from servitude. The land was allowed to rest, allowing the poor to glean what grew on its own and freeing the soil from exploitation by greedy landowners. And every 49 years, at the Jubilee Year, on the Day of Atonement, land was returned to its families, giving every generation a second chance to overcome the sins of their fathers and start of with a clean slate. God’s Sabbaths are all about freedom.

Does the Bible itself connect the Sabbath and freedom? Yes, it does. Let us turn today to Deuteronomy 5:12-15. These verses directly connect the Sabbath and freedom from slavery. Deuteronomy 5:12-15 reads as follows: “Observe the Sabbath day, to keep it holy, as the Lord your God commanded you. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the Sabbath of the Lord your God, in it you shall do no work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your ox, nor your donkey, nor any of your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates, that your male servant and your female servant may rest with you. And remember that you were a slave in Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out from there by a mighty hand and by an outstreched arm; therefore the Lord commanded you to keep the Sabbath day.”

We are freed on the Sabbath from exploitation and oppression, just as were the ancient Israelites. But we are not freed to enjoy liberty selfishly, or to exploit others. The liberty God gives us on the Sabbath is something we must share with all who are under our control. We are not to enjoy our freedom while making others work for us on God’s Sabbath day—not a human nor even an animal is to work for us on God’s Sabbath. The Sabbath is for all to enjoy, and no one or nothing is to be left out. God’s liberty is a gift for all, not a privilege for a lucky few.

To Set At Liberty Those Who Are Oppressed

Did Jesus Christ Himself ever connect the Sabbath and liberty for all? He dd indeed, in Luke 4:16-30, and for His message to His own hometown His own neighbors tried to kill Him because they could not accept what that meant. Luke 4:16-30 reads as follows: “So He came to Nazareth, where He had been brought up. And as His custom was, He went into the syngogue on the Sabbath day, and stood up to read. And He was handed the book of the prophet Isaiah. And when He had opened the book, He found the place where it was written: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He has anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed; to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.” Then He closed the book, and gave it to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all who were in the synagogue were fixed on Him. And He began to say to them, “Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.” So all bore witness to Him and marveled at the gracious words which proceeded out of His mouth. And they said, “Is this not Joseph’s son?” He said to them, “You will surely say this proverb to Me, ‘Physician, heal yourself! Whatever we have heard done in Capernaum, do also here in Your country.’ “ Then He said, “Assuredly, I say to you, no prophet is accepted in his own country. But I tell you truly, many widows were in Israel in the days of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, and there was a great famine throughout all the land; but to none of them was Elijah sent except to Zerephath, in the region of Sidon, to a woman who was a widow. And many lepers were in Israel in the time of Elisha the prophet, and none of them was cleansed except for Naaman the Syrian.” So all those in the synagogue, when they heard these things, were filled with wrath, and rose up and thrust Him out of the city; and they led Him to the brow of the hill on which their city was built, that they might throw Him over the cliff. Then passing through the midst of them, He went His way.”

What went wrong? What problem did Jesus’ hometown audience in Nazareth have with Christ’s message? What type of freedom was Jesus offering to whom? The Jews of Jesus day wanted freedom. They wanted freedom so much that they were willing to risk death and slavery to fight the Roman Empire twice in the century after Christ’s death and resurrection. There were two reasons, though, why they were unwilling to accept the type of freedom Jesus Christ offered at his first coming: it was not the kind of freedom they were looking for, and it was offered to the wrong sort of people.

At His first coming, Jesus Christ offered, through his sacrifice of Himself for our sins, the freedom from the penalty of eternal death that we all deserve as sinners. The Jews were not looking for that sort of freedom. In fact, they considered themselves very righteous. And by our standards they would be; most of them kept the Sabbath better than we do, most of them tithed more faithfully than we do, most of them fasted more often than we do, and most of them took God’s name in vain less frequently than we do. But they all sinned in some fashion and so they all needed to be freed like the rest of humanity from the threat of eternal judgment in God’s death row prison. If they faced condemnation for their sins, how much more do we unless we repent? The Jews wanted political freedom from oppression, and they and all the other many oppressed peoples on this earth will find that freedom at the return of Christ. But that was not the freedom Christ brought the first time He came to this earth.

But what most infuriated Jesus’ audience in Nazereth was who this freedom was being given to. The Jews understood that Jesus Christ came to bring liberty to the oppressed, but they were horrified that he came to free the Gentiles from slavery to ignorant traditions, setting free the mind and spirit so that the physical and political freedom from oppressive rulers could then follow in time. The Jews thought they were special and they could not accept sharing the identity of being God’s called people with those whom they called dogs. Let us make sure we do not share their elitism and their hostility towards those created in the image and likeness of God Himself. For Christ, on the Sabbath, as was His custom, preached liberty for all mankind, even though mankind has for the most part not been willing to take it.

Did Christ Ever Break The Sabbath?

Did Christ ever break the Sabbath? By the standards of the Pharisees, He did. But so has anyone who has walked more than a kilometer on the Sabbath without a “spiritual” reason for doing so, or whoever has written anything on the Sabbath, or cooked anything on the Sabbath, or even turned on a light on the Sabbath. The important question to ask, though, is whether He broke the Sabbath according to the biblical standard, not the man-made standard of the Pharisees. And by the biblical standard He did not break the Sabbath. On the contrary, He was the Lord of the Sabbath, proclaiming liberty to those burdened by sickness.

Let us turn to Matthew 12:1-14 to see this issue clearly. This one passage deals with many Sabbath issues in one place, so let us give this passage the thorough attention it deserves. Matthew 12:1-14 reads as follows: “At that time Jesus went through the grainfields on the Sabbath. And His disciples were hungry, and began to pluck heads of grain to eat. And when the Pharisees saw it, they said to Him, “Look, Your disciples are doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath!” But He said to them, “Have you not read what David did when he was hungry, he and those who were with hiim; how he entered the house of God and ate the showbread which was not lawful for him to eat, nor for those who were with him, but only for the priests? Or have you not read in the law that on the Sabbath the priests in the temple profane the Sabbath, and are blameless? Yet I say to you that in this place there is One greater than the temple. But if you had known what this means, ‘I desire mercy and not sacrifice, you would not have condemned the guiltless. Now when he had departed from there, He went into their synagogue. And behold, there was a man who had a withered hand. And they asked Him, saying, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?—that they might accuse Him. Then He said to them, “What man is there among you who has one sheep, and if it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will not lay hold of it and lift it out? Of how much more value then is a man than a sheep? Therefore it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath.” Then He said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” And he stretched it out, and it was restored as whole as the other. Then the Pharisees plotted against Him, how they might destroy Him.”

This passage is saying a lot about the Sabbath, and it is important for us to know what both the Pharisees and Jesus were really saying. First, we have the hungry disciples picking grain from the field to eat. According to the Pharisees, this was “harvesting” and therefore one of the (many, about thirty-seven) categories of prohibited Sabbath work. Jesus Christ Himself, though, says the disciples are guiltless, without sin, because they were not harvesting the grain for economic gain or going to a restaurant or supermarket, but only picking a few heads of grain to fill their empty bellies. They were neither laboring for wages nor seeking to profit on the Sabbath, nor making someone else profane the Sabbath on their behalf, nor even cooking on the Sabbath. Instead, they were just taking some “ready-to-eat” food so that they would no longer be hungry. And that is acceptable for us to do in the eyes of God on the Sabbath.

In justifying the behavior of the disciples, Jesus brought up two Old Testament examples to support His point. The first, David and his men eating the showbread (which was cooked by Levites of the Sons of Korah and eaten by priests), is a story from 1 Samuel 21. In this story David and his men are on the run from Saul and the priest gives them the showbread to eat because the men have not had sex for three days and because the bread is common in effect because it is the leftover bread. This argument was accepted by God in light of the second reference, when Jesus quotes Hosea 6:6 to say that God is more pleased with our mercy towards other people than our pious acts of holiness, at which the Pharisees excelled. The Pharisees were more concerned with looking holy than showing compassion to others, and for this they were rebuked.

The fact that the Pharisees were willing to free their animals on the Sabbath but not free their brethren from sicknesses suggests their hardheartedness. If it was acceptable to work to free an animal, why would it not be acceptable to do God’s work of healing on the Sabbath? Indeed, the priests and Levites “profaned” the Sabbath by offering sacrifices, speaking from the Bible, performing circumcisions, singing, playing musical instruments, and performing the rest of their commanded duties. But they were blameless for doing so before God because they were doing His work and not their own. The same was true for Christ’s work in healing the man with the withered hand, and the same is true for those of us today who are successors to the priests and Levites in giving messages, performing music, serving on the setup or take down crew, greeting, serving in security or other such duties. Technically, such work profanes the Sabbath as did the work of the priests and Levites. But we are held blameless if we are doing the work of God, and not our own, as Christ did.

Conclusion

Jesus Christ performed many healing miracles on the Sabbath, too many to discuss in one message. However, let us conclude by examining the principles of liberty that relate to Christ’s keeping of the seventh day Sabbath as we are commanded to do as Christians today. First, from the very beginning the Sabbath was connected to liberty for slaves, for debtors, for workers, for animals, for servants, and even for the land. Jesus Christ himself preached liberty for all mankind on the Sabbath. Christ also freed many people from the burdens of sickness or infirmity on the Sabbath, performing the priestly duties of God on this day to do God’s work and not His own. If we desire to enjoy the liberty of God’s sabbath day, let us therefore do likewise as our Lord and Savior did.