Introducing
June
NO COMMON GROUND For the scribes and the Pharisees the crucial issue was whether Jesus kept the Law. When His disciples did ’that which it is not lawful to do on the sabbath day’ the Lord did not respond from the same standpoint as their accusers. David, as was plain to all, had himself done that which was not lawful, as recorded in 1 Samuel 21. It was no big deal.
hearts of love and regard for the man who was but a pawn in their game. How different from the Lord! Now we see that on the previous sabbath incident he was not making light of keeping the sabbath, but He would not engage with the scribes and Pharisees on a ground of their invention. In their hands the ritual of sabbath-keeping had become a burden, and God, as provider of the sabbath rest for man, a tyrant and a taskmaster. He does not set aside the law but He does set it aside as handled by them.
And yet it was. Jesus said in Matthew 5:18 (RV) that ‘Till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass away from the law, till all things be accomplished.’ He required of those healed by Him that they did according to the law. He took care that those who might be stumbled by a perceived failure on the apostles’ part to keep the law were given no opportunity of stumbling (Mat. 17:2427).
Luke records how Jesus exposed their heart’s attitude. Is it lawful, He asks, to do good on the sabbath day? If it is not lawful to do good, for example to heal a man with a withered hand, then to do harm must be lawful. Equally, if activity that one can do to restore a sick man’s well-being and quality of life is wrong because done on the sabbath then to fail to do so when opportunity came must be right!
Why is it dismissed then as an issue here in Luke 6? Because there was no common ground upon which He and the accusers could meet. That is brought out in the next incident recorded by Luke, another involving controversy on the sabbath—in a situation engineered by the scribes and Pharisees who were there to watch Him to see ‘whether he would heal on the sabbath; that they might find how to accuse him.’ Not a thought in their
What then is the ground upon which He operates? What is the crucial issue for Him? It is that His Father is manifested in truth, not in travesty. He says to us ‘… ye shall be sons of the Most High’, and ‘every one when he is fully trained will be like his teacher’ (ESV). ‘Sons of the Most High’ because, like their Lord and Teacher, they
80