Lord of the Sabbath

In any law given by God, there involves His intention for the law and then our response. You see the early Jews had a very human response to the laws of God. God created the law of the Sabbath, not allowing a believer to ‘work’ on that day for the purposes of keeping the day holy and revered amongst believers.

So what did they do? They built a fence around the law by adding qualifiers of what ‘work’ actually means. Just as they did when Moses ascended the mountain warning them not to approach or touch the mountain, so the leaders literally built a fence around the mountain and forbade people from touching the fence or be put to death.

God never commanded them to not touch the fence. But they treated their own efforts to obey the law as if those efforts were part of the law. The Pharisees were upset that the disciples were not adhering to their ‘fence’ they had built around the Sabbath law. These fence laws were then enforced as if they were God's law when they never were.

The Sabbath law was never intended to force a believer to go hungry. Jesus points out that King David, while on the run to save his life from Saul, broke the Sabbath to provide his men and himself with bread from the table in the temple. This law Jesus pointed out is for all Israel yet is regularly broken by the temple priests because they are ‘working’ on the Sabbath. After all, the priests are offering sacrifices, burning incense and God is okay with it.

This law, meant to instill a reverence for God, was being used as a weapon God never intended it to be. There were many Jews who took the fence building around the Sabbath so seriously, that even when their city is attacked on the Sabbath, they would not fight. That led enemies to attack on Saturday when Israel would be easily defeated.

Jesus makes it clear that He is greater than the temple and therefore this law does not apply to Him. And then he quotes Hosea.

Hosea 6:6
[6] For I desire mercy and not sacrifice,And the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings.

Jesus is preaching against the same problem Hosea had. The people were obeying the ritual rules of the Law but didn't actually know God. A ritual being completed by someone accomplishes nothing if it's not combined with a knowledge of God, a relationship.

Jesus claims that the need of the hunger of his disciples outweighs the ritual requirements of the Sabbath law. And also makes yet another claim of divinity by claiming the titles ‘Son of Man’ and ‘Lord of the Sabbath’. And by doing so, declares them innocent.


Matthew 12:1-8



[1] At that time Jesus went through the grainfields on the Sabbath, and His disciples became hungry and began to pick the heads of grain and eat. [2] Now when the Pharisees saw this, they said to Him, “Look, Your disciples are doing what is not lawful to do on a Sabbath!” [3] But He said to them, “Have you not read what David did when he became hungry, he and his companions— [4] how he entered the house of God, and they ate the consecrated bread, which was not lawful for him to eat nor for those with him, but for the priests alone? [5] Or have you not read in the Law that on the Sabbath the priests in the temple violate the Sabbath, and yet are innocent? [6] But I say to you that something greater than the temple is here. [7] But if you had known what this means: ‘I desire compassion, rather than sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the innocent. [8] For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.”