“Then I contended with the nobles of Judah, and said to them, ‘What evil thing is this that you do, by which you
profane the Sabbath day?’” (Neh. 13:17, NKJV)
Throughout the course of centuries in the Christian tradition much emphasis has been placed on the importance of the Sabbath day. In the previous teaching we provided an overview of the Sabbath in historical, as well as Old Testament context. One of the interesting points within this trajectory was the changes regarding the dispensation of the Sabbath that were announced by the prophets Hosea and Amos. Another interesting point was that God had also explicitly spelled out the change of covenant and law in the case of Israel. From the gospels we also see that Jesus came to change the entire old covenant, which necessarily includes the Sabbath.
What does however confuse many believers is this remark about Jesus and the Sabbath in Luke 4:16: “So He came to Nazareth, where He had been brought up. And as His custom was, He went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day …” Many Sabbath abiders, or the Israel Vision, or members of the New Judaism, often quote 1 John 2:6 in this regard: “He who says he abides in Him ought himself also to walk just as He walked.”
This is often lost sight of: whilst he was still alive Jesus still lived within the old covenant. The new covenant only truly came into being after the death of Jesus. Therefore Jesus can also clearly state in Matt. 5:17-18: “Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfil. For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law …”
The word in this section that places it in the right perspective, is the word fulfil, the Greek “pleróō”. The Complete WordStudy Dictionary explains the word as follows: “Figuratively, to fill, supply abundantly with something, impart richly, imbue with, followed by the acc., often also with an adjunct of that with which someone is filled or supplied … To fulfil, bring to a full end, accomplish, complete. In the pass., of time, to be fulfilled, completed, ended …”
The law will always remain for those with whom a covenant had been cut, as this is the foundation of the covenant itself. Ex. 31: 16-17 makes clear who this applies to: “Therefore the children of Israel shall keep the Sabbath, to observe the Sabbath throughout their generations as a perpetual covenant. It is a sign between Me and the children of Israel forever …” This will thus be a valid bond for those with whom a covenant had been cut until some form of cataclysmic event. But Jesus says he came to give meaning to the exterior of the cup, to fill it with the true substance, the actual meaning. The Greek word “pleróō” can thus be best explained through the concept of the metonym, which the Oxford Dictionary defines as “the substitution of the name of an attribute or adjunct for that of the thing meant”. A beautiful example is the metonymic expression “a cup of coffee”. The cup is merely an external indication of the cup, not the substance thereof. Analogous to this one could say that what the law offers, was merely the outline or shadow of the true content, which brings the emptiness of it to fullness (“plḗrōma”), or to fulfilment. The hollow substance of the law is in fact a hollow counterpart of the fullness that only comes through Christ Jesus. Without Jesus Christ the law is merely a “clanging cymbal” (1 Cor. 13:1).
The word shadow is used with specific reason in this argument. In three instances in the New Testament the shadow is used to show that the old covenant is merely the shadow (= the cup, in our analogous example), and that the new covenant is the reality (= the coffee, in our analogous example):
- “So let no one judge you in food or in drink, or regarding a festival or a new moon or sabbaths, which are a shadow of things to come, but the substance is of Christ.” (Col. 2:16-17). Take note – here the sabbath is specifically noted as a shadow!
- “priests who offer the gifts according to the law; who serve the copy and shadow of the heavenly things” (Heb. 8:4b-5a)
- “For the law, having a shadow of the good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with these same sacrifices, which they offer continually year by year, make those who approach perfect.” (Heb.10:1). How neatly it is spelled out here – the law is a shadow, not the substance itself.
One then understands Paul’s despondent response in Gal. 4:9-10: “But now after you have known God, or rather are known by God, how is it that you turn again to the weak and beggarly elements, to which you desire again to be in bondage? You observe days and months and seasons and years.” New covenant believers who wish to observe any part of the law still hold onto the shadow and thus lose the substance, the fullness of God.
Under the old covenant Jesus lived without sin, Heb. 4:15 makes clear. In 1 John 3:5 it is clearly spelled out: “in Him there is no sin”. But this is in the true meaning of the word sin, of not missing your mark or your purpose (“hamartía” – “to miss the mark” in Greek – Strong). In his book Freedom From Twelve Deadly Sins – Secrets of How to Press into Your Destiny, Kelly Varner provides the following very apt description of the concept sin: “Sin is a mistaken identity.” Jesus does, after all, mince no words at the end of his life: “I have glorified You on the earth. I have finished the work which You have given Me to do” (John 17:4). The word finished is closely linked to the word fulfil, used above, especially in Thayer’s definition thereof: “to carry through completely, to accomplish, finish, bring to an end … to complete (perfect) … add what is yet wanting in order to render a thing full”.
This thus makes it possible for New Testament believers to, along with 1 John 3:9, say: “Whoever has been born of God does not sin …” Please selah!
But, whilst it is true that Jesus and those who are born again and walking within their callings can be considered without sin, it is also true that Jesus, without sin, was still under the law. Gal. 4:4-5 beautifully declares: “But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law …”
And under the law, even though Jesus was without sin, He did however transgress the law! His transgressions were, very specifically, that of the Sabbath law! Let us look at a few of the most important sections from the gospels about Jesus and the Sabbath.
In Matt. 12:1-14 we find an extensive report on this: “At that time Jesus went through the grainfields on the Sabbath. And His disciples were hungry, and began to pluck heads of grain and 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 him: 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. For the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.’ 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 went out and plotted against Him, how they might destroy Him.”
If one considers this tense event in perspective it becomes very clear how Jesus came to complete the shadow of the law – He taught us that we are not drinking the cup, but the coffee:
- Jesus does not intervene to ensure that his disciples (who are also law-abiding Jews) do not profane the Sabbath – the behaviour of the disciples was clearly problematic in terms of, for instance, a Scripture such as Ex. 16:29. That the church of his time is greatly disturbed by the non-observance is clear – from the history of violating the Sabbath we know that it was often punished by death (see for instance the story in Num. 15:32-36).
- Instead of speaking to his disciples, reprimanding or stopping them, Jesus defends them. And He does this using a deadly example, that of the arch father of the Jews, David, who did something that can also be considered violation of the Sabbath (recorded in 1 Sam. 21:3-6).
- He then also offers a further argument, that the priests in the temple on the sabbath violated the sabbath but are blameless (recorded in Num. 28:9-10). In John 7:22-23 (NJB) this argument is presented quite clearly: “Moses ordered you to practise circumcision — not that it began with him, it goes back to the patriarchs — and you circumcise on the Sabbath. Now if someone can be circumcised on the Sabbath so that the Law of Moses is not broken, why are you angry with me for making someone completely healthy on a Sabbath?” You can thus, as Jesus explains, both profane the sabbath and be blameless!
- In his very logical, and law-based argument Jesus offers this blow regarding the law: “Yet I say to you that in this place there is One greater than the temple.” What relation does the temple have to observing the Sabbath, one could ask. Jesus presents the temple as the sum of all Jewish practices pertaining to the law. Later he would say about the temple: “Do you not see all these things? Assuredly, I say to you, not one stone shall be left here upon another, that shall not be thrown down.” (Matt. 24:2). On the website Judaism 101 this statement is noted as being acknowledged by the Jews: “Many of these 613 mitzvot cannot be observed at this time for various reasons. For example, a large portion of the laws relate to sacrifices and offerings, which can only be made in the Temple, and which does not exist today.
- Then Jesus points out that throughout the old covenant God did not place explicit emphasis on rites, rituals and laws, but merely on obedience (see, for instance, 1 Sam. 15:22). In this regard he quotes from Isa. 1:11-17, Hos. 6:6 and Mic. 6:6-7. The conclusion here is quite simple: “He hath told thee, O son of earth, what is good,—what then is, Yahweh, seeking of thee, but, to do justice, to delight in lovingkindness, and humbly to walk with thy God?” (Mic. 6:8, Rotherham). The Message translates the first part of the verse as follows: “But he’s already made it plain how to live, what to do, what GOD is looking for in men and women.”
- Selah: Do you understand the fulfilment of the law?
- Read: Esther 6-10; Neh. 1-5.
- Memorise: 1:11 as prayer.
