I came across the following comments in a discussion group today:
"I don't keep a Saturday Sabbath because Jesus abolished the Law of Moses in His death...ie He destroyed the "devil" in His death. In other words, the Law falsely accused Jesus and condemned Him in His death. Every day is "Sabbath" for the Children of God...because we are FREE in Him to serve the Father every moment of our lives."
"If you have been made "priests and kings" giving you authority to break Sabbath yet remain innocent [Mat 12.5] why don't you?"
Some people say that the Messiah our Master has abolished the Torah by his sacrificial death. In fact, two years ago I was told by a well-respected Christian pastor that even the Ten Commandments have likewise abolished. As such there is, supposedly, no need to keep the Sabbath rest every week.
Then there are others who take a longer route in their reasoning. They would first point out from verses such as Revelations 1:6; 5:10 and 1 Peter 2:9 that we, children of Elohim, has been made priests and kings in His kingdom.
Revelations 1:6 NIV
and has made us to be a kingdom and priests to serve his God and Father--to him be glory and power for ever and ever! Amen.
Revelations 5:10 NIV
You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to serve our God, and they will reign on the earth.
1 Peter 2;9 NIV
But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.
Then they would move on to the well known account in Matthew 12 about our the disciples of our Master Yeshua picking some heads of grain and eating them as they passed through a grain field on a Sabbath day, pointing out the words of our Master in verse 5 ". . . haven’t you read in the Torah that the priests on Sabbath duty in the temple desecrate the Sabbath and yet are innocent?"
These simple minded people would put two and two together and say, "Ah-ha! There it is. Don't you see?". They would conclude that since we are chosen as priests and kings, and since the priests who serve YHWH Elohim "break" the Sabbath by carrying out their priestly duties every Sabbath day, therefore, we have the authority to also break Sabbath. (!)
Is that so? Did the Levitical priests really desecrate the Sabbath? Are we really authorised to break it, likewise? What's wrong with people who come to such a conclusion?
Let us take a closer look at the account in Matthew chapter 12
Matthew 12:1 - 8 ESV“At that time Jesus went through the grainfields on the Sabbath. His disciples were hungry, and they began to pluck ears of corn and to eat. 2 But when the Pharisees saw it, they said to him, “Look, your disciples are doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath.” 3 He said to them, “Have you not read what David did when he was hungry, and those who were with him: 4 how he entered the house of God and ate the bread of the Presence, which it was not lawful for him to eat nor for those who were with him, but only for the priests? 5 Or have you not read in the Law how on the Sabbath the priests in the temple profane the Sabbath and are guiltless? 6 I tell you, something greater than the temple is here. 7 And if you had known what this means, ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice’, you would not have condemned the guiltless. 8 For the Son of Man is lord of the Sabbath.” ”
The Accusation by the Pharisees :
The Pharisees told the Master Yeshua that his disciples had broken the Torah commandment (did something unlawful) by plucking the ears of corn and eating them on the Sabbath (verse 1).
My friend Paul F. Herring, in his recent book, "The New Testament: the Hebrew behind the Greek" has this to say:
"It was accepted that on the Sabbath it was permissible to pick up fallen heads of grain and rub them between the fingers. According to Rabbi Yehuda, also a Galilean like Yeshua, it was even permissible to rub them in one's hand. Some of the Pharisees though found fault with Yeshua’s disciples for most likely behaving in accordance with their Galilean tradition.
That is, it is most probable that these Galileans, picked the fallen heads of grain, rubbed them together and ate them. But what we read in Greek (Matt 12:1-2) is that they ‘plucked’ the heads of grain.
It seems fairly clear then, that when the original Hebrew account (written by someone who knew the customs and even the local differences in interpretation) was translated into Greek, the translator, not knowing these customs, and perhaps trying to make the scene more colourful, added the statement about plucking the wheat and thus introduced the one and only act of transgression of the Torah recorded in the synoptic Gospels ."
See M. Kister, "Plucking on the Sabbath and Christian-Jewish Polemic," Immanuel 24-25 (Jerusalem, 1990), pp. 35-51.
The Answer by our Master Yeshua:
Yeshua told them that his disciples had not broken the commandment. They had not done anything unlawful. Instead, the Pharisees have condemned the guiltless (verse 7). Yes, the key to this passage is the word "guiltless". The Pharisees have condemned the guiltless disciples. In making this point, the Master Yeshua made three allusions to the TaNaKh, as follows:
The Allusions to the TaNaKh:
Firstly, how David entered the temple of Elohim and ate the Show bread. see 1 Samuel 2: 1-16.
(this point to be continued . . .)
Secondly, how the Levitical priests did not rest from their duties in serving YHWH Elohim in the temple on Sabbath.
The Levitical priests did not break the Sabbath by doing what they liked. They did not go after their own ways nor sought their own pleasure, nor talked idly. Instead they "worked" on Sabbath by doing the work of ministering in the Temple of Elohim. It was this work that the Master Yeshua was talking about in Matthew 12:5 when he said that the priests "profaned" the Sabbath when they were on Sabbath duty.
Isaiah 58:13, 14 ESVThirdly, Yeshua told the Pharisees to ponder over what YHWH Elohim meant when He told His people through the prophet Hosea that He desired mercy and not sacrifice.
“If you turn back your foot from the Sabbath, from doing your pleasure on my holy day, and call the Sabbath a delight and the holy day of YHWH honorable; if you honor it, not going your own ways, or seeking your own pleasure, or talking idly; then you shall take delight in YHWH, and I will make you ride on the heights of the earth; I will feed you with the heritage of Jacob your father, for the mouth of YHWH has spoken.”
Hosea 6:6
"For I desired mercy, and not sacrifice; and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings."
(to be continued . . .)
Related post: Did the Messiah break the Sabbath?
