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Transcript of 1996 Issue 7 - Sermon on Luke 5:33-39 - The Lord of the Sabbath and Biblical Law - Counsel of...
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8/12/2019 1996 Issue 7 - Sermon on Luke 5:33-39 - The Lord of the Sabbath and Biblical Law - Counsel of Chalcedon
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he
Lord
of
the Sabbath
and
Biblical Law
The
fldee
oj
Biblical
Law
in
.
the Kingdom
of
Christ
..
With
these words, Jesus is not
criticizing or abrogating the Law
of God. He is criticizing the
traditions
of
the rabbis and, as the
Lord
Who gave the Law, showing
us how to interpret and apply His
Law. The
Biblical Law
of
the
Sabbath stills S\a.nds
in
the
Kingdom of Christ, although the
day has been changed from the
seventh
to the first by the Lord
of
demand in the light of the
ORIGINAL meaning of THE
.WHOLE
of
the divine
commandments . It is always the
law that Jesus claims to maintain
and fulfill. And every time it
appears that the interpretation of
the law, i.e, the knowledge of the
divine will from the law, must
satisfy higher demands than those
made by the current interpretation
of the Jewish teachers of the law.
The issue is
not
the law as such
but its interpretation."
(Ridderbos, THE COMING
OF
THE KINGDOM, pg. 312 .
commitment to the law but
against their refusal to be really
committed to the law, Mat. 15:6;
9:13. No doubt the most basic .
cause of this refusal of ]tidaism's '
was the fact that it )lad divorced '
the law from the living
Cod and
had made the law merely a subject
for formal and scholarly learning.
In contrast to th
iS
Jesus leads tiis
disciples back to God llimselffo.r
the knowledge of the Divine will.
They must show that they are th
children of their heavenly Father .
But this encounter only takes '
place
in
:the
he Sabbath
through
His
Spirit-endowed
Apostles,
and
its ceremonial
trappings
have
reached a
climax
in
Christ.
F T ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ law,
We
cannot
agree
with
those who
deny the
abiding
authOrity of
God's Law
in
the kingd9t )
of Christ. "The theonomy of the
gospel is subjection to the law,
and any
attempt
to eliminate the
category oflaw from the gospel is
frustrated by the continuous and
undeniable ms.interiance of the
law
by
andin thegospel."
(Riddetbos,
THE
COMING
OF
THE KINGDOM, pg. 307).
So):Ileti
.mes the ful(illment
of
the
law formulated
by
Jesus in His
commandments consists in a
deepening, a refinement, a
qualitative reduction of a
particular sin to its
roOI
and
origin; at others it contains the
rejection of the atomistic
conception of sin and
r i ~ h t e o u s r : e s s
ar:d sets God's
The Main Flaw
of
Pharisaism
with Reference
t
Biblical Law
"For Pharisaism was
not
put in
default because it thought it could
'grasp' God and His will
in
the
law, or because t nferred
consequences from particular
principles or general precepts of
the law. But it was blamed
because
it
did so
in
such
a way
that the real
and
profound sense
of the law was deprived of its
force. --- ... the whole of His
teaching is dominated by the
thought of the living reality of
God's revealed will IN His law.
--- His frequently recurring
reproach is not directed against
4 TH C O U N ~ E L o Chalcedon September 1996
conceived
however,
as
.
the
translation .. '
and wording
of
Cod's will,
as the
personal
address by
the living and
holy
G o d ~
Rldderbos, .
pgs. 313-314.
he
Demand
of Biblital
Law According to Jesus
If the question is asked s to
what is special and characteristic
in Jesus' fulfillment
of
the law, the
answer must
be
that it is certainly
not to be found in the pointing .
out of the limited importance of .
the law as a source of knowledge
about the divine will
,
but much .
rather, in Jesus'
vindicationofthe
totalitarian and all-embracing
nature
of the demand of the laW ,
This, and nothing else, is the
meaning of the radicalization
of
the law's demand
in
the
applications given by Jesus in His
commandments. This is also the'
starting-poim of the antithesis,
,
. \;
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'unless your righteousness shall
exceed the righteousness of the
scribes and Pharisees.' This
'excess' demanded by Jesus is not
meant in a quantitative sense ,but
in a qualitative sense (the demand
of the law goes deeper and reaches
further
than
the
velY
elaborate
interpretation of the law which
the scribes would suggest), The
dimension in which such
fulfillment moves is not one of
width but of depth, --- This is the
'perfection' required by Jesus,
viz
the holding of nothing back, the
unconditional surrender to the
will of God with all that one is
and has, This, and
nothing
else, is
the meaning
of
the reduction of
the content of the law to the duty
ofloving God above all and one's
neighbor as
oneself:
Ridderbos ,
pgs, 314-315,
Jesus made clear that THE
lAW DEMANDS LOVE, which is
only possible
if
the heart has been
converted to God,
t
is the
obedience that will perform any
service which God demands from
His children, and that
presupposes the total,
unhampered surrender
of
heart
and
wilL --- To put it
in
one
statement,
we
can therefore say
that the fulfillment of the law by
Jesus consists in his setting in the
light in a matchless way the
character of love of the obedience
demanded by the law,
In
this
statement love is conceived of as
the totalitarian, all-embracing,
self-surrender. - Ridderbos,
317-318,
THE SON OF MAN
IS
LORD
OF THE SABBATH, He was
humiliated in suffering
and
death
to secure the blessings of the
Sabbath for us; and He arose from
the dead
with
unlimited
sovereignty to guard the Sabbath
and
to administer blessings
on
its .
observance and curses on its lack
of observance.
(6:6-11) The Sovereignty
o
esus Over
His
Enemies
The Sovereign jesus
Setting
Up
His Enemies
The Control o the
Situation
By
jesus
Jesus is in full control of this
situation, 6:6-11, which
eventually led to His crucifixion,
He faced his enemies, who were
looking for a legal excuse to kill
Him, called the man with the
withered
arm
to stand right in the
middle
of
His enemies so they
would not miss the miracle, chose
a Sabbath day to heal the man,
and then embarrassed His
enemies
with
a question that
exposed the failure of their
religion, thus discrediting
them,
Luke tells us that Jesus healed the
man
on
the Sabbath
on
purpose in
front of those who were looking
for some excuse to dispose
of
Jesus, because He knew what
they were thinking.
The Reason jesus Did What He
Did in
FJ Ont o
His Enemies
The Conspiracy
o
the Scribes
Pharisees Against jesus
Luke informs us that, by this
time in Jesus' minisny, the scribes
and Pharisees were already so fed
up
with
Jesus
and
so intimidated
by His ministry and theology, that
they were keeping an eye on
him to see if they could find
something, anything, of which
they could accuse
Him
in a court
oflaw,
so as to silence Him by
imprisonment
or
death, vs, 7,
Most particularly, if they could
catch Him in a violation
of
the
Sabbath, they had Him, because
Sabbath desecration was a capital
crime, Exodus 31:14-1 7,
The Work
o
the
Prophesied Cornerstone
Stumbling Block
Centuries earlier Isaiah had
prophesied of the MeSSiah, that
God would lay in
Zion C
stone,
a
tested stone, (a stone
that
would
test
men by their response
to
it),
a
costly
.
cornerstone
for
the
foundation,
firmly placed,
He who believes in
it
will not be disturbed, 28:16,
Earlier he had
prophesied of
this
stone
that
it
would
also
be
a
stone
to
strike and a
rock
to
stumble over, and a snare and a
trap for the inhabitants of
Jerusalem,
And many
will
stumble over them,
then
they will
fall
and
be
broken; they will even
be snared and caught,
8 4-15,
The Apostle Peter identifies Jesus
Christ as this cornerstone, a solid
foundation for life for all
who
come to
Him
in
faith,
I
Pet
2:4-7,
Peter also informs
us
that Christ
will also become a stone of
stumbling
and
a
rock
of offense to
all those
who
reject Him---- This
stone which the builders rejected,
this became the very
~ ~ ~ ; r e : ~ ~ ; : ~ ~ : : ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ h e n
people
stumble
over Christ in
unbelief,
it
is because they are
disobedient
to
the
Word,
and
to
this
they were
also appOinted
(by God),
2:8,
Jesus is in this incident acting
as
The Stone of stumbling,
i.e
the stone laid for the purpose
of
causing those who disbelieve to be
offended
and
to stumble over Him
into helL
He
appears to be
September,
1996
l THE COUNSEL
of
Cbalcedon l
S
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8/12/2019 1996 Issue 7 - Sermon on Luke 5:33-39 - The Lord of the Sabbath and Biblical Law - Counsel of Chalcedon
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maneuvering His enemies,
hardened
in
their unbelief, to
commit an act that would seal
their eternal doom. In seeking to
kill Christ, these Pharisees were
destroying themselves. In trying
to "break" Him,:they were
breaking themselves to pieces
upon Him. Their decision "points
forward to the Passion, but it also
contains the'seed of .
self-destruction. The rejection of
Jesus entails he rejection of life
and redemption and leaves men
prey to distress and death. This is
the bitter fruit of that
that Sabbath were scribes and
Pharisees, who were there
for
the
purpose of watching Him
closely,
to see i He healed on the Sabbath;
in
order
that they
might
find reason
to
accus
e Him:
vs.
7.
Jesus knew
that they were
pr
esent, AND,
more importantly,
as
Christ the
LORD
, He knew their hearts and
minds, and knew exactly what
they were up to, Lk. 6:8; jn .
2:24-25. Yet He in no way was
intimidated by their presence.
The Legalistic Traditions
of
the Pharisees
was an accepted prinCiple that
'any danger to life takes
precedence over
.the
Sabbath.;
scribes, however,
ha3.
..
..
:;:;
The
Public
Healing
of
the
Man
ith
the Withered
Hand
1,0I d.lI( < kll(,
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After the man stood up before
ev
erybody, and before Jesus
healed him, Jesus said to the
scribes and Pharisees present: "I
ask
YOL(, is it
l
awful
011
the
Sabbath
to do
good,
or
to
do evil, to save a
life, or
to
destroy it?"
Tlte
Nature
of tlte
Question
In the
pa
ssage, we leam that
Jesus is verbally addressing a
specific question to thoughts in
the minds of his enemies before
they expressed those thoughts.
His point is like a dagger to their
hearts.
The Two-Edged Point
of
the
Question
The Only Two Kinds
of
Behavior:
Good
or Evil
"Good" in Greek denotes moral
excellence a
nd
moral superiOii t
y.
Behavior that is morally excellent
and morally superior adorn and
honor the Sabbath. "
Evil
"
behavior, i.e., base and immoral
thoughts and behavior disgraces
the Sabbath . Evil behavior is the
only altemative to good behavior.
Jesus knew there was no other
choice, no neutral ground ;
therefore, if good behavior, such
as hea ling the man with the
divinely-revealed,
and
therefore
inerrant, Sta
nd
ard of
good
and
evil is so perfect and so sufficient,
that it has never needed and Will
never need supplementation,
Deut.
4:1;
12:32. God
commands us in Proverbs
30
:6---"Do not add to His words lest
He
repr
ove
you,
an
d you
be
p1 Dved
a
liar.
The Relation of Good and
Life Evil and Death
Tlte Powerful Logic
of esus' Word
Tlte Lawfulness of DOing
Good
011
th
e Sabbath
Jesus' question was
reasonable and penetrating.
After all, the scribes and
Pharisees were the very
Only ~
the
Creator
may
define
what
is
good
.
and what is evil in His
In Moses-like fashion,
Je
sus
asks His audience, 1 ask
you , is it law
ful on
the
Sa
bbath to
do good, or
to
do evil, to save a life, or to
destroy it?'" Remember
the challenge of Moses to
his
audi
ence, centuries
earlier: See, I have set
ereation and He has done
s o i n m s L a w W o r d ~ .
people who were always
claiming that THEY knew
what was lawful and what was not
in ev
ery
instance, according to
their traditions. Let them
no
w
give their expert opinion with
reference
to
this question. The
answer should be obvious to any
child. Is it lawful to do
go
od, to
be generous, kind and helpful to
other people on the Sabbath? Or
is the .Sabbath a day for doing evil
things, such as being stingy,
selfish, unkind, hateful and
murderou
s?
Does not the Law of
the Ole Testament require doing
good everyday of the week, both
With reference to God---in loving,
serving, worshipping and pleasing
Him, and
Wi
th reference
to
other
human beings---in delivering
them from slavery, loving, feeding
and clothing them? What about
the specific commands of Isaiah
56:6 and 58:6-1
4?
Tlte "Doing of Good
On tlte Sabbath
Withered hand, was forbidden
on
the Sa
bb
ath, then only evil
behavior, such as alloWing the
man to continue to suffer when
you have the power to heal him, is
possible. Not to do a morally
excellent deed is ALREADY to do
an
immoral deed.
Tlte Standard By W1,ich
Good
and Evil are Detennined
Only God, the Creator , m
ay
define what is good and what is
evil in His creation; and He has
done so in His Law-Word, Psalm
19, 119. Without that revealed
Word , (the Bible), man has no
way or means of determining the
difference between good and evil,
Rom. 3:20; 7:7f. Imagine what a
dark , dange rous and degenerate
world this wou
ld be if God
had
not revealed the difference
between good and evil to us in the
Bible In fact, the Bible as the
.
before you
today
life and
prospe
li
ty,
and
deatlt and
adversity; in that I
command you
today to love the Lord your God to
walk
in His ways and
to keep
His
commandments
and
His statutes
and
His jud
gm
ents , tha t you may
liv
e
and
multiply...
But
if
you
r he
art
turns away
and you wi/lnot obey
..
.1
declare to you today
that yo
u shall
surely pelish. - -- ...r have
se
t before
you life and death, the blessi
ng
and
the curse.
So choose life in
o
rder
that
yo
u
may
live,
yo
u
and yo
ur
descendants, by loving
the Lord
your
God, by obeying
His voice,
and by
holdingfast to Hi
m;
for
this is
your
life ... ,"- Deuteronomy 30: 15-20.
The logic ofJesus' statement is
powerful---healing
on
the Sabbath
is doing good
and
doing go
od
is
saving a life; therefore, healing On
the Sabbath is lawful, right
and
pleasing to G
od
. But it is
mor
e
than
th
at.
J ~ s
would heal
people, not just because He
wanted them to feel better,
bu
t n
September 1996 t THE COUNSEL of Chalcedon t 7
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8/12/2019 1996 Issue 7 - Sermon on Luke 5:33-39 - The Lord of the Sabbath and Biblical Law - Counsel of Chalcedon
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order to manifest the meaning of
His saving miSsion to earth: to
transfer people from the sphere of
death to the sphere of life.
The Devastating Indictment
ofPharisaic Religion
The Life-Destroying NatUre of
Pharisaic e i t g i ~ n
The Failure o/the Religion of the
Pharisees Manifested In Their
View
of
th",
Sabbath
The Manufacture of Man"Made
Law
In Addition to the Bible
The Pharisees' big mistake was
their refusal to
boW
to total ,
exclusive, inclusive and final
authority of Biblical
Law
. They
added thousands of man-made
laws to Biblical LaW, zealously
counting obedience to their laws
as important as obeyirtg Biblical
La
w. In
fact
, they believed that
The Failure of the Pharisees to
UnderstaniUhe Purpose
ofGod 's Law
As
we have seen above, the
original purpose of God's law is to
guard, promote arid enhance life.
The
laws of the scribes and
Pharisees restric.ted and perverted
life.
They were impediments to
the full joy ofliving and to full
usefulness,
as
the prohibition to
heal the man with the withered
hand would be had it been obeyed
byJesus.
Not healing the man on
the
Sabbath was doing evil and doing
evil is destroyirtg
life;
' herefore ,
Pharisaic religion, which forbids
obedience to God's
Law
and
which divorces the Uving God
from His
Law,
is evil and In their concern
for
legal
destl"\1ctive to life. It separates r ~ = = = = = = = = = = = = = ~ detail, (to their
man from God and from life in
, he original purpose of
traditions--JCMIII), they had
Him .
"There
i a way that seems forgotten
the
mercy and grace
right
to a man, but the end .
God's law is
t
guard,
shown by God to man when
thereofis the
way
of death.
promote nd
enhance life,
He made provision
for
the
Proverbs 8:36 makes dear that Sabbath. In the name of piety
disobedience to God's law not
I ;;; I
hey had become insensitive
only manifests hatred for God, i t unless a person obeyed Biblical both to the purposes of God and
is self-injuring and suicidal. Law according to scribal tradition, to the sufferings of men. jesus'
The Expose
By
Jesus of the he was not obeying God at all. anger was tempered by a godly
Blood-Thirstiness oj . Scribal tradition was the final sorrow
for
men who could no
the Pharisees interpreter of the Bible. t was for longer rejoice itl the tbkens of
them the standard by which the God's goodness o men. When
Jesus' question pierced His bl Jesus restored the man's hand He
. Bi e is to be understood and
enemies to the heart. "He exposed demonstrated what it means 'to do
h
f
h
applied. They refused to believe
t e perversity
0
t e critics even good' and
'to
preserve
ll
e
'on
the. the fundamental truth of the
more uneqUivocally; for not only Sabbath. Moreover, He provided
did He ask whether it was Bible : there s no Law abo
ve
God a sign of. he true observance and
d
h bb
h
d
and His Word. All human
permitte on t e sa at to 0 joy of the Sabbath. As Lord of the
d
. d t
r
but h
Is
traditions are to be tested and
goo an
0
save we, e a
0
Sabbath Jesus delivers both the
added, 'or to do harm and to weighed by the Word of God, not Sabbath and man from a state of
destroy it?' --- Nevertheless this vice versa.
To
place the religious
doing harm and destroying
was
traditions of men on par with the
exactly what these enemies were infallible Word of God is the
right now engaged in "- idolatrous attempt of man to set
Hendriksen. The scribes and himself up as God.
Pharisees who
we
re spyirtg on
Jesus not only rejects all
jesus in order to find a "legal" way
to kill Him, were particularly the man-made Sabbath regulations,
destroyers of life, i.e., Jesus' life. (and all man-made laws not
What
is
indeed unlawful on the rooted in His Word), He
goes
Sabbath is to attempt to slay an even farther and says that holding
innocent person, as the Pharisees to such traditions amounts to
and scribes were engaged in doing "neglecting the commandment of
by watchingjesus with murderous God and "invalidating the word of
intent. - Geldenhuys God," Mark 7:8-13.
8 l H E COUNSEL of Chalcedon September, 1996
distress. -
Lane
The Failure of
the
Pharisees to
Recognize the Dignity of Man
In the Image of God
According to Matthew
12:11-12, Jesus enforced His
point with an illustration of a
sheep that had fallen into a pit on
the Sabbath,
'lYhieh
the owner
would certainly rescue although it
was the Sabbath, and he would do
so legally. Then He asked, Of
how much more value then is a
man
than
a sheep "
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By this question, Jesus was
exposing the fallacy of Pharisaism
that they thus knew of no work
of mercy for suffering man on the
Sabbath although they would
inconsistently work to save a
sheep on the Sabbath, for they did
not like to lose a sheep. But some
other
MAN
they would treat
heartlessly; his suffering meant no
Joss
to them. - Lenski. They had
forgotten, inexcusably, that the
Sabbath was made for man, and
not man for the Sabbath.
The
Failure o
the Pharisees
to
Believe
In the True
Identity ofJesus
, From the Pharisaic point.of
v ~ w Jesus' word and action totally
undennined their interpretation of
the
Law
, their piety and their
actions. Jesus was not merely
another scribe who advocated an
independent opinion; He
constituted a threat to true
religion and ancestral tradition.
Lane. But, their most fatal failure
was their failure to submit to the
sovereign authority of the One
before them,
the
Lord
of
the
Sabbath," Who was Jehovah
incarnate visiting earth to give
Sabbath-rest and true Sabbath-life
to all who believed in Him and
submiued to His authoritative
Word. He is Wisdom Incarnate
who says: Counsel
is mine and
sound wisdom; am
understanding,
power is mine. By me
kings
reign ....
--- I
love
those who love me; and
those
who
diligently seel