When we think about individuals who oppose Jesus, we probably think about groups like ISIS, killing Christians, or perhaps some political leader who vehemently opposes the church. We probably don’t think of the guy who gives free oxygen tanks to people at the nursing home, or the lady who has strong convictions against alcohol, or the man who has vowed never to see a movie beyond a PG rating. The reality, however, is that just as many people will go to hell pursuing high moral standards in this life than will go to hell vehemently speaking against Jesus in this life. And the reason why is because the pursuit of moral righteousness can be a pursuit completely separated from faith in Jesus Christ. And if the guy who thinks you should take the financial hit and give the oxygen tank to the lady at the nursing home for free is doing so in order to try to become righteous before the Lord, then he is actually standing in opposition to the gospel.
You see, one great risk in life is that people can set their pursuit on righteousness and moral uprightness, following all kinds of rules and regulations for their lives, while missing Jesus altogether. You can strain over whether this decision or that decision is best in terms of morality and die and go to hell. You can discipline your life so thoroughly that you look to your neighbors and friends like the holiest person alive, not know Jesus, and face his wrath on the final day.
One group in Scripture who embodied this seemingly righteous pursuit apart from bowing the knee to Jesus Christ is the Pharisees. They were a religious group who pressed their fellow man to keep the law of God (and their own extra-biblical laws), while waiting to point out their failures along the way. They were known, therefore, as being quite righteous in the eyes of others. We know this (among other ways) because Jesus said in the sermon on the mount that our righteousness must “exceed that of the scribes and Pharisees” (5:20) if we want to enter the kingdom of heaven. That statement, of course, makes no sense if Jesus’ hearers didn’t think the Pharisees were righteous.
The problem, as already noted, however, is that the Pharisees actually did not have true righteousness. They adhered to a set of rules and regulations that God never prescribed in Scripture. And the reality is that when you pursue extra-biblical rules and regulations in an attempt to find a righteous standing before God, it will eventually lead you to unrighteous pursuits and put you in a place of opposition before Jesus Christ.
And to this point in Matthew’s gospel, this is no more clearly seen than in the text we’re looking at this morning, Matthew 12:1-14. In these verses the Pharisees engage Jesus concerning the issue of the Sabbath. The Sabbath was a key component of the law of Moses in the Old Covenant. The Sabbath command required that one not work but rest on the seventh day (Saturday) of each week. The Lord had said specifically, “Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work” (Exod. 20:9-10).
Now, what constituted “work” wasn’t laid out as clearly as some would have liked, so there was developed a group of thirty-nine areas that were written out as constituting work. According to R. T. France, some of these were very specific, as “writing two letters” and “erasing to write two letters” were forbidden as constituting work, while writing one letter or erasing in order to write one letter was accepted (go figure!). Among these actions that constituted work was “reaping” (as in reaping a harvest) and doing an unnecessary work of healing. Regarding the latter, you could keep someone from dying or stabilize them, but to try to help address their poison ivy, for example, was absolutely unnecessary and could be addressed on the six other days of the week.
Therefore, when the Pharisees see Jesus’ disciples walking along the road, plucking heads of grain, and eating them on the Sabbath (i.e., reaping), they’ve got a problem. Or when Jesus heals a man on the Sabbath, for an ailment that was not an emergency, they’ve got a problem. And they confront Jesus about it.
But what’s interesting is that Jesus doesn’t answer merely on the level of explaining why their extra-biblical rules and regulations are wrong. He answers their charges by explaining to them again who he is, which I think serves to show them that amidst their zealous pursuit of obedience to all of their rules, they’ve missed that God the Son incarnate is standing right in front of them.
And because I don’t want us to make the same mistake as the Pharisees (i.e., pursuing rules and missing Jesus), this morning I want us to see from this text once more who Jesus is. First, we see that:
We see this in verses 1-4. Verses 1-2 set the stage. As I’ve mentioned, as Jesus and his disciples walked along the road, his disciples got hungry, and they started plucking heads of grain and eating them as a kind of afternoon snack. And Matthew tells us, “But when the Pharisees saw it, they said to him, ‘Look, your disciples are doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath.’”
Now, this is where it gets interesting. You’d completely expect Jesus to say something like, “Are you kidding me? Plucking a few heads of grain for an afternoon snack is not work and is not forbidden by the Sabbath command. These men aren’t farmers, trying to squeeze in a little extra harvesting on a Saturday afternoon.” And, I think that would have been an acceptable answer. But Jesus is never okay with simply acceptable answers or minimally addressing the question. Rather, he wants to get down to the heart of the problem with those accusing him. And with the Pharisees, their chief problem was not that they misunderstood the Sabbath, but they were failing to come face to face with who Jesus is, repenting of their sins, and bowing the knee to him as God’s promised Messiah who had come and was standing before them. Therefore, Jesus answer takes us in that direction.
Here’s how he answers. He says, “Have you not read what David did when he was hungry, and those who were with him: 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?” (vv. 3-4).
Now, this story about David to which Jesus refers is found in 1 Samuel 21:1-6. This text tells of a time when David was fleeing from Saul because Saul was seeking to kill him. And David and the men with him came to the priest, Ahimelech, telling him that he was on a special mission from King Saul. David then told him he was hungry and asked for bread. The problem was that the only bread that the priest had was the bread of Presence, which was bread that was set before the Lord in the tabernacle that was replaced every Sabbath, and when it was replaced the old bread could only be eaten by the priests. Nevertheless, Ahimelech agrees to give it to David and his men, David and his men ate it, and the Scripture did not condemn David or his men for eating.
Jesus’ first point is that the Pharisees’ understanding of the Sabbath can’t even account for this story. Why, after all, is David not condemned for eating the bread of Presence when the law clearly said that this bread could only be eaten by the priests?
What Jesus wants the Pharisees to come to terms with is the answer to the question, “Why doesn’t the Scripture condemn David and his men?” The answer, of course, would go something like this: well, the law does require that the bread of Presence can only be eaten by the priests. However, David is no average person. He’s special. In 1 Samuel 21, David has already been anointed by God to be the king who would replace Saul. He is God’s anointed king. Therefore, when David himself is in need of food, then the law about the bread of Presence could be set aside for the good of David. Moreover, David is so special that his men were also covered by his greatness, meaning they too were guiltless (like David) when they ate the bread, simply because they were on mission with the great David himself.
That alone seems to explain the story to which Jesus points them. Nothing else really accounts for David and his men being treated as guiltless in this situation. But if the Pharisees come to this conclusion, they’re forced to come face-to-face with a truth about Jesus, namely, that he’s claiming to be at least as great as David. Otherwise, the comparison makes no sense. And this claim by Jesus is exactly what he wants the Pharisees to come to terms with. Jesus doesn’t want the Pharisees to continue to utilize their Sabbath struggles as a smokescreen, hiding their rejection of the one who is clearly God’s promised Messiah, the promised son of David.
Now, yes, Jesus could have said, “My disciples aren’t breaking the law given in Exodus 20,” but that would let the Pharisees off too easily. After all (and this is key), their main problem isn’t that they misunderstood the Sabbath. Their main problem is that they weren’t recognizing Jesus for who he is. He is greater than David. And it is more important that they recognize him as God’s anointed king than that they hold to their incorrect rigid understanding of the Sabbath that can’t even account for the episode of 1 Samuel 21. So, first we see Jesus’ claim that he’s greater than David. But Jesus doesn’t stop there. Next, we see that:
If you think it’s a grand claim for Jesus to put himself on level with the greatest king in Israel’s history, then his next claim is going to floor you. Jesus doesn’t stop by forcing the Pharisees to have to think about why David and his men weren’t condemned for clearly violating the law of Moses, he also forces them to think about why the priests were exempt from the law forbidding work on the Sabbath.
In verse 5 Jesus says, “Or have you not read in the Law how on the Sabbath the priests in the temple profane the Sabbath and are guiltless?” Now, what Jesus is describing is the fact that though doing work was explicitly forbidden in the Sabbath command, the priests did all kinds of work on the Sabbath at the temple. They would change out the bread of Presence for fresh, hot bread. They would offer the double burnt offering of two male lambs every Sabbath. And I doubt that anyone has actually done this, but if you’ve ever gone through the work of offering two lambs in sacrifice to the Lord, I’m confident that it’s quite a load of work. So, Jesus notes, technically speaking, the priests profane the Sabbath every week by their work at the temple, yet the Lord holds them guiltless.
Now, how would the Pharisees answer that if indeed they were so zealous to make sure that no one did work on the Sabbath? Well, I think we would know their answer, wouldn’t we? They would point out that the ability to worship at the temple on the Sabbath was a necessary part of God’s law. After all, the Sabbath wasn’t simply a day to rest from work but a day to be consecrated unto the Lord. It was a day of devotion to the Lord. And the place where the Lord was pleased to dwell among his people was the temple. And the only reason the Lord was able to dwell among his people in the temple in light of their sins was because sacrifice and offerings were continually made. Consequently, because the temple is so great and central to Israel’s worship because it was the place were God dwelt with his people, the work of the priests was allowed, even on the Sabbath. That is, the greatness and necessity of the temple overrides even the Sabbath command itself, thus making the priests who work on the Sabbath guiltless.
That’s the answer that the Pharisees would have come up with. So what?, we might ask. Jesus answers in verse 6, “I tell you, something greater than the temple is here.”
Do you see? Once more, even though Jesus could have argued at the level of noting the disciples weren’t technically working, that would have let the Pharisees off too easy. They needed to recognize, again, that their problem wasn’t chiefly a misunderstanding of the Sabbath regulations but a misunderstanding of who Jesus is. He is God the Son. If the temple was the place where God dwelt among his people, Jesus is better; he is himself God the Son, dwelling among his people. He is greater than the temple.
But once more, Jesus doesn’t stop there. Next we see:
If indeed you can ratchet up Jesus’ claim that he is greater than the temple, we see that he continues to ratchet up his argument. Again, we’ve noted that though the Pharisees set out to accuse Jesus, they are the ones being accused of wrong. They’ve argued Jesus’ disciples are guilty of disobeying the Sabbath. Jesus is arguing that they themselves are guilty of failing to recognize who he is.
And this accusation continues as Jesus says in verse 7, “And if you had known what this means, ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the guiltless.”
Now this statement says a couple of things that have to be crushing blows to the Pharisees. First, Jesus finally explicitly notes that his disciples are guiltless in their actions. He’s implied it all along, but now he’s finally explicit about it. Second, Jesus once again questions their knowledge of the Old Testament Scriptures. And if there’s anything the Pharisees believed they knew well, it was the Scriptures. But already twice Jesus has said, “Have you not read,” knowing that the Pharisees not only read this section of text but almost certainly had memorized it. And now, Jesus is suggesting that they don’t even understand the basic meaning of another Old Testament text, namely, Hosea 6:6 where the Lord says, “I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.”
My guess is that the Pharisees would have thought, “We absolutely know the meaning of that text.” After all, Hosea references a time and a people in Israel’s history who simply had gone about doing the rituals of the Old Covenant. They were offering their sacrifices and offerings. However, they were rebelling against the Lord in their lives. Consequently, the Lord says to them through the prophet Hosea that he desires mercy, not sacrifice. That is to say, their sacrifices count as nothing, for they are a people who have hard, unloving hearts toward the Lord and their neighbor. They withheld mercy but kept on sacrificing. But their sacrifices, the Lord wanted them to know, counted as nothing.
The Pharisees knew that well. My guess is that they would say, “This very truth is why we’re so zealous about obeying God’s law. We’re standing in contrast to a people who disobeyed it (i.e. those in Hosea’s day).” So why does Jesus say that if they understood what that text meant, they wouldn’t have condemned the disciples, who were only doing what their master clearly allowed?
The answer is that those in Hosea’s day were only seeing the commands of God at a superficial level. Sure, the Lord had commanded that sacrifices be made, but ultimately the sacrifices were to be a reflection of their love for the Lord, shown in their obedient hearts. After all, it had always been the greatest commandment that one love the Lord with heart, soul, mind, and strength. Those in Hosea’s day were missing the depth of the law and the truth of the law.
Jesus is saying the same thing about the Pharisees. The Pharisees felt like they were obeying the Sabbath, but they were actually as guilty as those condemned by Hosea 6:6. And here’s the reason why. Jesus says in verse 8, “For the Son of Man is lord of the Sabbath.”
D. A. Carson helpfully notes that to say that one is lord of something is more than simply saying that one has the right to give commands and say what goes. Rather, it is a statement about service. That is, if I am your lord, then you are to be in service to me. Similarly then, when Jesus says that he is Lord of the Sabbath, he is saying that the Sabbath always existed to serve him. He is its lord not only in that he has authority to deem what is acceptable on the Sabbath and what isn’t, but he is lord of the Sabbath in that the Sabbath always existed for the purpose of pointing us to Christ.
The Sabbath was a day of rest. That’s why you were forbidden to labor. It was for rest. But the Sabbath day never provided the rest that Adam and Even knew after the Lord finished his work and rested. The Sabbath never provided that situation of glory and beauty wherein one could sit under God, know you’re not condemned, and know you don’t have to work to make yourself acceptable because he is pleased with you. That’s the Sabbath rest that was lost in Genesis 3. And the Sabbath day itself was always just a type or shadow of that rest. It was always pointing us forward to the rest that we could know again, being free from condemnation and accepted by God.
That is, the Sabbath was always pointing us to Jesus as the source (indeed the person) in whom we can know this rest. Hopefully we see now why Matthew places this Sabbath confrontation where he does in his gospel account. Where does Matthew 12:1-14 come in this book? That’s right, right after Matthew 11:28-30 where Jesus says, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.”
Had the Pharisees read the Sabbath as they should, they would have seen it as pointing them to Jesus, who was now standing right in front of them. Instead, they had missed the whole purpose of the law (just as those in Hosea’s day had), and they were as guilty as those in Hosea’s day, since they were seeing the Sabbath day only in this superficial level, and never recognizing what it was meant to point toward, as Paul reminds us in Colossians 2:17, saying of the Sabbath, “These things are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ.” Jesus is not only greater than David and the temple; he is lord of the Sabbath. And as a note of crescendo, we see in verses 9-14:
When I was a child, I used to repeat a prayer before mealtimes as my parents taught me to pray wherein I noted that the Lord was great, and he was good. I think of that now often, for the greatness of the Lord elicits worship in his people because we also know that he is good, that he loves us, and that he has saved us. In verses 9-14 we also are reminded that Jesus came for our good.
Matthew moves us from the grain field to the synagogue where it is once again the Sabbath and the Pharisees are once again trying to accuse Jesus of wrong. There is a man there with a withered hand, and knowing that Jesus might heal him, they try to trap him, asking him, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?”
Jesus asks them which of them would lift up his sheep if it fell into a pit on the Sabbath. He knows, of course, that they all would. They really value their sheep and wouldn’t want to lose this precious animal. Jesus therefore notes, “Of how much more value is a man than a sheep!” but then adds, “So it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath,” as he healed the man’s hand.
Here Jesus exposed that he and the Pharisees couldn’t be more different. They were claiming to abide by God’s laws to a “T,” but they actually were evil. They sought to accuse. In verse 14, they even conspire to kill. That’s where pursuing law apart from knowing rest in Christ leads. It doesn’t lead you to try harder but ultimately to give up and walk away. For the Pharisees, they had led to great evil.
But Jesus is not like them. He sought good, and he did good. He understood that God’s law always allows for doing good. Again, we are commanded to love God and to love our neighbor. And ultimately, this juxtaposition of the Pharisees and Jesus would come to a head. They would succeed in killing him, committing the greatest evil known to man, as Jesus was crucified on a hill on Friday afternoon. But Jesus was actually not the object of murder, for he willingly laid down his life on that cross for our good, for our only hope as sinners condemned before God was that Jesus, the righteous one, would die for our sins and be raised on the third day so that we might have eternal life. And that’s just what he did. He, the one greater than David, the temple, and the Sabbath came for our good, and that is no more clearly seen than in his death and resurrection for us.
Now, what does this mean for us? After all, you might ask, “If I’m supposed to obey God’s commands in my daily life, then how does this text aid me?” That is, what is the application of Jesus reminding us of who he is and why he came? The answer is found in recognizing that we will only obey the Lord if we first love him. This is why loving our God is the first and greatest commandment. And we will only love him if we know that he has first loved us. And, finally, there is no greater reminder that we are loved than to realize that the one who is better than David, greater than the temple, and lord of the Sabbath came for our good, to make us his own, by shedding his blood for us on the cross. Therefore, we desperately need this reminder from our Lord if indeed we are to live lives of obedience before him. Let us then now meditate on his love for us as we come to the table. Amen.