History of the Sabbath - smyrna.orgsmyrna.org/SS_slides/2017/spring/5-27-17/History_of_the_Sabbath... · History of the Sabbath J. N. Andrews Chapter 10 “The Sabbath in the Time

History of the SabbathJ. N. Andrews

Chapter 10

“The Sabbath in the Time of Christ”Conclusion

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Sabbath Reformation2

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Another Miracle of Healing on the SabbathLuke 6:6–11

“Another” sabbathLuke 6:6

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• Do you think the Greek word would be heteros or allos?

• Remember Galatians 1:6, 7? (The first one is heteros and the second is allos.)

• Heteros means another of a different kind

• Allos means another of the same kind.

• In this case, heteros means not the same sabbath already mentioned in Luke 6:1, but a different sabbath.

• The use of allos would have meant the very same sabbath.

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• He was at the synagogue.

• He taught the people.

• Among the crowd was a man whose right was withered.

• The scribes and Pharisees watched Jesus to see if he would heal on the sabbath day.

• Jesus knew their thoughts.

• He instructed the man to stand.

• He then asked “them” a question (v. 9).

• Then he looked around at them all, and told the man to stretch forth his hand.

• It was restored.

• Mark 3:1–6; Matthew 12:9–14

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• They held their peace.

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Mark 3:1–6

• They held their peace.

• Jesus looked about on them with anger, being grieved for the hardness of their hearts.

• Mark does not tell us who the “they” are who watched Jesus to see if he would heal on the sabbath day.

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Mark 3:1–6

Matthew 12:9–14

• “They” asked him the question.

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Matthew 12:9–14

• “They” asked him the question.

• Anecdote of a sheep falling in a pit

• Verse 14 tells us the Pharisees were present, but makes no mention of the scribes.

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• “And how necessary that such a wicked tradition [of not doing well on the sabbath or of healing on the sabbath] should be swept away, if the Sabbath itself was to be preserved for man. But the Pharisees were filled with such madness that they went out of the synagogue and consulted how they might destroy the Saviour. Yet Jesus only acted in behalf of the Sabbath in setting aside those traditions by which they had perverted it” (Andrews 124).

13John 5:1–18

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John 5:16

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• Persecute—In the Greek this verb is in the inchoative form, which means it shows the beginning of an action. It is from this point, according to John, that the Jews began to persecute Jesus, and it was because he had done these things on the sabbath day.

• Persecute—dioko, and it means to systematically oppress and harass a person or persons

• John 9:16—“In answer to the charge that Jesus was a sinner because He kept not the Sabbath day, they said, ‘How can a man that is a sinner do such miracles?’” (DA 472.1)

• Matthew 5:10—dioko

• Righteousness–doing what God requires; moral righteousness and legal justice; to follow the law

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They also sought to kill him because he made himself equal with God AND claimed that God was his

Father! (v. 18)

! The Jews answered him, saying, For a good work we stone thee not; but for blasphemy; and because that thou, being a man, makest thyself God. (John 10:33)

Accusations against Jesus

• By his word he had healed, but saying something broke no commandment.

• Jesus set at naught the tradition that forbade any curing of disease on the sabbath.

• Carrying his bed . . . was designed to show the reality of his cure and thus honor the Lord who had cured him.

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• “Verily, verily, I say unto you, The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do; for what things soever he doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise.”

• Jesus was doing that only which would have been the pleasure of the Father to have done. He was not engaged in the overthrow of the Sabbath.

• By the meek answer - “The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do” - Jesus showed the groundlessness of their charge of self-exaltation.

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• Jesus’s adds more in John 7:21–23.

• In his first answer, he stated he had done precisely the same as what his Father would have done.

• His answer this time is that his act of healing no more violated the Sabbath than did the act of circumcising upon the Sabbath.

• Andrews says these two answers are in harmony with the unanimous testimony of the sacred writers, that the Sabbath originated with the sanctification of the rest-day of the Lord in Eden.

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• The Jewish leaders hated Jesus for healing someone upon the sabbath who had been helpless for 38 years.

• But this act of mercy was in strict accordance with the sabbath.

• Had he left the man in his wretchedness because it was the sabbath, when a word would have healed him, he would have dishonored the sabbath and thrown reproach upon its author.

• Jesus was at work rescuing the sabbath from the hands of those who had utterly perverted it.

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• John 9:1–16

• Another act of mercy on the sabbath day; this man was blind from birth. This act of healing is worthy of the sabbath.

• Jesus was working the works of the Father.

• The man was cast out of the temple (verses 19–34).

• Jesus sought him out (verses 35–38).

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• Again the rabbis appealed to the blind man, “What sayest thou of Him, that He hath opened thine eyes? He said, He is a prophet.” The Pharisees then asserted that he had not been born blind and received his sight. They called for his parents, and asked them, saying, “Is this your son, who ye say was born blind?”

• There was the man himself, declaring that he had been blind, and had had his sight restored; but the Pharisees would rather deny the evidence of their own senses than admit that they were in error. So powerful is prejudice, so distorting is Pharisaical righteousness. (DA 472.3)

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• Luke 13:10–17

• A woman was in the synagogue, but was bound by Satan and could not lift herself up. She had been like this for 18 years.

• Jesus healed her on the sabbath day.

• The ruler of the synagogue was indignant. He considered healing a work that should be done on the 6 days of work.

• Jesus used the example of them watering their animals on the sabbath day and that it was also appropriate to heal on the sabbath.

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Christ, during His earthly ministry, emphasized the binding claims of the

Sabbath; in all His teaching He showed reverence for the institution He Himself had given. In His days the

Sabbath had become so perverted that its observance reflected the character

of selfish and arbitrary men rather than the character of God. (PK 183.1)

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Christ set aside the false teaching by which those who claimed to know God

had misrepresented Him. Although followed with merciless hostility by the

rabbis, He did not even appear to conform to their requirements, but went

straight forward keeping the Sabbath according to the law of God. (Ibid.)

• Luke 14:1–6

• Is it lawful to heal on the sabbath day? The lawyers and Pharisees did not answer.

• Jesus asked a second question—if you ox falls in a pit will you not pull it out on the sabbath?

• Jesus taught that the weightier matters of the law were judgment, mercy, and faith, and he vindicated the sabbath as a merciful institution.

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During the Christian dispensation, the great enemy of man’s happiness has made the Sabbath of the fourth commandment an object of special attack. Satan says, “I will work at cross purposes with God. I will empower my followers to set aside God’s memorial, the seventh-day Sabbath. Thus I will show the world that the day sanctified and blessed by God has been changed. That day shall not live in the minds of the people. I will obliterate the memory of it. I will place in its stead a day that does not bear the credentials of God, a day that cannot be a sign between God and His people. I will lead those who accept this day to place upon it the sanctity that God placed upon the seventh day. (PK 183.3)

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“Through my vicegerent, I will exalt myself. The first day will

be extolled, and the Protestant world will receive

this spurious sabbath as genuine. Through the nonobservance of the

Sabbath that God instituted, I will bring His law into

contempt. The words, ‘A sign between Me and you

throughout your generations,’ I will make to serve on the

side of my sabbath. (PK 184.1)

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“Thus the world will become mine. I will be the ruler of the

earth, the prince of the world. I will so control the minds under

my power that God’s Sabbath shall be a special object of contempt. A sign? I will make the observance of the seventh day a sign of disloyalty to the authorities of earth. Human laws will be made so stringent that men and women will not dare to observe the seventh-day Sabbath.

For fear of wanting food and clothing, they will join with the

world in transgressing God’s law. The earth will be wholly under my

dominion.” (PK 184.2)