7And the scribes and Pharisees watched him, whether he would heal on the sabbath day; that they might find an accusation against him.
8But he knew their thoughts, and said to the man which had the withered hand, Rise up, and stand forth in the midst. And he arose and stood forth.
9Then said Jesus unto them, I will ask you one thing; Is it lawful on the sabbath days to do good, or to do evil? to save life, or to destroy it?
10And looking round about upon them all, he said unto the man, Stretch forth thy hand. And he did so: and his hand was restored whole as the other.
11And they were filled with madness; and communed one with another what they might do to Jesus.”
After Jesus had been confronted by the Pharisees (vv 1-5) about working on the Sabbath, He made sure that another Sabbath (It may have been the very next Sabbath) was used for activities to which His enemies would again object. Jesus makes sure that the man with the withered hand is seen by the Pharisees when he is healed, for Jesus said, “Stand forth in the midst.” It is as if Jesus said, “Stand up here in front of everyone so that they can see this.” Jesus is bringing the controversy to a head and teaching the Pharisees something about the Sabbath that they obviously did not know. There are times when we should confront our enemies and “bring things to a head” lest they think that they are successful in getting us to compromise.
The legalism that many Christians have engaged in regarding the Sabbath has done much harm. Often Christians, believing incorrectly that Sunday is the Sabbath, have mercilessly judged other believers about Sunday activities. If someone throws a baseball on the Lord’s Day, or buys a meal in a restaurant, or goes traveling, or washes his car, or plays golf, or goes on a picnic, he will be severely judged and condemned as a “Sabbath-breaker.” Such judging has done much harm to the cause of Christ because it makes Christians seem foolish and unkind. It is all totally unnecessary because the Lord’s Day is not a Sabbath and no Sabbath was ever given to the church. The Jewish Sabbath was annulled when Jesus died. The NT standard is, “Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of the Sabbath days” (Col 2:16). In Romans 14:5-6, Paul wrote, “One man esteemeth one day above another: another esteemeth every day alike. Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind. He that regardeth the day, regardeth it unto the Lord; and he that regardeth not the day, to the Lord he doth not regard it. He that eateth, eateth to the Lord, for he giveth God thanks; and he that eateth not, to the Lord he eateth not, and giveth God thanks.”
Merrill F Unger, in his UNGER’S BIBLE DICTIONARY, makes it clear that there was no Sabbath commanded for man in Genesis 2. Says he, “We are not to suppose that the theocratic (Jewish ) Sabbath was thus early instituted. The Sabbath was instituted by Moses.” Unger, mistakenly, we believe, says that the Sabbath was instituted in Exodus 16 (in the manna gathering) instead of at Sinai, in Exodus 20, when the Law was given. However, Unger is correct when he maintains that there is no command in Genesis 2 for all mankind to keep a Sabbath.
Lewis Sperry Chafer, in his SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY, Vol 5, page 254 says, “There is no intimation in the Word of God that man was appointed to observe, or ever did observe, a Sabbath until Israel came out of Egypt.”
John Kitto, in A CYCLOPAEDIA OF BIBLICAL LITERATURE, edited by William Lindsay Alexander, “Assisted by Numerous Contributors,” in Vol III, page 708, says in regard to the Genesis 2 passage, “It must in candour, we think, be admitted that it does not necessarily follow, from that reference, that the institution of the day, as a day that was to be dedicated to ‘rest, social enjoyment, and worship,’ dates from that time. This reference may have been proleptical. It is possible, assuredly, that the writer may here refer to it, because he is treating of the events in relation to which (though at a later date) the Sabbath was actually instituted.” It should be noted that Kitto was not a not a dispensationalist, and yet he makes this very candid admission that Gen 2:3 did not necessarily require mankind to observe a Sabbath. If a Sabbath was not commanded for all of mankind in Genesis 2, there is no command anywhere in Scripture for either Gentiles or the church to keep any Sabbath at all, for the commands in Exodus 16 and 20 are certainly given to Jews only. Kitto’s three volume set was published in 1876, in Edinburgh.
Augustus Hopkins Strong, in his SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY, page 409, quotes Archbishop Paley, certainly no dispensationalist,” In my opinion St. Paul considered the Sabbath a sort of Jewish ritual, and not obligatory on Christians. A cessation on that day from labor beyond the time of attending public worship is not intimated in any part of the New Testament. The notion that Jesus and his apostles meant to retain the Jewish Sabbath, only shifting the day from the seventh to the first, prevails without sufficient reason.”
Kitto agrees with the above statement by Paley. He says that the common arguments put forth by Sunday sabbitarians” are by no means sufficient to prove that the ‘Lord’s Day’ is merely the universal “Sabbath” that was coeval with the creation, now transferred to another day and baptised by a Christian name.” He continues, “When it is argued that the two are identical, except that the day is changed; that the strict observance of the whole of one day in every week is made as plainly imperative on the Christian as that of the seventh day was on the Jew; of all this we cannot find that the NT gives any satisfactory evidence.” [Kitto, p.716]
Kitto refers to Col 2:16; Gal 4:10; and Rom 14:2-6 in which Paul addresses the teachings of the Judaizing Christians and says that Paul argued for the abolition of all of the Jewish rituals and specifically mentions the Sabbath as one of the things abrogated and abolished. “To say that the apostle really means that these Judaizers should not observe their Sabbaths as Jewish, but as Christian; that while Sabbaths in general were abolished, THE Sabbath was still retained, though it be celebrated on another day, and by another name, and for different purposes. . . (though he says not a syllable of all this)–requires, in the first place, proof, of which the NT furnishes none; and in the second, would make the reasoning of the apostle nugatory, since the argument is to show that no such days demand the sort of observance which the Jewish law required.” [Kitto, pp 716-717]
So we conclude that the Jewish Sabbath was never given to the Church and never made binding on it. The Lord’s Day is not the Sabbath transferred to the first day of the week. And there is no Bible instruction to use the first day as a day of rest. Of course, the Lord’s Day is a special day commemorating the resurrection of our Lord and is a day for the church to meet in worship, a time when we should not forsake the assembling of our selves together. But that portion of the Lord’s day not spent in church services and how that time is used is a matter between the believer and the Lord. Christian liberty permits the use of that time for any activity that is not sinful. Any attempt to make up rules as to how others may spend that time is simply the kind of legalism that Paul condemns in the NT.