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.” (Matthew 12:3–8 (ESV)
“The most proximate cause of the Pharisees’ antagonism toward Jesus, however, lay in His ignoring of their hundreds of elaborate but petty rules that they had devised for interpreting the law of God. Not only did they devise these hundreds of man-made rules, but they had also elevated them to the level of Scripture, so that to break one of their rules was to violate the law of God itself. And yet these rules not only obscured the true intent of God’s law, but also, in some cases, actually violated it (see Mark 7:9–13),” explains Jerry Bridges.
“What really got the Pharisees upset with Jesus was the way He ignored their trivial and burdensome rules for keeping the Sabbath. The Pharisees objected to the disciples of Jesus plucking and eating heads of grain as they walked through the grain fields on a Sabbath. According to their oral tradition, plucking the heads of grain and eating them was work — a violation of the Sabbath.”
In replying to the criticisms by the Pharisees, Jesus referred to the Old Testament Scriptures. The first was from I Samuel 21:1-6. This was when David’s hunger and need for food prompted him to transgress the ceremonial law by eating the Bread of Presence in the Tabernacle. Only the priests were allowed to eat the ceremonial bread.
Additionally, Jesus cited the example of the Old Testament priests. They labored on the Sabbath with the Sabbath offerings (Numbers 28:9-10). Yet God held them guiltless.
Jesus’ point to the religious leaders was that He was greater than David and the O.T. priests. He was also greater than the temple. He was/is the Lord of the universe.
Jesus said that what He desired, and still desires, is mercy and not sacrifice. Quoting from Hosea 6:1-6, Jesus condemned the hypocrisy of the Pharisees and their perversion of the Sabbath. Their multiplication of traditions, regulations and restrictions minimized God’s merciful purpose in graciously providing salvation (Matt. 11:29-30; Mark 2:27).
Jesus concluded His comments by saying He alone was Lord of the Sabbath. This was an inescapable claim of deity—and as such it prompted the Pharisees’ violent outrage (Matt. 12:14).
“We need to be careful that we do not add our own man-made rules to the Scriptures. Some convictions that we hold dearly may be derived more from our particular Christian culture than derived from Scripture, and we need to learn to discern the differences. It is okay to have cultural convictions, but we should be careful that we do not elevate them to the same authority as Scripture. So much judgmentalism among Christians today occurs because we do this. But that is basically what the Pharisees were doing. So, let’s be careful that we are not modern-day Pharisees,” concludes Bridges.
Soli deo Gloria!
His Word Today 