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The Book of Luke, Healing on the Sabbath - Lesson 175
Luke 14:1-6, And it came to pass, as he went into the house of one of the chief Pharisees to eat bread on the sabbath day, that they watched him. 2And, behold, there was a certain man before him which had the dropsy. 3And Jesus answering spake unto the lawyers and Pharisees, saying, Is it lawful to heal on the sabbath day? 4And they held their peace. And he took him, and healed him, and let him go; 5And answered them, saying, Which of you shall have an ass or an ox fallen into a pit, and will not straightway pull him out on the sabbath day? 6And they could not answer him again to these things.
Again we are given a glimpse of a healing miracle of Christ which took place on the Sabbath.
Altogether there are seven instances in the Gospels where Christ healed on the Sabbath day including this passage in Luke 14.
In Luke 4:38 we learned of the healing of Simon’s mother in law which took place on the Sabbath but the miracle occurred in Simon’s house unobserved by the Pharisees.
However the Sabbath healing of the man with the withered hand that Jesus did as reported in Luke 6:6, took place in public in the synagogue.
Luke tells us that the Pharisees who witnessed this healing were filled with madness and communed one with another what they might do to Jesus.
The next Luke reference to a Sabbath healing is in Luke 13:14 where it is reported that Jesus straightened the back of the woman who had suffered for eighteen years.
The ruler of the synagogue answered this miracle with indignation, because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath day.
He said unto the people, There are six days in which men ought to work: in them therefore come and be healed, and not on the Sabbath day.
In Mark 1:21-26 Jesus cast out an unclean spirit from a man on the Sabbath.
There was no adverse action on the part of the Pharisees taken against this act, only amazement at Jesus’ authority over the spirits.
John 5:9 begins the record of the Sabbath healing of the infirm man at the pool of Bethesda which ends with a condemnation by the Jews who sought to slay Jesus Christ because he had done these things on the Sabbath day.
And lastly John tells us in John 9 of the Sabbath healing of the blind man where Jesus, after placing clay over the eyes of the man, tells him to wash at the pool of Siloam where his sight was restored.
The reaction of the Pharisees is again a reaction of unbelief for they declare This man is not of God, because he keepeth not the Sabbath day.
As we can see these blatant and unashamed works of healing by Jesus Christ on the Sabbath were symbolic slaps in the face of the Jew’s religion.
There is no subject of greater significance where our Lord came into such sharp conflict with the religious leaders of the Jews as in the matter of the observance of the Sabbath.
This is the issue that inflamed the Jews against Christ and caused them untold misery and kept them from any rational conclusion concerning Christ’s deity.
As we learned in Luke 6:6 they were filled with madness because of this issue.
The Pharisees were so wrong about the true Biblical observation of the Sabbath that they could not, and indeed were unable to judge rightly the rightness of the works of Christ on the Sabbath.
They were so indoctrinated into their false doctrine that nothing, even the miracles of Christ, could convince them that they were wrong.
But one thing we learn from studying the scriptures is that truth never hides itself from error.
Jesus Christ did not cower or compromise but took every opportunity to set himself squarely against the multitude of man-made restrictions that opposed the spirit of the original law of the Sabbath.
The rabbis seemed to think that the Sabbath was an end in itself.
Their opinion was that the Sabbath was an institution in which any dedicated Jew subjected all his personal interests; in other words, that man was made for the Sabbath.
There was no care about the hardships of man in order to keep the purity of the institution of the Sabbath that they had created.
It was in effect worship of the institution for the institution’s sake.
But Jesus Christ did not teach this but taught instead that the Sabbath was made for man's benefit.
Religion always takes the view that the propagation of the religion is more important than the welfare of men.
Religion uses men for its own benefit and endurance, not for men’s benefit and endurance.
This is so prevalent in our day where we see men and women used to build ministries instead of ministries used to build men and women.
This is most apparent in large soul winning mega churches where the main emphasis is the growing of a large church with little emphasis on the growing of the Christian.
Paul tells us in Ephesians that God gave apostles, prophets, evangelists and pastors and teachers for the perfecting of the saints for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ. God did not give us men and women for the edifying of the ministry.
Religion looks at men and women in this light.
What can they do for my ministry?
How much money can they give to build up my ministry?
This kind of spirit cares little for the perfecting of the saints for those who are perfected will not support those kinds of ministries.
I think about this is light of rearing children.
Think about any chore that you have your child do.
Do you think about what that chore will do in helping to build that child or do you just think about getting the chore done.
What is important to you, the chore or the child?
What was important to the religious leaders was the religion, not the man, not the woman.
This was the spirit of the Jews who thought that man was made for the Sabbath for it was their religion’s way to control men and to bind men.
But everything that God does in our direction is for our welfare.
The ten commandments is for our welfare.
God does not give us his word to bind, chain and hurt us but to make us free from sin and have liberty to worship Him in truth.
Jesus Christ makes it very clear from the examples of scripture I cited previously that any conflicts between man’s needs and the letter of the Law concerning the Sabbath will be adjudged in favor of man.
Therefore the Lord plucked the ears of corn to feed the disciples on the Sabbath day.
He healed the man at the pool of Bethesda.
He straightened the woman’s back in the synagogue and in our passage today he has no hesitation to heal the man with dropsy, even on the Sabbath day.
By the actions of Christ there is no lessening of the importance of the Sabbath but on the contrary the uplifting the Sabbath.
For from God’s perspective the Sabbath was a gift to man, to man’s servants and even to the man’s animals and to the very ground that man used for the growing of food.
By the actions of the Lord Jesus Christ he defined the Sabbath for He declared himself the Lord of the Sabbath.
Mark 2:27, And he said unto them, The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath: 28Therefore the Son of man is Lord also of the sabbath.
So this is the spirit of the Sabbath that we find in the heart of Christ as he goes to eat a Sabbath meal at the house of one of the chief Pharisees.
We know not the town but we do know the day.
It was the Sabbath day and most likely Jesus had preached in the synagogue and had been invited to the home of one of the prominent Pharisees for dinner.
By the writing of Luke it is obvious that this is not a happy, joyous occasion but an occasion of hostility and intrigue.
There is outward hospitality given but there are underlying ulterior motives.
Jesus is not there to be enjoyed and His word received but he is there in order to be entrapped.
We are told that they watched him.
This word “watch” in the Greek means that they inspected him alongside, it means they noted insidiously or scrupulously.
Insidiously means to entrap or beguile, operating or proceeding inconspicuously but with grave effect.
It seems that He was invited with the intention of observing his every action so that some specific charge could be leveled against Him.
(Do you know anyone like that where you always feel like you are being inspected?)
But this was the scene and it was the Sabbath and they expected to add nails to his cross by what they set him up to do.
They knew very well that he would not pass up an opportunity to do good for those who were hurting.
And they gave him opportunity to do so by providing him a certain man which had the dropsy.
My, how they revered the Sabbath but their hearts were full of deception and dishonesty.
That is religion for you.
Promote the religion at all costs regardless of what sins you must commit in order to do so.
This is the religion which produced the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, the Son of God!
So here is a man with the dropsy.
By Christ healing him and letting him go it appears that the man was not there to enjoy a Sabbath meal but only to be used for the Pharisees’ evil purposes, that of catching the Lord in law breaking as regards the Sabbath.
Dropsy is a very serious condition.
It is the swelling of soft tissues due to the accumulation of excess water and is very prevalent in the legs.
In some cases it is the revealer of congestive heart failure where excess fluids build up in the lungs and will cause labored breathing.
But here was this man with an obvious serious physical condition placed within this group of prominent Pharisees.
Given that fact that these leaders were insidious in their watching I believe we can rightly conclude that this man was used as a setup to order to entrap the Lord Jesus.
I believe it is clear that this man, with an obvious need, was placed there by the Pharisees who knew that Jesus’ compassion would be extended to that need regardless of the fact that this was the Sabbath.
One thing you can always depend upon is the fact that Jesus Christ obeys God’s word for Jesus Christ is God’s word and Gods’ word says in:
Proverbs 3:27, Withhold not good from them to whom it is due, when it is in the power of thine hand to do it.
With all eyes fixed upon him waiting for the trap to spring and Jesus knowing their hearts, there was no hesitation as Jesus Christ answered their watching with a question:
3And Jesus answering spake unto the lawyers and Pharisees, saying, Is it lawful to heal on the sabbath day?
This word answering” means to begin to speak where an address is expected.
It means to conclude for yourself that there is an unasked question to respond to.
The watching of Christ was so intense that a response from him was required and he answered their unasked question with a question of his own.
Is it lawful to heal on the sabbath day?
He asked this question knowing that none would dare respond for their traditions, their teachings, clearly were against such healings.
But the Law of Moses did not forbid healing on the Sabbath.
If the Sabbath was made for man, for his benefit and blessing, how could anyone keep from healing on the Sabbath, if he had the ability to do so?
4And they held their peace. And he took him, and healed him, and let him go; 5And answered them, saying, Which of you shall have an ass or an ox fallen into a pit, and will not straightway pull him out on the sabbath day? 6And they could not answer him again to these things
They would not answer the question.
By this time they had learned that sparing with Jesus Christ over words was a hopeless venture.
They were fixed in their position and did not want to learn truth from this man but only learn from this man that which could be used against him.
Keeping silent, they thought, would result in His healing the man on the Sabbath which supported their devious motives.
Jesus Christ was not concerned about their motives but only concerned about the man with dropsy.
He immediately healed him and sent him away.
There was no intention of feeding him for this man was used by the Pharisees as bait to entrap the Lord.
I believe the man was sent away by the Lord because Jesus Christ was compassionate.
He had no desire to see him further humiliated by being used in such a manner.
Nor was he to be there to receive the rebuke that Jesus intended for the Pharisees.
With the man gone, Jesus now asked a second question of the Pharisees.
The first was a matter of principle; Is it lawful to heal on the sabbath day?
The second was a matter of practice.
It would be one thing for Jesus and His critics to differ over principle.
It was another when these critics differed in what they professed (and demanded of others) and what they practiced.
And so Jesus exposes their hypocrisy with these words:
Which of you shall have an ass or an ox fallen into a pit, and will not straightway pull him out on the sabbath day? 6And they could not answer him again to these things.
No matter what these Pharisees taught and demanded of others, they made exceptions for themselves.
Let one of their oxen fall into a well on the Sabbath and they would “work” to get it out.
They would do so immediately, without any hesitation or questioning.
If, then, they would come to the aid of their stock, why should Jesus not be allowed to heal the sick and the hurting?
Pharisaical hypocrisy was showing, again.
The silence which results is the silence of sullen willfulness.
If there was no willingness to discuss the matter, neither is there any intention of acknowledging their hypocrisy.
Silence is the passive form of rebellion, but it is rebellion none the less. |