THE SCRIPTURE AUTHORITY AND OBLIGATION OF THE SABBATH EXAMINED
By Rev. W. M. O'Hanlon
From the Bibliotheca Sacra and American Biblical Repository. THE SCRIPTURE AUTHORITY AND OBLIGATION OF THE SABBATH EXAMINED.
BY REV. W. M. O'HANLON, BURNLEY, LANCASHIRE. It has been asserted by some who have written on this subject, that Christ violated the Jewish Sabbath, and that he did this designedly, and on system, in order to prepare the way for its entire abrogation. But such a position is at utter variance with his own express declaration in reference to the design and tendency of his mission, "not to destroy, but to fulfill, the law and the prophets;" and it is equally opposed to the whole character he sustained on earth, as one who came to exhibit a model and exemplar of all righteousness. True, he did on one occasion, when charged with a breach of the Sabbath law, announce a lofty principle, which only as the Son of God, he could have propounded: "My Father worketh hitherto and I work." But while this clearly indicated his right to act above the laws he had promulgated for the government of his creatures, if he pleased, it does not follow that either on this or any other occasion in his career, he did actually sanction, by either precept or example, the least violation of the ordinance which, as the Lord of Israel, he had established among the chosen people. There was nothing in the strictness enjoined upon the Jews, in relation to the Sabbath, which, when rightly apprehended, could be deemed at variance with those works of necessity and mercy, which the Saviour of the world allowed or wrought. This is taking low ground, but ground sufficiently high for our purpose. The hypocritical Pharisees, living in the utter violation of the spirit, were accustomed, at the same proportion, to strain and exaggerate the letter of the Sabbath law. Christ taught as much by action as by word. His deeds were lofty symbols, speaking to all future ages, and speaking in forms too impressive to be forgotten by the humble and docile spirit. Their effect on his contemporaries was manifest, in the very malignity and censure which they elicited from the carnal and the superstitious, from the formalist and the hypocrite. Instances of the manner in which he thus rebuked the Jews, will readily occur to every reader of the New Testament. In Matt. xii, we read, "And behold there was a man which had his hand withered. And they asked him, saying, Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath days? that they might accuse him. And he said unto them, What man shall there be among you, that shall have one sheep, and if it fall into a pit on the Sabbath-day, will he not lay hold on it and lift it out? How much then is a man better than a sheep? Wherefore, it is lawful to do well on the Sabbath-days. Then saith he to the man, Stretch forth thine hand. And he stretched it forth; and it was restored whole, like as the other. Then the Pharisees went out and held a counsel against him, how they might destroy him." Here was a work of mercy performed on the Jewish Sabbath by one who was "made under the law," and whose whole life is the grand model-life of sanctified humanity. It follows then that there was nothing in this act contrary to the divine injunction. And the case is more worthy of notice, because it is only a specimen of similar acts wrought by him on the Sabbath, (chosen apparently as the most appropriate day for such works of beneficence,) and because like many, if not most of these, it was not of such a nature as to demand immediate attention and performance on the part of Christ. Without any apparent obscuration of his merciful and compassionate nature, he might have postponed for a few hours, the putting forth of his miraculous healing power; and thus avoided at least the giving of occasion to the Pharisees to indulge and display their fiendish opposition. His adoption then of a different course, and that with so much system, could only have been the result of a profound principle, worthy of his character and his mission. It was impossible to teach more significantly,74the great and suggestive truth which had been so much overlooked, that "the Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath;" and that works of benevolence, tending to lessen the load of human misery, and to light up the soul with gratitude and holy joy, are among the most divine and acceptable offerings which can on that day, be presented upon the altar of God. Not against such then, were directed the prohibitions of either the moral or civil code established among the Jewish people. This fact is placed beyond all reasonable doubt by the conduct of Christ. Again, in the commencement of the same chapter in Matt., we have another illustrative fact, serving to aid us in the conception we should form of the requirements and spirit of the Jewish Sabbath law. See also Luke vi, 1-5. The charge against the disciples was, that by plucking the ears of corn on the Sabbath, and rubbing them in their hands, they had violated the sanctity of that day. Christ's reply to the Pharisees was, "Have ye not read what David did when he was an hungered, and they that were with him, how he entered into the house of God, and did eat the shew-bread, which was not lawful for him to eat, neither for them that were with him, but only for the priests? Or have ye not read in the law, how that on the Sabbath-days the priests in the temple profane the Sabbath and are blameless? But I say unto you that in this place is one greater than the temple. But if ye had known what this meaneth: I will have mercy and not sacrifice, ye would not have condemned the guiltless. For the Son of man is Lord even of the Sabbath-day." Now that the disciples under the circumstances, were "guiltless," is plainly intimated by the Saviour. And yet there was some shadow of foundation for the allegation of the Pharisees. Upon any other day it would have been allowable, even in their views, to act as the disciples did; for provision for such a case was made, with the utmost explicitness, in the Pentateuch. Deut. xxiii, 25. But on this day they were not at liberty, according to the strict letter of the Sabbath law, under ordinary circumstances, to engage in any work, not even for the supply of their corporeal wants, for which due care was to be taken beforehand. Ex. xx, 10; xxxv, 2, 3. Num. xv, 32-36, will throw light upon this position. And from the position furnished by these passages, the charge in all likelihood was preferred; though it is probable the Pharisees had also in view some tradition of their own, by which the law was overlaid and corrupted. Our Saviour's plea, not merely of extenuation, but of complete acquittal, was that of necessity. The conduct described in Num. xv, 32-36, and which met with the penalty of death, was of a widely different character. The connection in which it stands clearly shows that it was a presumptuous and daring transgression; and, as such, to have permitted it to pass with impunity, would have been to undermine the entire authority of the theocratic rule. But the conduct of the disciples was dictated by dire necessity. "They were an hungered," and their attendance upon their Lord and Master had precluded the possibility of their making previous provision for their bodily wants. If then David was justified when, fleeing before Saul, he ate the shew-bread of the tabernacle; and if the priests were justified in preparing sacrifices and kindling fires for their consumption on the Sabbath, in the temple service, how much more the disciples, while in attendance upon One "greater than the temple," in plucking the ears of corn to supply their immediate and craving necessities. A narrow, illiberal, Pharisaic interpretation of the Jewish law might seem to condemn them; but an enlightened, a just and scriptural interpretation fully warranted their deed. "Mercy," rather than mere "sacrifice," is the genius of every economy of religion. Even in Judaism, with all its fiery denunciations, and though it was "the ministration of death," this principle prevailed. And these examples, presented in connection with the highest authority—that of the Law-giver himself—serve to show the benevolent design and spirit of the Sabbath ordinance, even under that dispensation which, confessedly more than any other, abridged the liberties and restrained the inclinations of the human spirit. Thus far, however, we have looked chiefly at the negative side of this ordinance in the Jewish era. But we cannot imagine that mere cessation from labor was all that was required. Viewing man in the inferior aspects of his being, it cannot be denied, indeed, that respite from toil, which oppresses and exhausts both bodily and mental energy, is a great blessing; and looking still higher, to the moral and spiritual elements of our nature, such respite might be regarded in itself, apart from other considerations, a boon of no small value. Still, however, contemplating man in his fallen condition, the intermission of labor might, on the whole, be susceptible of abuses so great as to far more than counterbalance all the advantages derivable from it. The human being must have some objects of interest. A vacuum of mind, even if desirable, is impossible; and where it is not possessed by that which is good, it will be by that which is evil. Hence the refreshing repose of the Sabbath, both primeval and Jewish, was so ordered, doubtless, as to subserve the very highest interests of humanity, by a provision for the spiritual and moral culture of the soul. It is true we have no direct statement to this effect before the Mosaic economy. But we are not left without such intimations as lead us naturally to infer the existence of such a provision. Even independently altogether of any inspired communication on this subject, we must be convinced that without something of this order, recurring too at fixed intervals, the life of religion could ill be sustained in the human spirit. And brief as are the notices of the pre-Mosaic period, there is enough to warrant the belief that some specific arrangement did exist to meet this necessity and to crown the Sabbath rest. *Grotius has remarked that "the precept concerning the Sabbath is two-fold: a precept of remembrance and a precept of observation. The precept of remembrance is fulfilled in a religious memory of the creation of the world; the precept of observation consists in an exact abstinence from all manner of labor. The first precept was given from the beginning; and without doubt the pious men before the law obeyed it, as Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob; with respect to the latter of whom, though we have a relation of many of their travels, yet there is no sign of their stopping their journey on account of the Sabbath." We have already referred to the invalidity of such negative evidence. If we are to take Gen. ii, 3, as the foundation stone of the ordinance, the rest as well as the sanctification of the Sabbath would seem to be comprehended; and it is clear that Grotius admitted this passage in the modified and imperfect theory he entertained of the primeval ordinance. But in the face of this, little or no importance can be fairly attached to the absence of such information as he refers to; nor do we see how a religious remembrance of the creation, such as might be described in the language of Genesis, could be maintained in the neglect of that rest with which the memory of the day is so intimately associated in the divinely recorded appointment. The social element of worship was early called into exercise; otherwise we should not find Cain and Abel meeting at the same altar; and this was in process of time, or "at the end of the days." And so also we read, Gen. iv: 26, that in the time of Seth "men began to call upon the name of Jehovah," an expression which, as Hengstenberg has well remarked, has reference to the social developments of religion, "the solemn calling upon God in a consecrated place, in church fellowship, so that it implies the existence of a church." And if it imply the existence of a church, and of holy fellowship among the worshipers of the true God, revealed too in those more intimate relations involved in the sacred name, "Jehovah," it is surely no unwarrantable inference, and that the time fixed for these holy convocations would be the day set apart from the first to sacred purposes, and thus rescued from the curse of toil. But whatever may be alleged as to the times before Moses, no reasonable doubt can exist as to the order and practice demanded by the institutes which he was commissioned to establish. It will hardly be questioned that Nehemiah and his co-religionists understood the genius of the Mosaic ordinances, when, in solemn covenant they made and signed and sealed, they resolved to abstain from all commerce and trade upon the Sabbath. Neh. x, 31. And the prophets were not slow to condemn that spirit of cupidity and love of gain which could scarcely brook the interruption to trafic caused by the recurrence of the sacred day. "When will the new moon be gone that we may sell corn? and the Sabbath that we may set forth wheat?" Amos viii, 5.