SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 1/13/2022 10:37 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
“The Sabbath Does Not Restrict Service
to God”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Matthew
12:5-6
Message of the verse: 5 "Or have you
not read in the Law, that on the Sabbath the priests in the temple break the
Sabbath, and are innocent? 6 “But I say to you, that something greater than the
temple is here.’”
Jesus did not have to explain to these Pharisees
about the priests breaking the Sabbath, as they had many things to do, but they
were required to do many things on the Sabbath that otherwise would have violated
God’s law or rest, not to mention rabbinic tradition.
MacArthur
writes about some of the duties that the priests had to do each day, including
the Sabbath. “In the performance of
their duties in the Tabernacle and then the temple, the ministering priests had
to light the altar fires, kill the sacrificial animals, and then lift up the
carcasses and place them on the altar. Sacrifices
on the Sabbath were, in fact, double sacrifices, requiring twice the work of
the normal daily sacrifice (Num. 28:9-10; cf. Lev. 24:8-9).”
These
Pharisees, even the most legalistic ones had no problem with what the priests
did on the Sabbath, even though they worked twice as much on the Sabbath as
they did on the other days of the week.
I
have to believe that Jesus embarrassed, and also angered these Pharisees by pointing
out the inconsistency of their legalistic thinking. Their anger would eventually turn into rage
when Jesus said “But I say to you, that something greater than the temple is
here.” Jesus was certainly speaking of
Himself here. MacArthur adds “In our day
it is difficult even for Jews, much less Gentiles, to grasp how highly the Jews
of Jesus’ day revered the temple.”
Let
us look at 12:8 at this time: “8 “For
the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath." If the Pharisees did not get the
point that Jesus was saying He was the Messiah, God come in the flesh, before
they will when He says what is seen here in verse eight.
MacArthur
concludes “The Lord’s immediate purpose, however, was not to prove His deity
but to point out that, in light of that deity, He had the right to abrogate
Sabbath regulations as He saw fit—immeasurably more than David had the right to
violate the tabernacle laws or the priests had to violate the Sabbath laws in
serving in the temple.” This is what we
need in order to understand these verses that we are looking at.
1/13/2022 12:07 PM
No comments:
Post a Comment