Luke 6:5

And he said unto them, The Son of man is lord of the sabbath.

There were a number of arguments by which Jesus responded to the Pharisees' false charge.

(1) He showed the biased and unprincipled motives of those making the charge, as evidenced by their approval of a real violation on the part of David, and yet alleging against the Son of David a "violation" founded on their hair-splitting interpretations!

(2) He showed that "on the sabbath day the priests in the temple profane the sabbath, and are guiltless," and that "one greater than the temple" was among them (Matthew 12:5,6). Jesus, the true and greater temple, of which the old temple was merely a type, was being served by his disciples; and, even if their actions were illegal (although they were not) they would have been sanctified by the holy purpose of serving the greater temple. In the old temple, priests continually did things which were not allowed otherwise than in temple service.

(3) He showed that the spirit of the ancient law of God should have been heeded, not merely the letter of it. "If ye had known what this meaneth, I desire mercy, and not sacrifice, ye would not have condemned the guiltless" (Matthew 12:7). This quotation from Hosea 6:6 reveals that the Pharisees had failed to read their own scriptures. To make the conveyance of a spoonful of wheat to the mouth a violation of God's sabbath, as carrying a burden, was contrary to the spirit of God's law; and, if the Pharisees had heeded the spirit of it, they would not have condemned Jesus' innocent disciples.

(4) Jesus also taught that keeping the sabbath day "holy" was not intended to be fulfilled merely by what men did not do on that day, but by what they actually did. Jesus asked, "Is it lawful on the sabbath to do good, or to do harm? to save life, or destroy it?" (see under Luke 6:9).

(5) Jesus claimed absolute lordship of the sabbath, as in the verse before us.

In the Greek, "Lord" comes first in the sentence, and so is emphatic. He controls the sabbath instead of being controlled by it. In the Jewish mind, this was tantamount to claiming deity. Jesus did not in these words set aside the law. He interpreted it in its true meaning.[7]

The sabbath ordinance, rightly understood, was an expression of Jesus' own will; and, therefore, his expression of lordship over it was not in order to violate it, but to uplift it and free it from the folly of human abuse, and to restore it as a blessing to mankind. "The true sabbath rest," as Lamar said, "is found in him; it begins here in rest for the soul, and ends hereafter in the eternal rest."[8]

(6) "The sabbath was made for man and not man for the sabbath" (Mark 2:27). What is true of the sabbath is true of all of God's laws. They were not given to hinder and limit men, but to free and bless men. Jesus in this statement called attention to God's intention in the giving of his holy laws; and it is not a statement that men may do as they please with regard to God's laws, violating them when they wish to do so, on the grounds of "human need." A somewhat fuller treatment of this question has been offered here because, of all the passages in the New Testament, this has become the most popular in the theology of those who would reduce Christianity to a basic humanism, the major premise of which is this: "If human needs are restricted by God's law, it is God's law that should be set aside; and, of course, `human needs' refers actually to `human WANTS'!" This is the great error of our generation.

[7] Herschel H. Hobbs, op. cit., p. 111.

[8] J. S. Lamar, The New Testament Commentary (Cincinnati, Ohio: Chase and Hall, 1877), Vol. II, p. 103.