The Sabbath as a Means of Grace
And he said unto them, The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath. Mark 2:27.
Two great truths flow out of Jesus' early confrontations with the Jews on how the Sabbath should be kept. The first appears in today's verse: "The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath."
One implication is that God established the Sabbath for all people and not just for the Jews. Jesus did not say "the Sabbath was made for the Jews." And even a cursory look at the Old Testament demonstrates the accuracy of Jesus' conclusion. After all, the first observation of the Sabbath was by God Himself at the end of Creation week thousands of years before the Jews existed. From beginning to end, the Bible supports the fact that God intended the Sabbath for all people--"man" or mankind.
But the context of Jesus' statement about the Sabbath being "made for man" helps us understand why God had set it apart in the first place. The Jews had made a real mess of the Sabbath. Focusing on what people could not do on the Sabbath, they had developed some 39 categories of forbidden work and more than 1,500 rules on how it should be kept, with an overwhelming emphasis on the negative. They acted as if God first created the Sabbath and then made people to observe it.
Jesus, the Creator of the Sabbath, turned that thinking on its head. And with good reason. The Jews acted as if the Sabbath were primary and first--that God had a Sabbath and needed someone to keep it and thus created humanity to fill that void. Not so, Jesus pointed out. The very order of creation demonstrates that "the sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath." After all, the Lord created human beings on the sixth day, while He did not institute the Sabbath until the seventh. From the beginning God recognized that people would need the Sabbath. So He created it to meet their spiritual, physical, social, and mental requirements as they worship, fellowship, rest from work, and study His Word. God created the Sabbath as a means of grace for His people--all of them for all time.
With that in mind, it is of more than passing interest that the Sabbath commandment is the only one in the Ten Commandments that begins with "remember." He knew just how prone people would be to forget and neglect the one means of grace that He established to meet their needs at the very beginning of this earth's journey.
And he said unto them, The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath. Mark 2:27.
Two great truths flow out of Jesus' early confrontations with the Jews on how the Sabbath should be kept. The first appears in today's verse: "The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath."
One implication is that God established the Sabbath for all people and not just for the Jews. Jesus did not say "the Sabbath was made for the Jews." And even a cursory look at the Old Testament demonstrates the accuracy of Jesus' conclusion. After all, the first observation of the Sabbath was by God Himself at the end of Creation week thousands of years before the Jews existed. From beginning to end, the Bible supports the fact that God intended the Sabbath for all people--"man" or mankind.
But the context of Jesus' statement about the Sabbath being "made for man" helps us understand why God had set it apart in the first place. The Jews had made a real mess of the Sabbath. Focusing on what people could not do on the Sabbath, they had developed some 39 categories of forbidden work and more than 1,500 rules on how it should be kept, with an overwhelming emphasis on the negative. They acted as if God first created the Sabbath and then made people to observe it.
Jesus, the Creator of the Sabbath, turned that thinking on its head. And with good reason. The Jews acted as if the Sabbath were primary and first--that God had a Sabbath and needed someone to keep it and thus created humanity to fill that void. Not so, Jesus pointed out. The very order of creation demonstrates that "the sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath." After all, the Lord created human beings on the sixth day, while He did not institute the Sabbath until the seventh. From the beginning God recognized that people would need the Sabbath. So He created it to meet their spiritual, physical, social, and mental requirements as they worship, fellowship, rest from work, and study His Word. God created the Sabbath as a means of grace for His people--all of them for all time.
With that in mind, it is of more than passing interest that the Sabbath commandment is the only one in the Ten Commandments that begins with "remember." He knew just how prone people would be to forget and neglect the one means of grace that He established to meet their needs at the very beginning of this earth's journey.
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