A Sabbath Lesson
And the women who had come with Him from Galilee followed after, and they observed the tomb and how His body was laid. Then they returned and prepared spices and fragrant oils. And they rested on the Sabbath according to the commandment. Luke 23:55, 56, NKJV.
More than the other Gospel writers, Luke goes out of his way to tell us that the disciples of Jesus rested on the Sabbath after the Crucifixion "according to the commandment." Here we find a theme that runs throughout the two long books contributed to the Bible by its only Gentile author.
One might have expected such comments from a person such as Matthew, who was writing for a Jewish audience. But Matthew didn't have to emphasize the Sabbath to a community of believers overly rigid on the topic. What his audience needed was a lesson on how to keep the day (see Matt. 12:1-12).
But Luke had a different problem. He needed to emphasize the Sabbath to a population of Christians made up of a large proportion of people without a strong Sabbath background. As a result, he highlights the fact that Jesus' followers faithfully observed the first Sabbath of the Christian Era. And, in the process, Luke makes it explicitly clear which day he was talking about. He makes prominent the fact that Jesus was crucified on Friday (Luke 23:54), rested on the Saturday Sabbath (verse 56), and resurrected on Sunday, the first day of the week (Luke 24:1-6).
It is not an isolated case of Luke's interest in the one commandment that begins with the word "remember" (Ex. 20:8). He had earlier stressed the fact that Jesus Himself had the "custom" of keeping the Sabbath (Luke 4:16). That, of course, one would expect, since Jesus was Jewish. But the statement about the disciples resting on the Sabbath makes it clear that Christ had given no instruction to the contrary during His earthly life.
Luke's purposefulness in highlighting the seventh-day Sabbath continues in the book of Acts, in which he consistently presents the apostles as worshipping on the Sabbath rather than Sunday (see, e.g., Acts 13:14, 42, 44; 17:2; 18:4), even when there are not enough Jews to form a congregation (Acts 16:13).
Luke the Gentile was inspired to present Sabbathkeeping in a way that the Jewish authors of the New Testament never did. For him it was truly a day to be underlined and remembered by the largely non-Jewish church to which he was writing. He knows nothing of another worship day, except the one given "according to the commandment."
And the women who had come with Him from Galilee followed after, and they observed the tomb and how His body was laid. Then they returned and prepared spices and fragrant oils. And they rested on the Sabbath according to the commandment. Luke 23:55, 56, NKJV.
More than the other Gospel writers, Luke goes out of his way to tell us that the disciples of Jesus rested on the Sabbath after the Crucifixion "according to the commandment." Here we find a theme that runs throughout the two long books contributed to the Bible by its only Gentile author.
One might have expected such comments from a person such as Matthew, who was writing for a Jewish audience. But Matthew didn't have to emphasize the Sabbath to a community of believers overly rigid on the topic. What his audience needed was a lesson on how to keep the day (see Matt. 12:1-12).
But Luke had a different problem. He needed to emphasize the Sabbath to a population of Christians made up of a large proportion of people without a strong Sabbath background. As a result, he highlights the fact that Jesus' followers faithfully observed the first Sabbath of the Christian Era. And, in the process, Luke makes it explicitly clear which day he was talking about. He makes prominent the fact that Jesus was crucified on Friday (Luke 23:54), rested on the Saturday Sabbath (verse 56), and resurrected on Sunday, the first day of the week (Luke 24:1-6).
It is not an isolated case of Luke's interest in the one commandment that begins with the word "remember" (Ex. 20:8). He had earlier stressed the fact that Jesus Himself had the "custom" of keeping the Sabbath (Luke 4:16). That, of course, one would expect, since Jesus was Jewish. But the statement about the disciples resting on the Sabbath makes it clear that Christ had given no instruction to the contrary during His earthly life.
Luke's purposefulness in highlighting the seventh-day Sabbath continues in the book of Acts, in which he consistently presents the apostles as worshipping on the Sabbath rather than Sunday (see, e.g., Acts 13:14, 42, 44; 17:2; 18:4), even when there are not enough Jews to form a congregation (Acts 16:13).
Luke the Gentile was inspired to present Sabbathkeeping in a way that the Jewish authors of the New Testament never did. For him it was truly a day to be underlined and remembered by the largely non-Jewish church to which he was writing. He knows nothing of another worship day, except the one given "according to the commandment."
RSS Feed
