Help me understand John 5 and the Sabbath

[Bootstrap]

I need help understanding this passage from John 5:

16 So, because Jesus was doing these things on the Sabbath, the Jewish leaders began to persecute him. 17 In his defense Jesus said to them, “My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I too am working.” 18 For this reason they tried all the more to kill him; not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.

19 Jesus gave them this answer: “Very truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does. 20 For the Father loves the Son and shows him all he does. Yes, and he will show him even greater works than these, so that you will be amazed. 21 For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son gives life to whom he is pleased to give it. 22 Moreover, the Father judges no one, but has entrusted all judgment to the Son, 23 that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father. Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father, who sent him.

24 “Very truly I tell you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be judged but has crossed over from death to life. 25 Very truly I tell you, a time is coming and has now come when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live. 26 For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself. 27 And he has given him authority to judge because he is the Son of Man.

28 “Do not be amazed at this, for a time is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice 29 and come out—those who have done what is good will rise to live, and those who have done what is evil will rise to be condemned. 30 By myself I can do nothing; I judge only as I hear, and my judgment is just, for I seek not to please myself but him who sent me.

[Bootstrap]

Some questions and observations:

1. Some people think the Gospels do not say Jesus was equal to God. The Pharisees don't see it that way.
2. Doesn't Genesis say that God rested on the Sabbath? How do you reconcile that with this passage?
3. In the Sermon on the Mount, adultery and murder and divorce are made even more strict. This seems to loosen rules around the Sabbath. Why?
4. What did Jesus mean when He said, "My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I too am working"?
5. What does Jesus mean by saying that the Father has entrusted all judgment to the Son?

[ken_sylvania]

Was Jesus acutually loosening the Law regarding the Sabbath? Or just unwinding some of the extra restrictions that the Pharisees had added (as well as their convoluted ways of getting around those extra restrictions when it suited them)?

[silentreader]

I need help understanding this passage from John 5:

16 So, because Jesus was doing these things on the Sabbath, the Jewish leaders began to persecute him. 17 In his defense Jesus said to them, “My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I too am working.” 18 For this reason they tried all the more to kill him; not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.

19 Jesus gave them this answer: “Very truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does. 20 For the Father loves the Son and shows him all he does. Yes, and he will show him even greater works than these, so that you will be amazed. 21 For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son gives life to whom he is pleased to give it. 22 Moreover, the Father judges no one, but has entrusted all judgment to the Son, 23 that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father. Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father, who sent him.

24 “Very truly I tell you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be judged but has crossed over from death to life. 25 Very truly I tell you, a time is coming and has now come when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live. 26 For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself. 27 And he has given him authority to judge because he is the Son of Man.

28 “Do not be amazed at this, for a time is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice 29 and come out—those who have done what is good will rise to live, and those who have done what is evil will rise to be condemned. 30 By myself I can do nothing; I judge only as I hear, and my judgment is just, for I seek not to please myself but him who sent me.

I have been thinking about some things like this lately, not because of this passage but because of a discussion in another setting about the relationship of the moral law including the Ten Commandments to the Christian. Most of my thinking on this is preliminary and I am not prepared to defend it as a thesis.
The first passage I considered was Jeremiah 31:31-34:

31 “Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, 32 not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the Lord. 33 For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. 34 And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”

What law was He talking about? Probably not the sacrificial law? Was He talking only about the House of Israel and the House of Judah? Or was He looking ahead to other believers, including us?

Two other passages are in Mark. In His reply to the rich young man He references some of the Ten Commandments...

17 And as he was setting out on his journey, a man ran up and knelt before him and asked him, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” 18 And Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone. 19 You know the commandments: ‘Do not murder, Do not commit adultery, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Do not defraud, Honor your father and mother.’” 20 And he said to him, “Teacher, all these I have kept from my youth.” 21 And Jesus, looking at him, loved him, and said to him, “You lack one thing: go, sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.” 22 Disheartened by the saying, he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.

But a couple of chapters later in Mark 12:28-34 He says this...

8 And one of the scribes came up and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, asked him, “Which commandment is the most important of all?” 29 Jesus answered, “The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 30
And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ 31 The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” 32 And the scribe said to him, “You are right, Teacher. You have truly said that he is one, and there is no other besides him. 33 And to love him with all the heart and with all the understanding and with all the strength, and to love one's neighbor as oneself, is much more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.” 34 And when Jesus saw that he answered wisely, he said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” And after that no one dared to ask him any more questions.

Seems to me that rather than focusing on the individual laws we now understand them to be expressions of the "higher view" of the law that Jesus spoke of as in the bolded portion of the quote above.

So where does the the fourth commandment, concerning the Sabbath come in to this?
Notice the two slightly different versions, in Exodus 20 referencing Creation...

Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. 11 For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.

..and in Deuteronomy 5 referencing the Exodus...

Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. 11 For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.

... we can see there was meaningful emphasis for the immediate audience.

When we look at the Sabbath through the NT lens of what Jesus did and said on the Sabbath, possibly one of the telling quotes is this one in Mark 3:

Again he entered the synagogue, and a man was there with a withered hand. 2 And they watched Jesus, to see whether he would heal him on the Sabbath, so that they might accuse him. 3 And he said to the man with the withered hand, “Come here.” 4 And he said to them,“Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save life or to kill?” But they were silent. 5 And he looked around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart, and said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He stretched it out, and his hand was restored. 6 The Pharisees went out and immediately held counsel with the Herodians against him, how to destroy him.

It almost seems that if we consider the 4th commandment as also an expression of Christ's "higher view" of the law, it draws together the first three concerning our knowledge and loving affirmation of the holiness of God, with the last six and our affirmation and practice of love for "our neighbor", and makes it a central point in how we express our relationship to God and those around us.

[Swiss Bro]

Not sure I am missing the topic but the way I see it, the Sabbath theoretically applied to Jesus, him being a Jew, but he did not have to keep it at all as He is Lord of the Sabbath (Matthew 12:8, Mark 2:28, and Luke 6:5).

Anyway, the Pharisees were exaggerating the mosaic law by „building a fence around it“, i.e. adding rules that sometimes perverted God‘s intention for the underlying command (like the Korban rule described in Mark 7). Jesus had a massive problem with those man made traditions, they were his main gripe with the Pharisees and this differend was basically the reason they wanted to kill him (that, and Him claiming to be the Son of God).

Now, we (the Church) are not under the Mosaic law anymore, but under the law of Christ (1. Cor. 9,21; Gal. 6,2). We have to obey the rules Jesus and the other (God inspired, [theopneustos, θεόπνευστος]) authors of the New Testament bestowed upon the followers of Christ. These do include 9 out of 10 of the ten commandments, and some in drastically stricter interpretation (cf. Sermon of the Mount).

Others, such as the Sabbath, the food rules (except for consuming blood, as was already part of the Covenant God made mit Noah and is applicable for all mankind and until today), the rules about not mixing fabric and such, do simply not apply to us.

The good news (literally, the Evangelium / the Gospel) is that we are justified (i.e. saved) by grace (the blood of the Lamb / the ultimate sacrifice), as we all fail to always comply with these rules and no one could be saved if keeping the law was mandatory to be justified.

This should not mean we should not try, lest we bring some fruit of the Spirit (and by the fruit they will know us). Finally, let‘s not forget also Christians will appear before the judgment seat of Christ (2. Cor. 5,10; Rom. 14,10, which is not to be confused with the White Throne in Rev. 20,11) to have our works analyzed and receive our award (1. Cor. 3,10-12, if any).

Thanks for reading and Shabbat Shalom.

[Valerie]

Our Pastor 's message was from John 5 this morning.

https://www.parksidechurch.com/watch/su ... ivestream/

I just wonder what CAs would think about something he said regarding women wearing pa ts, make-up, etc. When he says things like that it then makes me uncomfortable as I feel I'd be seen in the "pharisee" category since I quit wearing pants, make-up, etc.

I saw an Anabaptist of some type there today as she had a black hanging veil so I wondered what they thought of what he said.

Sometimes I feel like a square peg trying to fit in a round gole when it comes to Church. Used to be easier.

Sorry for the bunny trail- but I thought he did explain well I think Jesus working on the Sabbath

[Bootstrap]

Not sure I am missing the topic but the way I see it, the Sabbath theoretically applied to Jesus, him being a Jew, but he did not have to keep it at all as He is Lord of the Sabbath (Matthew 12:8, Mark 2:28, and Luke 6:5).

Anyway, the Pharisees were exaggerating the mosaic law by „building a fence around it“, i.e. adding rules that sometimes perverted God‘s intention for the underlying command (like the Korban rule described in Mark 7). Jesus had a massive problem with those man made traditions, they were his main gripe with the Pharisees and this differend was basically the reason they wanted to kill him (that, and Him claiming to be the Son of God).

I think that's probably right. I think I found all the times that Jesus was accused of breaking the Sabbath, and all but one were healings. The other one involved disciples eating wheat in the field because they were hungry. Here are the events I found:

Healing-Related Disputes:

• Healing of the Man with Dropsy (Luke 14:1-6): Jesus heals a man with dropsy on the Sabbath while dining at the house of a Pharisee. The Pharisees and legal experts watched Him closely, leading to a dispute.
  Luke 14:3 (NIV): "Jesus asked the Pharisees and experts in the law, 'Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath or not?'"
• Healing a Man Born Blind (John 9:1-16): Jesus heals a man born blind on the Sabbath, leading to a dispute among the Pharisees regarding the legality of such a healing.
  John 9:14 (NIV): "Now the day on which Jesus had made the mud and opened the man’s eyes was a Sabbath."
• The Healing of a Man with a Demon (Luke 13:10-17): Jesus heals a woman who had been crippled by a demon for eighteen years. This leads to criticism from the synagogue leader.
• Luke 13:14-15 (NIV): "Indignant because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath, the synagogue leader said to the people, 'There are six days for work. So come and be healed on those days, not on the Sabbath.'"
• The Man with the Withered Hand (Mark 3:1-6):
  Mark 3:2 (NIV): "Some of them were looking for a reason to accuse Jesus, so they watched him closely to see if he would heal him on the Sabbath."

Non-Healing-Related Disputes:

• Plucking Grain on the Sabbath (Mark 2:23-28): This dispute is not directly related to healing but involves Jesus and His disciples plucking heads of grain to eat on the Sabbath, which was considered harvesting and thus a violation of the Sabbath.
  Mark 2:24 (NIV): "The Pharisees said to him, 'Look, why are they doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath?'"

I spent way too much time trying to understand Rabbinical sources, and I think it boils down to this: some sources forbid these things, many others do not, Rabbi Shammai is stricter than Rabbi Hillel or Rabbi Akiva.

But the other aspect is that Jesus claimed that he had special authority as the Son of God, and the Pharisees said that was making himself equal to God, which was heretical. Clearly, that's an issue for traditional Judaism.

[Bootstrap]

Was Jesus acutually loosening the Law regarding the Sabbath? Or just unwinding some of the extra restrictions that the Pharisees had added (as well as their convoluted ways of getting around those extra restrictions when it suited them)?

I think the latter, actually.

But I'm not sure if there are times where Jesus told Jews to go ahead and clearly violate a Mosaic law or not. Paul certainly did. Acts 15 makes me think Jesus probably didn't, but I would need to put some time into thinking this out ... with help ...

In general, I think Jesus often emphasized the spirit and intention of the law rather than merely the letter. His teachings were sometimes seen as fulfilling or completing the law rather than abolishing it. But following the letter of the law often meant going beyond the mere requirements, not being more lax.

[Bootstrap]

I have been thinking about some things like this lately, not because of this passage but because of a discussion in another setting about the relationship of the moral law including the Ten Commandments to the Christian. Most of my thinking on this is preliminary and I am not prepared to defend it as a thesis.

Same here.

The first passage I considered was Jeremiah 31:31-34:

31 “Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, 32 not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the Lord. 33 For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. 34 And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”

What law was He talking about? Probably not the sacrificial law? Was He talking only about the House of Israel and the House of Judah? Or was He looking ahead to other believers, including us?

I do think the New Testament involves the law in our hearts. We, together, are the temple of the Holy Spirit. All of us, not just a few prophets. Jesus is both the High Priest and the sacrifice.

And Galatians tells us the Law was given to us as a tutor until Jesus came.

Two other passages are in Mark. In His reply to the rich young man He references some of the Ten Commandments...

17 And as he was setting out on his journey, a man ran up and knelt before him and asked him, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” 18 And Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone. 19 You know the commandments: ‘Do not murder, Do not commit adultery, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Do not defraud, Honor your father and mother.’” 20 And he said to him, “Teacher, all these I have kept from my youth.” 21 And Jesus, looking at him, loved him, and said to him, “You lack one thing: go, sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.” 22 Disheartened by the saying, he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.

Which goes well beyond the actual commandments.

But a couple of chapters later in Mark 12:28-34 He says this...

8 And one of the scribes came up and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, asked him, “Which commandment is the most important of all?” 29 Jesus answered, “The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 30
And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ 31 The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” 32 And the scribe said to him, “You are right, Teacher. You have truly said that he is one, and there is no other besides him. 33 And to love him with all the heart and with all the understanding and with all the strength, and to love one's neighbor as oneself, is much more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.” 34 And when Jesus saw that he answered wisely, he said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” And after that no one dared to ask him any more questions.

Seems to me that rather than focusing on the individual laws we now understand them to be expressions of the "higher view" of the law that Jesus spoke of as in the bolded portion of the quote above.

Clearly, seeking the Kingdom of God is closely related to the first and second commandments:

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.”

I think that has to be a lens for understanding everything else.

So where does the the fourth commandment, concerning the Sabbath come in to this?
Notice the two slightly different versions, in Exodus 20 referencing Creation...

Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. 11 For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.

..and in Deuteronomy 5 referencing the Exodus...

Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. 11 For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.

... we can see there was meaningful emphasis for the immediate audience.

Can you say more about the differences you see here?

I think Deuteronomy 5 includes a more explicit emphasis on ensuring rest for not only family members and servants but also livestock. It underscores the humanitarian aspect of the Sabbath, highlighting that even animals should be allowed to rest.

Deuteronomy 5 also links care of the "sojourner who is within your gates" to the idea that "you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm." And I think this notion of having been a slave is also linked to the way we treat our servants and even our animals in Deuteronomy 5.

Exodus 20 provides the rationale for keeping the Sabbath day holy by referencing God's creation of the world in six days and His resting on the seventh. Deuteronomy 5 emphasizes the connection between Sabbath observance and God's deliverance from Egypt, suggesting that the Sabbath serves as a reminder of God's redemptive actions.

Is that what you are noticing? Is there more?

When we look at the Sabbath through the NT lens of what Jesus did and said on the Sabbath, possibly one of the telling quotes is this one in Mark 3:

Again he entered the synagogue, and a man was there with a withered hand. 2 And they watched Jesus, to see whether he would heal him on the Sabbath, so that they might accuse him. 3 And he said to the man with the withered hand, “Come here.” 4 And he said to them,“Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save life or to kill?” But they were silent. 5 And he looked around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart, and said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He stretched it out, and his hand was restored. 6 The Pharisees went out and immediately held counsel with the Herodians against him, how to destroy him.

It almost seems that if we consider the 4th commandment as also an expression of Christ's "higher view" of the law, it draws together the first three concerning our knowledge and loving affirmation of the holiness of God, with the last six and our affirmation and practice of love for "our neighbor", and makes it a central point in how we express our relationship to God and those around us.

Yes, that makes sense to me.

[Bootstrap]

Now, we (the Church) are not under the Mosaic law anymore, but under the law of Christ (1. Cor. 9,21; Gal. 6,2). We have to obey the rules Jesus and the other (God inspired, [theopneustos, θεόπνευστος]) authors of the New Testament bestowed upon the followers of Christ. These do include 9 out of 10 of the ten commandments, and some in drastically stricter interpretation (cf. Sermon of the Mount).

Others, such as the Sabbath, the food rules (except for consuming blood, as was already part of the Covenant God made mit Noah and is applicable for all mankind and until today), the rules about not mixing fabric and such, do simply not apply to us.

Circumcision is a clear-cut case. For Gentiles, at least. For Jews, not so much. And in the early Church, Jews did continue to practice the Sabbath. Sunday, the Lord's Day, is not the Sabbath.

The good news (literally, the Evangelium / the Gospel) is that we are justified (i.e. saved) by grace (the blood of the Lamb / the ultimate sacrifice), as we all fail to always comply with these rules and no one could be saved if keeping the law was mandatory to be justified.

Amen. And it's OK to not understand everything too.

This should not mean we should not try, lest we bring some fruit of the Spirit (and by the fruit they will know us). Finally, let‘s not forget also Christians will appear before the judgment seat of Christ (2. Cor. 5,10; Rom. 14,10, which is not to be confused with the White Throne in Rev. 20,11) to have our works analyzed and receive our award (1. Cor. 3,10-12, if any).

Thanks for reading and Shabbat Shalom.

תודה גם לך שבת שלום

Though ... I should not have waited until Tuesday to say that ;->