Why Jesus Could Break the Sabbath Law and Still Remain Sinless

 People are usually upset when I point out to them that Jesus broke the Sabbath. We know this because He actually says it, but most people miss it because He says via implication. For instance, In John 5:16-18, the text says the following.

And this was why the Jews were persecuting Jesus, because he was doing these things on the Sabbath. But Jesus answered them, “My Father is working until now, and I am working.” This was why the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him, because not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God. 

Jesus says that by healing on the Sabbath, the Pharisees are right. He was working. This undermines any attempt from some people to argue that healing on the Sabbath isn't working. Jesus Himself confirms that it is. 

Furthermore, John confirms that the Jews wanted to kill him because he was breaking the Sabbath, confirming that Jesus' working on the Sabbath was actually breaking the Sabbath law. Many attempt to try and argue that John is only saying that the Pharisees thought Jesus was breaking the Sabbath law when he really wasn't, but this is negated by (1) Jesus just said He, in fact, was working on the Sabbath day which is to break it, and (2) the text doesn't say "they thought" He was breaking the Sabbath, but rather that He was actually breaking it.

In Matthew 12:1-8, the Pharisees accuse the disciples of breaking the Sabbath by harvesting food on it, which in fact is a violation of the Sabbath.

At that time Jesus went through the grainfields on the Sabbath. His disciples were hungry, and they began to pluck heads of grain and to eat. 2 But when the Pharisees saw it, they said to him, “Look, your disciples are doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath.” 3 He said to them, “Have you not read what David did when he was hungry, and those who were with him: 4 how he entered the house of God and ate the bread of the Presence, which it was not lawful for him to eat nor for those who were with him, but only for the priests? 5 Or have you not read in the Law how on the Sabbath the priests in the temple profane the Sabbath and are guiltless? 6 I tell you, something greater than the temple is here. 7 And if you had known what this means, ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the guiltless. 8 For the Son of Man is lord of the Sabbath.” 

Jesus' response is not that the disciples technically weren't breaking the Sabbath, as many try to argue. Instead, his argument has three supporting points to it: (1) That there are examples in the OT of people breaking ritual law for moral reasons and are therefore guiltless, and (2) What God actually desires is for His people to show their devotion to Him by their love toward others and not rituals, and (3) He is actually the Lord of the Sabbath and therefore can choose to observe or dismiss it.

1. The first example He cites is that of David and his men going in and eating the showbread which Christ reminds us "was not lawful for them to eat." In other words, they broke the ritual law. The second example is that of the priests who work on every Sabbath day, which Christ says "profanes" the Sabbath. In each case, these people are considered innocent to God. 

2. The reason why they can be still considered innocent to God when breaking a ritual command is because there is nothing inherently evil in breaking a ritual command nor inherently good in observing it. God could have made the Sabbath Tuesday or made no Sabbath at all. There is no inherent goodness to it. It's a picture of a theology and ethic, not the theology and ethic themselves. Hence, it can be broken without transgressing the inherent character of God's goodness. In other words, it isn't really moral. It's just moral to obey God. If God expresses that He wants it set aside in view of an actual moral principle, that moral principle takes precedent. That is also why one ritual command (e.g., baking showbread on the Sabbath and setting it out) can override another (e.g., observing the Sabbath).

3. As noted in Point 2 above, God can give commands and express what is most important so that His people set aside the ritual commands in order to obey God's ultimate desires in that moment. Hence, since Jesus is the Lord, He has declared His disciples innocent in breaking the Sabbath because they were hungry, He had them out and about, and He judges the matter to be a case of the preservation of life in a context of obedience that overrides the need to obey a ritual law.

Hence, in Mark 3:4, this story is followed by Jesus healing on the Sabbath and Christ responds to their condemnation of Him by showing that the creational principle to preserve innocent life, which is the entire thrust of the law, is good to do on the Sabbath. He states:

“Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save life or to kill?”

In other words, the moral principle can override the Sabbath law to do no work because the Sabbath law is not a moral law within itself.

This is why the new covenant is one of the moral law, not the ritual law. The pictures of the ritual law, in fact, are what is considered the old covenant. No longer will God make His people commit themselves to Him through the pictures, especially since Israel became confused with these and ended up just observing the pictures at the expense of the moral laws they represented. Instead, He would write the moral law on the minds rather than externally on tablets. 

This is why Paul says that he is not under the law anymore and when among Gentiles he does not practice the law (1 Cor 9:20), but v. 21 makes it clear that he is talking not about moral law, which he refers to as the law of Christ, i.e., the new covenant, but rather the ritual law. This could not be said if the ritual law were as binding as the moral law.

Likewise, in his statement to Peter in Galatians 2:14, "“If you, though a Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you force the Gentiles to live like Jews?” Obviously, in the context, he says this to Peter because Peter is not observing the ritual law unless he is around Jews.

When speaking of the change in the priesthood, the author of Hebrews writes, For when there is a change in the priesthood, there is necessarily a change in the law as well" (7:12). The new covenant does not have the same ritual laws that the old covenant has. 

Hence, Paul can argue against Jewish mystics who are demanding the ritual law be observed, "Therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day. These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ. (Col 2:16-17). 

And

One person considers one day more sacred than another; another considers every day alike. Each of them should be fully convinced in their own mind. Whoever regards one day as special does so to the Lord. Whoever eats meat does so to the Lord, for they give thanks to God; and whoever abstains does so to the Lord and gives thanks to God. For none of us lives for ourselves alone, and none of us dies for ourselves alone. If we live, we live for the Lord; and if we die, we die for the Lord. So, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord. For this very reason, Christ died and returned to life so that he might be the Lord of both the dead and the living. You, then, why do you judge your brother or sister? Or why do you treat them with contempt? For we will all stand before God’s judgment seat. (Rom 14:5-10).

Instead, Jesus breaks the Sabbath by working on it. His disciples break the Sabbath by working on it. The priests break the Sabbath by working on it. Yet, they are all innocent because they broke no moral law by doing so.

A Tale of Two Masculinities

I always loved Christmas because it was one of the only times a year that I would get a new Star Wars toy. I remember one Christmas my parents had bought me some cheap space toy knockoff that wasn't Star Wars because they just thought I was into space toys in general. But as any Star Wars fan knows, there is no substitute for the real thing. There is Star Wars and there is everything else that wants to be Star Wars but isn't. Suffice to say, it wasn't a good Christmas in the mind of a five-year-old.

We have many cheap knockoffs in our culture when it comes to masculinity. Our culture has been recently infatuated with the question, "What is a woman?" In many ways, this question is not as important as its counterpart, which is, "What is a man?" If we can get that question down, the other will become clear. 

But before we can answer the question, "What is a man?" I want to explore how we make our version of men in our culture and why this is primarily the problem.

In the ancient and biblical world, men are a product of the nurture of their families until marriage. They learn responsibility in their father's family until that responsibility is transferred over to their new family. This is the reason a man leaves his father and mother, to cleave to his wife and begin a new branch of his father's household. Sometimes he doesn't leave at all but incorporates his new family into the responsibilities of the former.

Hence, he moves from family responsibilities to family responsibilities. Manhood is a role of familial responsibility, or as the ancient world would put it, love/devotion. He has sacrificed his time, energy, resources, desires, etc. for the sake of his father's family and now goes directly into that same role in his new family where he sacrifices his time, energy, resources, desires, etc. for the good of that family. Manhood is sacrificial responsibility.

This is what the Bible describes when speaking of the husband's role with his wife, but it should be extended to the larger family as well. He is the one who must provide and protect in the sacrifice of anything else he might want to do instead. He must learn from his father's family how to do that in order that he might teach his own sons to do the same, not only in word but in demonstrating it day by day.

Our culture, however, does something that completely derails this by having the son leave the home and enter into a period of "freedom." This is seen as a rite of passage. He is let loose to party. He is let loose to do whatever he was not allowed to do in his father's home. Now, he can make drinking his escape, be sexually indulgent, participate in lude conversations, etc. This is his break from responsibility if, in fact, he even had it at all in the modern family. 

Now, some people bounce back from this. They realize that this isn't what being a man really is. Being a man isn't freedom from responsibility and acting like a frat boy. It is the very opposite of that. Scripture tells us that being a mature man is a life of love and sacrifice. It is choosing to deny oneself what the world paints as freedom and joy in created things and calls us away to find our peace and joy in God and in the betterment of His people in their relationship with Christ. It is training up other men to be responsible, whether in your immediate family or in the church. 

Biblical masculinity chooses not to partake in the frat boy version of masculinity because it teaches men to glorify the party period of their lives and extend it into their families. I cannot count how many men I have known who neglect their families so that they can drink with the boys, end up committing adultery on their wives in one way or another, get into drugs, just spend the rest of their days in their child-like hobbies or donate their time to futility by watching countless hours of tv and surfing the internet on their phones. 

We have taught our men to escape, to abdicate, to spend their time in fruitless discussion, and to party; but we have failed to teach them that masculinity is taking responsibility for those in their families, to guard and protect children, to enter into discussions that edify young men and women, to engage in behaviors that communicate that Christ alone is our joy and peace and we need no created thing to be the idol of escapism because we are not trying to escape from the responsibility Christ has given to us. 

We show men how to submit by being in submission ourselves. We show men how to lead by leading as men lead, through the command of God's Word and not through the emotional manipulation of relationships. We act as fathers and not as frat boys. We show men how to run toward their families, to incorporate them into our lives, rather than how to find ways to avoid them.

Biblical masculinity is not how you take your alcohol or how many girls you can get. It isn't who wins in a debate on any topic that exists solely as a dominance contest, who wins at arm-wrestling or has the best stuff. But these are the things that have been ingrained into us as masculine because we learn that when one is grown up, he leaves his family and does these things. Freedom from responsibility, not taking on responsibility, is what we have subconsciously taught being a man is. 

There are of course its counterparts with women as well. Being a woman is the freedom to be a whore, get drunk, and do all of the unladylike things you're not supposed to do as a girl. But true womanhood is a life of submission to a man who is responsible for you and the family, and true manhood is taking upon the role of the one in that position of responsibility. 

If I am responsible for others, I will care about what they need to mature, not what I want to do in disregard of what they need. Applying that principle will lead down a path that many frat boys fear to tread because its applications will lead to the death of the frat boy's lifestyle. 

The culture I want to create in the church will be one of family, not individuality. A man off on his own is an individual and communicates that he is an island from his family. Instead, a biblical culture will emphasize the inclusion of family in our gatherings, the demonstration of responsibility in how wives and children are treated both inside and outside the home; and this will create an atmosphere of edifying conversations, a consumption of nothing but what the entire family should consume and partake in, and an elevation of Jesus Christ, along with the privilege of the responsibilities He has given us, as our joy and peace. 

The exclusion of family is repeating the same error of our culture. It elevates the freedom from family that our culture glorifies and is present in every broken marriage in our church. Yet, this very freedom creates eternal boys, not men.

In other words, there is no such thing as a man without the responsibility of family because there is no such thing as a man without him being a father. Manhood is fatherhood and all of the love and sacrifice that comes with it.

James Bond is our culture's masculine ideal, but he's a forever bachelor. John Wayne had three wives, having been divorced twice, and lived the type of masculinity that the frat boy would adore. But his masculinity wasn't biblical. Neither was the abdicating masculinity of the simp culture to follow. What I want to point out is that both of these supposedly contrasting masculinities are simply one and the same. They both abdicate in seemingly opposite ways but neither can claim the title of being truly masculine. 

If love is spiritual maturity as the Bible teaches, then he who loves the most is the most mature, and he who is most mature as a male is most masculine. Love is not some sappy feeling, it is not letting others indulge in whatever fancies them or having a gay old time with your buddies. It is sacrifice. It is edification. It is responsibility for the soul of the other. Anything less is a cheap knockoff. 

Part 2 of Gavin’s Discussion of Ken Ham and Genesis 1

 https://youtu.be/95B-NrAmS_U?si=ieCN8iG7f17H9pgv

The Interpretation of Genesis 1 and How Ken Ham Creates Unnecessary Divisions

 https://youtu.be/FL9t3O-1E7w?si=1_McBMy9z60yyZD8

Does the Bible Teach that Animal Death Is Brought in by the Fall?

This is just a question I was thinking about. I haven't landed one way or another, as I don't know if this can truly be known by us. However, here are some points to ponder. 

I was always taught that carnivorous animals once ate vegetation, and that their entire ontological makeup was altered after the Fall. This, however, seems a bit odd. Carnivores wouldn't simply need to be changed in terms of their metabolism, but their teeth in order to grab onto prey, their muscles in order to overpower them, their speed would need to be altered, etc. And why are some wild animals changed from being herbivorous to being carnivorous if it is just the Fall affecting them?  Wouldn't all herbivores become carnivores in the same way that all men become destroyers instead of life-givers in the Fall?

But if carnivores were made from the beginning, that would mean that animal death was something that is prelapsarian. But what does the Bible say? Doesn't it teach that all death came in through Adam? Romans 5:12-14, 17-19

12 Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned— 13 for sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law. 14 Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come . . .  17 For if, because of one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ. 18 Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. 19 For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous.

This passage is often used to argue that death did not exist before the Fall and so no animals could possibly be carnivorous or die before the Fall. However, it is clear in the context that this is talking about death for humanity. Humans, as God's images, were not meant to die before the Fall and it was only after Adam's sin that death for humanity came into the world. The text is explicitly clear in v. 12: εἰς πάντας ἀνθρώπους ⸋ὁ θάνατος⸌ διῆλθεν "death came to all men." It does not say that death came to all creatures. 

It should also be understood that even though we talk about plants dying, the Bible does not consider plants as having living souls and therefore as things that die in the sense that a soul departs from its corporeal existence. Fruit could be said to "die" because God gave it to Adam and Eve to eat before the Fall but, again, this is not considered death in Scripture.

It is disputed as to whether bacteria, micro-organisms, insects, etc. would be considered living creatures by the Bible, but certainly anything from reptiles and fish to larger livestock and wild animals would be as they are all referred to as חַיָּה, which literally means "living thing" but is often just translated as "animal," an English word derived from the Latin animalis "having life/a soul." Of course, by "soul" I don't mean that they have an eternal soul but that they have a life source/breath that animates them. We're told in Ecclesiastes that their lifesource returns to the ground as opposed to man's that returns to God upon death.

Returning to the question at hand, then, the argument for a postlapsarian animal death is then drawn from Romans 8. In vv. 18-23, Paul states:

18 For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. 19 For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. 20 For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. 22 For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. 23 And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.

The problem in using this passage is that it says nothing about death being brought to all creation. In fact, because it is talking about all creation, and not just animals, it would be strange to import that into the text here. Instead, the creation is subject to futility. Futility concerning what? Well, in the context, Paul is talking about how we suffer in this world and still die, so the creation, that was originally made to support a human-filled world, because of the Fall, was subject to the fact that it won't be able to do its job and keep those humans but instead, in its fallen state, will lead to their suffering and death. It, therefore, groans (anthropopathically speaking) until the day that the sons of God are resurrected in their glorified bodies and it can finally be placed in a state of success in that it can preserve the humans that fill it up. It's existence for that purpose will no longer be futile. This really has nothing to do with our question, then, as to whether animals only die as a result of the Fall.

A further argument might be made from federal headship. Although this is theological rather than a connection the Bible makes to this issue, it's an interesting one to consider. The idea would be that if Adam was not under death then the animals under him would not be under death either, but this may not be a proper application of federal headship, as a man who is not under the death penalty in the civil sense today might still kill his livestock for food and in the OT as a sacrifice. In other words, his animals don't necessarily share his fate by being a part of him. They actually could just be a part of him by being consumed by him or sacrificed for him. Furthermore, if animals served a purpose in their dying in order to keep the man's ecosystem running properly before the Fall as it does now, then these deaths would serve him rather than detract from him. In other words, like the fruit, the animal perishes so that death does not come to the man. It does not perish because he is under judgment but rather because he is under blessing and provision. 

Still, it is interesting to ponder why God gives only the fruit for man to eat and not animals before the Fall if these animals are dying anyway. The counterpoint might be that the fruit mentioned isn't because it is the only thing being eaten but simply letting the man know that none of the fruit is forbidden to him (which might make the reader ask if the forbidden fruit is symbolic in the next chapter since all fruit was granted to the man in the first), whereas some of the animals might be forbidden to him just because they don't make for good eating. The distinction between wild animals and domesticated animals in the language of these chapters may bear this out but who knows in the end?

Here is what is clear. No man was under the penalty of death until Adam sinned. Humans die as a result of the Fall. That is the clear biblical teaching. There is no human death before the Fall. Hence, Christ came into the world to redeem humankind from death, and in doing so, all of creation from futility. Whether carnivores were made by God to be carnivorous and had actually eaten before Adam sinned remains a mystery that we simply must guess at either way.

If you know of any verses or arguments I might be missing, let me know.

Why Speculative Theology Gives Us No Knowledge of God

Being a witness to many debates between Christian theologians can be exhausting. The amount of people declared heretics because they don't fully align with the exacting definitions of speculative theologies has become the favorite past time of many a tradition these days. "You're too Thomistic!" "You're not Thomistic enough!" "You need to be a Platonist!" "You need to be an Aristotelian!" "You're a Modernist!" "You got your jot right but your tittle is wrong so you clearly must be put outside the faith!" The amount of knowledge these people think they have about God is astounding. I might reacclimate the apostles' question asked in horror to our day, "If these things be true, who can be saved?!"

One of my favorite pass times in seminary was sitting for hours with my friends who were Philosophy of Religion majors. The biggest lesson I took away from those conversations though is that anything can be justified by philosophy as long as you have a coherent system, but since there are many contradictory coherent systems, this means that even if your system is coherent and all works theoretically, there is still nothing to confirm that it is actually true.

Call me a skeptic but I am just a radical presuppositionalist at heart. I don't believe that any knowledge is possible without either omniscience or a reliable report from one who is omniscient. This makes me a radical advocate of sola Scriptura and the high church view when it comes to qualified exegetes as the exclusive interpreters of that Scripture. As such, I don't think much of speculative theology. This is usually why I tell people that I'm not a systematician but a biblical scholar. That doesn't mean I'm not a theologian but that I'm a biblical theologian. 

What I mean by that is. not that I don't use logic or am aware of my own philosophical presuppositions (indeed, I would argue being a biblical theologian requires these things), but rather that Scripture must confirm or deny my theology either explicitly or by good and necessary consequence. The further our speculations get from being confirmed by Scripture, the more doubtful they become, as knowledge must be confirmed by it. If my speculation cannot be confirmed by Scripture, it cannot be known even if it may be true. 

But being a biblical theologian helps me to understand what God wants us to know about Him. He has clearly revealed Himself as a singular Being in Trinity, but He has not described for us the "mechanics" of His Being or interrelations of the Persons. We have often speculated about these things using various philosophical ideas about God and how He might exist and relate to both His creation and within the Godhead itself.  

But, biblically speaking, God doesn't seem to care whether we figure that out. In fact, I would argue that those things are the secret things that don't belong to us. What God has declared belong to us is what He has revealed in Scripture. I would argue that this primarily has to do with God's expressed character over and against our knowing His essence. If I can say it this way, God cares more about people knowing who He is than He cares about people knowing what He is. 

This is why we do not get books in the Bible that are intellectual descriptions of God's Being. Instead, we are told of what God does and what God requires of us to do in order to be like Him in His character. Hence, in the Book of Exodus, God reveals His "name," i.e., His personhood, by showing Himself to be the Savior of His people, the Giver of life to His people, the Creator of His people, their faithful God who seeks a relationship with them in order to give to them life and freedom from slavery and death. In other words, He is the One who has loved them and will continue to faithfully love them. God is love. He further reveals Himself as just as He reveals His moral will in the law. God is love because He is good and just. This is what God wants His people to know about Him. 

The Trinitarian nature of God is revealed as a part of His revelation concerning His activity to save His people from slavery and death. God is so much the Savior that even when His own goodness and justice become a threat to our well-being, He fulfills the very requirements of His own goodness necessary to have a life-giving relationship with Him Himself, i.e., through the Second Person of the Trinity, in order to save us because He loves us. Having saved us from the death our own rebellion would merit in the presence of God, He then conforms us to His just and good character as a people who have received His life in us and now produces life through us by the Third Person of the Trinity. 

This is what God primarily wants us to know about Himself and this is all that we can know about Him. He is the only God, existing in three persons, the Savior of His people, the only good and just One, who has given and gives life to all things that have or will have life.

There is no treatise in the Bible concerning essence and energies, divine aseity, exitus and reditus, perichoresis, etc. I believe things about these things, but I cannot know them. I cannot know them because God has not described them in such a way so as to confirm that I have the right view of them. But here is the real point: I don't need to know them. I don't need to understand any of them in order to know God. In fact, I may be detracting from the Scriptures in which God has revealed Himself to discuss and write about the things He has not revealed about Himself. I might argue that along with what God has revealed about Himself sits silently an implication of divine mystery that God demands His people acknowledge so that they spend their time meditating upon who He has revealed Himself to be and not what He might be or how he might exist as He does.

One might even construct an entirely different religion than that of the Bible by making it about philosophical speculations about God to the point of diminishing the emphasis of Holy Scripture concerning God. the Trinity, the Incarnation, eschatology, etc. All of these sound like very Christian things to talk about, and yet, they may actually detract from a biblical Christianity that would have us focus on what we know as it has been confirmed by divine revelation about these topics. 

If life is found in a particular relationship with God as His people, and God wishes to give us life in what He communicates to us above all else, then God will glorify Himself in a way that is sufficient to accomplish that goal. We, therefore, have a sufficient knowledge of God but not an exhaustive knowledge of God, a knowledge which would require us having the omniscient mind of God Himself to obtain. 

Speculative knowledge gives us theories. They are fun to talk about. But we can never know the truth of them if Scripture does not confirm either explicitly or through necessary consequence (i.e., via implication) their veracity. This should cause us to ask the question, therefore, if we are spending too much time talking about these things. Are we exerting our own reason above the Word of God without realizing it? Are we, therefore, by doing so, asserting ourselves into conversations where God should be exalted instead? Are most heresies not created in such ways? I cannot understand God and have a need to make Him more understandable to me. Hence, maybe Jesus had a beginning even though Scripture indicates He has the full nature of God, which would include eternality. Maybe Jesus is just a man because He learns and grows and may not seem to know certain things during His ministry on earth. Maybe the God of the Old Testament is a different God than that of the New because it seems that a shift has been made between the two. All sorts of heresies are created via speculations that are not confirmed by Scripture but I am talking even more about the orthodoxies that can replace our confessional emphases that are created via speculations that are not confirmed by Scripture. 

An adjustment in our understanding concerning what we believe to be true and what we know to be true with our emphasis on what we know to be true as superior and subsequently given the floor in our conversations is needed.