Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Mark 2:27

And he said unto them, The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath:

Mar 2:27-28

And He said unto them, the Sabbath was made for man.

The Sabbath and its Lord

The Sabbath was made for man-not for the Jews only-not a mere ceremonial observance for the time; but of universal obligation; made for man when man was made.

I. The Sabbath was made for man as a working man. It is a simple fact in medical science, that the human frame is not made so as to bear up under constant labour without rest. He can no more do it than he can live under water; it is contrary to nature; and the consequence will be premature decay; the frame will break down and wear out before its time. This is a simple fact in science. Besides, labour is Gods appointment, His wholesome and needful law. But did He mean us to bear the drudgery of ceaseless toil? How wretched, how degrading, how brutalizing! And God has not appointed it: Six days shalt thou labour. But on this head I need say no more; those admirable Essays by Working Men, which ought to be in everybodys hands, and which so vividly portray the experience of those who have kept the Sabbath, exhaust this part of the subject.

II. The Sabbath was made for man, as a social being. What is Gods great instrument for promoting the temporal good of His creatures? It is the family tie. What is the great stimulant to exertion? What the great safeguard, what the great cordial of life-speaking of mere human things, I mean? It is to be found in the word home. My experience as a gaol chaplain convinces me that the great cause of crime arises from the breach of the fourth and fifth commandments. Let but the family tie be rent asunder, and society falls to pieces. And how can this be maintained without a Sabbath? The observation of an omnibus conductor the other day sets this in a striking light: Sir, I am at work every Sunday, all the day, as well as on week days, and I hardly know the face of my own children. Then what must become of those children? And why should they be deprived of a fathers care, and he of his childrens love? And how has God provided against such a danger? The Sabbath was made for man. Then the various members of the family, scattered through the week, are once more united; the mutual feelings of affection are elicited; they are excited to seek each others welfare, and to value each others good opinion and esteem; and, short of the power of Gods grace, there is no bond half so strong, no security half so certain, that they will fill up their places as good members of society. I constantly meet with those who are lost to every other feeling of shame but this.

III. The Sabbath was made for man, as a spiritual being. Earthly things must not engross all the time and thought of man. God interposes, The seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God.

IV. But it is not enough to offer man the blessing-it is made imperative; it is confirmed by the sanction which is added, The Son of Man is Lord also of the Sabbath. Jesus is the Lord of the Sabbath, the Proprietor of it, the Owner of it, the Master of it. It is His. It was made for man, but never given to man. The six days were given to man-the seventh never was. He is the Lord of it. It is at His disposal, not at yours, nor any mans, nor any body of men, however great or powerful. Will a man rob God? Yes. If he apply to his own purposes that which does not belong to him, what is it? Robbery. You have no right over anothers Sabbaths; you have no right over your own. It is the Lords day. It is for Him to say how the day shall be spent; and man has no more the right to alienate that day from the service of God to his own service than he has to appropriate his neighbours property or despoil him of his honour for his own behoof. The Sabbath is not mans, but the Lords, and you cant repeal that law, no more than you can change the laws of motion or reverse the force of gravity. You may arrest it for a time, but it will prevail at last; the laws of God execute themselves, you cannot make them inoperative and null.

V. The Son of Man is the Lord of the Sabbath-the judge to punish the breach of it. Nothing is more certain than that this is one of the sins which He especially requires at the hands of men. We know it from His dealings with Israel; Jeremiah is full of such declarations; so are many of the other prophets; to refer only to one, Eze 20:13; Eze 20:16; Eze 20:21; Eze 20:24. He is the Lord-the Judge-to vindicate His own law. And why? First, Sabbath breaking is a deliberate sin. And then Sabbath breaking is (if I may coin such an expression) a fundamental sin. It goes to the root of all godliness; an habitual Sabbath breaker cannot have any true religion. It opens the door of his heart wide to Satan.

VI. The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath-to direct the mode of its observance. It is the Lords day-the Lord who died for us. He claims it, to be devoted to His service and consecrated to His honour.

VII. And is it not the Lords day?-the day on which He specially manifests Himself to His people; when He invites them to draw water with joy out of the wells of salvation. (J. Cohen, M. A.)

The Sabbath a necessity

It was made for man, as man; as a thing necessary, suited, essential for him. Just as the atmosphere was made for man to breathe, just as the earth was made for him to cultivate, just as the seasons were made for him-just as these and such-like things were taken into account, when man was put upon the earth, as necessary to fit it for mans abode physically, so the Sabbath was made for man, as a necessary requisite for man morally-and that, when man was unfallen, a holy being, like unto the angels. And if indispensable for mans moral and spiritual health then, can it be less indispensable now? And in His mercy God spared it to us. It has survived the fall-a remnant of paradise lost, and the best help to paradise regained. (J. Cohen, M. A.)

The working man a self sovereign on the Sabbath

Now, I say to this large class of men, the Sabbath comes as a boon from God. It is like an island in a stormy sea. There is a way in which poor men, for the most part, own themselves. The man whose horse and dray are imperatively at the command of his employer, on whose favour he depends, who says to him on Monday, Go, and he goes, and that from daylight to dark-it being the same on Tuesday, on Wednesday, on every day of the week, so that the man cannot go out of Brooklyn without permission of his employer, cannot go to this or that exhibition unless his employer gives his consent-that man has sold out his industry, which carries his person with it, and for six days in the week he is restricted by the will of another; but when the seventh day comes round he says, Thank God, I have nobody to ask today. I am free to come and go. I can rise up or lie down as I please. That is the only day that the poor man has out of the seven in which he has absolute ownership of his body and soul in the thronging industries of modern civilized society. And yet it is this very class of men who are being taught to throw stones at the Sabbath day. It is precisely the same thing over again which occurred when Moses appeared as the deliverer of his people against the Egyptians, and sought to reconcile the quarrel which had arisen between the two peoples. They turned against him and said, Who art thou? And he had to run for his life. The Sabbath comes to men who are tied hand and foot, and need emancipation; and upon this beneficent day of rest for them they turn and say, It is the priests day; it is the churchs bondage; and we are not going to be tied up to any Sunday. Tied up! It is the only day on which your hands are untied. It is the only day on which the poor man is sovereign. (H. W. Beecher.)

The Sabbath a poetic gift to the mechanical agent

Well, how is it about the poor man? His brain is not taxed. He is almost a mechanical agent. That part of a mans brain which has cognisance of the lower functions only is overtaxed, and the rest which is wanted in his case is the transfer of excitement from the lower part of the brain to the higher-to the realm of the moral and spiritual elements. It is needful that a man who is instructed should rise up into the crystal dome of his house. Ordinarily he is working on the ground floor; but there comes a day in which, if he improves the means that are within his reach, a man can cease to be altogether a mechanical agent, can cease to think of physical qualities or things, and rise into the realm of ideas, into the realm of social amenities, into the realm of refined and purified affections, into the great mysterious, poetic realms of the spirit. And is there any class that need that more than poor labouring men? (H. W. Beecher.)

The Sabbath helpful to self-respect

On such a day as this it is no small means of grace for millions of men in this world to have a chance to wash them selves clean. You smile; but washing is one of the most important ordinances of God to this human family. It is said that cleanliness is next to godliness; not to men that are godly, but to men that are on their way toward godliness. When Kaffirs are converted, they are called shirt men, because when the grace of God enters their heart a shirt goes over their bodies for the first time. Wellington said he found that in his army the men who had the self-respect which is indicated by carefully clothing themselves, were the best men he had. In a report on labour made to the British Parliament by one of the largest employers of men, it was said that a workman who on Sunday did not wash himself and dress in his best could not be depended upon. (H. W. Beecher.)

Stealing the Lords day

If you give six days to worldly success, and then voluntarily take the seventh day, which God demands for His worship and especial service, and give that to worldly amusements, then you are wrong; you are so wrong that you could not be any more wrong. If I say my child is sick: I think by taking it to the beach it could be helped, but I cannot take it except on the Sabbath day, and therefore I will have to let it die, then I make a miserable misinterpretation of the text in one direction. But if you say, Come, let us go down for some fine sport; let us examine the picturesque bathing dresses; let us have a jolly time with our friends, then you misinterpret my text in the other direction. The fact is that nine out of ten of you-yes, I will go further than that and say that ninety-nine out of a hundred of you-I think I will go one step farther and say that nine hundred and ninety-nine out of a thousand of you, can go on other days and other nights, instead of the Christian Sabbath. Your work, your business engagement ends at six oclock; that is true with the most of you. In a flash you get to the seashore: in a flash you get back. You can be in your home at six oclock and ten oclock the same evening, and in the interregnum have spent three hours in looking at moonlight on the sea. Now, if God gives you during the week opportunity for recreation, is it not mean for you to take Sunday? If I am a poor man, and I come into your store, and beg some socks for my children, and you say, Yes, Ill give you six pairs of socks, and while you are binding them up in a bundle I steal the seventh pair, you say, That is mean. If you, the father, have seven oranges, and you give to your child six of them, and he steals the seventh, that is mean. But that is what everyone does who, after the Lord gives him six days, steals the seventh. (Dr. Talmage.)

The secularization of the Sabbath inimical to the spiritual welfare of mankind

I also oppose this secularization of the Christian Sabbath because it is war on the spiritual warfare of everybody. Have you a body? Yes. A mind? Yes. A soul? Yes. Do you propose to give them a chance? Yes. Do you believe that all these Sunday night concerts will prepare a single man for the song of the one hundred and forty and four thousand? Have you any idea that all the fifty-two Sundays of secular amusements, operatic singing, concerts, and theatres would prepare in a thousand years one man for heaven? Do you not think that the immortal soul is worth at least one-seventh as much as our perishable body? Here is a jeweller who has three gems-a carnelian, an amethyst, a diamond. He has to cut and set them. Upon which does he put the most care? The diamond. Now, the carnelian is the body, the amethyst is the mind, the diamond is the soul. You give opportunity to these other faculties of your nature, but how many of you give no opportunity to that which is worth as much more than all other interests as a thousand million dollars are more than one cent? (Dr. Talmage.)

The Lords right in the Sabbath above that of the people

We hear a great deal about the peoples rights in selecting their own amusements on Sunday. I would not invade the peoples rights, but it seems to me that the Lord has some rights. You are at the head of your family; you have a right to govern the family. The Governor is at the head of the State; he governs the State. The President is at the head of the nation; he governs the nation. The Lord God is at the head of the universe, and He has a right to lay down an enactment: Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Whether popular or unpopular, I now declare that the people have no rights except those which the Lord God Almighty gives them. (Dr. Talmage.)

The Lords Day

I. We must consider the Lords day as a gift, rather than a command. So it will come to us in the light of a privilege. No laws are given by Christ or by His apostles concerning the forms of observance. We shall become perplexed if we attempt to rest our case upon simple legal enactment. Our safety in such discussions consists in our fastening attention upon the gracious and benevolent character of the Divine institution. God gives us this one day of the week as His peculiar offering for our bodily and spiritual need; He does not order it nor claim it for any necessities of His own.

II. We must consider the Lords day as a freedom, rather than a restriction. So it will seem to us a gracious respite.

III. This leads us on to say that Christians should consider the Lords day as a rest rather than a dissipation. So it will become a recuperation to us from its chance of a change. The original idea of the Sabbath was rest; the word signifies rest; the fourth commandment gives as the basis of the law the fact that God rested and so hallowed the rest day. We come up to the end of the week worn and excited. Most of us know what the poet Cowper meant when he wrote to his friend John Newton: The meshes of that fine network the brain are composed of such mere spiders threads in me, that when a long thought finds its way into them, it buzzes, and twangs, and bustles about, at such a rate as seems to threaten the whole structure. At these times we need tranquil hours for change of occupation, as well as for genial and agreeable entertainment. Dr. Addison Alexander used to say he found his recreation in change of toil. He would go from the study of languages to the study of mathematics. He would turn from writing commentaries to writing sermons. He would discuss theology, and refresh himself after his dry work by composing little poems for children. We all ought to know and recognize this principle. What we need for Sunday rest is not so much sleep as something to do different from what we do during the week; and what we should shun the most is this wear and tear of a crowded excursion. A real rest is found in variety of labour, inside of exhaustion and fatigue. Quiet does not mean stupid slumber on the Lords day, or on any other. The best relief from worldly cares is discovered oftenest in the gentle industries of religious work.

IV. We must consider the Lords day as a benediction rather than a fret. Thus we shall rebut the charge of bigotry. It is sometimes claimed that Sabbath laws exasperate men who make no claim to religion, and this is a free country. It has to be admitted that there are always some people who grow exasperated whenever the subject of law is mentioned. But liberty is not licence, nor is freedom lawlessness. This one day in seven is no less a blessing because some men do not think so; it is not a fret because they are fretted. Even decent people have some rights. God does not engage to commune with His children, and then expect them to allow the interview to be disturbed by the rollicking riot of a beer garden, or the band of target-shooting parades.

V. We must consider the Lords day as a help rather than an institution. (C. S. Robinson, D. D.)

Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath

Nothing can show the Divine nature of our Lord more clearly than that He is above such a law of God, so that He should modify it, relax it, change it at His pleasure. He exercised but a small part of this authority when He freed His disciples from the yoke of its burdensome pharisaic observance. He exercised His lordship over the day far more royally when He by His Spirit made the day of His resurrection the weekly religious festival of His Church. By this He gave it altogether a new character. Henceforth it is a day, not of mere rest, but of renewed life, the life of His own resurrection; and so its characteristic ordinance is not the slaying of beasts, but the life-giving celebration of the sacrament of His own risen body. (M. F. Sadler.)

The Sabbath was made for man

I. As a periodical reprieve from the curse of labour.

II. As a stated season for attention to religious truths and interests.

III. As a day of holy convocation for the purpose of worship and instruction.

IV. As an emblem and an earnest of the saints everlasting rest. (G. Brooks.)

The Son of Man Lord of the Sabbath

I. It was instituted by Him.

II. It is kept on a day which is fixed by His authority.

III. It is intended to commemorate His resurrection.

IV. It ought to be observed with a special regard to His will, and word, and work. (G. Brooks.)

The Sabbath for man as a complex creature

The question has been revived in our own generation: In what spirit is that day which has superseded the Sabbath to be kept, especially by the working classes? This, no less than the other, was made for man. Now man, it must be remembered, is a complex creature. He has a tripartite nature, consisting of body, soul, and spirit; and it is necessary to provide for him as such, not ignoring either his physical, or his social, or his religious needs. All must be kept in view. It is a manifest duty to furnish the masses with the means of bodily recreation, and to draw them from their squalid homes into the pure air which will invigorate the frame. It is no less a duty to elevate their tastes, to offer them, as far as possible, variety of scene, and that relief from the monotony of labour which the rich man finds in his club or library; but all must be subordinated to the paramount duty of worship. That is due from every creature to the Great Creator. It is that, moreover, in which he may find his highest enjoyment. No scheme, therefore, which ignores this claim can possibly carry out the principle here laid down by Christ. (H. M. Luckock, D. D.)

Man cannot do without the Sabbath

A distinguished merchant, who for twenty years did a vast amount of business, remarked to Dr. Edwards, Had it not been for the weekly day of rest, I have no doubt I should have been a maniac long ago. This was mentioned in a company of merchants, when one remarked, That is the case exactly with a poor friend of mine. He was one of our greatest importers. He used to say Sunday was the best day in the week to plan successful voyages; showing that his mind had no Sabbath. He has been in the insane hospital for years, and will probably die there. Many men are there, or in the maniacs grave, because they allowed themselves no Sabbath. They broke a law of nature, and of natures God, and found the way of the transgressor is hard.

The Sabbath a service to the State

The keeping one day in seven holy, as a time of relaxation and refreshment as well as for public worship, is of admirable service to a state, considered merely as a civil institution. (Sir W. Blackstone.)

The Sabbath for mans happiness

The usages and ordinances of religion ought to be regulated according to their end, which is the honour of God and the advantage of men. It is the property of the religion of the true God, to contain nothing in it but what is beneficial to man. Hereby God plainly shows that it is neither out of indigence, nor interest, that He requires men to worship and obey Him, but only out of goodness, and on purpose to make them happy. God prohibited work on the Sabbath day, for fear lest servants should be oppressed by the hard-heartedness of their masters, and to the end that men might not be hindered from attending upon God and their own salvation. (Quesnel.)

The Sabbath law fibred in the nature of man

For as the old masters put their colours upon the fresh, damp plaster of the wall until, hardening together, picture and plaster were one in their witness to the future of the glories of the past, so fibred in the need and future of man is the law of the Sabbath. (Monday Club Sermons.)

The Sabbath a physical necessity

The testimony is cumulative, from experience and careful scientific experiment, that in all departments of continuous work-as mines, factories, railroads, mechanic arts, telegraphy, and commercial pursuits-the rest of the night does not restore the vitality lost in the day. The New York Central engineers, who petitioned for their Sundays on the ground that they could do more and better work in six than in seven days, have clearer heads and firmer hands, and that under pressure of constant service age came on prematurely, put on record their own experience. In a paper before the British Association it was stated by an employer of labour that he could work a horse eight miles a day for six days better than he could six miles a day for seven days; so that by not working on Sunday he saved 12 per cent. (Monday Club Sermons.)

Man needs the rest of the Sabbath in addition to the rest of night

In the same line of witness is the testimony of medical and scientific experts, that the rest of the night does not restore the powers of mind and body to the same vitality they had twenty-four hours before, and that the natural forces run steadily lower and lower from Monday morning until Saturday night, until these powers can be lifted back to their normal vitality and place only by the relaxation and rest of the seventh day. It is a curious scientific fact that Proudhon, the great socialistic philosopher of France, attempted to work out mathematically the relative ratio of work to rest, which should secure the greatest efficiency and the largest product. Biased by no religious claim, but rather avowedly hostile to such influence, he found that six days of work and one day of rest was the only right proportion: that is, to shorten the present working week by one day made the rest too much for the labour, while adding a single day to the labouring week made the rest too small for complete recuperation. Humboldt, years before, arrived at the same mathematical conclusion: and when France, loyal to her decimal system, put the tenth day in the place of the seventh, she found that the working man took two holidays instead of one, and thereby entailed a loss upon the industrial production of the empire. Therefore Chevalier rightly said: Let us observe Sunday in the name of hygiene, if not in the name of religion. For Sunday is the best friend of the working man-his defence against decay, disease, and premature death. And every railroad corporation, every steamship line, every factory bell which calls to Sunday labour, every lax law and every lax practice-these are the enemies of the working man, aye, every poor man! The rich can rest when they will; but the poor man cannot, save as his day of rest is conserved by the law of the land and of God. (Monday Club Sermons.)

The Sabbath is a social necessity

What are the great working factors of society? Why, we say, the family, the church, and the school-law and order. Put neglect upon any of these great fountains and the stream grows muddy and shallow, and yet no agency is more potent in conserving these social factors than the Sabbath. It acts as a brake upon the rush and roar of traffic and self-interest, which for six days engross the mind and busy the hand. It bids men stop and breathe, think of God and cultivate the social amenities of life, and thereby makes them better neighbours and better citizens. (Monday Club Sermons.)

The Sabbath necessary to the weary man

Wherever mind and body are taxed and exhausted by toil-and it is meant in the laws of our being that they shall everywhere be employed-there the Sabbath is destined to come as a day of rest. The ship, indeed, will glide along at sea, for its course cannot be arrested; and the Sabbath of the mariner may often be different from that of a dweller in a palace or a cottage, and different from that which the seaman feels that he needs. The sun and the stars will hold on their way, and the grass will grow, and the flower open its petals to the light, and the streams will roll to the ocean; for there is need that the laws of nature should be uniform, and the fibres of plants, and suns, and planets, and streams experience no exhaustion, and He who directs them all fainteth not, nor is weary; but man is weary and needs rest. (A. Barnes, D. D.)

The Sabbath necessary for the higher being of man

Man, with these relations, and these high powers to cultivate, the Sabbath meets as a day of leisure, that he may show on such a day of rest that he is distinguished from beasts of burden, and creatures governed by instinct, and those incapable of moral feeling, and those destined to no higher being, and those not knowing how to aspire to fellowship with God. The bird, indeed, will build its nest on the Sabbath, and the beaver its dam, and the bee its cell, and the lion will hunt its prey; for they have no higher nature than is indicated by these things. But man has a higher nature than the fowls of the air and the beasts of the forest, and the world would have been sadly disjoined and incomplete, if there had been no arrangements to develop it. The Sabbath is among those arrangements. It is, indeed, a simple thing merely to command a man to rest one day in seven; but most of the great results which we see depend on very simple arrangements. The law which controls the falling pebble is a simple law; but all these worlds are kept by it in their places. The law which you see developed in a prism, bending the different rays in a beam of light, is a simple law; but all the beauty of the green lawn, of variegated flowers, of the clouds at evening, of the lips, the cheek, the eye, and all that we admire on the canvass when the pencil of Rubens or Raphael touches it, is to be traced to these simple laws. It is one of the ways in which nature works to bring out most wonderful results from the operation of the simplest laws. (A. Barnes, D. D.)

Exertion demands rest

This is true, as we all know, of the muscular system, voluntary and involuntary. In breathing, in winking of the eyes, in the beating of the heart, there is a system of alternate action and repose, each brief indeed in their existence, but indispensable to the healthy action of the muscles, and to the continuance of life. Each one of these organs, too, though they seem to be constantly in motion, will have the rest which nature demands, or disease and death will be the result. The same is true of our voluntary muscles. He that should endeavour to labour at the same thing constantly, he that should attempt to run or walk without relaxation, he that should exercise the same class of muscles in writing, in the practice of music, in climbing, or in holding the limb in a fixed position, would soon be sensible that he was violating a law of nature, and would be compelled by a fearful penalty to pay the forfeit. Nay, in doing these very things, in running, or leaping, or climbing, or in the most rapid execution of a piece of music, nature has provided by antagonist muscles that the great law demanding repose shall not be disregarded. A long-continued and uninterrupted tension of any one of the muscles of the frame would soon bring us into conflict with one of the universal laws of our being; and we should be reminded of the existence of those laws in such a way that we should feel that they must be observed. Yet the operation of this law of our nature is not enough. We need other modes of rest than those which can be obtained by the intermitted action of a muscle which is soon to be resumed. We need longer repose; we need an entire relaxation of the system; we need such a condition that every muscle and nerve shall be laid down, shall be relaxed, shall be composed to rest, and shall be left in an undisturbed position for hours together, where there shall be no danger of its being summoned into action. Nature has provided for this too, and this law must be obeyed: for a few hours only can we be employed on our farms, or in our merchandise, and then the sun refuses us light any longer, and night spreads her sable curtains over all things, and the affairs of a busy world come to a pause. Darkness broods on the path of man, comes into his counting house and his dwelling, meets him in his travels, interrupts his busiest employments, wraps the world in silence; and he himself sympathizes with the universal stillness of nature, and sinks down into a state of unconsciousness. The heart continues, indeed, still to beat, but more gently than under the excitements of political strife, of avarice and revenge; the lungs heave, though more gently than in the hurry and excitement of the chase, or in the anxious effort for gold. But the eyelid heavy will not suffer the eye to look out on the world, and even its involuntary action entirely ceases, and it sinks to repose. The ear, as if tired of hearing so many jarring and discordant sounds, hears nothing; the eye, as if wearied with seeing, sees nothing; the agitated bosom is as calm as it was in the slumberings of infancy: the stretched and weary muscle is relaxed, the nerve is released from its office of conveying the intimations of the will to the distant members of the exhausted frame. The storm may howl without, or the ocean roll high its billows, or perhaps even the thunder of battle may be near, but nature will have repose. Napoleon, at Leipsic, exhausted by fatigue, reposed at the foot of a tree even when the destiny of his empire depended on the issue of the battle; and not even the roaring storm at sea can prevent compliance with this necessary law. (A. Barnes, D. D.)

The mighty mind and the vigorous frame of Napoleon once enabled him to pass four days and nights in the exciting scenes of an active campaign without sleep, and then he fell asleep on his horse. The keenest torture which man has ever invented has been a device to drive sleep from the eyes, and to fix the body in such a position that it cannot find repose; and even this must fail, for the sufferer will find repose on the rack or in death. The same law, demanding rest, exists also in relation to the mind, and is as imperious in regard to the intellectual and moral powers, in order to their permanent and healthful action, as to the muscles of the body. No man can long pursue an intellectual effort without repose. He who attempts to hold his mind long to one train of close thinking, he who pursues far an abstruse proposition, and he who is wrought up into a high state of excitement, must have relaxation and repose. If he does not yield to this law, his mind is unstrung, the mental faculties are thrown from their balance, and the frenzied powers, perhaps yet mighty, move with tremendous but irregular force, like an engine without balance wheel or governor, and the man of high intellectual rowers, like Lear, becomes a raving maniac. So with our moral feelings. The intensest zeal will not always be on fire, the keenest sorrow will find intermission, and even love does not always glow with the same ardour in the soul. This law, contemplating our welfare, cannot be violated without incurring a fearful penalty. (A. Barnes, D. D.)

The Sabbath breaks the monotony of life

The mind is not in a condition for its best development when it is under an unbroken influence of any kind, however good in itself. It is not made for one thing, but for many things; not for the contemplation of one object, but of many objects. Life is not all one thing; it is broken up into many interests, many hopes, many anxieties, many modifications of sorrow and joy. On the earth it is not all night or all day, all sunshine or all shade, all hill or all vale, all spring or all winter. No man is made exclusively for any one pursuit, or for the exercise of one class of affections or feelings only, or to touch on society, like a globe on a plain, only on one point. Now look one moment, for illustration, at the effect of unbroken and uninterrupted worldliness on a mans mind. The man referred to may develop, in the highest degree, the powers of mind which constitute the successful merchant; he may have a far-reaching sagacity in business; he may never send out a vessel on an unsuccessful adventure; he may possess the powers of calculation in the highest degree; he may become rich, and build him a palace, and be clothed in fine linen and purple; but what is he then? Is he a man in the proper sense of the word man? There is but one single class of his faculties which has ever been developed, and he is not a man: he is but a calculating machine, though the powers of his nature may have been carried as far as possible in that direction. But what is he as a social being? Beyond the circle of the most limited range of topics he has no thoughts, no words. What is he as an intellectual being? Except in one limited department of the intellectual economy, his mind has never been cultivated at all. What is he as a man of sensibility, of refinement, of cultivated tastes? Not one of these things has been cultivated, and in none of them, unless by accident, has he any of the qualities of a man. He is acquainted with the world for commercial purposes only; he knows its geography, its ports of entry, its consuls, its custom house laws; but he knows not the world as an abode of suffering and of wrong, and, I may add, as dressed up in exquisite beauty by its Maker. Man, in the costume of China or India, he knows as a trafficker: man, as made in the image of God, and as a moral being, he knows not in any costume or land. This unbroken influence on the mind the Sabbath is adapted, without perilling anything good, to break up. (A. Barnes, D. D.)

The Sabbath need not be a day of gloom

There is enough to be accomplished in every soul by duties appropriate to the day, to rescue every moment from tedium and ennui. If it were as pleasant to man to cultivate his heart as it is his intellectual powers; if he felt it to be as momentous to prepare for the life to come, as for the present world; if he delighted in the service of his Maker, as he does in the society of his friends below-the difficulty would not be that it would be impossible to fill up the day, but that the hours on the Sabbath had taken a more rapid flight than on other days, and that the shades of the evening came around us when our work was but half done. Let this one thought be borne with you to your homes, if no other, that the appropriate work of the Sabbath is the heart, all about the heart, all that can bear upon it, all that van make it better; and, I am persuaded, you will see no want of appropriate employment for one day in seven. See what there is in your heart permanently abiding there that demands correction. See what an accumulation of bad influences there may be during the toils and turmoils of the week, that may require removal. See how in the business of the world, in domestic cares, in professional studies or duties, the heart may be neglected, and there may arise a sad disproportion between the growth of the intellect and the proper affections of the soul. See how, in the gaieties and vanities of life, the pursuits of pleasure, the love of flattery and applause, there may have been a steady growth of bad propensities through the week, not, for one moment, broken or checked. See how there may have bees a silent but steady growth of avarice, pride, or ambition, all through the week, riveting the fetters of slavery on the soul, and bringing you into perpetual and ignoble bondage. See the tendency of all these things to harden the heart, to chill the affections, to stifle the voice of conscience, and to melee the mind grovelling and worldly. See what an unnatural growth the intellect of man sometimes attains to, while all the finer feelings of his nature, like fragrant shrubs and beautiful flowers under the dense foliage of a far-spreading oak, are overshadowed and stinted. And then see what in nature and in grace is open for the cultivation of the heart-the worship of God adapted to assimilate the soul to the Creator, the Bible full of precepts and promises bearing directly on the heart. (A. Barnes, D. D.)

I. The day designed. The Sabbath was made for man by Him who also made man.

II. The day perverted. It is so, and variously, by different people.

1. These Pharisees made it everything, and regarded the day more than man, and his need (to supply which it was first given).

2. Others pervert it by regarding it as a day for mere physical rest and recreation, as if man were a mere animal. Such are secularists and materialists, etc.

3. Others, again, pervert the day who make it a day for study, as if man were a purely intellectual being. Such would open museums.

III. The day changed. Learn-

1. Rightly to understand the Sabbath as meeting a human need.

2. To honour the Lord of the Sabbath by preserving His day from innovation, and by services of religion and mercy. It is lawful to do good on the Sabbath day.

3. A practical reverence for the Lord of the day is the best way to keep the day from being stolen from us. (C. Gray.)

A world without a Sabbath:-A world without a Sabbath would be like a man without a smile, like a summer without flowers, and like a homestead without a garden. It is the joyous day of the whole week. (H. W. Beecher.)

.

Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell

Verse 27. The Sabbath was made for man] That he might have the seventh part of his whole time to devote to the purposes of bodily rest and spiritual exercises. And in these respects it is of infinite use to mankind. Where no Sabbath is observed, there disease, poverty, and profligacy, generally prevail. Had we no Sabbath, we should soon have no religion. This whole verse is wanting in the Codex Bezae, and in five of the Itala.

Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible

And he said unto them,…. Continuing his answer to them, and adding, in confirmation of what he had said, and for the further vindication of his disciples,

the sabbath was made for man; for his good, and not for his hurt; both for the good of his soul, that he might have an opportunity of attending divine worship, both in public and private; and for the good of his body, that he might have rest from his labour; and this was the end of the original institution and appointment of it; and therefore works of necessity are not forbidden on this day; such as are for the necessary comfort, support, and preservation of life; or otherwise it would be apparent, that the sabbath was not appointed for the good, but for the hurt of men. By “man”, is not meant all mankind; for the sabbath was never appointed for all mankind, nor binding upon all; only the Jews, who are emphatically called “man”, or “men”; see Eze 34:30, upon which the Jewish writers remark o, that

“they are called, , “man”; but the idolatrous Gentiles, and nations of the World, are not called “men”;”

but dogs, beasts, c. Our Lord may here be thought to speak in their language, as he does in Mt. 15:26, [See comments on Mt 15:26]. And that the observation of the seventh day, was only designed for the children of Israel, seems manifest from Ex 31:16, “wherefore the children of Israel shall keep the sabbath, to observe the sabbath throughout their generations, for a perpetual covenant it is a sign between me and the children of Israel”; and not between him and the rest of the world: and in Ex 31:14, “ye shall keep the sabbath, for it is holy unto you”: on which the Jews p make this remark,

, “to you, and not to the rest of the nations”: nor did they ever think that the Gentiles were obliged to observe their sabbath, only such who became proselytes to their religion; even those who were proselytes of righteousness: for a proselyte of the gate, was not bound to observe it; for so says q Maimonides,

“those who take upon them the seven commandments of Noah only, lo! they are as a proselyte of the gate, and they are free to do work on the sabbath day for themselves, openly, as an Israelite on a common day.”

Yea, they not only say, they were not obliged to keep the sabbath, but that it was not lawful for them to observe it; and that it was even punishable with death them to regard it; for so they say r,

“a Gentile that keeps the sabbath before he is circumcised, is guilty of death, because it is not commanded him.”

They judged them unworthy of having this precept enjoined them, as being not men, but beasts, and worse than they, and had not the privilege the ass has: hence one of their commentators s says,

“concerning the rest of an ass, thou (O Israelite!) art commanded; but concerning the rest of a Gentile, thou art not commanded.”

And not man for the sabbath; who was in being long before that was appointed and enjoined.

o T. Bab. Bava Metzia, fol. 114. 2. Zohar in Exod. fol. 35. 4. p Zohar in Exod. fol. 26. 4. q Hilchot Sabbat, c. 20. sect. 14. r Debarim Rabba, sect. 1. fol. 234. 4. s Bartenora in Misn. Sabbat, c. 24. sect. 1.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

For man ( ). Mark alone has this profound saying which subordinates the sabbath to man’s real welfare (mankind, observe, generic article with , class from class). Man was not made for the sabbath as the rabbis seemed to think with all their petty rules about eating an egg laid on the sabbath or looking in the glass, et cetera. See 2Macc. 5:19 and Mechilta on Ex 31:13: “The sabbath is delivered unto you and ye are not delivered unto the sabbath.” Christianity has had to fight this same battle about institutionalism. The church itself is for man, not man for the church.

Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament

For man [] . On account of, or for the sake of. This saying is given by Mark only.

Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament

1) “And He said unto them,” (kai legen autois) “And He replied to them,” to the fault-finding, self-righteous, unsaved Pharisees described in Mat 5:20.

2) “The sabbath was made for man,” (to sabbaton dia ton anthropon egeneto) “The sabbath came to be on account of man,” for the need of man; It came into being for the benefit of mankind, Luk 14:5.

3) ”And not man for the sabbath (kai ouch ho anthropos dia to sabbaton) “And man (came not) on account of the sabbath,” or to meet the need of a sabbath. The sabbath is only a means to an end, toward man’s highest need and good.

Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary

Mar 2:27

. The Sabbath was made for man. This Fifth argument is related by Mark alone. The general meaning is, that those persons judge amiss who turn to man’s destruction, (83) the Sabbath which God appointed for his benefit. The Pharisees saw the disciples of Christ employed in a holy work; they saw them worn out with the fatigue of the journey, and partly with want of food; and yet are offended that, when they are hungry, they take a few grains of corn for the support of their wearied bodies. Is not this a foolish attempt to overturn the purpose of God, when they demand to the injury of men that observation of the Sabbath which he intended to be advantageous? But they are mistaken, I think, who suppose that in this passage the Sabbath is entirely abolished; for Christ simply informs us what is the proper use of it. Though he asserted, a little before, that he is Lord of the Sabbath, yet the full time for its abolition (84) was not yet come, because the veil of the temple was not yet rent, (Mat 27:51.)

(83) “ Lesquels convertissent au dommage et a la ruine de l’homme;”— “who turn to the injury and to the ruin of man.”

(84) “ La vraye saison et le temps opportun de l’abolissement d’iceluy;”— “the true season and appropriate time for the abolition of it.”

Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary

27. Made for man Man was first created, and then the Sabbath was given to subserve his highest good physical, social, spiritual, intellectual, and eternal. That mode of keeping the Sabbath which most conduces to this intention is the true mode.

How beneficent is the Sabbath under this construction of its obligations! It is one of the best of God’s gifts to man. He who would destroy its enjoyment is therein the enemy of his race.

How profound and comprehensive is the maxim which our Lord utters in regard to the relations of the Sabbath to man! It is full of the benevolent wisdom of his Gospel.

And if the Sabbath be made for man it is not made for the Jew alone. It is founded on the necessities of the race, and must be intended for the race. If it be made for man, it is not made for one age or for one generation or one dispensation alone, but for all ages and dispensations of men. Hence the Sabbath is perpetual. Whether it be on the same day of the week or not, is comparatively, in this view, unimportant. That the week is perpetuated under the Christian dispensation may be shown from Rev 1:10, where the “Lord’s day” is a weekly institution. That the Sabbath of the week is continued appears from the same consideration.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

‘And he said, “The Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath.’

Jesus was not saying by this that because the Sabbath was made for man he could do whatever he liked on it. What He was pointing out was that the Sabbath with its strict rules had been intended for man’s benefit. For slaves and bondservants and suchlike it had always been a huge blessing, for it guaranteed them a day of complete rest. And therefore what Jesus was saying was that to castigate men because they had simply and innocently taken a few grains of corn and rubbed them between their hands was taking the Sabbath rules too far. But in view of the fact that those rules had been expanded and pronounced on by the Rabbis, it was necessary for Jesus to make His claim to have the right to change the Law of the Sabbath.

Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett

Mar 2:27-28. And he said unto them, The sabbath was made for man The sabbath was contrived for the benefit and relief of man, being instituted in commemoration of the creation of the world finished in six days, and to perpetuate to latest ages the knowledge of this grand truth,that the world was made by God,in opposition both to atheism and idolatry. It was instituted also, in order that men, abstaining from all sorts of labour, but such as are necessary to the exercises of piety and charity, might have leisure for meditating on the works of creation, and that by these meditations they might acquire not only the knowledge of God, but a relish of spiritual and divinepleasures, flowing from the contemplation of God’s attributes, from the exercise of the love of God, and from obedience to his commands. It is thus that men are prepared for entering into that heavenly rest, of which the earthly sabbath is an emblem: further, among the Israelites the sabbath was appointed to keep up the remembrance of their deliverance from Egypt, and for the comfort of their slaves and beasts; humanity to both being especially incumbent upon a people who had once groaned under the heaviest bondage. From all which it is evident, that to burden men, much more to hurt them, through the observation of the sabbath, is to act quite contrary to the design of God in appointing it. Therefore, says Christ, the Son of man is Lord also of the sabbath; “Since the sabbath was instituted for the benefit of man, the observation of it in cases of necessity, may be dispensed with by any man whatever; but especially byME, who am the Lawgiver of the Jewish commonwealth, and can make what alterations in its institutions I think fit.” Our Lord insisted largely on this argument, drawn from the considerations of his own dignity, when he was persecuted for a pretended profanation of the sabbath, by the cure which he performed at Bethesda. See Joh 5:16-30 and the note on Mat 12:8. Dr. Clarke explains the 27th verse thus: “Duties of a ritual nature were appointed only for the present use of man, to be subservient to the more convenient practice of the great duties of religion.” Sermon 3: vol. 10. Instead of Lord also of the sabbath, we may read, Lord even of the sabbath.

Inferences.The number of the apostles was not yet full; one place is left void for a future possessor; who can fail to expect that it is reserved for some eminent person?and behold! Matthew the publican is the man! Wonderful choice of Christ! Those other disciples, whose calling is recorded, were from the fisher-boat; this from the receipt of custom: they were unlettered, this infamous. The condition was not itself sinful; but as the taxes which the Romans imposed on the Jews were odious, so the collectors, the farmers of them, were abominable; besides, it was hard to hold that seat, without oppression, without exaction: one who knew it thoroughly, branded it with those odious titles; (see Luk 19:8.) and yet, behold one of these publicans called to the family, to the apostleship of God! Who can despair, from the consciousness of his unworthiness, when he sees this instance of infinitely condescending grace?

The just man is the first accuser of himself. Whom have we here to blazon the shame of Matthew, but his own mouth? Matthew the Evangelist tells us of Matthew the publican. (See Mat 9:9.) His fellows call him Levi, as willing to cover with their finger the spot of his unpleasing profession, which himself will not smother, but publishes it to all the world, in a thankful recognition of the mercy that called him; liking well that his unworthiness should serve for a foil, to set off the glorious lustre of His grace by whom he was called.

It was not a more busy than profitable trade, that Matthew abandoned to follow Christ into poverty. He now contemned his heaps of cash, in comparison of that better treasure which he foresaw lay open in this happy attendance. If any commodity be valued of us as too dear to be parted with for Christ, we are more fit to be publicans than disciples. Our Saviour invites Matthew to a discipleship, Matthew invites him to a feast; the joy of his call makes him begin his abdication of the world in a banquet.
Here was not a more cheerful thankfulness in the inviter, than a gracious humility in the guest. The new servant invites his master, the publican his Saviour; and is honoured with so blessed a presence. I do not find where Jesus was ever invited to any table, and refused; if a Pharisee, if a publican invited him, he made no scruple to go; not for the pleasure of the dishes,for what was that to Him, who began his work in a whole lent of days?but (as it was his meat and drink to do the will of his Father) for the benefit which might arise from his improving conversation. If he sat with sinners, it was to convert them; if with converts, to confirm and instruct them; if with the poor, to feed them; if with the rich in substance, to make them richer in grace: at whose board did he ever sit, and left not his host a gainer? The poor bridegroom entertains him, and has his water-pots filled with wine; Simon the Pharisee entertains him, and has his table honoured with the public remission of a penitent sinner; Zaccheus entertains him, and salvation comes that day to his house, with the Author of it; Matthew is recompensed for his feast with an apostleship: and Martha and Mary, for theirs, besides divine instruction, receive their brother from the dead. O Saviour! whether thou entertainest us, or we entertain thee, in both of them is blessedness!

Where a publican is the feast-master, it is no wonder if the guests be publicans and sinners. Whether they came only out of the hope of that mercy which they saw their fellow had found, or whether Matthew invited them to be partakers of that plentiful grace whereof he had tasted, I inquire not; publicans and sinners will flock together; the one hateful for their trade, the other for their vicious life. Common contempt has wrought them to an unanimity, and sends them to seek mutual comfort in that society, which all others esteem abominable and contagious. Moderate correction humbles and shames the offender; whereas a cruel severity makes men desperate, and drives them to those courses whereby they are more dangerously infected. How many have gone into the prison faulty, and returned flagitious! If publicans were not sinners, they were not at all beholden to their neighbours.
What a table-full is here! the Son of God surrounded with publicans and sinners! O happy publicans and sinners, who have found out their Saviour! O merciful Saviour, who disdained not publicans and sinners! What sinner can fear to kneel before thee, when he sees publicans and sinners sit with thee! Who can fear to be despised of thy meekness and mercy, which did not abhor to converse with the outcasts of men? Thou didst not despise the thief confessing upon the cross; nor the sinner washing thy feet with her tears; nor the Canaanite crying unto thee in the way, nor the blushing adulteress, nor the odious publican, nor the forswearing disciple; nor the persecutor of disciples, nor thine own executioners! how can we then be unwelcome to thee, if we come with tears in our eyes, faith in our hearts, restitution in our hands? O Saviour! our breasts are too often shut against thee; thy bosom is ever open to us. We are as great sinners as the consorts of these publicans;Why should we despair of room at thy table?
The jaundice-eyed Pharisees behold evil in all the actions of Christ: where they should have admired his mercy, they cavil at his holiness. They said to his disciples, (Mar 2:16.) How is it that your Master eateth and drinketh with publicans and sinners? They durst not speak thus to the Master; whose answer they knew would soon have convinced them: this wind, they hoped, might shake the weak faith of the disciples. They speak where they may be most likely to do hurt. All the crew of satanical instruments have learned this craft of their old tutor in paradise. We cannot reverence that man whom we think unholy; Christ would have lost the hearts of his followers, if they had entertained the least suspicion of his impurity; which the murmur of these envious Pharisees would fain insinuate. “He cannot be worthy to be followed, who is unclean; he cannot be clean, who eateth with publicans and sinners.” Proud and foolish Pharisees! ye fast, while Christ eateth; ye fast in your houses, while Christ eateth in other men’s; ye fast with your own sect, while Christ feasts with sinners:but if ye fast in pride, while Christ eats in humility; if ye fast at home, for merit or popularity, while Christ feeds with sinners, for compassion, for edification, for conversion; your fast is unclean, his feast is holy; ye shall have your portion with hypocrites, when those publicans and sinners shall be glorious.

When these censurers thought the disciples had offended, they speak not to them, but to their Master; Why do thy disciples that which is not lawful? Now, when they thought Christ had offended, they speak not to Him, but to the disciples. Thus, like true mischief-makers, they endeavour to make a breach in the family of Christ, by separating the one from the other. The quick eye of our Saviour, from whose piercing glance nothing can be hid, instantly discerns their fraud; and therefore he takes the words out of the mouths of his disciples into his own. They had spoken of Christ to the disciples; Christ answers for the disciples concerning himself. The whole need not a Physician, but the sick. According to the two qualities of pride, scorn, and self-sufficiency, these insolent Pharisees over-rated their own holiness, and contemned the noted unholiness of others; as if themselves were not tainted with secret sins, as if others could not be cleansed by the blood of a Saviour.

The Searcher of hearts meets their arrogance, and finds those self-righteous sinful, those sinners just. The spiritual Physician finds the sickness of those sinners wholesome, the health of those Pharisees desperate; that wholesome, because it calls for the help of the physician; this desperate, because it thinks it needs it not. Every soul is sick, those most that feel it not; those that feel it complain; those that complain find a cure; those that feel it not, will find themselves dying ere they can wish to recover. O blessed Physician! by whose stripes we are healed; by whose death we live; happy they who are under thy hands, sick, as of sin, so of sorrow for sin. Sin has made us sick unto death; make thou us but as sick of our sins, and we shall assuredly find thee our successful Physician!

REFLECTIONS.1st, No sooner had our Lord returned to Capernaum, from his journey through the villages of Galilee, than the rumour of it quickly spread through the place; and, eager to improve the precious opportunity of his presence, such multitudes assembled at the house, that there was no coming even to the door, so thick was the crowd. And a blessed sight it is to behold such numbers flocking to the Saviour.

1. He preached to them. Some might have thought the time, and the place, improper for a sermon. There were synagogues; what need of preaching in a house, or at the window?Perhaps to teach us, that no time or place is improper to speak a word for God and for immortal souls.
2. During Christ’s preaching, or in some interval of his discourses, the friends of a poor paralytic man, solicitous to present his pitiable case before him, would fain have pressed through the crowd; but finding the attempt impracticable, they carried him up to the top of the house where Jesus was, and let down the sick man on his bed before him. (See the annotations.) Note; They who truly seek the Lord, will not be discouraged by any difficulties from coming to him.

3. Struck with such an instance of their faith, the compassionate Jesus kindly accosts the afflicted patient, and seals the pardon of his sins, as the introduction to his cure. This being the cause of every sickness and disease, the bitterness of them is past, when the sin that occasioned them is forgiven.
4. The scribes and Pharisees, who were present, regarded it as arrant blasphemy in a mere man, as they regarded Jesus, to assume the incommunicable prerogative of God, in thus by his own authority presuming to forgive sin. He knew their secret reasonings, and in his answer gave them a proof of his Divinity, as the searcher of hearts. To shew them, therefore, that he possessed the power which he assumed, he bids the man arise and walk, and appeals to themselves for the conclusion, whether he who could thus sovereignly, in an instant, remove the effects of sin, could not as easily remit the guilt of it. Note; The man Christ Jesus is also very God, able to forgive and to save to the uttermost every poor sinner that comes to him.

5. The paralytic man received his cure the moment Jesus commanded him to arise; and, to the astonishment of all, he was so perfectly restored to health and strength, as to carry home the bed on which he had been brought. Such unprecedented cures extorted acknowledgments from the beholders in general, that the like was never seen before in Israel.
2nd, Having departed from the house to the sea-side, thither the multitude followed him, and he preached to them the Gospel. After which,
1. He called Levi, or Matthew, a publican, who was sitting in his office receiving the customs, and such power accompanied his word, that instantly he left his gainful profession, and followed Jesus as his disciple. Note; (1.) Nothing is too difficult for Almighty grace: if we follow its first sacred drawings, and improve the power which it imparts from time to time, we shall assuredly experience all the heights and depths of Christian experience. (2.) If Christ did not first seek us, we should never have sought him.

2. Levi, in tender regard for his brother publicans, longed to make them acquainted with Jesus, whose grace he himself had so richly tasted, and therefore invited them to his house, where Jesus disdained not to sit among them; infamous in general as their characters were, he joined them not as an associate, but, as the great Physician of souls, visited them as diseased patients. Note; They who have tasted the grace of the Redeemer themselves, cannot but be solicitous that their friends and neighbours should partake with them.

3. Christ vindicates his conduct from the censorious cavils of the Pharisees. He despised not the poor sinners’ souls; and as this was the very end of his coming, to call such to repentance, he was unaffected by the reviling of those who conceited themselves righteous, and yet were much farther from the kingdom of heaven than the very sinners whom they despised. Note; (1.) The best deeds are often most basely misrepresented by the envenomed tongue of malice. (2.) None have ought to do with Christ but sin-sick souls, who feel themselves lost without him; the proud and self-righteous are left to perish in the delusions that they have chosen.

3rdly, Christ, having justified his own conduct from the censure of Pharisaical pride, justifies also his disciples for not observing unnecessary austerities: and vindicates them for plucking the ears of corn on the sabbath-day to satisfy their hunger.
1. The disciples of John, who, after their master’s example, fasted often; and the Pharisees, who placed great dependance on this bodily exercise, express their wonder that Jesus enjoined no such rigid rules on his disciples as they practised. So ready are those who fancy their own strictness meritorious, to censure all who come short of their standard of excellence. Christ answers their question, and vindicates his disciples; they were but beginners, and it was improper to put them on the more difficult exercises of self-denial, lest they should be discouraged thereby, and contract a disgust to the service. Besides, during his presence with them, like that of a newly-married bride, it became them to rejoice: it would be time enough to mourn and fast when he should be taken from them. Thus should we learn not to exact too much from young converts, and the lambs of the flock; and especially in fasting we should consider the great end and use of it, and that of itself it is no farther good, than these are obtained.
2. The Pharisees soon seized another occasion of offence, from the disciples plucking the ears of corn on the sabbath-day, as they passed through the fields.Rigidly scrupulous, as many others like them still are, about the form of godliness, and severe in judging all who do not coincide with them; yet blind to the deep-rooted evil and abominations of their hearts. Christ vindicates his disciples by a precedent which the Pharisees will not dispute, and reasons with them by arguments that they cannot disprove. David had done what seemed a much more exceptionable thing, in eating the shew-bread; and Abiathar, who succeeded his father soon after as high-priest, had consented to it, because ceremonial observances must give way to the great law of charity and self-preservation. Besides, the very institution of the sabbath was designed for man’s benefit, to give rest to his body, and time to spend in the immediate service of God, and in the care of his soul; and therefore does not require him to abstain from what is more immediately necessary for the support and preservation of his life; the provision for which was a law of nature, and subsisted previous to the express institution of the sabbath. The Messiah, therefore, who can best interpret his own laws, and is Lord of the sabbath, has an undoubted right to permit this liberty to his disciples, as such refreshment of their bodies will enable them more effectually to discharge the duties of the holy day. Note; (1.) Our sabbaths should be our delight; and therefore must not, by unreasonable strictness, be made a burden. (2.) Though we are allowed to eat and drink, as shall best enable us for the service of the sabbath, it is a gross violation of the day, by indulging our appetite to stupify our faculties, and render body and soul utterly unfit for the exercises of devotion.

Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke

DISCOURSE: 1420
THE USE AND BENEFIT OF THE SABBATH

Mar 2:27. And he said unto them, The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath.

IN nothing is the force of prejudice more strongly seen, than in the blame cast by the world upon the followers of Christ for the most trifling offence, whilst the greatest enormities of ungodly men are suffered to pass without any animadversion whatever. Nor is it only for a real deviation from duty that they are condemned, but for the smallest departure from rules, which have their foundation in nothing but human policy or superstition. The Disciples of our Lord had been attending the Synagogue on the Sabbath-day, and, being hungry [Note: Mat 12:1.], they plucked some ears of corn as they passed through the corn-fields, and ate it. This was an act which God himself had particularly specified as lawful [Note: Deu 23:25.]; and therefore the Pharisees could not condemn it: but the law forbade men to do any servile work upon the Sabbath-day; and therefore the Pharisees, being determined to find fault, construed the plucking and rubbing a few ears of corn as a reaping and threshing of the corn; and inquired with indignation, Why they presumed to do so on the Sabbath-day [Note: Mat 12:2. with Luk 6:1-2.]? But our blessed Lord vindicated their conduct: he shewed that works of necessity or mercy might be performed, as well on the Sabbath as on any other day. He reminded them of Davids conduct in eating the holy bread, which was forbidden to be eaten by any but the priests and their families: he had never been censured for it either by God or man, because he was impelled to it by unavoidable necessity. He reminded them also of the priests in the temple, who performed very laborious work in killing, flaying, and consuming the sacrifices, yet incurred no guilt thereby, because they were serving God: and from these precedents he shewed them, that the Disciples were not worthy of blame, since what they had done was in attending upon Him, and from a necessity imposed by the imperious calls of hunger. The sanctity of the Sabbath he acknowledged; but informed them at the same time, that, where the observance of it militated against the welfare of man, its authority was superseded; for that the Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath.

From this declaration of our Lord, we shall take occasion to shew,

I.

The end for which the Sabbath was instituted

The appointment of the Sabbath did not take place, till the whole work of creation was complete: therefore man, who was created on the sixth day could not be made for the Sabbath, but the Sabbath as far as man was concerned, must be made for him. But, without laying any stress on the priority of mans existence, we may confidently affirm, that the Sabbath was instituted for the benefit,

1.

Of individuals

[It is no small privilege to men that God has appointed them a day of rest, wherein they are to cease from the cares and labours of this world, and to attend to the concerns of another world [Note: Exo 23:12. Deu 5:14.]. We know by experience how worldly occupations affect the mind; how powerfully they draw us from God, and impede us in the pursuit of heavenly things; and there is reason to fear, that if no such appointment had existed, we should, long ere this, have been immersed in heathen darkness: we should have been satisfied with the things of this life, and not thought of inquiring after any thing beyond. But on every return of this sacred rest, we are reminded, that there is a God whom we must serve, and that there is an eternal portion which it behoves us to secure. We are led to take a retrospective view of our past lives, in order to see what we have done for our souls, and what prospect we have of attaining that happiness, for which we were created, and for which we were redeemed. In short, this appointment of a Sabbath affords exactly the same occasion for advancing the welfare of our souls, as the permission to labour on the six other days does for the advancement of our temporal interests: as, on the six days, we devise and execute plans for the acquisition of wealth, so, on the seventh day, we are occupied in attaining higher degrees of faith and holiness: and as, in the one case, we frequently cast up our accounts in order to see what progress we have made, so, in the other case, the periodical leisure that is afforded us, enables us to ascertain with precision the state of our souls before God.

Who then has not reason to be thankful for an institution which is so replete with benefit to his soul? Well might God number it amongst the highest obligations which he had ever conferred upon his people, the Jews [Note: Neh 9:13-14. Eze 20:12-20.]; and well may we number it amongst our choicest blessings.]

2.

Of the whole community

[Had no specific time been appointed by God, none could ever have been agreed upon by men: no day would have suited the convenience of all; nor could human authority have prevailed to establish a law that should be universally and irrevocably obeyed. But God having fixed a day, the whole race of mankind is bound to yield obedience to his command: so that all who acknowledge his authority, wake upon the Sabbath with the same views, the same desires, the same purposes; all feeling in themselves an obligation to keep it holy, and all conscious that the same feeling pervades the Lords people in every quarter of the globe. In respect to this, there is no difference of rank or station. The rich man sees, that he is to lay aside both his cares and pleasures, in order to attend to the concerns of his soul: the poor man also sees, that though he may be, as it were, a slave on other days, on this day he is the Lords free-man. Indeed the poor have very peculiar cause for thankfulness on account of the Sabbath; for the rate of wages in every country is calculated by the amount that is necessary to support a man and his family; and that is given to a man for six days work, because God has commanded him to rest the seventh: but, if no such command had been given by God, the poor would have been required to work the seven days without any augmentation of their wages: in this respect, therefore, the poor are peculiarly benefited. But indeed the whole community being thus set at liberty for heavenly pursuits, and means of instruction being provided for all, such instruction too as they would not very readily receive in private, all meet, as by common consent, in the house of God, and there offer their united sacrifices of prayer and praise. From thence ail return to the bosom of their families, to diffuse a kindred spirit in their domestic circles, and thus to advance the temporal, no less than the eternal, happiness of themselves and others. Doubtless the degree in which these ends are promoted, must depend on the dispositions of the persons themselves; they who have no desire after spiritual blessings, will make no improvement of the opportunities afforded them: but they whose minds are spiritual, and whose situations in life preclude them from devoting much of their time to religion on other days, will now unite in social exercises, and in heavenly converse, with tenfold pleasure; and their hearts will burn within them, whilst they speak of the things which God has done for their souls. Nor will these persons he contented with seeking good to themselves; they will endeavour to do good to others: they will think whether there be not some ignorant neighbour whom they can instruct, or some afflicted neighbour whom they can comfort. On this day the poor is on a par with the richest: his time is his own, to spend for God, either in a way of personal improvement, or for the edification of those around him.
Suppose then the Sabbaths to be thus employed, who can calculate the good accruing from them to all ranks and orders of men; to the rich and to the poor; to the man in health, and to the roan immured in prison, or languishing on a bed of sickness; to those who are advanced in years, and those who are just entering on the stage of life?]
If, from these views of the Sabbath, we are made sensible of its value, let us consider,

II.

The manner in which it should be improved

It is not intended that we should be in bondage, as the Jews were; and much less that we should bear such an intolerable yoke as the Pharisees imposed on their Disciples: yet we are bound to venerate the Sabbath, and to keep it holy. God has enjoined that duty with very peculiar solemnity; Remember that thou keep holy the Sabbath-day. In what manner we should keep it holy, the text will inform us: we should keep it,

1.

With a grateful sense of our privilege

[God, in infinite love and mercy, has made this day on purpose for us: he knew how much such a periodical season of reflection would conduce to our happiness, and therefore appointed the observance of it even in Paradise. To us, who are so corrupt and sinful, and are immersed in the cares and pleasures of an ensnaring world, this institution is still more important: and therefore, when we wake on a Sabbath morning, our first thoughts should be, This is the day that the Lord hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it [Note: Psa 118:24.] On rising from our beds, we should shut the door of our minds against the intrusion of worldly thoughts, and should set our-selves to the contemplation of heavenly subjects. We should invite our God to come and take possession of our souls, and to banish from thence every imagination that may interfere with his service, or retard our spiritual improvement. We should consider what great objects are to be attained that day; what innumerable sins to be lamented; what great and Precious promises to be embraced; what communion with God the Father, and with the Lord Jesus Christ to be enjoyed; what grace, and mercy, and peace to be brought into the soul; what victories to be gained; what glory to be secured. Methinks, on retiring to our closet, we should say, Now, vain world, begone; let nothing belonging to thee interrupt me for a moment: welcome, precious Bible, thou inestimable treasure: let me now unfold thy sacred pages, and obtain an insight into thy mysterious truths: and, O my God, shine into my heart, to give me the light of the knowledge of thy glory in the face of Jesus Christ! In short, precisely as a carnal man embraces with avidity an occasion of worldly gain, and uses with energy the means of accomplishing his desire, so should we regard every Sabbath with increased joy, and improve it with augmented diligence.

That this is really the proper way of sanctifying the Sabbath, we are sure; since it is the very way prescribed by God himself: nothing of a temporal nature should (any further than is absolutely necessary) be admitted into our minds; but our whole delight should be in the God of our salvation [Note: 2Co 4:15. Isa 58:13-14.].]

2.

With a humble sense of our responsibility

[If God has instituted Sabbaths for our good, they are a talent of which we must give an account to him. And O what an awful responsibility have we incurred by means of them! A person that is seventy years of age has had no less than ten years of entire Sabbaths! What might not have been done in that time, if they had been properly improved? When therefore the Sabbath arrives, though we should welcome it as a blessing, we should welcome it with fear and trembling: lest, when designed for our good, it should only aggravate our final condemnation. We should pray to God to raise our minds to the occasion; to spiritualize our affections; to draw nigh to us in our secret retirement, and to reveal himself to us in the public assembly. We should bear in mind, that without Him we can do nothing: and that it is His presence and His blessing alone that can render any means effectual for our good. And when we come to the close of the Sabbath, we should inquire diligently, how far the designs of Gods love and mercy have been accomplished in us, and how far we have been forwarded in our preparation for the eternal Sabbath. It is this mixture of joy and trembling which we ought to cultivate, as the most desirable of all frames; contented to wait for unmixed joy, till all our dangers and responsibility shall be for ever past.]

We cannot conclude without adding a word,
1.

Of reproof

[As for those who make scarcely any difference between the Sabbath and other days, but follow their business or pleasure in a shameless manner, we shall leave them to the reproof of Nehemiah [Note: Neh 13:15-16.], only warning them that their present gains or pleasures will but ill repay them for the loss of their souls. Our present subject leads us rather to notice those who detain their wives or servants at home, in order to provide them a more palatable repast. How different was the conduct of Christ and his Disciples! They had been so occupied in holy exercises, that they had even omitted to make the necessary provision for the calls of nature; and were contented to satisfy their appetite with a little barley rubbed out of the ears which they gathered by the way. It should seem that they were regardless of bodily indulgence, when they were called to attend to the concerns of their souls. O that we would learn of them, and imitate their self-denying piety! True it is, as we have said before, that works of mercy and necessity may be done; but it is equally true, that an attention to the soul is a work of the greatest mercy, and of indispensable necessity.]

2.

Of encouragement

[Though the alleged violation of the Sabbath was the pretext for condemning the Disciples, the real cause was, their adherence to Christ. Thus, if some sacrifice of time or bodily comfort be made in order to serve our God, the proud Pharisees, who hate the light, will inveigh against us as violating some duty either to God or man; when, if we spent our time in any other way, they would find no occasion of offence at all. But, if we be treated thus, let us remember who suffered in like manner before us; and let us comfort ourselves with this reflection, that, though man may condemn our piety, our God will both approve and reward it.]

Fuente: Charles Simeon’s Horae Homileticae (Old and New Testaments)

27 And he said unto them, The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath:

Ver. 27. The sabbath was made for man ] That is, for man’s safety and advantage. As he would be undone without it, he would grow wild, and forget God; so, if it stand in the way of his safety, it is not to be observed, as if an enemy then assault us, we may fight with him. Pompey could never have taken Jerusalem, but that the religious Jews refused to defend themselves on the sabbath; which when he observed, he then on that day most fiercely assaulted them, and took their city. (Dio Cassius.)

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

27. ] . is peculiar to Mark, and highly important. The Sabbath was an ordinance for man ; for man’s rest, both actually and typically, as setting forth the rest which remains for God’s people ( Heb 4:9 ). But He who is now speaking has taken on Himself Manhood , the whole nature of Man; and is rightful lord over creation as granted to man , and of all that is made for man , and therefore of the Sabbath . The whole dispensation of time is created for man , for Christ as He is man , and is in his absolute power . There is a remarkable parallel, in more than the mere mode of expression, in 2 Mace. Mar 5:19 : , .

Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament

Mar 2:27 . , etc., and He said to them; this phrase is employed to introduce a saying of Jesus containing a great principle. The principle is that the Sabbath is only a means towards an end man’s highest good. Strange that Mk. should have been allowed to have a monopoly of this great word! For this saying alone, and the parable of gradual growth (Mar 4:26-29 ), his Gospel was worth preserving.

Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson

sabbath. Note the Figure Antimetebole, (App-6), “sabbath . . . man . . . man, . sabbath”.

was made = came into being.

man. Greek. anthropos. App-123.

and. All the texts omit “and”. In that case, note the Figure of speech Asyndeton (App-6).

Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics

27.] . is peculiar to Mark, and highly important. The Sabbath was an ordinance for man; for mans rest, both actually and typically, as setting forth the rest which remains for Gods people (Heb 4:9). But He who is now speaking has taken on Himself Manhood, the whole nature of Man; and is rightful lord over creation as granted to man, and of all that is made for man, and therefore of the Sabbath. The whole dispensation of time is created for man, for Christ as He is man, and is in his absolute power. There is a remarkable parallel, in more than the mere mode of expression, in 2 Mace. Mar 5:19 : , .

Fuente: The Greek Testament

Mar 2:27 He was saying) Again beginning to address them; comp. Mar 4:21; Mar 4:24; Mar 4:26; Mar 4:30; Mar 7:20; Mar 9:1; Luk 4:24; Luk 5:36; Luk 6:5; Luk 15:11; John 1:52.-, for the sake of) An axiom. So almost similarly 2Ma 5:19 : , -, was made) The origin and end of things is to be kept in view. The blessing of the Sabbath, Gen 2:3, has regard to man.

Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament

The Gift of the Sabbath

The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath.Mar 2:27.

The innocent act of plucking corn and eating it as one went along, was regarded by the Pharisees as a breach of the commandment which forbade reaping on the Sabbath. This trivial formalism was a reductio ad absurdum of the Pharisaic method of interpreting the law. Our Lord defends the action of His disciples by a three-fold argument. First, He quotes the example of David at Nob, as a scriptural precedent for the breaking of a ceremonial law when necessity demands it (Mar 2:25-26). Then, taking a wider ground, He shows the meaning of the institution of the Sabbath (Mar 2:27). It was a provision for mans benefit, and therefore was of relative, not absolute, obligation. Our Saviour here enunciates a principle with regard to religious observances which is valid for all time. They are means to an end, and are never to be regarded in such a way that the end is sacrificed to the means. Thirdly, He declares that He Himself, as mans Head and Representative, has the right to control that which was made for the good of man (Mar 2:28). It was a tremendous claim, which, considering the Divine sanction of the ordinance in question, could without blasphemy have been made by no one but the God-Man Himself.1 [Note: J. C. Du Buisson, The Gospel according to St. Mark, 24.]

Our immediate subject is Gods gift to man of the Sabbath. It may be dealt with in two parts

I.The History of the Gift

II.The Use of the Gift

I

The History of the Gift

i. The Sabbath of Creation

On the sixth day of creation man appears. He is a higher creation. He is to be on earth the representative of God in dominionone with God; having knowledge, in his measure, like Gods knowledge, life like Gods life, authority like Gods authority, and the possibility of righteousness like Gods righteousness. And how shall man be helped to a true conception of a godlike lifea life, not of indolence, but of strength, repose, and peace? How shall man, with this wealth of material resources, be reminded of his spiritual endowment, mission, and dependence? How shall he be brought into a life of communion with God, his Maker, his Fathera life above the physical life; a life for the development of his spiritual nature, derived from God; a life nobler than a life of physical, commercial, social, political interest and activity; a life of preparation for all other and lower relations and responsibilities? And if man made innocent shall, when tested, fail of virtue and drop to lower levels, how shall he be brought up to righteousness and true holiness? Therefore the inspired poet of the creation added to his time-scale another daya seventh day, a Lords day, a day of Divine rest and of human opportunity. It was not a day of Gods withdrawal from His universe, a day of the suspension of Divine interest and activity. It was an impressive symbol of human need and of the true rest of the soul of mangodlike only when in perfect harmony and communion with Him. Thus the primeval Sabbath was instituted as a reminder of mans high relationships, and as a help to his highest training for dominion on the earth and for the unutterable glories of his destiny beyond.1 [Note: J. H. Vincent.]

ii. The Sabbath of the Decalogue

The account of the observance of the Sabbath in the sixteenth chapter of Exodus precedes the giving of the law on Mount Sinai. When the manna fell, it marked the Sabbath day. None fell on that day. Twice as much fell on Friday as on any other day. For forty years that standing miracle marked the division of time into weeks, and made one day sacred as a day of rest and of worship. Then when the moral law was given, as you find it in the twentieth chapter of Exodus, observance of the Sabbath was incorporated in it by the finger of God. What else did God ever write with His finger? Gods finger wrote upon the tables of stone, Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. He wrote it in what company? Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image. Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain. In what other company? Honour thy father and thy mother. Do you want to vacate that commandment? And what other? Thou shalt not kill. You want to abrogate that? And what other? Thou shalt not steal. Thou shalt not bear false witness.

Take a single example of the way in which modern states have dealt with the day of rest along the lines of the Decalogue: The law of the State of Indiana and its penalty are found among the General Laws, chap. xxxv., sec. 1: If any person, of the age of fourteen years and upward, shall be found on the first day of the week, commonly called Sunday, at common labour, or engaged in his usual vocation, works of charity and necessity only excepted, such person shall be fined in any sum not less than one nor more than ten dollars; but nothing herein contained shall be construed to affect such as conscientiously observe the seventh day of the week as the Sabbath.

iii. The Sabbath of Subsequent Times

Come at once to the fifty-eighth and sixty-sixth chapters of Isaiah, the Messianic part of that book, the very last part of it, that glorious prophetic consummation which commences with the fifty-second chapter and extends to the end, presenting a Saviour who is Christ the Lord, unfolding the glorious hope of eternal life, and describing the crowning glories of Messianic days. Now in the very end of that book, where the prophet stands on tiptoe to see the remotest events, to see the last forecast of man in Messianic days, there he says, And from one Sabbath to another, shall all flesh come to worship before me, saith the Lord.

Not all Jews, but all flesh. And so the Old Testament leaves it. Now how does the New find it? First, in this second chapter of Mark, our Saviour affirms in the broad language of the text that the Sabbath was made for man. What a catholic utterance! How universal in its application! Then, in the twenty-second chapter of Matthew, and from the thirty-fifth to the fortieth verse, we have an instructive lesson. A lawyer came to Him for light on the Ten Commandments: Master, which is the greatest commandment in the law? And He said, This is the first and great commandment: Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, strength, soul, and mind. That covers four of the ten, the four that relate to God. Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. That covers the other table of the law.1 [Note: B. H. Carroll.]

1. The Pharisaic Misunderstanding.I suppose that the Christian conception of religion may be briefly defined as communion with a God who has revealed Himself as a loving Father by the manifestation of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. To the Jew, on the other hand, religion appeared to be rather communion with a God who had revealed Himself by the law of Moses. What the Lord Jesus Christ is to the Christian, that the law of Moses was to the orthodox Jew of the time of Christ. As it is our aspiration to grow up into the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ, so it was the aspiration of the pious Jew to conform in all respects to the law, or, as St. Luke puts it, to walk in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless. It was, perhaps, almost inevitable under such circumstances that men should study the law with a minute attention to detail which was fatal to the apprehension of the great principles of right which it embodied. It was not that the Scribes and Pharisees (I refer, not to the hypocrites among them, who are always to be found in every religion, but to the sincerely religious men, who were numerous)it was not that they were wilfully disloyal to the great principles of the law, but that their method of looking to its details rendered them incapable of seeing its general effect. Since they regarded the law as all given by God, they did not, for the most part, perceive the relative importance of the various commandments, nor did they endeavour to trace out the principles underlying them. Their great object was to ensure that no commandment should be passed over. They carefully counted the exact number to be kept, and arrived at the conclusion that there were 365 negative commandments, Thou shalt not, or one for every day of the year; 248 positive commandments, Thou shalt, or one for every bone of the body.1 [Note: Canon R. H. Kennett.] [Josh Bond’s Module Maker Note: The original text above said, “615:365 negative commandments”. Hastings is trying to say that there are a total of 615 commandments, with 365 being negative and 248 being positive].

Thus it may be said of the majority of religious Jews of the time of Christ that their object was not to mould their lives according to some few great principles, but to keep 613 distinct commandments. Some great men, it is true, were exceptions to this general rule. Thus, a generation or so before the time of Christ, Rabbi Hillel had summed up the whole law to an impatient proselyte in the memorable words quoted in a slightly different form by our blessed Lord Himself: What thou wouldest not have thy neighbour do unto thee that do not thou to thy neighbour: this is the whole law; all the rest is commentary; go, study. But among men of less spirituality and genius than Hillel the idea of religion was not to work out a great principle, but to avoid transgression of a number of more or less distinct commandments.2 [Note: Ibid.]

The Rabbis themselves occasionally admitted the principle; see Mechilta, in Exo 31:13 : The Sabbath is delivered unto you, and ye are not delivered to the Sabbath. Our Lords words rise higher, and reach further: at the root of the Sabbath law was the love of God for mankind, and not for Israel only.3 [Note: H. B. Swete, The Gospel according to St. Mark, 49.]

2. Christs Interpretation.The Sabbath in Christs time was a veil upon the eyes of the people. It blinded the Jews so that they could not see further than the narrow walls of the synagogue, or the exclusive walls of the Temple court. It prevented them beholding any duty on that day further than the hearing of the law, or the offering of the set form of sacrifice. But Jesus Christ came to show them of the Father. A man who, believing that the Sabbath was specially Gods day, and that because it was His day he was on no account to cure a sick man and tell him to realise he was cured by taking up his bed and walking,on no account to lift an ox or an ass out of a pit, if either of them was the ox or ass of a foreigner,what could such a man know of the duties of man to man, or of man to lower animals, as children of one Father who is in Heaven? No, the Sabbath, if men were to see in its ordaining the work of a Father of love and pity, mercy and gladness, must be spiritualised. They must make the Sabbath a real Sabbath if they would see that the Maker of it is a real Father.

If this was part of the mind of Jesus Christ, if He came to get men to sit loose to the world, or as St. Paul put it, to crucify the world unto themselves, and themselves unto the world, to care little about the kingdom of earth and the glory of it as compared with the Kingdom of Heavenif Jesus came to show men of the Father of their spirits, and that all religious ordinances, all Sabbath observances, were but to lead men to behold God and livethen surely our Lord, speaking in metaphor as was His wont, might well have said, as one of the Oxyrhynchus Logia has it, Except ye fast to the world, ye shall in no wise find the kingdom of God, and, Except ye keep the Sabbath in the spirita real Sabbathsabbatise the Sabbathye shall not see the Father. This is what the reputed saying seems to assert.1 [Note: H. D. Rawnsley, Sayings of Jesus, 23.]

iv. The Lords Day

1. Its Origin.We have at the close of the Gospels the earliest record of the first day of the week as the time of our Lords resurrection; and in memory of that event it became, during the Apostolic age, the recognised festival of the infant Christian community. We know not the exact date when it began to be set apart, but the notices of it are quite enough to show its character. It is mentioned in the Acts as the time when the disciples came together to break bread, i.e. for the Lords Supper. It is urged by the Apostle Paul (1Co 16:2) that believers should lay by in store on the first day, for the offering on behalf of the poor; and the passing allusion makes it probable that it had become already a fixed time of worship. It is named again in the book of Revelation (Mar 1:10); and from the phrase, the Lords Day, we may fairly infer that it had gained that place in Christian worship which must have preceded the specific name. Henceforth it grew more and more into the reverent affection of the Church, until it became the great season of religious gathering; and at last, under Constantine, the laws of the empire forbade the opening of the courts and other secular business. Such was its origin and growth. It was the weekly Easter. It spoke to the early believer, as to us, of the risen Lord, and of that risen life in which was the bond of all holy fellowship.

2. Its Relation to the Sabbath.What was the relation of the Lords Day to the Sabbath? We turn for an answer to the New Testament. There can be no doubt whatever that the ancient law was kept among all Jewish Christians, for we read constantly of the Apostles as teaching and joining in the synagogue service of the seventh day. But it is as plain that the Gentile was in no sense bound to observe it. No one can read the striking passages from the Epistles of Paul (Col 2:16-17; Rom 14:5-6) without perceiving that it is classed with all those Jewish usages, new moons, unclean meats, in regard to which no obligation was laid on the believer. Nor can any one fairly accept the express decision of the first Council at Jerusalem, without allowing that it is not included in the necessary things for Gentile duty. It must be noted, further, that the Lords Day was never substituted for the seventh. Each rested on its own ground. The Gentile kept the feast of the Resurrection. The Jewish Christian kept both days, just as he circumcised his children and baptized them likewise. It remained for many years, and by slow degrees faded away; it was long retained in some churches of the West as a fast, in memory of our Lords burial before the day of His rising; yet at length it dropped from use, and by the natural law of life the first day remained alone, the one weekly season of worship. This is the sum of the evidence. It leaves it exactly as in the case of baptism, where the Christian rite took the place of circumcision by historic change, yet rests on the commandment of Christ and the spirit of a larger Gospel.1 [Note: E. A. Washburn.]

In the Apology for Christians, which Justin Martyr wrote to Antoninus Pius, between the years 138 and 150, he says: We all of us assemble together on Sunday, because it is the first day in which God changed darkness and matter, and made the world. On the same day also Jesus Christ, our Saviour, rose from the dead, for He was crucified on the day before that of Saturn; and on the day after that of Saturn, which is that of the Sun, He appeared to His apostles and disciples, and taught them what we now submit to your consideration. It is evident from this, and from other historic documents, that Christs resurrection made the first day far more illustrious to Christians than the seventh; and when the Temple was destroyed, and Judaism, like a shadow, vanished, the Jewish Sabbath vanished with it. In this change, which was, we believe, wrought by the Spirit of Him who was with His people always, we have a proof of this startling declaration: The Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath day; and the justification for the change lies there. The shell was broken, but the kernel remained; the transient and typical passed away, but only in order that the permanent and true might remain for ever. And it was because St. Paul saw and understood this, that, in his Epistle to the Colossians (Mar 2:16-17), he wrote about the Sabbath words so bold that many are still afraid to take them in their legitimate and obvious signification: Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holy day, or of the new moon, or of the Sabbath days, which are a shadow of things to come; but the body [or substance] is of Christ.1 [Note: A. Rowland.]

The Christian motive for observing the Lords Day is the Resurrection of Christ from the dead. That truth is to the Christian Creed what the creation of the world out of nothing is to the Jewish. The Lords Day marks the completed Redemption, as the Sabbath had marked the completed Creation. The Resurrection is also the fundamental truth on which Christianity rests; and thus it is as much insisted on by the Christian Apostles as is Gods creation of all things by the Jewish prophets. Not that the creation of all things by God is less precious to the Christian than to the Jew: but it is more taken for granted. In Christian eyes, the creation of the world of nature is eclipsed by the creation of the world of grace; and of this last creation, the Resurrection is the warrant. The Resurrection is commemorated, as St. Irenus points out, on the first day of the week, when God brought light out of darkness and chaos. It is the risen and enthroned Lamb who says, Behold, I make all things new: and therefore if any man be in Christ, he is the new creation.2 [Note: H. P. Liddon, Easter in St. Pauls, 282.]

II

The Use of the Gift

The importance of Christs statement, The Sabbath was made for man, is permanent and universal; it establishes not the exception, but the rule; it deals not with temporary and fluctuating prejudices, but with fixed, eternal principles. It puts us in a new position with reference to the question, Why do I observe the Lords Day? The old questions, What has a Christian to do with Jewish enactments? What to him is the ceremonial law? Why is our liberty to be narrowed by the opinions of bigots incapable of distinguishing between the spirit and the letter? All these had their use, as they certainly have had their misuse, in the past. But put the question in this form. The Sabbath was made for man; why then should man be deprived of it? If to the Jewish Church in its best ages, to its most enlightened seers, the Sabbath was a delight, holy and honourable, full of happy thoughts and feelings, a season of refreshment, of bodily repose and spiritual rejoicing, why should the Christian Church forfeit the privilege?1 [Note: Canon F. C. Cook.]

i. It is a Gift for every Man

1. If the Sabbath was made for man, it must have been because man needed it; not, certainly, as a mere temporary provision for special purposes, but as a permanent blessing. Who shall take from us one of Gods first gifts to His creaturesa gift bestowed with a special regard to their physical and spiritual wants, and consecrated by His own example? Look at the question in this light, test the principle by its application to the facts of daily experience, to the wants of your inner and outer life, and you will dismiss, as matters of exceedingly little importance to the man of common sense, the greater part of the discussions which have filled large volumes of wearisome controversy, and which will remain unsettled so long as men differ in feelings and habits. and in the power of dealing with the accumulated masses of conflicting theories and ill-digested facts. If we know that now in the Lords Day, its new and most significant designation, we have all that made the Sabbath a boon to man, a season in which the soul, free from earthly trammels, may realise its nearness and affinity to Godwhat to us can it matter that at a period of struggle and of reaction, good and conscientious, though narrow-minded, men sought to counteract licentious tendencies by recurrence to enactments which appertained altogether to a dispensation long since passed away? We are surely in a position to maintain the truth, to hold fast the good for which such men contended, without reference to their prejudices, without involving ourselves in their mistakes. Why, in short, should we trouble ourselves with any question but this? Do I use for my own real benefit, for the benefit of all over whom I have any control, the Sabbath which was made for me, which my Saviour has claimed as His own; of which He is now, as ever, the Lord; which His Spirit, working in and through His Church, has associated for ever with the crowning fact of His religion, His resurrection from the dead? These are to my mind the questions which we are bound to consider as Christians, as men who have to work out our own salvation, whose duty it is, so far as may be possible, to communicate our blessings and convictions to our fellow-men.1 [Note: Canon F. C. Cook.]

Robertson of Brighton, whose insight into spiritual philosophy was as direct and penetrating as his practical surrender to its teaching was complete, says of Sabbath observance: I am more and more sure by practical experience that the reason for the observance of the Sabbath lies deep in the everlasting necessities of human nature, and that as long as man is man the blessedness of keeping it, not as a day of rest only, but as a day of spiritual rest, will never be annulled.

This is the day of light: let there be light to-day;

O Dayspring, rise upon our night, and chase its gloom away!

This is the day of rest: our failing strength renew,

On weary brain and troubled breast shed Thou Thy freshening dew.

This is the day of peace: Thy peace our spirits fill,

Bid Thou the blasts of discord cease, the waves of strife be still.

This is the first of days: send forth Thy quickening breath,

And wake dead souls to love and praise, O Vanquisher of death!1 [Note: John Ellerton.]

2. All Gods children have a right to share in its blessings, poor as well as rich, servants equally with masters and mistresses, employed and employers alike; for station in life and outward circumstances cannot alter mans needs. Instincts are universal; they are our common inheritance as human beings.

The first day of the week is, to many Christians, not only the one day of rest but the one day of worship. The majority of men and women in our land, owing to the exacting claims of everyday life on their time and thought in these times of high pressure, have little or no opportunity of meeting together in united worship on any other day. More than that, the question of Sunday observance is fitly linked with that of worship, because the social aspect of Christianity is forcibly emphasised by both. No Christian who attempts to grasp all that is involved in a right use of Sunday can persuade himself that his individual observance or non-observance of the day is a matter to be decided solely on personal and selfish grounds, but must acknowledge that his decision as to whether or how he will keep the day affects not only himself and his own conscience, but also the well-being of others.

Not all that is lawful to do is right for the Christian to do. Even if right in itself, it becomes wrong if it be done at the unnecessary expense of others time and thought, or at the cost of the health of the body or mind or spirit of others. Sunday cannot be a day well and wisely spent by a man if in what he does, or neglects to do, he thinks only of himself, and is indifferent to what extent others are obliged to work in order that he may rest, or is careless whether recreation, in itself lawful and innocent, means toil to those who ought to have rest.2 [Note: C. J. Ridgeway.]

Christianity has given us the Sabbath, the jubilee of the whole world, whose light dawns welcome alike into the closet of the philosopher, into the garret of toil, and into prison-cells, and everywhere suggests even to the vile the dignity of spiritual being.3 [Note: Emerson.]

It is the students day, whereon he may turn from the ordinary to the sublimer world of thought and find new inspiration for his daily endeavour. It is the doubters day, on which he may investigate the most momentous questions of God and duty and destiny. It is the childrens day, when the home circle may be perfect, and sweet memories be planted which shall fill the later years with their fragrance. The children need the gentle influence of the Sabbath. And if we who are no longer children were to give ourselves up to the consecration and the conservation of the day in the interest of the young life of the land, we should not only ensure a better and a larger life to the next generation, but we should ourselves enter more fully and with greater plenitude of power into that Kingdom of which its Founder said to His disciples, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. The Sabbath is the poor mans day, when he can have leisure to reward the love of wife and children, go with them to the house of God, and enjoy to the full what Longfellow calls the dear, delicious, silent Sunday, to the weary workman both of brain and hand the beloved day of rest. It is the rich mans day, when, if he will, he may throw off the burdens of anxiety and prove to his family that there are some things he prizes as much as stocks and estates and silver and golda day when he may transfer some of his treasures to the heavens and fix his heart on things above, where moth and rust cannot corrupt, nor thieves break through and steal. It is the mourners day, on which eyes that weep in sore bereavement may look upward and hear a voice out of the heavens say, In my Fathers house are many mansions. It is the true all saints day, when, rising above the littleness, the rivalries, the limitations of this life, we may look through Sabbath skies to the innumerable company in the city on Mount Zion, the heavenly Jerusalem.1 [Note: J. H. Vincent.]

I have a birthright straight from heaven,

A birthright in which all men share;

By my own Makers hand twas given,

Tis sanctified by praise and prayer;

I shall not give that right away;

No man shall have my Sabbath day!

All through the week let anvils ring,

And hammers clang and bellows blow;

Let bright sparks fly and sledges swing,

And bar and furnace gleam and glow:

But speak up, blacksmith; boldly say,

No man shall have my Sabbath day!

Bend, weary weaver, oer your loom

All week from dawnings glimmering sky,

And till the twilight gathers gloom

Let treddles tramp and shuttles ply:

But speak up, brother; boldly say,

You shall not have my Sabbath day!

Let axes flash in forest glades

While oak and ash and elm tree fall;

Let the slow team toil through the shades,

Obedient to their drivers call:

But speak up, woodman; boldly say,

You shall not have my Sabbath day!

From mill and factory and mine

Still let this selfsame cry arise;

Claim one day as a holy shrine

In which to commune with the skies:

Speak up, and loudly, boldly say,

You shall not have my Sabbath day!

It is our birthright straight from heaven,

Tis sanctified by praise and prayer;

By our great Makers hand twas given,

And trench upon it who shall dare:

We shall not give that right away,

No man shall have our Sabbath day!1 [Note: The British Workman, 1867.]

ii. It is a Gift for the Whole Man

The Sabbath is made for man, that is, for man as God designed and created him. The whole man must have the opportunity of sharing in the benefits of the day, or it fails in its object. The body of man finds in it the rest it needs; not, indeed, by doing nothing, for idleness is never true rest, but in change of occupation. The mind of man rests not by lying fallow and thinking of nothing, but by diverting its energies into new channels. The heart of man renews its strength not by ceasing to love, but in change of surroundings, in the quiet of home life and home affections and interests. The spirit of man puts forth new powers, as raised heavenward it contemplates the unseen, and looks up to God instead of being engrossed in the earthy. On Sunday, says Lord Macaulay, man, the machine of machines, is repairing and winding up, so that he returns to his labours on Monday with clear intellect, with livelier spirits, and with renewed vigour. The quaint rhymes of Sir Matthew Hale emphasise this in familiar words

A Sunday well spent

Brings a week of content,

And health for the toils of to-morrow.

But a Sunday profaned,

Whateer may be gained,

Is a certain precursor of sorrow.1 [Note: C. J. Ridgeway.]

1. It is necessary for our Physical Health. The laws and conditions of mans bodily life and health are such as to make intervals of repose absolutely essential to the proper and continued performance of the labours that most men have to endure. In asserting this we do but affirm man to be a part of Nature, and human life to be no exception to earthly life in general, for rest is one of Natures primal and universal laws. Without repose neither plant-life nor animal-life can reach the best possible forms. The soil must sometimes lie fallow, or its energies and treasures will ultimately become exhausted. No animal can long survive without rest and sleep. Men who systematically set at naught this physiological demand hasten on prematurely the infirmities and decay of old age.

The fundamental idea of the Sabbath is that of physical rest. Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Then, as the first comment upon thisthe only comment, indeedabstinence from labour is enjoined, and enlarged upon to a degree somewhat unusual in a condensed code like the Ten Commandments. Take care of the body, it seems to say, as the foundation on which the spiritual and the intellectual are to rise. If we are ever tempted to be surprised at the purely physical aspect of this commandment, let us not forget the stress St. Paul lays on bodily culture. Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own; for ye are bought with a price; therefore glorify God in your body. There the exhortation stops. The words and in your spirit which are his, were added by some late hand. And the very fact that we are now and then startled by the emphasis that is laid by the Bible upon bodily culture is in itself a proof that we are on a wrong line of thoughtthe line of the medival theology which viewed the body, not as Gods agent, but as Gods enemy; not as a servant to be trained and developed to do His will, and to be the minister of mind and soul, but as an encumbrance to be ignored in mental and spiritual culture, and as a tempter and seducer, to be kept down by fasting and maceration. Too readily we fall into the habit of thinking that while we are under obligation to glorify God with our spirit, we may do with our body pretty much as we please. And as a correction of that error it will do us good to remember that God has wrought the obligation to our bodies into the very heart of the moral law as well as into the gospel.

Lord Beaconsfield once said, Of all Divine institutions, the most Divine is that which secures a day of rest for man. It is the corner-stone of civilisation.

There are about twenty-five millions of persons now in England and Wales. Let us drop the word millions and say, for simplicitys sake, that there are twenty-five, and that these twenty-five form (as, indeed, they do form in Gods sight) a single family. Well, if so, these are their proportions and occupations: eight of the twenty-five are the young children, six are the women of the household, the rest are grown men; of these men two till the soil, six are in shops or manufactories, one is a tradesman, one is in either the jail or the workhouse, and one belongs to the independent, the wealthy, or the professional classes. Now, even this one million of the ruling and the professional classes need Sunday as a day of holy rest; but how much more do the eight million children, and the six million women, and the nine or ten million labourers, and artisans, and clerks, and shopmen need it!1 [Note: F. W. Farrar, Bells and Pomegranates, 129.]

Dr. Farre, as a physiologist, has demonstrated the fact that the rest of the night without the additional rest of the Sabbath is insufficient for the maintenance of bodily vigour, and for the prolongation of life. History confirms this. The National Convention in Paris abolished public worship in 1793, and appointed the tenth day instead of the seventh for the partial cessation of labour; but every one knows that it was at least for the physical advantage of the nation when Napoleon restored the seventh day, in the year 1806.

Not only animals need regular off-days, when they are to do no work, but all mechanical and scientific instruments need it, in order to reach maximum usefulness. It has been demonstrated that a steam-engine, an axe, a hand-saw, will do more work in the long run with regular days of absolute rest. An instance is given in a late review by an experienced engineer, of two engines of like pattern, capacity, and material. One was run every day so many hours. The other only six days in seven, but yet as many hours in the six days as the first in seven. The one which had its Sabbaths outlasted and outworked the other so far as to excite marked attention.1 [Note: B. H. Carroll.]

2. It is necessary for our Mental Health. Man is not a mere animal. He has a life of the mind which likewise demands occasional relief from the wearing toils and anxieties of secular life. Our nervous force, which lies at the basis of thought and feeling, can bear only a certain amount of strain, and if this be transgressed, an impaired and morbid condition of mind is sure to be the result. Every one knows that incessant and anxious brooding over any one subject or idea will induce melancholy and even insanity.

Tis painful thinking that corrodes our clay.

Very weighty are the words of John Burns on this question: Sunday rest is physically good, mentally invigorating, and morally healthful. It has been commercially beneficial to the people of this land. It has done more than anything else to buttress and maintain the excellent institution we call home. The day of rest is, from every point of view, a national treasure. So, too, writes a great French statesman, President Arnot: The Sunday rest is an essentially democratic institution, more needed now than ever owing to the high pressure at which we live.2 [Note: C. J. Ridgeway.]

We have a picture given to us of how one who was no grim Puritan or narrow-minded Pharisee spent Sunday in his home, and there is nothing in it which might not be reproduced, so far as the surroundings of our lives allow, in English homes to-day. The Sundays were bright to the children, who began the day with decking the graves in the churchyard, an example which the poor people learned to follow, so that it looked like a garden. And when his days work was doneand Sunday was the busiest day of the week to himthere was always the Sunday walk, a stroll on the moors, some fresh object of beauty pointed out. Or indoors the Sunday picture-books were brought out. Each child had its own book and chose its subject for father to drawsome short story, or bird or beast or flower mentioned in the Bible. Happy Sundays! never associated with gloom or restriction, but with Gods works or Gods Word. Such was Sunday in the home of Charles Kingsley.

Do the birds know when it is Sunday? a little girl asked her mother; they always seem to be more cheerful, and sing much more, on Sundays. I remember having heard a child ask on a similar occasion, why the birds did not rest on Sundays. In these two questions there seems to lie the whole difference between the keeping of Sunday and the desecration of it: the former child knew what a true keeping of the Sunday is; the latter did not.1 [Note: James Gordon.]

3. It is necessary for our Moral Health. The quality of our moral character is vitally influenced by the habit of regular cessation from the more sordid cares and efforts of life. Contentment of spirit, cheerfulness of disposition, clearness of judgment, sensitiveness of conscience, strength and directness of will, are all to some extent dependent upon physical conditions, while these human excellences can certainly not be cultivated to their highest pitch without regular opportunities for the contemplation of moral truth and exalted ideals. Nations have become morally debased and have been torn by anarchic convulsions when deprived of opportunities of this sort. At the end of the last century a sad illustration of this was presented to the world. The Sabbath was abolished in France. Every trace of religion was as far as possible wiped out. Reason was worshipped as a goddess. The names of the days were altered, and decades took the place of weeks. The results were most disastrous. It was not long before the whole nation was thrown into disorder. All morality languished. Every heart trembled before the greed and tyranny that were practised by those in power. And at length the people, almost in despair, and clinging to the spars of goodness and virtue that alone remained to them in their wreck, welcomed those against whom they had fought, and by the help of their foes restored the weekly Sabbath. How true are the words of Blackstone, the greatest of our lawyersA corruption of morals usually follows a profanation of the Sabbath.2 [Note: W. Spiers.]

Although I would not pin my faith to any political party or religious sect; and though I would not advocate or practise all the Puritan restrictions, yet I agree with Fred. W. Robertson, when he says: If we must choose between Puritan over-precision, on the one hand, and, on the other, the laxity which, in many parts of the Continent, has marked that day from other days only by more riotous worldliness and a more entire abandonment of the whole community to amusement, no Christian would hesitateno English Christian, at least, to whom that day is hallowed by all that is endearing in early associations, and who feels how much it is the very bulwark of his countrys moral purity.1 [Note: A. Rowland.]

Although certain superstitious fears that I had detract somewhat from my thought of the Sabbath of my childhood, yet the thought of my father and mother remains; the sanctity of that day remains; its stillness remains. When I waked up in the morning, and found the Sabbath mornings sun pouring full into my room; it was the carpet on the floor and the paper on the wall; for there was none other but the golden sunlight. When I remember the voice of the cock (and there were no wheels rolling to disturb the clarion tones), when I remember how deep the heaven was all the day, when I remember what a strange and awe-inspiring sadness there was in my little soul, when I remember the going down of the sun and the creeping on of the twilight, there is not in my memory anything that impresses me as so rich in all the tropics as a Christian Sabbath on the old Litchfield hills. My children have not thatwoe to meand their children, I am afraid, will not have it; but you take out of the portfolio of my memory the choicest engravings if you take away from me the old Puritan Sunday of Connecticut. Let the framework stand; but unite with it a better usage. Bring into it less sanctity of the superstitious kind, less rigour, less restriction, but more love, more singing, more exultation, more life. Make the Sabbath honourable and joyful. Then the people will accept it, and it will stand as immovable as the mountains.2 [Note: Henry Ward Beecher.]

4. It is necessary for our Spiritual Health. Above all things it was ordained because it was indispensable to our spiritual growth. Our health, mental and bodily, depends upon the harmonious and complete development of all our faculties The neglect of any power which belongs to the integrity of our nature leaves us stunted, deformed, liable to physical or mental disease, to subtle and overpowering temptations, such as daily consign multitudes to wretchedness; and this must especially be the result if that faculty is suffered to decay for want of its proper nourishment, which, as many writers have had occasion to observe, constitutes the most special characteristic of man as distinguished from the brute. The religious instinct, the capacity and the desire of communion with the Divine, the reception and assimilation of spiritual truththat, we must never for a moment forget, is the true distinctive mark of man; man with the upward-looking eye, man with his intellect in proportion to its elevation conversant with abstract truth, man with a heart and conscience responding and testifying to the truth of the living God. It is for man specially, as such, man as a spiritual being, that the Sabbath was especially made, and so far as regards his noblest faculty, made not for its repose, for its suspension or temporary cessation from action, but for its active exercise, its perfect development, its continuous growth. The labourer, as such, whatever may be the field of his occupation, whether the toil and drudgery of manual work, or the far more exhausting struggle of intellectual efforts, ceases to be a mere labourer on the Sabbath day. The Lord of that day, who determines its obligations and dispenses its blessings, relieves him of the burden which he bears so long, and which but for Christ he would bear hopelessly until he lays down his worn-out frame in the quiet grave. But the inner man, the spiritual man, as such, far from ceasing to act, acquires the full consciousness of himself, the full use of all his powers, when he consecrates that day to the purposes for which it was bestowed.

Few of us may realise this fact thoroughly from our own experience; all of us must be conscious how far we have been at the best from such a consecration of our Lords own day; but just to the extent that we have done it, or seriously attempted to do it, we can satisfy ourselves that it is so. It is simply unreasonable to suppose that any of our faculties will attain to their full and healthy development unless special care and special seasons be appropriated to their culture; nor can one who trusts the Word of God, or tests that Word by the facts of inner experience or the accredited records of the past, doubt that, over and above the daily care which must be bestowed upon the noblest and loftiest principle of our human nature, one-seventh portion of the week is asserted, and is found, to be an indispensable condition of its healthy growth.

George Washington, at the beginning of the War of the Revolution, issued an order from which I quote:That the troops may have an opportunity of attending public worship, as well as to take some rest after the great fatigue they have gone through, the general in future excuses them from fatigue duty on Sundays, except at the shipyards or on special occasions, until further orders. We can have but little hope of the blessing of Heaven on our arms if we insult it by our impiety and folly.1 [Note: J. H. Vincent.]

I wonder how it is, said Farmer Denton, that our Daisy seems so much happier on Sundays than on other days! Then Daisy spoke up from her seat on her fathers knee. You see, papa, Sunday is Gods day, and I want to make it as nice a one for Him as I can. Bless the child, said her father, if it is right for you to do this, it is right for everybody else to do the same.2 [Note: H. S. Dyer, The Ideal Christian Home, 118.]

Every day a Christian should practise communion with God. He should be like the Yorkshireman who said he enjoyed religion every day. He had a happy Monday, a blessed Tuesday, a joyful Wednesday, a delightful Thursday, a good Friday every week, a glorious Saturday, and a heavenly Sunday.

Bright shadows of true Rest! some shoots of blisse;

Heaven once a week;

The next worlds gladness prepossest in this;

A day to seek

Eternity in time; the steps by which

We climb above all ages; Lamps that light

Man through his heap of dark days; and the rich,

And full redemption of the whole weeks flight!

The Pulleys unto headlong man; times bower;

The narrow way;

Transplanted Paradise; Gods walking houre;

The cool o th day!

The creatures Jubile; Gods parle with dust;

Heaven here; man on those hills of myrrh and flowres;

Angels descending; the Returns of Trust;

A Gleam of Glory after six-days-showres!

The Churches love-feasts; Times Prerogative,

And Interest

Deducted from the whole; The combs, and hive,

And home of rest!

The milky way chalkt out with Suns, a clue

That guides through erring hours; and in full story

A taste of Heavn on earth; the pledge and cue

Of a full feast; and the out-courts of glory!1 [Note: Henry Vaughan.]

iii. It is a Gift that is without Repentance

There remaineth a sabbath rest for the people of God (Heb 4:9). The Epistle to the Hebrews was written to prevent Jewish Christians from apostasy to Old Testament Judaism. The un-Christian Jews would entice them thus: We have Moses; we have Aaron, the high priest; we have Joshua, who led the people into Canaan; we have a Sabbath, pointing to Canaan as the promised land; we have a ministry of angels. Now, to furnish the Christian with an argument to meet all these weighty claims this letter was written. The Christian can say: Jesus is greater than angels, greater than Moses, a greater priest than Aaron, greater than Joshua, redemption is greater than creation, and as God rested from the works of creation, sanctifying the seventh day for a Sabbath, so as Jesus rested from the works of redemption on the first day of the week, they too have a Sabbath. So it is established that the people of God are to have a Sabbath-keeping. If the reference be exclusively to the heavenly rest, the argument is not weakened, since the type must abide until the antitype fulfils it.2 [Note: B. H. Carroll.]

This blessed day is an earnest, an infallible prophecy of the eternal rest which awaits us in heaven. Here, we have conflicts and trials. This life is full of toil and strife and disappointment and bereavement. There is no absolutely perfect rest in this life. But that rest which remains to Gods people in the immortal life which is to come, will be perfect. The toil is here, but the rest is yonder. The conflict is here, but the victory is yonder. The cross is here, but the crown is yonder. The sorrow is here, but the happiness is yonder. God gives us one day in every week in which to think especially about these things. Every Lords Day this perfect rest, this final victory, this complete happiness, this glorious reward should be brought prominently before the Christians mind and heart.1 [Note: W. G. Neville.]

Yes, there remaineth yet a rest!

Arise, sad heart, who now dost pine,

By heavy care and pain opprest,

On whom no sun of joy can shine;

Look to the Lamb! in yon bright fields

Thoult know the joy His presence yields;

Cast off thy load and thither haste;

Soon shalt thou fight and bleed no more,

Soon, soon thy weary course be oer,

And deep the rest thou then shalt taste.

The rest appointed thee of God,

The rest that nought shall break or move,

That ere this earth by man was trod

Was set apart for thee by Love.

Our Saviour gave His life to win

This rest for thee; oh, enter in!

Hear how His voice sounds far and wide:

Ye weary souls, no more delay,

Nor loiter faithless by the way,

Here in my peace and rest abide!2 [Note: Lyra Germanica.]

The Gift of the Sabbath

Literature

Allen (R.), The Words of Christ, 231.

Ball (T. H.), Persuasions, 133.

Beecher (H. W.), Bible Studies, 229.

Bersier (E.), Sermons, i. 271.

Carroll (B. H.), Sermons, 426.

Colenso (J. W.), Natal Sermons, 1st Ser., 217, 229, 248, 265.

Cook (F. C.), Church Doctrine and Spiritual Life, 76.

Cooper (E.), Fifty-two Family Sermons (Doctrinal), 103.

Farrar (F. W.), Bells and Pomegranates, 117.

Fraser (J.), Scotch Sermons on the Old Lines, 101.

Fuller (M.), The Lords Day, 164.

Hodge (C), Princeton Sermons, 303.

Kennett (R. H.), In Our Tongues, 130.

Neville (W. G.), Sermons, 181.

Parker (T.), Some Thoughts on the Most Christian Use of the Sunday.

Rawnsley (H. D.), Sayings of Jesus, 19.

Ridgeway (C. J.), Social Life, 150.

Spence (H. D. M.), Voices and Silences, 259.

Vincent (J. H.), in The Culture of Christian Manhood, 249.

Washburn (E. A.), The Social Law of God, 71.

American Pulpit of the Day, i. 258 (Vincent).

Biblical World, v. 269 (Stevens).

British Weekly Pulpit, ii. 63 (MCheyne).

Christian Age, xlv. 370 (Parkhurst).

Christian World Pulpit, xi. 103 (Taylor); xix. 228 (Beecher); xxi. 92 (Beecher); xxxii. 332 (Rowland); lxxiv. 148 (Pickett); lxxv. 343 (Ross).

Church Times, 1898, p. 273 (Cobb).

Expositor, 4th Ser., vi. 440; x. 24; 5th Ser., iii. 109.

Journal of Biblical Literature, 1904, Pt. ii. 195.

Preachers Magazine, 1892, 125 (Spiers).

Treasury (New York), xi. 855 (Williamson); xviii. 607 (Stone).

Fuente: The Great Texts of the Bible

Exo 23:12, Deu 5:14, Neh 9:13, Neh 9:14, Isa 58:13, Eze 20:12, Eze 20:20, Luk 6:9, Joh 7:23, 1Co 3:21, 1Co 3:22, 2Co 4:15, Col 2:16

Reciprocal: Gen 2:3 – blessed Exo 16:23 – rest Exo 20:11 – General Mar 3:4 – Is it Luk 6:5 – General Luk 13:16 – be loosed

Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

A NATIONAL TREASURE

The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath therefore the Son of Man is Lord also of the sabbath.

Mar 2:27-28

This is our Lords endorsement of the Fourth Commandment. The Sabbath, that is Gods holy Sabbath ordained at Creation, the hallowing of which is commanded at Sinai as part of the moral law, was made for man. Not for the Jews only, but for the whole race.

I. The authority of the Fourth Commandment cannot be overthrown.It is not less than that of each and all of the other Commandments. Parents are glad to fall back upon the Fifth Commandment to preserve order in the family. The State falls back upon the Sixth, Seventh, Eighth, and Ninth Commandments to guard society and the home against the murderer and the adulterer, the thief and the perjurer. Surely those who avail themselves of the protection afforded by these five Commandments ought not to deny the authority of the Commandment which immediately precedes them. Some try to represent the Fourth Commandment as an impossible one, because of the words in the Prayer Book version, Thou shalt do no manner of work. The words in Exodus are: Thou shalt not do any work; and they must be taken in connection with the words of the preceding verse: Six days shalt thou labour and do all thy work. The week-day work is to cease on the Sabbath day. Many of our Lords injunctions in the Sermon on the Mount might just as reasonably be called impossible commands. But we think it childish to stumble over the exact wording of them. We recognise the beauty of the law of love which they embody, and only the enemies of the Gospel find fault with them. So, whatever the motive which actuates them, those who carp at the Fourth Commandment are acting as enemies of God and of the highest welfare of mankind.

II. Our Lord has given us clear guidance in this matter of Sabbath observance.There was no laxity in His days upon this question, but the plain Sabbath law had been almost smothered by tradition. In the case of some of the Commandments the Jewish traditions tended to laxity. In the case of the Fourth Commandment they rather added to and magnified the Divine requirements. Our Lord set Himself to correct all that was traditional and mistaken in the Jewish observance of the Sabbath, and to leave the Sabbath law in its primitive simplicity and beautiful adaptability to mans needs. He lifted the law into its right position, a Divine law, but not to be so interpreted as to break other laws of equal authority, and on a higher planethe law of mercy and the law of love. All this full teaching of our Lord (He said more about the Fourth Commandment than He did about all the other nine put together) is decisive proof of the perpetuity of the Sabbath law. What legislator intending to abrogate a law would thus elaborately explain it, bring out its spirit, make known its limits, and yet not utter a single word of disapproval or give the least hint of an approaching abolition? The pains our Saviour took to mend the Sabbath law distorted by Jewish traditions, is clear proof that he had no thought of ending it. He claimed, however, to be Lord of the Sabbath, and in the exercise of a Sovereigns right He changed the day of the week, and the first day was observed as His own Lords Day.

III. St. Pauls teaching is in no way out of harmony with this view.The testimony of Hebrews 4 is very clear. The author clearly views the Sabbath rest as dating from the Creation, and he reminds us that there still remains a keeping of Sabbath for the people of God.

IV. The teaching of the early fathers is in complete accord with this view.Tertullian (born about 150 a.d.) writes: That very day which was holy from the beginning by His Fathers benediction, He made more holy by His own benefaction. Irenaeus, consecrated Bishop of Lyons in 169 a.d., writes: On the Lords Day every one of us Christians keeps the Sabbath, meditating on the law, and rejoicing in the works of God. Clement of Alexandria, who died about 220 a.d., writes: The Fourth Commandment informs us that the world was made by God, and that He gave us the seventh day for rest on account of the sufferings and afflictions of life, and the eighth appears to be rightly called the seventh, and to be the true seventh. Epiphanius states, The first Sabbath from the beginning decreed and declared by the Lord in the creation of the world has revolved in its cycle of seven days from that day till now, and Athanasius declares that the Lord transferred the Sabbath to the Lords day.

How shall I impress upon you the deep importance of this question. There is something radically wrong in your spiritual condition if you need any urging to keep the Sabbath day. The Sabbath is one of Gods best gifts to menlike sleep and sunshine. Better a city without a park, a world without flowers, than a week without a Sabbath.

Rev. F. S. Webster.

Illustration

We cannot let Sunday go without quickly discovering and realising our loss. Very weighty are the words of the Right Hon. John Burns, m.p., on this question: Sunday rest is physically good, mentally invigorating, and morally healthful. It has been commercially beneficial to the people of this land. It has done more than anything else to buttress and maintain the excellent institution we call home. The Day of Rest is from every point of view a national treasure. The same view was emphasised not long ago in America by the overwhelming popular vote which decided that the Chicago Exhibition should be closed on Sunday; not, certainly, because of the religious intolerance of fifty millions in the United States, but because of their recognition of the importance of Sunday to a people. And a strange confirmation of the same principle comes to us from the French Republic in the law lately passed, which seeks to compel the observance of Sunday as a day of rest.

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FROM THE DAYS OF CREATION UNTIL NOW

The Sabbath was made for man:

I. For his body.In the evidence taken before a Select Committee of the House of Commons, it was proved that there must be a day of rest for the bodies of men; and those who keep horses know quite well that, if they are to be wrought up to their strength, you must give them rest one day in seven. So it is with man; if he has to work up to his strength, he requires one day of rest in seven. Now does not this prove that He that made our bodies has also appointed the Sabbath for the whole human race? For had He pleased He could have made our bodies of iron.

II. According to the example of God.We are told in Genesis 2 of God making the Sabbath. It is a very common thing for Sabbath-breakers to say that it is a Jewish ordinance. But the first Sabbath dawned on a sinless world two thousand years before ever the mention of a Jew was heard of. The first Sabbath dawned in the bowers of sinless Paradise.

III. From the command that God gave concerning it.When God brought Israel out of Egypt to the rocky mount of Sinai He there gave them a clear revelation of His holy law; and it is said, that it was added because of transgressions, till the seed should come to whom the promise was made (Gal 3:19). And in the very bosom of it was written, Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. This is Gods Wordthis is Gods unchangeable law.

IV. All Gods children love the Sabbath day.God said to Israel, My Sabbaths you shall reverence. And Ezekiel says: He gave them a Sabbath to be a sign between them and Him; it marked them out as Gods peculiar people. Its the same still.

V. Gods enemies hate the Sabbath day.It was the same first: it will be the same to the last.

Illustration

A well-known Secularist leader, the late Mr. George Holyoake, asserted with an absolutely true instinct of the real issues which underlie this question, It is on the religious observance of Sunday that the Christian religion in England mainly depends. In other wordsattributed, rightly or wrongly, to Voltaire, most clear-headed and far-seeing of statesmenIf you would destroy this Christianity, you must first kill Sunday. Or, in the language of MontalembertIl ny a pas de Religion sans culte; et il ny a pas de culte sans Dimanche.

Fuente: Church Pulpit Commentary

7

The sabbath was made for man means the day was set aside for man’s benefit in providing him a time for relaxation from labor. But since the use of food is as important as rest, it is right to provide that food even if it must be done on this day in an emergency.

Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary

Mar 2:27. The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath. Peculiar to Mark, but intimately connected with the quotation from Hosea (Mat 12:7). The Sabbath is a means to an end; it was instituted by God (in Paradise, and, like marriage, has survived the fall), for the moral and physical benefit of man. To this gracious end, as all experience shows, the observance of one day in seven as a day of RELIGIOUS REST is a necessary means. Pharisaism makes the observance itself the end, and so establishes its minute rules, as shown in the days of our Lord.

Irreligion misapprehends the end, by forgetting that mans spiritual needs are to be met, and hence despises the means, namely, a religious observance of the Christian Sabbath. But because the Sabbath was made for man, because of our needs, the first day of the week which our Redeemer, as Lord of the Sabbath, has substituted for the seventh day, is to be observed by Christians, not as a day of pleasure-seeking, or even of excessive religious exertion, but as a time for physical rest combined with a religious activity and enjoyment. Like all Christian duty, Sabbath observance is to be prompted by love, by a desire for such religious enjoyment, not by any minute rules of Pharisaism. To observe the Christian Sabbath in such a way that our temporal and spiritual welfare is thereby furthered is in one aspect a far more difficult duty than to conform to Pharisaical external rules on the subject. But it becomes easy, as other duties do, under the promptings of grateful love to the Lord of the Sabbath.While Christian men may hold a different theory, the workings of that theory on the continent of Europe proves its incorrectness. While the State cannot make men religious, or secure a Christian observance of the Sabbath, it can and ought to prevent its open desecration, and to protect Christian citizens in their right to a day of rest, which is also necessary for the welfare of the state itself. Man here includes children. For them, also, Sabbath observance should be a means, not an end. Too often parents, from conscientious motives, have exacted from their children only a legal, Pharisaical observance of the day, making it a burden and a dread to them. It should rather be used as a day for the training of the little ones, not in Pharisaism, but in the gospel of Jesus Christ; so that, as soon as possible it may Become to them a day of religious pleasure Neither pastor nor Sunday-school teacher can do this so well as parents.

Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament

Verse 27

The doctrine taught is, that ceremonial laws are not, like moral precepts, of perpetual and unchanging obligation. In great emergencies, they yield to the necessity of relieving human suffering.

Fuente: Abbott’s Illustrated New Testament

The Pharisees made the Sabbath a strait jacket that inhibited the Jews, though the rabbis conceded that some activities superceded Sabbath observance. [Note: Edersheim, 2:57, 60-61.] Jesus pointed out that God gave the Sabbath as a good gift. He designed it to free His people from ceaseless labor and to give them rest. Sabbath observance had to contain enough elasticity to assure the promotion of human welfare. Jesus’ point was the following.

"Since the Sabbath was made for man, He who is man’s Lord . . . has authority to determine its law and use." [Note: Taylor, p. 219.]

Only Mark recorded, "The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath" (Mar 2:27). One of his concerns in this Gospel was the welfare of mankind.

Since in the Old Testament the Sabbath was the Lord’s day in a special sense, Mark’s statement about Jesus in Mar 2:28 identifies Him again for the reader as God. [Note: See Daniel Doriani, "The Deity of Christ in the Synoptic Gospels," Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 37:3 (September 1994):333-50.] Jesus had the right to determine how people should use the Sabbath. As mentioned previously, there is some question as to whether the words in this verse were those of Jesus or of Mark (cf. Mar 2:10).

". . . the exousia [authority] of Jesus manifests itself vis-a-vis the rabbinic tradition, the religious hierarchy, and the temple tradition. Foremost here is Jesus’ reinterpretation of the Sabbath . . ." [Note: Edwards, p. 224. ]

"With this word Mark drives home for his readers the theological point of the pericope. These things were written that they may understand Jesus’ true dignity: he is the Lord of the Sabbath." [Note: Lane, p. 120.]

One writer sought to prove that the New Testament teaches Sabbath observance for Christians. [Note: Walter J. Chantry, "Does the New Testament Teach the Fourth Commandment?" The Banner of Truth 325 (October 1990):18-23.] I do not think it does (cf. Rom 7:4; Rom 10:4; Rom 14:5; Gal 4:10-11).

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)