“On Another Sabbath”

    “And it came to pass also on another sabbath, that he entered into the synagogue and taught: and there was a man whose right hand was withered. And the scribes and Pharisees watched him, whether he would heal on the sabbath day; that they might find an accusation against him. But he knew their thoughts, and said to the man which had the withered hand, Rise up, and stand forth in the midst. And he arose and stood forth. Then said Jesus unto them, I will ask you one thing; Is it lawful on the sabbath days to do good, or to do evil? to save life, or to destroy it? And looking round about upon them all, he said unto the man, Stretch forth thy hand. And he did so: and his hand was restored whole as the other. And they were filled with madness; and communed one with another what they might do to Jesus” (Luke 6:6-11).

    Why did the Lord Jesus do so many of his miraculous works of healing on the sabbath day? Why did he so often go out of his way to say and do things he knew would be most offensive to the Pharisees? How does the Son of God meet rebel sinners? What was the nature and purpose of the sabbath? Who is Jesus Christ? Was he just a man, as many blasphemously assert; or is he both God and man in one glorious, inseparable person? Does it really matter what we think about who Christ is? What is involved in the Lord’s call? How does God call sinners to life and faith in Christ? What affect does the gospel of Christ and the power of his grace have upon men?

    These are all questions which are clearly and decisively answered by the Holy Spirit in Luke 6:6-11. Here, Luke gives us a very brief, but very instructive narrative of the healing of a man with a withered arm on the sabbath day. Like all of our Lord’s miracles, this miraculous healing is a picture of the saving operations of his grace in and upon chosen sinners. The miracle was performed specifically to give us an instructive picture of God’s salvation.

    The first thing we see in this passage is our Lord’s deliberate confrontation of the Pharisees (vv. 6, 7, and 9).

    “And it came to pass also on another sabbath, that he entered into the synagogue and taught: and there was a man whose right hand was withered. And the scribes and Pharisees watched him, whether he would heal on the sabbath day; that they might find an accusation against him … Then said Jesus unto them, I will ask you one thing; Is it lawful on the sabbath days to do good, or to do evil? to save life, or to destroy it?”

    The preaching of the gospel is always confrontational. God’s servants are sent to his enemies and sent to confront them, not to coddle them, pamper them and bargain with them, but, as the ambassadors of God himself, to confront them with the claims of the sovereign Lord. There is no such thing as faith in Christ apart from surrender to Christ as Lord (Luke 14:25-33).

    We see this confrontation clearly exemplified by our Saviour in this passage. Our Lord Jesus Christ deliberately confronted the Pharisees, both by his words and his works. He always does. The Son of God always confronts sinners at their point of rebellion and demands that they surrender to him as their Lord. That is the way he dealt with both the rich young ruler (Luke 18) and the Samaritan woman (John 4). This is exactly what we see in this passage, too. Here is just one of many examples of our Lord confronting these self-righteous, religious hypocrites on the sabbath.

    Did you ever notice how often our Saviour performed his miraculous works on the sabbath day? Did you ever wonder why he chose the sabbath for so many of these displays of his omnipotent mercy? It was on the sabbath day that he healed this man’s withered arm. It was on the sabbath day that he cured the demoniac in the synagogue (Mark 1:21-28). The woman who was afflicted with an infirmity for eighteen years was cured by his mercy on the sabbath day (Luke 13:10-18). It was the sabbath day when our Lord Jesus healed the man with the dropsy (Luke 14:1-6). It was on the sabbath day that he healed the lame man by the pool of Bethesda (John 5:16). And it was on the sabbath day that he healed the man born blind (John 9:1-12).

    These things were not done on the sabbath day accidentally. They were performed on the sabbath day for the calculated purpose of our Lord to assert his claim of dominion over all things as Lord, even of the sabbath (v. 5). It was Christ himself who kept the first sabbath. It was Christ himself who gave the law of the sabbath. As a man, he became subject to the law in all things. Yet, he is Lord of the law. As such, because he is God as well as man, he cannot be put under the yoke and bondage of the law. The law does not rule the King. The King rules the law. And Christ is the King.

    The Lord Jesus chose to perform his work of mercy upon this poor, needy soul on the sabbath day in order to expose and condemn the hypocrisy and mean-spirited traditions of religious legalists. As it was in our Lord’s day, so it is in ours. There is no point at which religious legalists are more hypocritical, more bound by the religious customs and traditions of men, and more mean-spirited than in their efforts to impose and enforce sabbath laws upon men.

    The Pharisees could not answer our Lord’s question about whether it was right to do good on the Sabbath because they would not answer it, lest they expose themselves. Their intention was to accuse the Master. If he refused to heal this man, they wanted to accuse him, either of weakness and inability to heal him, or of cruelty for not healing him. Any answer they might give would have exposed them. These religious hypocrites would have preferred the man be left with an impotent arm, rather than see him healed. They were far more interested in maintaining the rigours of the law (or at least their interpretation of the law), than in relieving the needs of men. And they excused their meanness in the name of honouring God!

    Our Lord Jesus chose to perform this miracle of mercy on the sabbath to show us plainly what the true nature and purpose of the sabbath was. The sabbath day, like all other ordinances of the legal, Mosaic age, was designed and instituted to portray the gospel of Christ. It was never intended merely to be a day of religious bondage, but a day portraying the rest of faith in Christ. The sabbath was designed to show sinners how God does men good, eternal good, who deserve evil, by causing sinners to rest in Christ (Matthew 11:28-30). The sabbath was ordained to show us how God has purposed from eternity to save life by the obedience of Christ. It was a picture of Christ’s finished work and of our resting in him, ceasing from our works by faith in him.

    The Son of God chose to perform this miracle on the sabbath to display the fact that he had come to fulfil and forever put an end to the law of the sabbath (v. 9). Yes, Christ is the end of the law (Romans 10:4). He finished it, fulfilled it, and put an end to it.

    “Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days: Which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ” (Colossians 2:16, 17).

    The second thing we see in this narrative is the display of a divine attribute. “But he knew their thoughts, and said to the man which had the withered hand, Rise up, and stand forth in the midst. And he arose and stood forth” (v. 8). The Lord Jesus “knew their thoughts”. This is another of those many, many almost casual, nonchalant references given in the New Testament, by which the Holy Spirit declares the fact of our Saviour’s eternal Godhead. This man, Jesus of Nazareth, is a man; but he is more than a man. This man is the omniscient, all-knowing God (Hebrews 4:13).

    He who is our Saviour is and must be God in human flesh. It cannot be stated too emphatically or too often that Christ is, indeed, “over all God blessed forever”. Every attempt of men to compromise his absolute, eternal deity is both a denial of the gospel and blasphemy. Those who tell us that Christ is not God, absolutely God, omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent, immutable, eternal, just and holy, are not Christians, but pagans masquerading as Christians. Only one who is himself God knows, sees, and hears the thoughts of men.

    Nothing is more humbling and, at the same time, comforting and encouraging to believing hearts than our blessed Saviour’s omniscience. To the religious hypocrite, this is a terrifying thing. To the believer, it is delightful. Let us be humbled by the fact that our dear Saviour knows us inside out. Nothing is hidden from him. Yet, we ought to rejoice in this, too, our blessed Saviour knows what we really are. This was the thing that gave Peter consolation after his horrible sin. He said to the Lord Jesus, “Thou knowest that I love thee.” Our great Redeemer’s name is Jehovah-Jireh, “The Lord will see.” “The Lord will provide.” “The Lord will be seen.”

    The third thing we see in this passage is an effectual command. The Lord Jesus, we read, “said to the man which had the withered hand, Rise up, and stand forth in the midst. And he arose and stood forth ... And looking round about upon them all, he said unto the man, Stretch forth thy hand. And he did so: and his hand was restored whole as the other” (vv. 8, 10).

    Unlike the pretended miracles of Papists and Pentecostals, our Lord’s miraculous works were performed in broad daylight, performed upon people everyone present knew were impotent, and performed in the most public manner possible. He was not a pretend healer. He is the Healer. But the message of our text is not about the healing of a man’s withered hand. The healing of this man’s withered hand was a miracle performed by our Lord to portray the far greater miracle of grace he performs upon chosen sinners, when he saves us by his omnipotent mercy! The healing of this man is a most instructive picture of the almighty, effectual call and irresistible grace of God, by which we are brought from death to life in Christ. Look at it ...

    “He said to the man with the withered hand”. Here is a particular, personal call. It is written, “He calleth his own sheep by name.” This was also a discriminating, distinguishing call. We have no idea how many others were present, or with what needs they had come. But Luke tells us plainly that on this occasion the Master called none but this man alone. How we ought to thank God for his special, discriminating grace (Psalm 65:4; Matthew 22:14; 1 Corinthians 4:7). Josiah Conder said it well,

    ’Tis not that I did choose Thee,

    For Lord that could not be.

    This heart would still refuse Thee,

    Hadst Thou not chosen me!

    Next, the Lord Jesus called this man to do what he had absolutely no ability to do. The Master issued an impossible command. He said to the man with a dried up, withered, paralyzed arm, “Stretch forth thy hand.” If he could stretch forth his hand, he would not have been there.

    I stress this point, because men often tell us, “If the sinner has no ability to repent and believe the gospel, he cannot be called to do so.” Such attempts to deny the gospel of Christ simply will not hold water. The Lord Jesus commanded this man to stretch forth his withered hand.

    “And he did so: and his hand was restored whole as the other.” How can this be? Find out the answer and you will find out how spiritually dead sinners arise from the dead and flee to Christ. This man did not stretch forth his hand by the mere exercise of his will. He did not just decide to stretch forth his hand. He did not just muster the power from within himself to stretch forth his hand. But he did stretch forth his hand. How? The answer is found in Luke 18:26, 27. God who issued the command gave power to obey the command; and he stretched forth his hand.

    By preaching the gospel, spiritually dead sinners are called to arise from the dead, to stretch forth their withered hands, and lay hold of Christ by faith. Any sinner who obeys the gospel, any sinner who believes on Christ, any sinner who rises from his spiritual grave and comes to Christ is immediately made whole and has eternal life.

    But there is a problem. No sinner can do it. Remember, the sinner is dead! He has no ability to stretch forth his hand. He has no ability to come to Christ. However, when the Lord God Almighty, by the life-giving power of his omnipotent, irresistible grace, calls the dead sinner, the sinner rises from death, stretches forth his withered hand, lays hold of Christ and is made whole.

    There is no power in preachers. When all a person hears is the voice of a preacher, he remains dead. There is no power in the preacher’s voice. But when God speaks by the gospel, there is power, life-giving, resurrection power in the call that God issues (John 5:25; 1 Thessalonians 1:4, 5; Revelation 20:6).

    We should also note the fact that this man was not made whole until he stretched forth his hand. When the Lord’s command came, this poor man, believing Christ, stretched forth his hand. He did not raise questions. He did not quibble about whether or not he could do it, whether or not the Lord had ordained it, or whether or not he would be made whole by doing it. He simply stretched forth his hand. When he did, his hand was made whole.

    “And they were filled with madness; and communed one with another what they might do to Jesus” (v. 11). The gospel of Christ and the wonders of his grace always divide people. Our Lord said, “I came not to send peace, but a sword.” And whenever the gospel is preached, whenever God does his work of grace, a division is made because of Christ. The gospel separates men, families, churches and communities. It divides light from darkness. It separates the wheat from the chaff. It divides sheep from goats. It is a savour of life unto life to some, and a savour of death unto death to others (2 Corinthians 2:14-17). On this occasion the Pharisees were enraged, the man with the withered hand was made whole and the Lord’s disciples were edified, instructed and encouraged.