GOD’S WORD FOR YOU
LUKE 6:6-9
Jesus Heals a Man With a Withered Hand
(Matthew 12:9-15; Mark 3:1-6)
6 On another Sabbath he went into the synagogue and taught. A man was there whose right hand was withered.
The Greek xeros (ξηρός) means “dry” or “paralyzed,” but “withered” is probably a better translation here, as many translations prefer. The physician Galen uses the word for a wasting disease. Whatever the illness, the man could no longer use his hand.
7 The teachers of the law and the Pharisees were watching him closely, to see if he would heal on the Sabbath, because they wanted to find a reason to accuse him.
The word translated “watching closely” contains the preposition para, “on the side, covertly.” This sneakiness was going on during the whole time that Jesus was teaching, and we get the impression that it was going on all throughout the three years of his ministry.
8 But Jesus knew their thoughts. He said to the man with the withered hand, “Get up and stand in front of everyone.” He got up and stood there. 9 Then Jesus said to them, “I ask you, what is it lawful on the Sabbath, to do good or to do evil, to save life or to destroy it?”
Once again, Jesus was being challenged by the Pharisees. Earlier, they had questioned his power to forgive sins (5:21). Then they questioned his practice of associating with tax collectors and sinners (5:30). Then they questioned whether his disciples were working on the Sabbath when they were rubbing heads of grain in order to eat them (6:1-5). Now, the question was whether or not Jesus himself was working on the Sabbath when he healed.
Jesus’ question cuts right to the point of what they were thinking: It is lawful to heal someone on the Sabbath? Is it more lawful to save life or to destroy it?
This was a question that had also been asked in the days of the Maccabean revolt, about 168 BC. Syrian oppressors sent a patrol of soldiers to the village of Modin to force the people to sacrifice to an idol. A retired priest named Mattathias refused, but was so shocked to see another Jew about to comply that he killed the Jew and the captain of the Syrian patrol. He and his sons fled into the hills and were joined by hundreds of other Jews. One of the groups refused to fight on a Sabbath day, and were slaughtered along with their wives and children, about a thousand people in all (1 Maccabees 2:32-38). It was then that Mattathias and his sons decided that it was better to fight even on a Sabbath day than be killed by pagans who wanted them to commit idolatry (1 Maccabees 1:41). So they—the spiritual ancestors of the Pharisees—had decided that it was more lawful to kill on a Sabbath day than to be killed. Jesus was asking, it is more lawful to heal than to kill?
The Pharisees Jesus was speaking to had been profoundly influenced by the Maccabean revolution. Their insistence on outward holiness was fueled by the persecution and pressure the Jews had come under in those days, to conform to the religion of the invaders. But their pendulum had swung too far. They had left the path of God’s law and they were insisting on man-made interpretations of God’s law. What was once said about the Syrian oppression could now be said about the Pharisees themselves: “A man could not keep the Sabbath, nor observe the feasts of his fathers, nor so much as confess himself to be a Jew” (2 Macc. 6:6) without falling under the scrutiny of the Pharisees and their oppressive additions to God’s law.
We will understand the flaw in the Pharisees’ additional rules (still imposed on Rabbinic Jews today) when we remind ourselves of the purpose of God’s law in the first place. In its primary sense, the law is that part of the word of God that does not apply to faith:
1. The law demands perfect obedience on the part of man (Galatians 3:12).
2. The law pronounces a curse on all who transgress it (to transgress is to “cross the line” of the law, Galatians 3:10).
3. The law silences the world and holds it accountable to God (Romans 3:19).
4. The law makes mankind conscious of sin (Romans 3:20).
The oral law of the Pharisees imposed a false righteousness on top of God’s word. Rather than emphasizing the need for God’s promised Savior, the Pharisees wanted to turn every man into his own savior. This is a danger even with some Christians today who want to impose a morality on themselves that they must keep in order to be saved. But the law of God tells us something different. The law—God’s true law—tells us that there is nothing we can do to save ourselves. This isn’t meant to make us despair and give up on God, but to make us despair and give up on ourselves. It’s meant to turn us only toward Christ, who is our only rescue from sin.
This is enough for today.
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
Archives by Wisconsin Lutheran Chapel: http://www.wlchapel.org/worship/daily-devotion/
Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, New Ulm, Minnesota