Controversy on the Sabbath

Jesus didn’t shy away from controversy. In fact, there were times when he initiated it. One such occasion occurred in a synagogue on the Sabbath. Jesus stood before them all and posed the question, “Is it lawful to do good on the Sabbath or to do evil, to save life or to kill?” The silence of the Pharisees and their subsequent murderous plotting spoke volumes. Let’s see what we can learn about this brief account from Charles Spurgeon in the Spurgeon Study Bible.

Mark 3:1–6

“Jesus entered the synagogue again, and a man was there who had a shriveled hand. In order to accuse him, they were watching him closely to see whether he would heal him on the Sabbath. He told the man with the shriveled hand, “Stand before us.” Then he said to them, “Is it lawful to do good on the Sabbath or to do evil, to save life or to kill?” But they were silent. After looking around at them with anger, he was grieved at the hardness of their hearts and told the man, “Stretch out your hand.” So he stretched it out, and his hand was restored. Immediately the Pharisees went out and started plotting with the Herodians against him, how they might kill him.”

Spurgeon’s Comments on the Controversy

After looking around at them with anger, he was grieved at the hardness of their hearts and told the man, ‘Stretch out your hand.’” A man was present in the synagogue who had a shriveled hand. In the same synagogue was the Savior, ready to restore to that hand all its known force. What a fortunate meeting!

The Pharisees sat watching Jesus, not to be delighted by an act of his power but to find something for which they might accuse him. When it was all over, the most they would be able to allege would be that Jesus had healed a shriveled hand on the Sabbath.

The Savior put plainly before them the question, “Is it lawful to do good on the Sabbath or to do evil?” The question only allowed one reply. But they declined to answer one of the simplest questions in morals. They had looked on him; now he looked on them. In that look were two things: anger and grief—indignation and inward sorrow. Jesus was angry that they should willingly blind their eyes to a truth so plain. He had put to them a question to which there could only be one answer, and they would not give it.

Mingled with his anger was grief. He was heartbroken because of “the hardness of their hearts.” Their blind enmity grieved him because it was securing their own destruction. But his anger ended with that look; he spoke no word of rebuke. Jesus did not speak a word, and yet he said more without words than another person could have said with words. He saved his words for the man with the shriveled hand: “Stretch out your hand.”

What a disgrace to our race, for people to be so inhuman as to wish to see a fellow human being remain deformed and to dare to blame the gentle physician who was about to make him perfectly whole! Humans indeed are at enmity with God when they find an argument for hate in a deed of love.

Keep Reading the Spurgeon Study Bible

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