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6 On another Sabbath he went into the synagogue and was teaching, and a man was there whose right hand was shriveled. 7 The Pharisees and the teachers of the law were looking for a reason to accuse Jesus, so they watched him closely to see if he would heal on the Sabbath. 8 But Jesus knew what they were thinking and said to the man with the shriveled hand, “Get up and stand in front of everyone.” So he got up and stood there. 9 Then Jesus said to them, “I ask you, which is lawful on the Sabbath: to do good or to do evil, to save life or to destroy it?” 10 He looked around at them all, and then said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He did so, and his hand was completely restored. 11 But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law were furious and began to discuss with one another what they might do to Jesus. ~ Luke 6:6-11
In Luke 6 the conflict between the teachings of the Lord Jesus and those of the Jewish religious leaders continues. The relentless commitment of the Lord Jesus to the truth continues. The Jewish religious leaders, on the other hand, had made Judaism into a religion where they taught that we can earn God's favor through our good choices. At the heart of this was the observance of the Sabbath.
The Lord Jesus did not observe the Sabbath as the Jewish religious leaders did. He observed the Sabbath in the way He intended it to be observed form the beginning. And, He saw the Sabbath observance of the Jewish religious leaders as unbiblical, and the focal point of their false religion.
The principle of rest behind the fourth command gives us an opportunity to be restored in our bodies, souls and spirits. There really aren't a lot of things we are not supposed to do on the Sabbath but work. God meant the Sabbath as a time for restoration, recreation, worship, and fellowship.
But the Rabbis through the centuries had embellished that simple command of rest with all kinds of rituals, regulations and laws. In fact, they had made it the worst day of the week. Most, in that day, viewed the Sabbath as the most difficult and most wearying day of the week because the religious leaders had added to it so many prescriptions that had to be observed.
In v.6-11 we see that the Lord Jesus paid absolutely no attention to the rules, rituals, and regulations of the Jewish religious leaders. In John 5:18 John writes, "For this cause the Jews were seeking all the more to kill Him because He was not only breaking the Sabbath but was also calling God His own Father, making Himself equal with God."
The combination of supposed Sabbath violation and calling Himself Lord and God infuriated the religious leaders and led to His execution. This, of course, played right into the hand of the Lord Jesus because He came to earth to redeem mankind through His cross.
In Luke 6:6 we read, "It came about on another Sabbath." Here, again, Luke is tracing the movements of the Lord Jesus on another Sabbath because this was the primary way He challenged the religion of the Jewish religious leaders.
At this point, the Lord Jesus is probably still in Galilee. As indicated in v.6, He is teaching in the synagogue the gospel, the good news that the poor, the prisoner, the blind, and the oppressed could be forgiven and set free from all their guilt and shame. This freedom yields a meaningful life through a personal relationship with God and the hope of eternal life.
At the end of v.6, we read, "And a man was there whose right hand was shriveled." Luke is the only Gospel writer who identifies the man's right hand. The word "shriveled" describes a hand that had atrophied from paralysis.
In v.7 we read, "The Pharisees and the teachers of the law were looking for a reason to accuse Jesus, so they watched him closely to see if he would heal on the Sabbath." The religious leaders missed the true identity of the Lord Jesus because they were watching Him with no objectivity. They did this because they, at some point, had begun defining themselves and their world for themselves. Had they followed God's definitions, they would have known the Lord Jesus as Messiah from the get go.
In v.8 we read, "But Jesus knew what they were thinking and said to the man with the shriveled hand, “Get up and stand in front of everyone.” So he got up and stood there." The Lord Jesus always knows what is in the mind of all people because He's God and He has omniscience.
At this point the Lord Jesus stops teaching, having read the minds of the religious leaders, and He said to the man with the withered hand, "Get up and stand in front of everyone." This was a man who wasn't on the brink of death, he could have waited till the next day, Sunday, but the Lord Jesus seized the moment to rattle the cage of the hard hearted on hand. This man was an object lesson to the paralyzed hearts of the religious.
Then the Lord Jesus said to the religious leaders in v.9, "I ask you, which is lawful on the Sabbath: to do good or to do evil, to save life or to destroy it?" The Lord Jesus always asks the question that can't be answered. The religious leaders can't answer the question. If they say, "It's lawful to help someone," then they would affirm that the Lord Jesus could heal the man and He wouldn't violate the Sabbath and they've got no accusation because they've just given Him official authorization.
On the other hand, if they say, "Well no, it's lawful to do evil and destroy somebody," they have just revealed their merciless, wicked hearts and they can't do that either. The Lord Jesus pretty much made a career out of asking them questions they could never answer. Either they had to affirm Jesus, or condemn themselves.
In v.10, the Lord Jesus heals the man after asking him to stretch out his hand. And, in v.11 the religious leaders embrace their paralysis even more. Their's was a rules based religion, and the Lord Jesus is trying to get them to see that with God, the relationship is the goal. Not at the expense of the truth, but His goal is always to reach the paralyzed heart of the sinner trapped by the faulty definitions of the evil one.
When we get legalistic about the law, in our zeal to obey God, we sometimes blindly accomplish exactly the opposite of what God intends. When we start focusing on the law, we miss the people that the law was supposed to help. You see, the law was never intended to be an end in itself, the law was only given as a guideline to help show love to God and to one another.
Christianity is not about our our ability to measure up to the law, it's about our intimacy with God and with one another. Once we get that right, we begin to realize that we can live with our imperfections, flaws, and brokenness because God lives with these in us. These are the things that go into the ingredients of spirituality.
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