The
Gospel According to Mark
Chapter
2:27-28
27
And he said to them, The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for
the Sabbath.
28
Wherefore the Son of man is Lord, even of the Sabbath.
“ 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
labor, 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 divine pleasures,
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 by Me, 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.” - Thomas Coke - Theologian
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