No 33

The Trinity (Jesus, the Sabbath and His Miracles)

In the three synoptic Gospels, the Lord Jesus Christ declared Himself that He was the Lord of the Sabbath. He performed many miracles on the Sabbath day and His disciples did things that were contrary to the Sabbath tradition, such as plucking ears of corn and eating them. As we saw in study # E107, the Sabbath is sacred for the Jewish people. In Israel today, the elevators in some of the large hotels stop at every floor because pressing the button for the floor you want to get to is considered work. A person cannot drive a car on the Sabbath day as we saw in study # E239. This type of zealous behaviour was present when Jesus was on earth.

Jesus performed 6 miracles on the Sabbath day in the four Gospels: the withered hand, the woman with the blood disease, the man who had the dropsy, the crippled man whose bed was placed in front of Jesus from the roof, a miracle in John 7 but no details are given and the last miracle was the blind man who was healed of his blindness when Jesus made clay and asked him to go and wash himself in the pool of Silome. Were these miracles done to spite the Pharisees because of their traditions? The Bible does not give us this answer but maybe Jesus wanted to show the ruling religious elite that the law and the traditions of the Old Testament were on the way out. Did these miracles achieve anything with regards to the Pharisees? No and as a matter of fact these miracles only made the Pharisees hate Him more.

Jesus did many, many other miraculous events and as surprising as it seems they did not have that great an impact on the Pharisees and the general population; of course, those who were healed were affected but other than that, the Jews were either envious of Jesus or were not ready to give up their way of living to follow Him. In the Gospel of John, Jesus said to the Jews “But if I do, though ye believe not me, believe the works: that ye may know, and believe, that the Father is in me, and I in him.” (10:38). He had just told them that He was the Son of God and the people wanted to stone Him (v31). Jesus always gave the glory to God. We also read in John 12:37 “But though he had done so many miracles before them, yet they believed not on him:” Even His own disciples had their apprehensions about His miracles. We read in Mark 4:41 “And they feared exceedingly, and said one to another, what manner of man is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?” And in Matthew 14:26, we read “And when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were troubled, saying, It is a spirit; and they cried out for fear.” All these events were of a miraculous nature and the greatest miracle of all is when He arose from the dead. The miracles helped to prove Jesus’ divine authority but the true test of faith came when Jesus said “And he said, Therefore said I unto you, that no man can come unto me, except it were given unto him of my Father.” To which some of His followers reacted “ From that time many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him” (John 6: 65, 66). There is a price to pay to follow Jesus but peace, joy and hope are the rewards.