Discovering the New Covenant by Greg Taylor - exAdventist Outreach

THE SABBATH IN THE GOSPELS
He began to say to them, “Today this Scripture is
fulfilled in your hearing.” Luke 4:16-21
Jesus not only claimed to be the Messiah in this
statement, but He called himself the Jubilee! Jesus called
Himself the Ultimate Sabbath! He was claiming to be the
Messiah and the Sabbath personified. The people knew
exactly what He was claiming! They tried to kill Him for it.
Can Jesus be any more clear about who He is? The Sabbath
is a Person! 1
I became even more excited as I read the verses and
the chapters that followed. Jesus cast out demons, healed
the sick, cleansed lepers, and forgave sins, all Jubilee
activities! Finally, on the second Sabbath, as He was going
through the grainfields plucking and eating grain, the
Pharisees showed up. Jesus was doing what was part of the
instruction on how people were to eat during the year of
Jubilee! Eat out of the fields! As I read all of these things, it
was like the blinders were falling off of my eyes. I was
seeing a Jesus who was making an intentional claim to be
the Sabbath personified.
The Gospel of John relates a story that underscores this
understanding. In John 5 we read the story of the man Jesus
healed by the pool of Bethesda. He instructed the man to
“rise, take up his bed, and walk.” The religious leaders are
particularly disturbed by this because it is in direct
violation of the Old Covenant Sabbath laws. It is also
problematic for modern day sabbatarians because here
Jesus commands a man to break a biblical law, not a
Rabbinic law. The Old Covenant was clear that carrying a
burden on the Sabbath was strictly forbidden and
punishable by death. 2 Yet Jesus ignores this and actually
commands the man to ignore it as well. The religious
1 Clay Peck, New Covenant Christians (Grace Place publications,
Berthoud Colorado, 1998) pp 79-88.
2 See Numbers 15:32-36, Nehemiah 13:19, and Jeremiah 17:21-22.
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