The Pulpit Commentary — Matthew — Volume 1 — Section 501

Lord, were ae guiltless ae the priests engaged in their temple duties. 3. The error of lhe Pharisees. It was the common error of formalists and hypocrites. They cared more for the letter of the Law than for the Rpirit, more for the outward ordinance than for the spiritual principle which is embodied ia the ordinance. The Lord refers them again to that deep saying of the Prophet Hosea, which he had already quoted (eh. ix. 13), when they blamed him for eating with publicans and sinners. Then he bade them go and learn its spiritual meaning. 'l'hey had not done so; they were ae ignorant as ever; well read in the letter of the Scriptures, but utterly ignorant of those great sad holy truths which are often hidden from the wise and prudent, but by the grace of God revealed unto babes. They transposed the Divine order of things; they put the letter above the spirit, outward forms above the inner worship of the heart, sacrifice above mercy. They came to Christ, but it was to vex and persecute him, to mis- interpret his words, to find opportunity to kill him; not to learn those holy lessons which he teaches to his true disciples. Guilty themselves, they condemned the guilt- less. Mercy is better than sacrifice. Sacrifice is good, but mercy is better. It is good to observe all the outward ordinances of religion; they are precious helps, ordained of God. But they cease to be good if we forget that they are only helps; if we trust in them while we break the higher law of charity. To condemn the guiltless is a grievous sin; to speak evil of our neighbours, especially of those who are following Christ in sincerity, though they may perhaps differ from us in many things, is a crime in the sight of God. To come to God's house with uncharitable intentions, to spy, to find fault, to misrepresent, is the sin of the Pharisees, for which the Lord rebuked them. 4. The Lord's authority. The Son of man, he said, is Lord even of the sabbath day. The Pharisees exalted the sabbath in a way which destroyed its real meaning. The sabbath was made for man; for his spiritual necessities; for rest from worldly labour, that he might give himself to worship and to the care of his soul. The salvation of man was of infinitely greater importance than the outward observance of the sabbath. That was the great end; the eabbath was one of the appointed means; it was made for man, not man for the sabbath. The Son of man, the Representative of humanity, the Son of God, who had become the Son of man for man's peace aud salvation, was.Lord of the eabbath. He might put aside the traditions of the Pharisees, their rigorous formalisms, for the sake of suffering humanity. He is Lord o.er the ordinances of the sabbath day. Those ordinances belonged to the ceremonial law; they were a shadow of things to come (Col. ii. 16, 17), a preparatory discipline. "In this," says Stier, "Christ has shown himself to be Lord of the eabbath for his Church, for the new bumaaity in him ; that he has changed the day from the end of the old-world week, which passed away for ever with the still eabbath of his grave, to the beginning, with which an entirely new state of things commenced; and thus has made the day peculiarly his own, the Lord's day, and has united to the remembrance of the first creation, whose sabbath was broken and rendered servile by sin, the praise of the new creation, effected by him who became a Son of man for man's sake." II. WORKS OF MERCY. 1. The question of the Pharisees. Another sabbath had come (Luke vi. 6), and the Lord, as he was wont, attended the synagogue-worship. lt was !heir synagogue; those very men who had beea doggia~ his steps, who had so lately accused his disciples, were its rulers and elders. 'l'he Lord was not like some men nowadays, who absent themselves from church because they have, or fancy they have, some quarrel with the minister. The church is the house of God; we go there to worship God. No earthly motives should be allowed to keep us from it, or to influence our thoughts when we are there. In the congregation on that day was a man with a withered hand; it hung useless by his side. The Pharisees pointed him out to Christ, not in sympathy for the poor man, but in h:1.tred of the Lord. Their hearts were Cull of malice. In the very house or God, on the sabbath which they affected to vinuicate, they sought to t-nsnare to bis destruction One who had done nought but good. "Is it lawful to heal on the eabbath days?" they a,;ked him, seek- ing not instruction, but an opportunity or accusing the holy Saviour. Blinded as they were by iheir malice, they did not understand that no profanation of the sabbath is worse in the e:ght of God than evil thoughts, malicious designs; no crime could be darker than to try to compass the death of One most holy, most merciful, auu that aD1ong sacred aRsociations, on the day which God had hallowed. 2. The answer. The MATTHEW. 2 II:  4V8 TilE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. MATTHEW. (OH, XIL 1-110,