Mark 2:27

In their ignorant zeal, under a thin veneer of piety, they had made the sabbath a yoke of bondage too heavy to carry. The Lord declared with full authority, "The sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath." God set up that seventh-day rest to bless man, not to punish him.

The Lord declared that the sabbath was made not for Israel only, but for man. The sabbath was indeed a special sign that Israel was the nation of Jehovah. But it also existed before Israel's day, even though God laid on Israel the duty of keeping the seventh day holy… At Sinai, then, Israel received what had been the sabbath of Jehovah from the beginning. In its original scope it took in all mankind.

The sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath. It was in man's best interests to have a day in the week when he could rest. Yet often he will not rest unless he is almost forced to. God was seeking the blessing of man in providing him with one day of rest during the week. Now the Pharisees were turning it into a virtual curse for man by their rigid traditions.

In raising the question of the sabbath, the Pharisees show great zeal for keeping a day outwardly. Yet they care nothing that the Lord of the sabbath and His disciples were left hungry. They claimed to be glorifying God at the very moment they were rejecting His witness. The Lord exposes their unreality by recalling the history of David and his companions, who in the day of their rejection were left hungry. When God's anointed was rejected, hunted and hungry, the holy bread lost its value in His sight. So no sin was committed, though David and his companions acted against the letter of the law in eating it. So with the sabbath: it was for the blessing of men, and not for increasing the sufferings of hungry men.

Could God say, I am greater than a moral commandment? Would that be a divine way of putting things if it were a question of hating a brother or coveting another man's wife? Such a thought would revolt us at once. But that is the Lord's reasoning about the sabbath… Besides, the Son of man was Lord of the sabbath. Surely this could not be said of a commandment about right and wrong! He had a title to dispose of the sabbath, through the dignity of His person and office.

"The sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath." This, after all, was a very wonderful truth. But when we get Christ, truths come out. He is the God who made it, and the Man who takes up the blessings, so He has a right to teach them. God sanctified it because He rested in it, yet it was made for man. Here was He who made it, and who was a Man… If God works and rests, even in His own delight, it is for man.