Nine Commandments Are Moral, One Is Ceremonial

Objection:

The fourth command of the Ten Commandments is ceremonial, but the other nine are moral. That is clearly proved by the fact that Jesus, according to the strictest Sabbatarians of His day, broke the fourth commandment and was criticized by them for doing so. Furthermore, Jesus distinctly says, “The priests in the temple profane the Sabbath, and are blameless” (Matthew 12:5). Would He have dared to say this if the fourth commandment were a moral law? Could the seventh commandment, or any other of the ten except the fourth, be broken by the priests, and the fact that they were broken in the temple make them blameless?”

Answer:

We want to ask two questions:

1. If Christ broke the fourth commandment, then why did He say, “I have kept my Father’s commandments?” (See John 15:10).
2. The Sabbath objector says that “the law,” both moral and ceremonial, was in force until the cross. Then if Christ broke the Sabbath commandment, was He not a sinner? There is only one answer. But we know that Christ did no sin; therefore, there must be something wrong with the reasoning in the objection before us.

What proof is offered that Jesus “broke the fourth commandment”? An inspired declaration of Holy Writ? No, only the charge of the “strictest Sabbatarians of His day.”

On a certain Sabbath day, while our Lord was in a synagogue, a man with a withered hand came before Him. Divining that Christ might plan to heal the disabled person, some “strict Sabbatarians” asked the Master: “Is it lawful to heal on the sabbath days? that they might accuse him. And he said unto them, What man shall there be among you, that shall have one sheep, and if it fall into a pit on the sabbath day, will he not lay hold on it, and lift it out? How much then is a man better than a sheep? Wherefore it is lawful to do well on the sabbath days.” Matthew 12:10-12. At which point, He immediately healed the disabled person. “Then the Pharisees went out, and held a council against him, how they might destroy him.” Verse 14.

Another instance of Christ’s healing on the Sabbath is recorded in John 5:2-18. In verse 18, we read that the Jews judged that Christ “had broken the Sabbath.”

Here we see the charge of the “strictest Sabbatarians” in its Scriptural setting. Yet the Sabbath objector evidently considers this charge to be sufficient ground for saying that Christ “broke the fourth commandment.” Incredible!

We believe the incident of the healing of the disabled man proves the very opposite of what some people allege it does, as the following questions will reveal:

1. If Christ considered the fourth commandment simply ceremonial, was this not an excellent opportunity for Him to discourse upon the distinction between ceremonial and moral precepts? Present-day Sabbath opposers surely would have done so, for here they argue that very point, insisting that it was proper to break the fourth commandment because it was ceremonial, but that it would have been sin to break any other of the ten because they were moral. But Christ did not use any such reasoning.
2. Note the question asked of Christ: “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath days?” When the Samaritan woman at the well asked Christ where men should worship, a question that through the long past years had had genuine importance, He dismissed it summarily by informing her that the time was at hand when the question no longer had significance. If Christ was soon to abolish the Sabbath law on the cross, would we not expect Him to dismiss, in a similar fashion, the question the “strictest Sabbatarians” had posed? Instead, He gave no hint of impending abolition but replied, “It is lawful to do well on the Sabbath days.”

There is no suggestion that He considered He was breaking the Sabbath. Instead, He was interpreting its true meaning. Nor is there anything in His interpretation, or His miraculous action that followed, that warrants the conclusion that the Sabbath rests on a ceremonial law. It is always lawful to “do well” concerning moral laws.

But it is alleged that the Sabbath is ceremonial because Christ declared that the priests “profane the Sabbath, and are blameless.” His reference to the priests was offered to illustrate His statement that “it is lawful to do well on the Sabbath days.” Christ’s adversaries were contending that He and His disciples profaned the Sabbath by engaging in some form of work on the Sabbath. He reminded them that the priests also worked on the Sabbath and were blameless. Even the “strictest Sabbatarians” would agree that what the priests did on the Sabbath, in harmony with “the law,” was “lawful,” even though the priests each Sabbath had to engage in the work of slaying and offering sacrifices.

Christ’s use of the word “profane” must be understood in the context of the controversy. His reasoning appears to be this: If His and His disciples’ deeds were profanations of the Sabbath, then by the same token, the deeds of the priests were profanation. To contend that Christ meant that the priests, whose Sabbath deeds of sacrificing were done in harmony with the law, did, in truth, desecrate the Sabbath, would lead to an impossible conclusion. Christ would be saying that God gave a holy law to guard the Sabbath’s sacredness and then gave Moses another law that resulted in the desecration of the Sabbath every week! Those who wish to may hold this conclusion. We certainly do not.

The Sabbath commandment, like the other commands in the Ten Commandments, is relatively brief. It sets down the principle that men should refrain from all their own labors on the seventh day. But the God who gave the law also revealed—for example, through other directions given to Moses and Christ’s words—just how the Sabbath command should be understood and how it is related to other aspects of life. But that does not warrant the conclusion that the Sabbath command was therefore ceremonial. Commandments that the Sabbath objector admits are moral sometimes need interpretation to enable a person to know how to carry out the real intent of those commands under differing circumstances. For example, the fifth commandment makes the unqualified statement that children should honor their parents. And in Oriental lands, that would be understood in a most far-reaching sense. But what if the parents were heathen, a situation that began to present itself when Christianity was preached to the Roman world? Paul, who quotes the opening words of the command, places it with this obvious interpretation: “Children, obey your parents in the Lord: for this is right.” Ephesians 6:1. That permitted them to disobey the command of a heathen parent if that command was contrary to the standards of Christ. The eighth commandment reads, “Thou shall not steal.” Was ever a command more unquestionably moral! But is it possible that what man might consider a violation of that command, God might not?

Evidently, Moses was instructed to tell the people that someone going through someone else’s field could satisfy his hunger by eating to the full. However, he must not carry anything away (See Deuteronomy 23:24-25). Did a hungry person, by eating his neighbor’s grapes thus flout, or profane, the law against stealing? No. Why? Because the God who gave the law declared that such eating was in harmony with the law, the “strictest” honesty advocates notwithstanding. The same is true of the Sabbath command. Neither Christ nor the priests violated or vitiated the Sabbath command because the God who gave the command also declared that the work of the priests and Christ were “lawful” on that day.

The Sabbath objector may take his choice: either assert that the fourth command is ceremonial, which logically calls for the eighth command to be considered ceremonial also, or admit that the eighth is moral, which logically calls for the fourth to be also. But he is already on record as affirming that all the commands of the Ten Commandments are moral, except the fourth. Consistency calls for him to include it also.