Jesus of Nazareth

by Gerhard Lohfink

  Jesus against the Third Commandment?

  The case is similar with regard to the Sabbath question, much discussed among scholars. The gospels offer us a whole series of texts in which Jesus appears to offend against the third commandment by healing on the Sabbath or allowing his disciples to break the Sabbath commandment. More precisely, these appear to be offenses against the third commandment as it was interpreted in his time by important groups within Judaism. The following texts are relevant:

  the man with the withered hand (Mark 3:1-6)

  the bent-over woman (Luke 13:10-17)

  the man with dropsy (Luke 14:1-6)

  the lame man at the pool of Beth-zatha (John 5:1-18)

  the man born blind (John 9:1-41)

  plucking grain on the Sabbath (Mark 2:23-28)

  It would not make much sense here to go into the details of how healing on the Sabbath was regarded in Jesus’ time by the various groups within Israel—especially the Qumran community and the Pharisaic groups. It is evident that on particular occasions Jesus offended against the casuistic rules of these groups. The question is only whether his intention in doing so was to flout the third commandment, or even to abolish it.

  Obviously not! The answer here must be exactly the same as in the case of the fourth commandment that presented itself in connection with Luke 9:59-60. For Jesus the first commandment is the absolute center of his thought and action, together with what that commandment wants to emphasize: the absolute uniqueness and preeminence of God over everything else, realized for Jesus in the reign of God now dawning. Therefore Jesus had to heal sick people even on the Sabbath, and therefore he could not delay the healing until the next day, because the reign of God is advancing rapidly, and that people in Israel are made whole is precisely a sign of the reign of God now becoming reality. With his Sabbath healings Jesus does not abolish the third commandment, but he gives greater weight in these cases to the first commandment.

  It cannot be objected against this interpretation that in the texts mentioned Jesus never gives the approaching reign of God as a reason for his offenses against the Pharisees’ interpretation of the Torah, because if we look more closely we can see that this reasoning is actually present. Luke 13:10-17 tells of the healing of a woman whose back has been bent for eighteen years, so that she can no longer stand up straight. Jesus heals the woman on the Sabbath, and in the synagogue to boot. The leader of the synagogue becomes indignant at this and says to those present, “There are six days on which work ought to be done; come on those days and be cured, and not on the sabbath day” (Luke 13:14). The fact that a bent woman has been healed is to him a minor matter compared to the offense against the Sabbath. Healing is work, and no work may be done on the Sabbath. There are six other days in the week for therapeutic actions.

  How does Jesus justify himself? He calls this form of interpretation of the biblical Sabbath commandment pure hypocrisy, since, after all, those attending the synagogue untie their household animals from their stanchions on the Sabbath and lead them to water. That is, they untie knots, they release animals—and yet he should not be allowed to free a poor woman who has been fettered and tied down by Satan for many years? Thus the point of comparison is not leading to water but untying knots.33 Jesus answers the legal casuistry that clings to words with a skillful counter-casuistry: “And ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen long years, be set free from this bondage on the sabbath day?” (Luke 13:16).

  But Jesus does more than simply reveal the contradictions in the casuistic interpretation of the Law. His own argument goes much deeper. He calls the woman “a daughter of Abraham.” That is: she is part of the chosen people of God, a representative of Israel. As such she has been bound by Satan for eighteen years, and as such she is now freed from her bonds. No, she is not only freed, she “must” be set free. The phrase “reign of God” is not spoken, but it is quite obvious that it is precisely what is at stake here: the reign of God is happening now, God is becoming Lord in Israel now, Satan is being bound now, and now the people in Israel are being freed from the fetters with which they have been held bound. It is Jesus himself who forces his way into the “house of the strong man” and binds him (Matt 12:29). If we look closely we see that Jesus’ Sabbath healings have a great deal to do with his proclamation of the reign of God. God will now become Lord in Israel once and for all, and the spread of the reign of God cannot be delayed for any reason.

  We also need to ask ourselves why Jesus’ disciples were plucking and eating ears of grain on the Sabbath, of all days. Obviously it was because they were hungry (cf. Mark 2:25). And why? Is not the background here the insecurity of Jesus’ and his disciples’ itinerant existence in service of the reign of God? Jesus’ disciples, like himself, were dependent on people who would take them into their houses in the evenings and give them something to eat. But they did not always find houses open to them, and the labor for the Gospel did not always leave them time to think of eating at all. In this connection we need to take seriously what Mark writes, “Then he went [into a house]; and the crowd came together again, so that they [Jesus and his disciples] could not even eat” (Mark 3:19-20). The story about plucking ears of grain presumes such a situation of completely insecure itinerant existence in which no planning was possible. The plucking of grain was not a game; it was done out of necessity, because of the hardship of existence for the reign of God. But that means that this breach of Sabbath rules is firmly connected to the proclamation of the reign of God. Here again, the first commandment has greater weight than the third as it was then interpreted.

  Clean and Unclean

  But there is a text that sharpens the question of Jesus’ relationship to the Torah still further. In Mark 7:15 we find a saying of Jesus that really does give the impression that here an important part of the Torah, namely, the whole of the laws regarding what is clean and what is unclean, is being declared invalid. It reads, “there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile.” The Lutheran theologian Ernst Käsemann (1906–1998) commented on this passage: “The man who denies that impurity from external sources can penetrate into man’s essential being is striking at the presuppositions and the plain verbal sense of the Torah and at the authority of Moses himself. Over and above that, he is striking at the presuppositions of the whole classical conception of cultus with its sacrificial and expiatory system.”34 He concludes from this that a Jew who speaks this way “has cut himself off from the community of Judaism”—or else he is the Messiah and brings “the Messianic Torah.”35 Against this, of course, one must point out that there is no such thing as a separate “Messianic Torah” in Judaism. The Messiah is the model of fulfilling the Torah of Moses. He serves it. He interprets it. He sees to it that it is obeyed everywhere, but he does not promulgate a Torah of his own.36 Of the alternatives Käsemann proposes, then, only one is possible: Jesus had “cut himself off from the community of Judaism.” But did he really? Does what Jesus says in Mark 7:15 permit that conclusion? Let us look more closely!

  Mark (or the tradition Mark used) locates the logion in this context: some Pharisees and scribes from Jerusalem observe that Jesus’ disciples do not ritually wash their hands before eating and thus also make the food they eat unclean. The disciples do not obey the prescriptions regarding ritual cleanness established by the community of the Pharisees. The purpose of those prescriptions was to impose the priestly Torah of clean and unclean on the whole nation. All Israel is to be a “priestly kingdom and a holy nation” (Exod 19:6). It is possible that in such a situation Jesus defended his disciples with the saying found in Mark 7:15.

  But we can imagine other situations in which Jesus might have spoken these words. He often ate with people who most certainly did not keep the Pharisaic rules of cleanness. Consider, for example, his eating with “toll collectors and sinners” (Mark 2:15). Probably there was little regard for ritual questions of cleanness and uncl
eanness in such circles. In the eyes of the Pharisees, or of people who lived according to the Pharisaic interpretation of the Law, Jesus made himself unclean by entering into such a table community and thus exposed himself to hostile attacks. The saying could come out of a context like that as well. In that case it is not a fundamental rejection of the Torah of cleanness and uncleanness but subordinates that aspect of Torah to the love commandment and the proclamation of the reign of God.

  But there is a third possibility that seems to me by far the most probable.37 We have already seen, again and again, that particular texts in the gospels are best explained in terms of the unstable itinerant lives of Jesus and his disciples. If the disciples had been traveling all day and in the evening could be happy to be received into a house and given something to eat, they would scarcely have inquired whether the food corresponded to the Pharisaic laws for cleanness. Jesus could have legitimated such an attitude on their part with the saying in Mark 7:15. In favor of that, in any case, is his saying, “eat what is set before you” in the mission discourse (Luke 10:8). We might add: “eat what is set before you without asking if it is clean or unclean.” In any case, the Coptic Gospel of Thomas connected Jesus’ saying about “clean and unclean” with the mission discourse (GThom 14). If Mark 7:15 originated in the itinerant existence of Jesus and his disciples, it is not meant to reject the Torah of clean and unclean but rather, as we have seen in the cases of the third and fourth commandments, to set the proclamation of the reign of God ahead of every other law.

  Certainly we must admit that Mark 7:15, seen by itself, gives no hint of a concrete situation; it is formulated in basic terms and absolutely: what comes from without cannot make one unclean. Only what comes out of a person makes her or him unclean—the evil in the heart. But was Jesus, in fact, not abrogating the whole Torah of cleanness and uncleanness in Scripture when he said that?

  We can probably make more progress on this difficult question only if we compare the way Jesus dealt with other parts of the Torah. He has no thought of eliminating the Sabbath commandment, but on occasion he subordinates it to the proclamation of the reign of God. Nor is he thinking of abrogating the fourth commandment, but when necessary he subjects it to the requirements of the reign of God. And he does not intend to abolish the temple cult, but he can subordinate it to the necessity of reconciliation (Matt 5:23-24). In the same way, we can say that Jesus was not thinking of declaring the Torah of clean and unclean false and outdated. At any rate, he commanded the leper he had made clean to show himself to the priest, in accordance with Leviticus 14, and to present the sacrifice prescribed for cleansing (Mark 1:44). Nevertheless, here again we must say that Jesus had already touched lepers without the least hesitation. Apparently he always acted with great freedom. And Mark 7:15 is really formulated in very radical and basic terms. So is this, after all, an unsolvable problem?

  Probably the solution is to be sought in the same direction as in the case of the prohibition of divorce. Ultimately, Jesus appealed to God’s creative will: “So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate” (Mark 10:9). When Jesus asserts that nothing outside a person is unclean but all uncleanness comes from the human heart, the creation account could also be in the background. There we find, six times, “God saw that it was good.” And then, when God rests on the Sabbath and creation is finished, “God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good” (Gen 1:31). If the world and everything in it is made good, and if the coming of the reign of God will restore God’s original good creation, then where the reign of God is accepted nothing can be unclean. Uncleanness, then, comes about always and only through the evil that emerges from human hearts.

  If Jesus thought that way, he did not simply abolish the Old Testament Torah of clean and unclean, because it too is intended to create a holy people for God in the midst of the distorted and damaged creation. In that case he placed every command regarding clean and unclean under the sign of the good creation and brought the Torah of clean and unclean into the right light by articulating the creative will of God. We might say that then he would have been clarifying the Torah through the Torah.

  A New Law?

  Did Jesus abolish the Torah and, as a new lawgiver, establish a new law? That is the question with which this chapter began. The philosopher and martyr Justin saw it that way. Many great theologians after him saw it that way too. But we can see how questionable that idea is from the very fact that in that case the Torah is torn apart: its moral demands have not been abrogated, only its ritual laws!

  But a great deal more speaks against this position, including Matthew 5:17: “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have come not to abolish but to fulfill.” Romans 3:31 likewise speaks to the contrary: “Do we then overthrow the law by this faith? By no means! On the contrary, we uphold the law.” Finally, every sampling that has been made in this chapter speaks against it. Jesus does not abrogate the Torah or abolish it; he does not replace it with a new Torah; he interprets it.

  But he does not interpret it as the scribes do. He does not cling to the letter. He seeks the original will of God behind the letters. He sees the Torah as a whole and therefore also reaches back to the first chapters of Torah to find there the creative will of God. He sets forth the center of the Torah: the commandment about the uniqueness and sole rule of God. And by his message of the reign of God now coming he endows that commandment with historical urgency. He places the whole Torah in the light of the reign of God and subordinates all commandments to God’s reign. He combines the principal commandment with that of love of neighbor from Leviticus 19, and in doing so he gives the Torah its center or, better, he finds its center. First and last, his concern is the will of God, and he knows how easily even religious people can use external performance of the law to avoid the true will of God. And Jesus teaches all that with ultimate authority—like someone who himself stands in God’s stead. “At Sinai it was said to the congregation of Israel… but now I say to you.”

  It is understandable that Jesus has repeatedly been seen as a “new lawgiver,” but he was no such thing. He spoke about the one and only law of God, but he enunciated it as something fully new.

  It is understandable that the Sermon on the Mount was understood to be the “new Torah” of Christians. After all, the mountain itself recalls Sinai. But in reality the Sermon on the Mount is not a new Torah. How could it be, when it does not even touch so many areas of human life? Jesus does not proclaim a new law; he brings to its fulfillment the one social project of the Torah given once for all by offering examples, in the Sermon on the Mount, that show how that social project is to be understood and lived radically, that is, in terms of its roots—and that means in terms of the true will of God.

  It is understandable that people saw the love commandment, with its expansion to cover enemies, as a “new commandment.” It had to seem something completely new in the world of antiquity. But it was already in the Torah.

  It is understandable that people said that Jesus not only interpreted the Torah but transcended it. No, he did not transcend it; he found its center and so brought the whole Torah to its fulfillment.

  And it is understandable that people have said that Jesus understood “himself” as the Torah. He did, in fact, live the Torah with his whole existence; he established it irrevocably and in unsurpassable fashion in his own person. Jesus lives in union with the will of God in the ultimate sense. And yet to say that he himself is the Torah has something dangerous about it: the Torah is a social order, and a social order cannot be exhausted in a single person. It requires a people.

  The Whole Torah

  Jesus showed himself to us as the eschatological interpreter of the Torah. He comprehended the intent of the Torah as well as its dynamic. He interpreted it with an admirable sensitivity to its center. When Mark 1:22 says that he taught like one who has sovereign authority and not like the scribes, that is exactly th
e point. But does that mean that for Jesus, and accordingly for Christians, whole sections of the Torah have been sidelined by Jesus’ centralizing interpretation, indeed, that they have basically been done away with because they have been absorbed by the twofold commandment of love of God and neighbor? Here we need to exercise extreme caution.

  Obviously Jesus established a new basis for the Torah; he interpreted it definitively and thus gave it its eschatological form. But that does not mean that whole parts of the Torah were discarded like burned-out rocket stages. They were not cast off but transformed. No part of the Torah may be regarded as over and done with, certainly not as abrogated, but the whole Torah must be interpreted anew, over and over again, in light of Jesus Christ, and directed toward the will of God. Then it may certainly appear that certain parts of the Torah that at first seem strange and even comical in our eyes acquire a new meaning—or to put it in better words, they reveal the meaning intended for them from the beginning.

  To give one example: the Torah contains extensive laws for what is clean and unclean (cf., e.g., Lev 11–15). These apply primarily to the house, clothing, the body, and food. There are orders for how people who are healed of skin diseases are to be declared clean. Distinctions are made between animals that confer uncleanness and those that are clean. It is established what kinds of meat may be eaten and what kinds are not to be eaten. Is all that out of date? It seems so. After all, we have learned Jesus’ clear principle: “there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile” (Mark 7:15). But does that saying mean that Israel’s laws for cleanness and holiness are abrogated or reduced to purely ethical norms? Christian theologians have repeatedly said, in this connection, that Jesus’ distinction between “inside” and “outside” refers all external, ritual holiness from a material-prepersonal sphere to its real meaning, that is, internal, personal holiness. But we ought to be careful about such formulations, because in the New Testament even holiness separated from the external-material means decisively more than merely an inner quality of the soul or the moral person.