Painting on west wall in Dura Synagogue. Possibly a depiction of the midwives before Pharaoh, receiving order to kill the male babies. In the narrative they lie to Pharaoh and are blessed by God. - Exod 1.15-21
I derive the title of this post from John 7, where Jesus first tells a lie (7.1–10) and later defends his right to heal on the Sabbath (7.20–24; cf. 5.1–15). I would imagine, that for many readers of this post, the first of these transgressions is much more shocking than the latter. Interestingly, though, while Jesus breaks two commandments of the Decalogue he only defends himself against Sabbath breaking. In fact, the evangelist is not at all concerned that Jesus lies.
In this post, I want to briefly examine both transgressions and then offer a hypothetical retelling of the Sabbath controversy, where we replace Sabbath breaking with lying. This will be an attempt to explicate the severity of Jesus’ actions to those who are typically not troubled by Jesus’ actions on the Sabbath.
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Growing up, lying was always considered one of those absolute sins; that is, there was never a time when lying was justified. It’s a sin. Period. You don’t do it. It was also common to play the “what if” game, where we would place ourselves in difficult scenarios, which would engender a discussion about whether it was appropriate to lie or whether the truth was the appropriate response. As far as I remember, 100% of the time, no matter what situation in which we found ourselves, it was always wrong to lie. We justified this by saying that when we tell the truth, we leave matters in the hands of God.
While I am no longer an “absolutist” about the sinfulness of lying, it was still a bit shocking when I came across a lie told by Jesus. In John 7.8, Jesus tells his brothers, “I am not going to this festival, for my time has not yet fully come.” Once his brothers go off to the festival, however, we are told that “Jesus himself also went up [to the festival]” (v. 10).
Jesus certainly has his reasons for lying to his brothers; namely, that he desires to attend the festival secretly, for his time (i.e., arrest/death) has not yet come (v. 6). Regardless of the reasons, though, Jesus is portrayed as a liar. What’s more, the evangelist does not seem to be too concerned about Jesus’ lie. Rather, the evangelist is much more concerned with defending Jesus’ other sin: healing on the Sabbath (7.20–24; cf. 5.1-15; 9.1–14).
Jesus’ healing on the Sabbath was first taken up by the evangelist in ch. 5. Jesus defended his actions by stating that he will work on the Sabbath because the Father works continuously (v. 17). In ch. 7, though, Jesus takes a different approach. He defends himself by pointing out the already established rule that when the eighth day of an infants life falls on the Sabbath, it is permitted to break the Sabbath to perform circumcision. Basically, circumcision was determined by the Jewish leaders to be weightier than the Sabbath. So when these two regulations came in conflict with each other, the weightier law (in this case, circumcision) was to be observed. Jesus’ conclusion is that healing someone on the Sabbath is not a sin because deliverance from oppression is a weightier command than keeping the Sabbath.
If you are not a Jew, the fact that Jesus would break Sabbath regulations to heal someone probably does not cause you any concern. However, keeping the Sabbath has always been a hallmark of Judaism. As such, Jesus actions on the Sabbath would come across as shocking and incredible for many Jews. This was certainly true for Jesus opponents in the Gospel accounts.
So why are non-Jews less troubled by Jesus actions on the Sabbath? I can only imagine it is because there is no emotional tie to the Sabbath. Gentiles might be aware of the importance of the Sabbath for Jews but this awareness is nothing more than intellectual knowledge. The Sabbath does not significantly impact the lives of gentiles.
Lying, on the other hand, has a more significant impact. For many Christians (and Jews?) lying is a sin that is never justified. If this is the case, I would argue that if these Christians want to get a better understanding of how unimaginable Jesus’ Sabbath actions would have been to those around him, perhaps it would be worthwhile to replace “Sabbath” with “lying.” As mentioned at the beginning of the post, this is a hypothetical scenario. Nevertheless, it bears some veracity because we have already seen that Jesus does tell a lie.
If we insert “lying” in place of “Sabbath,” then in John 5 and 9 Jesus delivers a man from oppression by lying. (Perhaps a fitting scenario would be that the man is being oppressed and Jesus lies about his whereabouts in order to deliver him from his oppressors. There are certainly other occasions in the Scriptures where someone lies to deliver someone from oppression and in return are blessed by God because they are doing his will [Exod 1.15–21; Josh 2]. More recently, those who lied to protect the Jews from the Nazis would be an appropriate illustration.) To put this in an accusatory form, Jesus is a liar. If this strikes you as blasphemous, then you get the point. It would be similar to the accusatory statement, Jesus breaks the Sabbath. One might respond that, “God would never command someone to lie; thus, clearly a man who lies can not be from God.” Now your starting to react like Jesus’ opponents (9.16). For Jesus, though, his actions are not his own, but those of the Father (4.34; 5.17, 19–22, 30, 36; 8.28; 10.25, 37; 14.10; 17.4, 14). Thus, Jesus is vindicated when he breaks the Sabbath and when he lies, for God has commanded him to do both.
I’ve always noticed that passage, but it’s never shocked me. It’s always failed to shock me, not because the Sabbath is meaningless to me, but because I’ve never seen justification for the assumption that He’s lying. Many times in my life I’ve said something and then done the opposite, not because I was lying but because I changed my mind for some reason. You state matter-of-factly that “Jesus is portrayed as a liar.” So what is the justification for the assumption that that is what’s happening in this passage? I think the “fact” that “the evangelist is not at all concerned that Jesus lies” is pretty good evidence that the evangelist didn’t see Jesus’s statement as a lie.
You also state as fact that Jesus broke the Sabbath. Obviously He broke the Sabbath in the eyes of the traditionalists, but Scripture never describes Jesus anywhere as “breaking” the Sabbath. Instead it always gives the impression that Jesus was living and teaching the Sabbath’s true meaning and protecting it from the traditions of men. That seems like the opposite of “breaking” the Sabbath.
This post is a very nice explanation of your assumptions; I’m just wondering what those assumptions’ justifications are.
Thanks for this. It is important to note that the reason Jesus is not going to the festival is because his time has not fully arrived (7.8). If Jesus has changed his mind about this then we would need to see indication that he believes he time has come. But in 8.20, while Jesus is speaking at the same festival, we find out that his time has still not come, and Jesus is aware of this. So no, I don’t think this is one of those, “He wasn’t in the mood to go but now he is.” In other words, Jesus is not changing his mind; he is lying. He said that he was not going because his time had not yet come, but he ends up going even though his time had not yet come. The very thing that would have caused him to change his mind, had not happened yet in the Gospel narrative (see 17.1).
Your comment about Jesus not really breaking the Sabbath, in that he was merely breaking the traditions of men, misses the point. It is precisely in Jesus breaking the, so called, “traditions of men” that cause the animosity. For, these “men” were viewed as spokesmen of God. Thus, there was great shock value in Jesus breaking the Sabbath as it was regulated during the first century.
In the same way, there is great shock value in saying Jesus lied. I used this as a means to bridge a gap; both temporally (1st century to the 21st century) and also ethnically (Jews and Gentiles).
My point in all this, though, is really to show that Jesus’ lie is not a sin, for he is doing the will God. Just as the will of God provides the trump card for Jesus to break the established Sabbath regulations, so the will of God provides a trump card for Jesus to lie to his brothers so that he can go to the festival in secret, for his time had not yet come. This is the same rationale, by the way, behind the stories in Exod 1.15–21 and Josh 2.
Very nice, thank you for explaining. It’s very interesting. I’ve noticed those stories before, and it seems like the same rationale behind 1 Samuel 21:10-15, too. I’ve always found it interesting that Colossians 3:9 says not to lie to one another.
All definitely good food for thought.
Thanks for these other passages and the dialogue. I’ve never thought about Col 3.9. It’s similar to Eph 4.26 and 4.31. The former says “be angry and do not sin” and the latter says put away “every kind of bitterness, anger….” I think these two verses are problematic because we are so accustomed to taking the latter as an absolute. That is, we want to say there is never a time to be angry. I think it would be more helpful if these commands (lying and anger) were taking as true on a case by case scenario. Just like circumcision is permitted on the Sabbath and the Sabbath is not defiled, so lying and anger are permitted during certain situations.
Clearly, this way of thinking can be abused and taken too far, but the same is true with the “absolutist” view. I believe a balance is necessary.
The question of whether Jesus had a common ethic with the Pharisees, or not, is debated. But this issue is part of the interplay between the Pharisees and Jesus in Mt 22:35-40, isn’t it? What exactly was the test? whatever could be used against Jesus, we can be pretty sure; they perhaps didn’t care exactly what it was.
But their committee-baked question was (22:36) “what is the great commandment in the Law?” If we imagine the Law as a to-do list, the test could have been to see what Jesus would say the first priority item on a to-do list would be, and criticize that.
As an illustration of something they might have already perceived as a violation of priority, if I were a Pharisee, I would be miffed by the SM story (Mt 5:23-24) of Jesus telling the disciples to drop their offering at the altar and get reconciled to their brother if that was a current issue. The Pharisee might rather have quipped that ‘there are other times to get reconciled to your brother; go do that on another day, and finish offering your gift to the altar now.’ (So I think you should add Mt 5:23-24 to the “break” list …
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And so perhaps the Pharisees were hoping in Mt 22:35 and 41 that Jesus would install something wrongly as “the great commandment” or that something he said would imply something that was obviously a wrong prioritization. But the reply of Jesus in 22:39 blows the whole concept of “the great commandment” — although it’s not often interpreted that way. Jesus is increasing the number of things that everything else depends on, from one, “the great commandment,” to two! … “on these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.” Two!
And it’s the second one, I think, that points to the lack of a common ethic with the Pharisees. Rectitude, in Pharisaism, is a by-product of ordering the Laws correctly and going by that order. Rectitude, in Mt 22:39, does not push love of neighbor down the some list, but raises it, and all its duties, to be at the top with the love of God.
Right. I agree. The difference between Jesus and his opponents (mainly the Pharisees in Matthew) is that Jesus is interpreting the Torah in light of the the love command and this is what he is accusing his opponents of ignoring. In Matthew it is very clear that whatever one does to the each other (a disciple in the case of ch. 10), one does for God. Thus, the love command extends beyond a “vertical” only relationship and the love of God becomes intimately related to love of neighbor. This them of love of men = love of God is shared by Philo, Decalogue 108–110; Testament of Issachar 5.2 (“but love the Lord and your neighbor, show mercy to the poor and weak.”); 7.6; Testament of Dan (“Love the Lord with all your life, and one another with a true heart.”).