Jesus Christ And The Jewish Laws JSS2 Christian Religious Studies (CRS) Lesson Note

JESUS CHRIST AND THE JEWISH LAWS

During the time of Jesus, the Jewish people had many religious laws that governed their daily lives. These laws came from the Law of Moses that God gave to His people. However, over hundreds of years, the religious leaders had added many extra rules and traditions to God’s original laws. They created detailed regulations about how to keep the law, and these human traditions became as important to them as God’s actual commandments.

By the time Jesus came, the religious leaders – especially the Pharisees and scribes – had made the law very complicated and burdensome. They focused more on external rituals and strict rule-keeping than on the heart attitudes that God desired. They criticized people for breaking their traditions while they themselves missed the whole purpose of God’s law, which was to love God and love others.

Jesus came to reveal the true meaning and purpose of God’s law. He challenged the religious leaders’ wrong interpretations and their man-made traditions. He showed that God cares more about mercy, justice, and love than about rigid rule-keeping. Jesus perfectly kept God’s law while rejecting the false additions that the religious leaders had made. In this lesson, we will study some specific Jewish religious laws and examine Jesus’s attitudes and reactions to them.

1. Jewish Religious Laws
2. The Observance of the Sabbath (Mark 2:23-28 and 3:1-12)

The Sabbath was the seventh day of the week (Saturday) when Jewish people were required to rest from all work. God had given this commandment to Moses: “Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work” (Exodus 20:8-10).

God intended the Sabbath to be a blessing for people. It was a day to rest from their labor, spend time with family, worship God, and be refreshed. The Sabbath reminded people that God had created the world in six days and rested on the seventh day. It also reminded the Israelites that God had rescued them from slavery in Egypt, where they had to work constantly without rest.

However, by Jesus’s time, the religious leaders had created hundreds of detailed rules about what people could and could not do on the Sabbath. They had made long lists of activities that they considered “work.” According to their traditions, on the Sabbath you could not:

Walk more than a certain distance (about three-quarters of a mile)

Carry anything from one place to another

Light a fire or cook food

Pick grain or fruit

Tie or untie a knot

Write more than one letter of the alphabet

Heal sick people (unless the person was dying)

And hundreds of other activities

The religious leaders spent enormous time and energy making sure people followed all these rules. They watched people carefully on the Sabbath to catch anyone breaking their regulations. They had turned the Sabbath from a joyful day of rest into a burden of complicated rules. People were more worried about accidentally breaking a Sabbath rule than about enjoying fellowship with God and others.

First Sabbath Conflict: Picking Grain (Mark 2:23-28)

The Story:

One Sabbath day, Jesus and His disciples were walking through grain fields. As they walked, the disciples were hungry. They began to pick some heads of grain, rub them in their hands to remove the husks, and eat the kernels.

The Pharisees were watching Jesus and His disciples closely, looking for something to criticize. When they saw the disciples picking and eating grain, they immediately accused them of breaking the Sabbath law.

The Pharisees said to Jesus, “Look! Why are your disciples doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath?” According to the Pharisees’ traditions, picking grain was “harvesting” and rubbing it in their hands was “threshing” – both of which they considered work. Therefore, they claimed the disciples were breaking the Sabbath.

Now, we need to understand something important: The disciples were not actually breaking God’s law. God’s law said you should not work on the Sabbath, but it never said you could not pick a few heads of grain to satisfy your hunger. In fact, God’s law specifically allowed poor people and travelers to pick grain from the edges of fields as they passed by (Deuteronomy 23:25). The disciples were not harvesting a field for profit – they were just getting a little food because they were hungry. They were not breaking God’s law; they were only breaking the Pharisees’ man-made traditions.

Jesus answered the Pharisees by reminding them of a story from the Scriptures. He said, “Have you never read what David did when he and his companions were hungry and in need? In the days of Abiathar the high priest, he entered the house of God and ate the consecrated bread, which is lawful only for priests to eat. And he also gave some to his companions.”

Jesus was referring to an incident when David, who later became king, was running away from King Saul who wanted to kill him. David came to the tabernacle hungry, and the priest gave him the holy bread that was normally only for priests to eat (1 Samuel 21:1-6). God did not punish David for eating this bread because his need for food was more important than the ceremonial rule. Human need took priority over ritual.

Then Jesus taught them an important principle: “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.”

This was a revolutionary statement! Jesus was saying that God created the Sabbath day to benefit people, not to burden them. The Sabbath was meant to be a gift that refreshed people and gave them rest. God did not create people to serve the Sabbath by following endless rules. The Sabbath was created to serve people by giving them rest and time with God.

Finally, Jesus made a powerful claim: “So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.”

Jesus was saying that He, as the Son of Man (the Messiah), had authority over the Sabbath. He had the right to interpret the true meaning and purpose of the Sabbath because He was the Lord of the Sabbath. He knew what God intended when He gave the Sabbath commandment.

Second Sabbath Conflict: Healing on the Sabbath (Mark 3:1-12)

The Story:

Another time, Jesus went into a synagogue on the Sabbath day. In the synagogue, there was a man with a shriveled hand. His hand was paralyzed, withered, and useless. He could not work properly or do normal activities with that hand.

The Pharisees and scribes were there watching Jesus closely. They wanted to see if He would heal the man on the Sabbath so they could accuse Him of breaking the law. According to their traditions, healing was only allowed on the Sabbath if the person was in immediate danger of death. Since the man’s shriveled hand was not life-threatening, the Pharisees thought Jesus should wait until the next day to heal him.

Jesus knew what they were thinking. He understood that they were more concerned about their rules than about the suffering man who needed help. Jesus was angry at their hard hearts, and He decided to confront their hypocrisy publicly.

Jesus said to the man with the shriveled hand, “Stand up in front of everyone.” The man stood up in the middle of the synagogue where everyone could see him.

Then Jesus asked the religious leaders a powerful question: “Which is lawful on the Sabbath: to do good or to do evil, to save life or to kill?”

This was a brilliant question that exposed their wrong thinking. Jesus was asking: What is the right thing to do on the Sabbath – should I do good by healing this man, or should I do evil by ignoring his suffering? Should I save this man from his disability, or should I let him continue to suffer?

The question was unanswerable from their perspective because it showed the foolishness of their position. Of course it is right to do good and save life! But according to their rules, Jesus should not heal on the Sabbath. Their rules actually prevented them from doing good!

The Pharisees remained silent. They had no answer because they knew Jesus was right, but they were too proud to admit it. The Bible says Jesus looked around at them with anger, deeply distressed at their stubborn hearts. They cared more about their rules than about a suffering human being.

Then Jesus said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.”

The man stretched out his hand, and immediately it was completely restored! His hand was healed. It was normal and healthy, just like his other hand. The man could now use both hands to work, to eat, to embrace his family, and to live a normal life.

You would think the religious leaders would have been happy that a disabled man had been healed. But instead, they were furious! They were angry that Jesus had challenged their traditions and shown them to be wrong. They were so angry that the Pharisees went out and immediately began to plot with the Herodians (another group that usually opposed the Pharisees) about how they could kill Jesus.

Think about the irony: The Pharisees said you should not heal on the Sabbath because it is “work,” but they thought it was fine to plot murder on the Sabbath! They worried about tiny rules while planning to kill an innocent man. This showed how twisted their priorities had become.

Meanwhile, Jesus continued His ministry. Large crowds from all over the region came to Him because they heard about all the miracles He was doing. People with diseases pressed forward to touch Him and be healed. Jesus healed many people and drove out evil spirits. The evil spirits recognized who Jesus was and cried out, “You are the Son of God!” But Jesus commanded them to be quiet because it was not yet time to reveal His identity fully.

The Practice of Corban (Mark 7:9-13)

Background:

“Corban” was a Hebrew word that meant “offering” or “gift dedicated to God.” According to Jewish tradition, if someone declared their money or property “Corban,” it meant that money was dedicated to God and could not be used for any other purpose.

This seems like a good thing – dedicating your resources to God. However, the religious leaders had twisted this practice into something evil. They used Corban as a loophole to get out of their God-given responsibility to care for their aging parents.

Here is how they misused Corban: Suppose a man’s elderly parents needed financial help. They needed money for food, medicine, or a place to live. God’s law clearly commanded, “Honor your father and your mother” (Exodus 20:12). Part of honoring parents is taking care of them when they are old and cannot work anymore.

But some people did not want to spend their money on their parents. So they would declare their money “Corban” – dedicated to God. Once they said this magic word, they claimed they could not use that money to help their parents because it was “holy” and set apart for God.

The clever part was this: Even though the money was supposedly dedicated to God, the person could still use it for themselves! They just could not give it to their parents. So a man could keep his money, spend it on himself, and refuse to help his needy parents – all while claiming he was being religious by dedicating it to God.

This was complete hypocrisy. The religious leaders had created a tradition that allowed people to break God’s clear commandment while appearing religious. They had made a law that contradicted God’s law.

The Story (Mark 7:9-13):

The Pharisees and some teachers of the law came from Jerusalem to confront Jesus. They criticized Jesus’s disciples for eating food with “unclean” hands – that is, without performing the ceremonial handwashing ritual that the tradition required.

Jesus saw through their hypocrisy. He quoted the prophet Isaiah, who had written about religious hypocrites hundreds of years earlier: “These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain; their teachings are merely human rules.”

Then Jesus directly attacked their practice of Corban. He said, “You have a fine way of setting aside the commands of God in order to observe your own traditions!”

Jesus then gave them a specific example: “Moses said, ‘Honor your father and mother,’ and ‘Anyone who curses their father or mother is to be put to death.’ But you say that if anyone declares that what might have been used to help their father or mother is Corban (that is, devoted to God), then you no longer let them do anything for their father or mother. Thus you nullify the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And you do many things like that.”

Jesus was making several powerful points:

1. God’s Commandment is Clear: God commanded people to honor their parents, which includes providing for their needs.
2. The Tradition Contradicts God’s Law: The Corban tradition allowed people to ignore God’s commandment about honoring parents.
3. Human Traditions Were Overruling God’s Word: The Pharisees gave more authority to their traditions than to God’s actual commands.
4. This Was Not an Isolated Problem: Jesus said, “You do many things like that.” The Corban practice was just one example of how they had replaced God’s law with human traditions.

Jesus was exposing the heart of the problem: The religious leaders had replaced true devotion to God with external rituals and clever loopholes. They looked religious on the outside, but inside their hearts were far from God. They used religion as a way to avoid the real demands of God’s law – to love God and love others.

Jesus’s Attitudes and Reactions to the Jewish Laws

After examining these specific conflicts between Jesus and the religious leaders, we can now understand Jesus’s overall attitudes and reactions to the Jewish laws. Jesus’s approach was balanced, wise, and focused on what truly matters to God.

1. Jesus Upheld God’s True Law

Jesus did not come to destroy or abolish God’s law. He said clearly, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them” (Matthew 5:17).

Jesus perfectly kept God’s moral law. He never sinned. He loved God with all His heart, soul, mind, and strength. He loved His neighbor as Himself. He honored His parents, told the truth, remained pure, respected life, and kept all of God’s commandments.

When the Pharisees criticized Jesus for breaking the Sabbath, He was not actually breaking God’s Sabbath commandment. He was breaking their man-made traditions about the Sabbath. Jesus honored the true purpose of the Sabbath while rejecting the false additions.

Jesus also frequently quoted God’s law and pointed people back to what God had actually said. When the Pharisees criticized Him for the Corban issue, Jesus reminded them of God’s commandment: “Honor your father and mother.” Jesus always stood on the authority of God’s actual word, not human interpretations.

2. Jesus Rejected Human Traditions That Contradicted God’s Law

While Jesus upheld God’s true law, He strongly rejected the human traditions that the religious leaders had added to God’s law. He did not accept the Pharisees’ authority to create new laws or reinterpret God’s law in ways that contradicted its true meaning.

Jesus called the Pharisees “hypocrites” for teaching human rules as if they were God’s commands. He exposed how their traditions often contradicted God’s actual law, as in the Corban example where their tradition nullified God’s command to honor parents.

Jesus was not being disrespectful to tradition simply because it was tradition. He was rejecting traditions that:

Contradicted God’s Word (like Corban)

Missed the point of God’s law (like the Sabbath rules)

Burdened people unnecessarily (making the law harder than God intended)

Focused on external rituals while ignoring the heart (appearing religious without truly loving God)

Jesus showed that not all religious traditions are equal. Some traditions are helpful and honor God. But traditions that contradict God’s word or add burdens God never intended must be rejected.

3. Jesus Emphasized the Spirit of the Law Over the Letter of the Law

The “letter of the law” refers to the exact words and specific rules. The “spirit of the law” refers to the purpose, intention, and heart behind the law. The Pharisees focused on the letter – the specific details and rules. Jesus focused on the spirit – what God actually intended.

For example, God’s purpose in giving the Sabbath was to provide rest, renewal, and time for worship. The spirit of the Sabbath law was blessing and restoration. But the Pharisees had turned it into a burden with hundreds of specific rules. They kept the letter (don’t work) but violated the spirit (rest and blessing).

Jesus taught that understanding God’s heart and purpose is more important than mechanical rule-keeping. When the disciples picked grain on the Sabbath, they were not violating the spirit of the Sabbath even if the Pharisees thought they violated the letter.

Jesus said, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.” He was teaching that we must understand why God gave a law, not just memorize the rule. When we understand God’s purpose, we will apply His laws correctly.

4. Jesus Put Compassion and Human Need Above Ritual

Jesus consistently showed that mercy and compassion are more important to God than ceremonial rituals or rigid rules. He healed people on the Sabbath because their suffering mattered more than the Pharisees’ rules about not working.

Jesus taught that God desires “mercy, not sacrifice” (Hosea 6:6). This means God cares more about how we treat people than about whether we perform all the religious rituals perfectly. The Pharisees cared more about their Sabbath rules than about a man with a shriveled hand. Jesus cared more about healing the suffering man than about following man-made traditions.

This does not mean that worship, rituals, or religious observances are unimportant. It means that they must never become more important than loving and helping people. When religious rules prevent us from showing mercy to those in need, the rules have become idols.

Jesus illustrated this principle with a question: “Which is lawful on the Sabbath: to do good or to do evil, to save life or to kill?” The obvious answer is that doing good is always right. God’s law is not meant to prevent good; it is meant to promote it.

5. Jesus Focused on Internal Heart Attitudes, Not Just External Actions

The Pharisees were very concerned with external religious behavior – washing hands, not walking too far on Sabbath, saying prayers publicly, giving money to the temple, and performing rituals correctly. They looked very religious on the outside.

But Jesus looked at the heart. He taught that what comes from inside a person is what makes them clean or unclean, not external rituals (Mark 7:14-23). A person can follow all the rules perfectly on the outside while having a heart full of pride, hatred, greed, and hypocrisy on the inside.

Jesus said the religious leaders were like “whitewashed tombs” – beautiful on the outside but full of death on the inside (Matthew 23:27). They honored God with their lips, but their hearts were far from Him.

True obedience to God starts with the heart. God wants people who love Him genuinely, not people who just go through religious motions. Jesus taught that we must not only avoid murdering people but also avoid hating them in our hearts. We must not only avoid adultery but also avoid lustful thoughts. External obedience without internal devotion is worthless.

6. Jesus Had Authority Over the Law

Jesus claimed, “The Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.” This was an astounding claim. Jesus was saying that He had authority to interpret and explain God’s law correctly because He was the Lord – God Himself in human form.

Jesus did not place Himself under the Pharisees’ authority to tell Him what the law meant. He exercised His own divine authority to reveal the true meaning of God’s law. He corrected their misinterpretations and showed what God really intended.

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus repeatedly said, “You have heard that it was said… but I tell you…” (Matthew 5:21-22, 27-28, 31-32, 33-34, 38-39, 43-44). Jesus was not contradicting God’s law but revealing its deeper meaning and full application. He had the authority to do this because He is God.

This authority also meant that Jesus could declare people forgiven of sins, heal on the Sabbath, touch “unclean” people without becoming unclean Himself, and claim that He was greater than the temple. The religious leaders were furious at these claims because they understood that Jesus was claiming to be God.

7. Jesus Exposed Religious Hypocrisy

Jesus had very strong words for the religious leaders who acted like they were holy but whose hearts were far from God. He called them hypocrites, blind guides, snakes, and whitewashed tombs. He was not being mean for no reason – He was exposing the danger of their false teaching and hard hearts.

The Pharisees appeared extremely religious. They prayed long prayers, fasted often, gave money to the temple, studied Scripture, and kept many rules. People respected them and thought they were holy. But Jesus saw through their outward appearance to their true hearts.

Jesus exposed their hypocrisy by showing that they:

Made rules for others but did not keep them themselves

Used religion to gain power and respec

Cared more about looking good than about truly loving God

Added burdens on common people while finding loopholes for themselves

Focused on small details while ignoring justice, mercy, and faithfulness

Used religious language to avoid God’s real commands (like Corban)

Jesus was harsh with the hypocritical religious leaders because their false teaching was leading people away from God. They were making it harder for people to know and love God. They were giving people a false picture of what God is like – showing Him as harsh, rigid, and focused on petty rules rather than loving, merciful, and focused on the heart.

8. Jesus Taught That Love is the Heart of God’s Law

When asked what the greatest commandment was, Jesus summarized all of God’s law with two commands: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind” and “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Then He said, “All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments” (Matthew 22:37-40).

This means that every law God gave was ultimately about love – either loving God or loving other people. When we truly love God, we will want to obey Him, worship Him, honor Him, and live for Him. When we truly love others, we will not murder, steal from, lie to, or harm them. Instead, we will help them, forgive them, and show them kindness.

The Pharisees had lost sight of this central truth. They were so focused on detailed rules that they forgot the main point: love. You can follow a thousand rules and still not love God or love people. But if you truly love God and love others, you will fulfill the real purpose of God’s law.

Jesus’s conflict with the Pharisees over the Sabbath and Corban were really conflicts over love. The Pharisees cared more about their rules than about healing a suffering man or providing for needy parents. Jesus cared about showing love and mercy. Jesus demonstrated that true obedience to God’s law always involves loving God and loving people.

9. Jesus Welcomed Sinners and Outcasts

Unlike the Pharisees, who separated themselves from “sinners” and considered themselves righteous, Jesus welcomed sinners, tax collectors, prostitutes, and other outcasts. He ate with them, talked with them, and showed them love.

The Pharisees criticized Jesus for this, but Jesus explained that He came to call sinners to repentance, not the righteous (Mark 2:17). Jesus was showing that God’s heart is to seek and save the lost, not to condemn them.

Jesus’s attitude toward sinners was completely different from the Pharisees’ attitude. The Pharisees looked down on sinners with contempt and pride. Jesus looked at sinners with compassion and offered them forgiveness and hope. The Pharisees made it hard for sinners to come to God by creating so many rules. Jesus made it easy for sinners to come to God by offering grace and forgiveness.

This does not mean Jesus accepted sin or said it did not matter. Jesus always called people to repent and turn from their sin. But He did so with love and mercy, not with harsh judgment and pride.

10. Jesus Fulfilled the Deeper Purpose of the Law

Ultimately, Jesus came to fulfill everything the law pointed toward. The ceremonial laws – the sacrifices, the cleansing rituals, the festivals – all pointed forward to Jesus as the perfect sacrifice for sin. When Jesus died on the cross, He fulfilled what all the animal sacrifices represented. He became the final, perfect sacrifice that takes away sin once and for all.

The moral law revealed human sinfulness and our need for a Savior. No one could keep God’s law perfectly except Jesus. He lived the perfect life we could not live, and then He died the death we deserved for breaking God’s law. When we trust in Jesus, His perfect righteousness is credited to us, and our sins are forgiven.

So Jesus did not come to destroy the law but to fulfill it completely. He kept it perfectly, He suffered its penalty for our sins, and He revealed its true meaning and purpose. Now, through faith in Jesus, we can have a relationship with God based not on our ability to keep rules perfectly but on Jesus’s perfect obedience and sacrifice for us.