Knowing Jesus Christ

By Wang Hao These verses are to be found within the Bible: “At that time Jesus went on the sabbath day through the corn; and His disciples were an hungered, and began to pluck the ears of corn and to eat. But when the Pharisees saw it, they said to Him, Behold, Your disciples do that which is not lawful to do on the sabbath day” (Matthew 12:1–2). Whenever I read these two verses, I can’t help but think: “The Sabbath was a holy day prescribed by Jehovah God for the Israelites. Everyone stopped their work on this day and went to the temple to worship Jehovah God. But when the Lord Jesus came, He worked on the Sabbath, so why didn’t He lead His disciples to keep the Sabbath? What was His thinking behind this?” These questions had always bugged me. The Lord Jesus Did Not Keep the Sabbath Later, only after I read a passage on a gospel website did I suddenly see the light. It turned out that there was meaning behind the Lord Jesus’ decision to work on the Sabbath. This is what that passage said: “When the Lord Jesus came, He used His practical actions to communicate to people: God had departed the Age of Law and had begun new work, and this new work did not require observation of the Sabbath; when God came out from the confines of the Sabbath day, this was just a foretaste of His new work, and His truly great work was continuing to play out. When the Lord Jesus began His work, He had already left behind the shackles of the Age of Law, and had broken through the regulations and principles from that age. In Him, there was no trace of anything related to the law; He had cast it off entirely and no longer observed it, and He no longer required mankind to observe it. So here you see that the Lord Jesus went through the corn fields on the Sabbath; the Lord did not rest, but was outside working. This action of His was a shock to people’s conceptions and communicated to them that He no longer lived under the law, and that He had left the confines of the Sabbath and appeared in front of mankind and in their midst in a new image, with a new way of working. This action of His told people that He had brought with Him new work that began with going out from the law and going out of the Sabbath. When God carried out His new work, He no longer clung to the past, and He was no longer concerned about the regulations of the Age of Law. Neither was He affected by His work in the previous age, but He worked as usual on the Sabbath and when His disciples were hungry, they could pick ears of corn to eat. This was all very normal in God’s eyes. God could have a new beginning for much of the work that He wants to do and the things that He wants to say. Once He has a new start, He neither mentions His previous work again nor continues it. For God has His principles in His work. When He wants to begin new work, it is when He wants to bring mankind into a new stage of His work, and when His work has entered a higher phase. If people continue to act according to the old sayings or regulations or continue to hold fast to them, He will not commemorate or praise this. This is because He has already brought new work, and has entered a new phase of His work. When He initiates new work, He appears to mankind with a completely new image, from a completely new angle, and in a completely new way so that people can see different aspects of His disposition and what He has and is. This is one of His goals in His new work. God does not hold on to the old or take the beaten path; when He works and speaks it’s not as prohibitive as people imagine. In God, all is free and liberated, and there is no prohibitiveness, no constraints—what He brings to mankind is all freedom and liberation. He is a living God, a God who genuinely, truly exists. He is not a puppet or a clay sculpture, and He is totally different from the idols that people enshrine and worship. He is living and vibrant and what His words and work bring to humans is all life and light, all freedom and liberation, because He holds the truth, the life, and the way—He is not constrained by anything in any of His work. No matter what people say and no matter how they see or assess His new work, He will carry out His work without reservation. … No matter which new stage of His work He is carrying out, it must be developed and expanded in mankind’s midst, and it must be carried out unhindered in the entire universe until His great work has been completed. This is God’s almightiness and wisdom, and His authority and power. Thus, the Lord Jesus could openly go out and work on the Sabbath because in His heart there were no rules, and there was no knowledge or doctrine that originated from mankind. What He had was God’s new work and His way, and His work was the way to free mankind, to release them, to allow them to exist in the light, and to allow them to live. … God has principles in His words and work, but there are no prohibitions, because God Himself is the truth, the way, and the life” (“God’s work, God’s disposition, and God Himself Ⅲ”). From this passage, I came to understand that God’s work is without rules, and nor does it suffer any constraints. After a stage of God’s work achieves results with man, God then…

The Bible recorded the parable of the sower the Lord Jesus spoke of. Why did the Lord teach us in parables? What inspiration can we gain from it?

Guide you to know the reason and significance of Jesus not keeping the Sabbath, and feel God’s wondrous and unfathomable work.