And He was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath. And there was a woman who for eighteen years had had a sickness caused by a spirit; and she was bent double, and could not straighten up at all. When Jesus saw her, He called her over and said to her, “Woman, you are freed from your sickness.” And He laid His hands on her; and immediately she was made erect again and began glorifying God. But the synagogue official, indignant because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath, began saying to the crowd in response, “There are six days in which work should be done; so come during them and get healed, and not on the Sabbath day.” But the Lord answered him and said, “You hypocrites, does not each of you on the Sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the stall and lead him away to water him? And this woman, a daughter of Abraham as she is, whom Satan has bound for eighteen long years, should she not have been released from this bond on the Sabbath day? As He said this, all His opponents were being humiliated; and the entire crowd was rejoicing over all the glorious things being done by Him. (13:10–17)

One of the great gospel paradoxes is that Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace, who came to bring peace to the souls of men and to the world, has generated more conflict than anyone else who has ever lived. When He was an infant, Simeon told His parents, “Behold, this Child is appointed for the fall and rise of many in Israel, and for a sign to be opposed” (Luke 2:34). Then, in an unsuccessful attempt to eliminate Him, Herod brutally slaughtered all the male infants in the vicinity of Bethlehem (Matt. 2:16).

Throughout His ministry the Lord faced supernatural conflict. At the outset of His public ministry, He defeated Satan in a direct confrontation (Luke 4:1–13). Jesus further confronted the forces of hell by repeatedly casting out demons (Matt. 9:32–33; 12:22; 15:21–28; Mark 1:39; 3:11–12; Luke 4:31–37, 41; 6:18; 7:21; 8:26–33; 9:37–43; 11:14; 13:11–12, 31–32), demonstrating His absolute power and authority (Luke 4:36) over all of Satan’s kingdom.

Jesus also was involved in continual conflict and controversy with the general Jewish populace (cf. John 1:11). His characterization of the self-righteous people of Nazareth as spiritually impoverished, captive, blind, and downtrodden so outraged them that they tried to kill Him on the spot by throwing Him off a cliff (Luke 4:16–30; cf. Mark 6:1–6). Even His own half-brothers rejected and mocked Him (John 7:2–9). The fickle crowd who hailed Him as Messiah at the triumphal entry would turn on Him a few days later during Passion Week and demand His execution in the most painful way.

But the Lord’s most constant conflict was with the Jewish leaders, especially the architects of the popular form of apostate Judaism—the scribes and Pharisees. They were jealous (Matt. 27:18) of His enormous popularity and angry at His condemnation of their hypocrisy. In an attempt to discredit Him, they denounced Jesus as a blasphemer (Matt. 9:3; 26:65; John 10:33) and a liar (John 8:13), were appalled that He associated with “sinners” (Matt. 9:11; 11:19; Luke 7:39; 15:1; 19:7) and claimed that He was one (John 9:24), condemned Him for violating their non-biblical rabbinic traditions (Matt. 15:1–2), accused Him of being demon possessed (Mark 3:22; John 7:20; 8:48, 52; 10:20) and in league with Satan (Matt. 9:34; 12:24; Luke 11:15), and otherwise blasphemed Him (Luke 22:65). They challenged His authority (Matt. 21:23; John 2:18), plotted to kill Him (Matt. 26:3–4), arrested Him, put Him through a series of mock trials, and persuaded the Romans to execute Him by crucifixion.

Jesus confronted that corrupt, hypocritical religious establishment by cleansing the temple at the outset of His ministry (John 2:13–22), and again shortly before His death (Luke 19:45–48). He unmasked the religious leaders’ hypocrisy (Matt. 6:2, 5, 16; 15:7; 22:18; 23:13–30; Luke 12:1, 56; 13:15), hard-hearted unbelief (Matt. 11:20; John 12:37) that manifested itself by demanding further signs from Him (Matt. 12:38; 16:1; Luke 11:16; John 4:48; 6:30), and exposed their spiritual blindness (Matt. 15:14; 23:16, 17, 19, 24, 26; Luke 6:39; John 9:39–41).

On the night before His death, Jesus warned His followers that they would not escape the same hostility and opposition that He had faced:

The Lord’s warning proved true as the infant church also faced fierce hostility recorded in the book of Acts. On the very day the church was born the Jews began the persecution by mockingly accusing the apostles of being drunk (2:1–13). Soon after, when Peter and John healed a lame man and preached an evangelistic sermon, the Sanhedrin ordered them to stop speaking and teaching in the name of Jesus (4:1–22). Jealous of the apostles’ popularity, the Sanhedrin imprisoned them, beat them and again ordered them not to speak in the name of Jesus (5:17–42). Later Stephen’s fearless speech before the Sanhedrin so infuriated them that they stoned him to death (6:9–7:60). That incident sparked an outbreak of persecution, spearheaded by Saul of Tarsus, against the entire church at Jerusalem (8:1–4). Herod Agrippa, seeking to please the Jews, executed the apostle James and imprisoned Peter (12:1–19).

After his dramatic conversion on the way to Damascus Saul, whose name was changed to Paul, faced intense, lifelong opposition everywhere he went—just as the Lord had promised him (9:16). That hostility began in Damascus (9:19–25) when, to the consternation and outrage of the Jewish community, the former persecutor of Christians began boldly proclaiming that Jesus was the Son of God. After a dramatic escape from Damascus (9:23–25; cf. 2 Cor. 11:32–33), the apostle went to Jerusalem, where he faced further hostility (9:28–29).

Fierce opposition dogged him no matter where he went on his missionary journeys. At Antioch “when the Jews saw the crowds, they were filled with jealousy and began contradicting the things spoken by Paul, and were blaspheming” (13:45). At Iconium “the Jews who disbelieved stirred up the minds of the Gentiles and embittered them against the brethren” (14:2). Paul was stoned and left for dead (14:19–20) at Lystra; beaten and imprisoned at Philippi (16:16–24); forced to flee from Thessalonica (17:1–10) and Berea (17:13–14); confronted by pagan idolatry and challenged by Greek philosophers at Athens (17:16–34); opposed by the Jews (18:5–6) and hauled before the Roman proconsul (vv. 12–17) at Corinth; opposed by both the Jews (19:8–10) and the Gentiles (vv. 23–41) at Ephesus; savagely beaten by rioting Jews and taken into custody by the Romans at Jerusalem (21:27–23:22) and put on trial before the Roman governors Felix (24:1–23) and Festus (25:1–22), and King Agrippa (25:23–26:32). Finally, after a harrowing voyage to Rome, Paul was rejected by many of the Jews there (28:17–29). In addition to the historical record in Acts, Paul referred numerous times in his epistles to the unceasing conflict that he experienced in his ministry (1 Cor. 4:12; 2 Cor. 1:8–10; 4:8–9, 17; 6:4; 7:4–5; 12:10; Gal. 5:11; 1 Thess. 3:1–7; 2 Tim. 1:12, 15–16; 2:8–10; 3:10–11; 4:6, 14–17; cf. Acts 20:19, 23 and Paul’s summary in 2 Cor. 11:23–33). Speaking Spirit-inspired truth validated by his own experience, Paul taught that conflict is to be expected in the Christian life, since “all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted” (2 Tim. 3:12; cf. Rom. 12:14; Phil. 1:28–30; 2 Thess. 1:4–7; Titus 2:8).

In the early years of the church, most of the conflict was generated by the Jews. Eventually, however, the Romans became the church’s main antagonists, persecuting it for political, religious, social, and economic reasons (for a detailed explanation of those reasons, see John 12–21, The MacArthur New Testament Commentary [Chicago: Moody, 2008], 167–69).

The initial persecution of Christians by the Roman government was instigated by Nero after the devastating fire of A.D. 64 destroyed much of Rome. According to tradition, both Peter and Paul were in Rome and were martyred during that persecution. Toward the end of the first century, another Roman persecution broke out during the reign of Domitian. For the next century and a half, persecution was sporadic and, like those under Nero and Domitian, localized. The first empire-wide persecution came during the reign of Decius in A.D. 250. Decius ordered that everyone offer a sacrifice to the gods and the emperor. Those who refused were subject to arrest, imprisonment, torture, and execution. Decius’s persecution, however, was cut short by his death in battle the following year. The last and most violent empire-wide persecution began in A.D. 303 during Diocletian’s reign. This persecution was a determined effort to obliterate Christianity altogether. All copies of the Scripture were ordered to be destroyed, and Christians were commanded to offer sacrifices to the Roman gods or face execution. The persecution began to subside when Constantine and his co-emperor Licinius issued an edict granting freedom of worship (A.D. 313). But Licinius reneged on the agreement, allowing persecution to continue in parts of the empire until Constantine became the sole emperor in A.D. 324.

During the Middle Ages persecution against true believers was launched by the Roman Catholic Church, which had replaced secular Rome as the dominant power in Europe. The Inquisition and the St. Bartholomew’s Day massacre, are only examples of the millennium of killing believers that marked the Roman Church’s efforts to stamp out the preaching of the true gospel. In more recent times, countless thousands of believers continue to be imprisoned or killed by atheistic and Islamic regimes.

Returning to the conflict recorded in this passage, we see that it centered on the Sabbath, the observance of which was at the heart of Judaism. And this was not the first time the Lord had clashed with the religious leaders over the Sabbath (cf. Matt. 12:1–14; Luke 14:1–6; John 5:1–18; 9:1–41). As Lord of the Sabbath (Luke 6:5), Jesus had absolute authority to do as He pleased on that day. But the man-made Sabbath restrictions were so crucial to first-century Judaism that it was inconceivable to the Jewish leaders that anyone who violated them could be from God (John 9:16). Their religious system was based on self-righteousness, good works, and the performance of various religious rituals and ceremonies. Jesus destroyed the illusion that such pleases God. He pointed out that instead of being spiritually rich, they were spiritually bankrupt; instead of being free, they were in bondage to sin, Satan, death, and judgment. Everyone is unable to keep God’s law, not even its two most fundamental commandments, to love God and their neighbor with all their human faculties (Luke 10:25–37).

The Jews were trapped in their own system. They knew of their inability to keep God’s law, but instead of repenting, they had developed a system in which they thought to obtain eternal life by keeping (at least externally) some selected and representative commandments (cf. the rich young ruler’s question in Matt. 19:16). Chief among those were the extrabiblical regulations with which they had embellished the Sabbath (for a list of some of those regulations, see Luke 6–10, The MacArthur New Testament Commentary [Chicago: Moody, 2011], 3–4).

In our Lord’s conflict with false religion on this particular Sabbath day, He exposed its error, its spiritual source (Satan), and its hypocrisy.

JESUS’ CONFLICT WITH ERROR

And He was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath. (13:10)

On this Sabbath Jesus, as was His custom (Luke 4:16), was teaching in one of the synagogues. The numerous synagogues that existed in Israel provided a convenient venue for the Lord’s teaching wherever He went. There were many synagogues in Galilee (since the minimum number of Jewish men required to form a synagogue was ten most, if not all of its 240 cities and villages would have had at least one, and many locations would have had multiple). In the more populous region of Judea, there would have been far more. For example, according to the Jerusalem Talmud there were arguably 480 synagogues in Jerusalem alone.

Synagogues existed primarily for instruction in the Scriptures. In a synagogue Sabbath service, a passage from the Old Testament would be read, after which a teacher would explain its meaning to the congregation. The synagogues did not function like the Jerusalem temple, since only at the temple could offerings and sacrifices be offered and the feasts and ceremonies celebrated. But after the Babylonians destroyed the temple in 586 B.C., the Jewish exiles began gathering in small groups to hear the teaching of God’s Word (cf. Ezek. 8:1; 14:1; 20:1; 33:31). Those informal gatherings eventually developed into the network of synagogues of Jesus’ time.

A synagogue had no full-time pastors, teachers, or priests, and anyone approved by the ruler of the synagogue could teach the Old Testament. Oversight and leadership in the synagogues was in the hands of selected elders (cf. Mark 5:22) consisting of laymen, the chief of which was the archisunagōgos, or ruler of the synagogue (v. 14; cf. Acts 18:8). It was his responsibility to conduct the worship service and approve the teachers. Throughout His ministry Jesus had frequently taught in the synagogues (Matt. 4:23; 9:35; 13:54; Mark 1:21; Luke 4:15, 31–33; 6:6; John 6:59; 18:20). However as the reaction of this synagogue ruler indicates, synagogues were becoming less receptive to Him. In fact, this passage marks the last recorded appearance of Jesus in a synagogue.

Apparently, the source of the conflict, as on so many occasions previous, was the Lord’s teaching. As Luke has clearly established, apostate Israel hated His message, because it indicted their religious system of legalism, merit, and self-righteousness. Though the Lord’s message was a condemnation of damning apostate religion, it was not only that. The positive thrust of His preaching was salvation from sin and participation in the kingdom of God (Mark 1:14–15; Luke 4:43; 8:1; 9:11). Referred to thirty-one times in Luke’s gospel, the kingdom of God is the realm in which God reigns over those who believe in Him. Jesus’ message was that by confessing Him as Lord, repentant, believing sinners could be delivered from deception, false religion, Satan’s kingdom, sin, and eternal judgment and enter God’s kingdom. In His just-concluded sermon (12:1–13:9) Jesus challenged His hearers to enter the kingdom by turning from false religion, fearing God, yielding their lives to the Holy Spirit, rejecting materialism, and pursuing entrance into His kingdom, before it was too late and judgment fell on them. His message in the synagogue would have contained a similar exhortation to repent and believe the gospel message of forgiveness and salvation and the blessings of His kingdom (cf. 5:31–32; 6:20–23; 6:46–49; 9:23–26; 12:8–9; 14:25–33).

Truth, when it is taught where error prevails, inevitably produces conflict, and error prevailed in the synagogue (as it does in all false religious places). The Lord’s message has provoked and always will provoke hostility from those who were content in their self-righteousness religion (cf. Luke 4:28–30; 6:11; 11:53). This occasion was no exception, as the synagogue ruler’s reaction shows (see the discussion of v. 14 below).

JESUS’ CONFLICT WITH SATAN

And there was a woman who for eighteen years had had a sickness caused by a spirit; and she was bent double, and could not straighten up at all. When Jesus saw her, He called her over and said to her, “Woman, you are freed from your sickness.” And He laid His hands on her; and immediately she was made erect again and began glorifying God. (13:11–13)

The conflict intensified as the narrative shifted its focus from the Lord’s teaching in the synagogue that day to one of those in attendance: a woman who for eighteen years had had a sickness caused by a spirit. The exact nature of her condition is not specified; astheneia (sickness) simply means “weakness.” Whatever it was, it was so debilitating that she was bent double, and could not straighten up at all. The Greek text introduces her with the phrase kai idou (“and behold”), which “shuts out the idea that this woman was in the synagogue from the start and presents her as slowly and painfully making her way into it while Jesus was in the midst of his teaching” (R. C. H. Lenski, The Interpretation of St. Luke’s Gospel [Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1946], 734).

But even worse than her terrible physical affliction was the social stigma that went with it. As noted in the previous chapter of this volume, the Jews believed that intense suffering was related to God’s punishment for sin. So not only was she an outcast because of that presumed divine displeasure, but in the Jewish social perception of women, she was regarded as second-class. Worst of all, her sickness had been caused by an evil spirit, either by indwelling her or afflicting her (as Satan did Job; Job 2:7).

As she shuffled into the synagogue Jesus saw her. Taking note of her pitiable state, He called her over and said to her, “Woman, you are freed from your sickness” (cf. 4:33–35; 7:21; Mark 1:23–26; 5:2–13; 7:25–30; 9:17–27; Acts 10:38). And He laid His hands on her; and immediately she was made erect again and began glorifying God (5:25–26; 7:16; 17:14–15; 18:43). Without confronting or even referring to the demon, with merely a word and a touch, the Lord broke the evil spirit’s hold over her. She was completely and permanently freed from her physical malady, as the perfect tense of the verb indicates. Nothing is said about her having faith—whether she believed Jesus could heal her and sought Him out, or was just coming to the synagogue as she always did. The text does not reveal her spiritual condition before or after her healing, or whether she became a true believer in Jesus Christ that day. What Jesus did was completely sovereign, and totally independent of any faith element from her.

JESUS’ CONFLICT WITH HYPOCRITES

But the synagogue official, indignant because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath, began saying to the crowd in response, “There are six days in which work should be done; so come during them and get healed, and not on the Sabbath day.” But the Lord answered him and said, “You hypocrites, does not each of you on the Sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the stall and lead him away to water him? And this woman, a daughter of Abraham as she is, whom Satan has bound for eighteen long years, should she not have been released from this bond on the Sabbath day?” As He said this, all His opponents were being humiliated; and the entire crowd was rejoicing over all the glorious things being done by Him. (13:14–17)

The synagogue official, as noted above, was the one who oversaw all aspects of the synagogue’s operation. Not surprisingly, this man was a prototypical legalist, far more concerned about the minutiae of rituals, ceremonies, and regulations than he was about the suffering of people.

Such an attitude is all too typical of false religion. Martin Luther’s pastoral concern for the common people, who were subjected to crushing burdens by the Roman Catholic Church, helped trigger the Reformation. It was the sale of indulgences (essentially “get out of jail free” passes from purgatory) that was the final straw for Luther. In 1517 the Roman Catholic preacher Johan Tetzel arrived in the vicinity of Wittenberg selling indulgences, using as part of his sales pitch the catchy advertising jingle, “As soon as the coin in the coffer rings, the soul from purgatory springs.” Appalled and horrified that his parishioners were flocking to purchase them, Luther posted his famous Ninety-Five Theses condemning indulgences. That event sparked the Reformation.

The Pharisees, too, cared little for the common people, whom they contemptuously dismissed as “this crowd which does not know the Law [and] is accursed” (John 7:49). Jesus denounced them as those who “tie up heavy burdens and lay them on men’s shoulders, but they themselves are unwilling to move them with so much as a finger” (Matt. 23:4). The dozens of paralyzing restrictions and regulations associated with it had turned the Sabbath from a day of rest into the most burdensome day of the week.

The synagogue ruler should have glorified and praised God because Jesus’ miracle had demonstrated God’s heart of mercy and compassion to a desperately needy woman. Instead, he was indignant because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath. Aganakteō (indignant) describes intense displeasure. Though furious that Jesus had broken their man-made Sabbath regulations, he could not deny that the Lord had performed a miracle (cf. Matt. 28:11–14; John 3:2; 7:31; 9:16; 11:47). The synagogue ruler’s continued unbelief despite the undeniable miracle he had seen confirms the reality that miracles do not produce faith (Matt. 11:20; Luke 16:31; John 12:37). Saving faith is produced by the Holy Spirit in the hearts of the penitent.

Lacking the courage to confront Jesus directly, the head of the synagogue instead began saying to the crowd in response, “There are six days in which work should be done; so come during them and get healed, and not on the Sabbath day.” By indicting the woman for allegedly violating the Sabbath, he intended to condemn Jesus.

But the man’s criticism was misguided. In what sense work was done is not clear. Jesus merely spoke to the woman and laid His hands on her, while all she did was straighten up. Further, there is nothing in the law of God, or even in the rabbinic regulations, that prohibited doing deeds of mercy on the Sabbath, as Jesus pointed out. “You hypocrites,” He declared, encompassing both the synagogue ruler and all who shared his narrow legalism, “does not each of you on the Sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the stall and lead him away to water him?” (cf. 14:5; Matt. 12:11). The Mishnah, the codification of Jewish rabbinic law, permitted animals to be led to food and water on the Sabbath so long as they carried no burden. That being the case, Jesus demanded to know why “this woman, a daughter of Abraham” (i.e., a Jewish woman; cf. Luke 19:9) whom Satan has bound for eighteen long years, should … not have been released from this bond on the Sabbath day? What better day to free her from the burden she had borne for so long than the Sabbath, the day of rest?

The result of the confrontation was twofold. First, all Christ’s opponents, both the ruler and those who agreed with him, were being humiliated. Their heartless legalism and hypocrisy were unmasked and they were publicly put to shame. They were not, however, personally humbled in the righteous sense of acknowledging and repenting of their hard-hearted hypocrisy. The entire crowd of onlookers, on the other hand, was rejoicing over all the glorious things being done by Him. But although stunned and amazed by Christ’s power to heal (cf. 4:36; 9:43), that does not necessarily mean that they put their full trust in Him. Some did (cf. 16:16), but others continued to reject Him, likely along with those who hailed Him as Messiah at the triumphal entry, then cried for His blood a few days later.

The woman’s healing is analogous to God’s sovereign work in salvation, and serves as a metaphor for what God offered to do for Israel. He passes by the religious and self-righteous and chooses the humble, bent over by the burden of their sin, without hope of deliverance by their own power, and sovereignly delivers them from Satan’s power and lifts them up to praise and glorify Him.