Before we turn to Matthew chapter 12, I want to share a new word with you. Are you ready?
Here it is: Ruleigion.
Not religion — rule-igion.
I didn’t invent this word — it was coined by Joshua Harris from Covenant Reformed Church in Hagerstown, Maryland — but it names something Jesus confronts directly in Matthew 12.
Not religion — rule-igion. Religion, at its best, is belief in and worship of God — a lived relationship with the living God. But rule-religion is something else entirely.
Rule-religion is the belief that a right relationship with God is earned through rule-keeping. It’s the idea that obedience is the way up, that God’s favor is unlocked through performance, that blessing is negotiated through behavior.
Rule-religion says: If I do the right things, God will owe me something.
If we’re honest, rule-religion feels safe. It feels measurable. It feels controllable. It gives us something solid to stand on — or at least something that feels solid.
Rule-religion is completely at odds with the good news of Jesus Christ.
The gospel tells us something far more unsettling and far more beautiful: We don’t climb our way up to God. God comes down to us.
Salvation is not achieved; it is received. It is not earned; it is given.
Scripture is unambiguous about this. We are saved by grace through faith — not by works — so that no one can boast. Jesus fulfilled the law for us. Jesus paid for sin for us. Jesus rose from the dead for us.
Our standing before God rests not on our obedience but on His.
Which raises a very honest question:
If grace is so good, why do we keep drifting back toward rule-religion?
Because grace is humbling.
Grace removes our leverage.
Grace puts us in a position of dependence.
Rules, on the other hand, give us the illusion of control — over ourselves, over others, over outcomes. Rules let us manage anxiety. They help us categorize people. They give us something to point to when we feel unsure of our worth.
Rule-religion doesn’t usually announce itself as rebellion. It presents itself as responsibility.
That’s why it’s so dangerous.
In Matthew chapter 12, Jesus encounters a group of people who were deeply sincere, deeply religious, deeply committed to God’s law — and yet completely blind to God standing right in front of them. The Pharisees weren’t atheists. They weren’t secular. They weren’t mocking God. They were trapped in rule-religion.
Before we rush to distance ourselves from them, we need to understand something: the Pharisees are not included in Scripture so we can feel superior. They are included so we can recognize ourselves.
The Holy Spirit preserved these stories because God knows the tendency of the human heart — especially religious hearts — to slide quietly from grace into control, from trust into performance, from relationship into regulation.
So as we read this passage, the question is not, “How were the Pharisees wrong?”
The question is, “Where am I tempted to relate to God the same way?”
Let’s read Matthew 12, beginning in verse 1.
--- Don’t let the law obscure the Lawgiver
The story in Matthew 12 opens in a very ordinary place — a grain field. Jesus is walking with His disciples on the Sabbath.
They’re not protesting. They’re not challenging anyone. They’re hungry. And as they walk, they pluck a few heads of grain, rub them in their hands, and eat.
It’s a quiet, human moment. Friends walking together. Hunger being met. Life happening.
Suddenly, the Pharisees appear.
It almost feels abrupt. Like they’ve been waiting. Watching. Monitoring. And they say, “Look! Your disciples are doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath.”
Notice what they don’t say.
They don’t ask a question.
They don’t inquire about hunger.
They don’t express concern for people.
They issue a verdict.
To understand why this matters, we need to understand what the Sabbath was meant to be.
The Sabbath was God’s gift to His people.
The word itself means rest. It was rooted in creation — God rested on the seventh day — and it was tied to redemption — God rescued His people from slavery in Egypt. Every Sabbath was meant to say, You are not a slave anymore. God has done the work. You can rest.
The Sabbath wasn’t a restriction; it was a reminder. It wasn’t a burden; it was a blessing. It was a day to remember who God is and who you are because of Him.
Somewhere along the way, something shifted. Instead of resting in God’s provision, the people began guarding the Sabbath through layers of additional rules. How far you could walk. How much you could carry. What counted as work. What didn’t. These rules weren’t written in Scripture — they were fences built around Scripture.
And the fences became the focus.
Attention to obedience turned into obsession with compliance. And slowly, quietly, the law that was meant to draw people closer to God began to stand between them and God.
That’s what’s happening in this field.
The Pharisees don’t see hungry disciples.
They don’t see a gift being enjoyed.
They see a violation.
So how does Jesus respond?
He doesn’t argue emotionally. He doesn’t dismiss the law. He goes straight to Scripture.
He says, “Have you not read…?”
That question alone would have landed hard. These were men who prided themselves on knowing the Scriptures. And Jesus takes them to two places they know very well.
First, He reminds them of David.
David — God’s anointed king — once entered the house of God when he was hungry and ate the bread of the Presence. Bread that was technically reserved for priests alone. And yet no one condemns David for it.
Why?
Because they understand something instinctively: David’s identity matters. God’s chosen king isn’t treated like an ordinary rule-breaker. His authority reframes the moment.
Then Jesus points to the priests in the temple.
Every Sabbath, priests work. They slaughter animals. They offer sacrifices. They perform duties that, by a strict reading, would count as labor. And yet no one accuses them of breaking the Sabbath.
Why?
Because the temple matters. Worship matters. God’s presence matters more than the restriction.
And then Jesus says something staggering:
“I tell you, something greater than the temple is here.”
Do we hear what He’s saying?
The temple was the center of Israel’s spiritual life. It was the place where God dwelled among His people.
Jesus says, Someone greater is standing right in front of you.
Then He delivers the conclusion:
“For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.”
Not the Sabbath over the Son of Man —
the Son of Man over the Sabbath.
This is the heart of the issue.
The Pharisees knew the law.
They guarded the law.
They enforced the law.
But they had lost sight of the Lawgiver.
They honored the Sabbath while missing the One who created it. They defended God’s commands while opposing God’s presence.
And that’s the warning for us.
It is possible to be deeply committed to God’s rules and deeply resistant to God Himself.
It is possible to defend Scripture and still miss its fulfillment.
It is possible for obedience — meant to lead us to God — to become the very thing that hides God from us.
---
Here is the sentence that brings this home:
Jesus didn’t come to create a ruleless religion.
He came to rescue us from a rule-based righteousness.
---
The law was never meant to replace relationship. The Sabbath was never meant to outrank mercy. Obedience was never meant to obscure the One we are obeying.
---
When rules become ultimate, we don’t become holier — we become blind.
---
Don’t let the letter of the law obscure the heart of the law
In the middle of this confrontation, Jesus says something that exposes everything that’s gone wrong. It’s a sentence that doesn’t just interpret the moment — it diagnoses the disease.
He says in verse 7,
“If you had known what this means, ‘I desire mercy and not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the guiltless.”
That statement comes from the prophet Hosea. And it’s important to understand what Jesus is doing here.
He’s not inventing a new ethic.
He’s not softening the Old Testament.
He’s reminding them of something God has already said — repeatedly.
Through Hosea, God told His people, “I desire steadfast love, not sacrifice; the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.”
Sacrifice was part of God’s law. Ceremony was commanded. Ritual mattered. But God never intended ritual to replace relationship. He never intended outward obedience to stand in for inward devotion.
In other words, God was saying:
If your rule-keeping makes you less loving, something is deeply wrong.
That’s the heart of the law.
The Pharisees were experts in sacrifice — but amateurs at mercy. They were fluent in ceremony — but tone-deaf to compassion. And Jesus says, If you had understood what God meant, you wouldn’t be standing here condemning people who are actually innocent.
That word — condemning — is important.
They weren’t protecting holiness.
They were passing judgment.
Matthew immediately gives us a living illustration of what that looks like.
Jesus leaves the field and enters the synagogue. This is now a public, religious setting. And there is a man there with a withered hand — a visible disability, a real human need.
The Pharisees ask Jesus a question.
It’s not an honest question.
“Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?”
Matthew tells us why they asked it: so that they might accuse Him.
This is chilling.
They’re not asking because they care about the man.
They’re not asking because they want clarity.
They’re asking because they want leverage.
The man with the withered hand has become a test case. A prop. A means to an end.
And Jesus knows it.
So instead of answering immediately, Jesus reframes the issue. He brings it down to something simple, something human.
He says, “Which one of you, if he has a sheep and it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will not take hold of it and lift it out?”
Everyone knows the answer.
Of course you would.
Of course you’d help.
Of course mercy overrides ritual in that moment.
Then Jesus delivers the line that dismantles their entire system:
“Of how much more value is a man than a sheep?”
That’s not a new rule.
That’s the heart of God.
Human need matters. Compassion matters. Love matters. And Jesus says plainly, “So it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath.”
Notice what He doesn’t say.
He doesn’t say the Sabbath is meaningless.
He doesn’t say the law is obsolete.
He doesn’t say obedience doesn’t matter.
He says goodness matters. Mercy matters. People matter.
Then He turns to the man.
There is no argument now. No footnotes. No debate.
Jesus says, “Stretch out your hand.”
And the man does.
And it is restored — whole, healthy, complete.
Right there, in the synagogue. On the Sabbath. In front of everyone.
And this is where the story takes its darkest turn.
Verse 14 says, “But the Pharisees went out and conspired against Him, how to destroy Him.”
Let that settle.
They’ve just witnessed mercy.
They’ve just seen restoration.
They’ve just seen a man made whole.
And instead of rejoicing… they plot murder.
Why?
Because mercy threatens rule-based righteousness.
If Jesus is right, then their system is wrong.
If mercy is central, their control weakens.
If compassion defines obedience, their authority erodes.
So the letter of the law — divorced from the heart of the law — doesn’t produce holiness. It produces hostility.
Here’s the sobering truth this passage presses on us:
When obedience is severed from mercy, it becomes dangerous.
The Pharisees didn’t lack Scripture.
They lacked love.
They didn’t lack discipline.
They lacked compassion.
They didn’t lack religion.
They lacked the heart of God.
And Jesus stands in that synagogue, healing a broken man, exposing a broken system, and revealing what the law was always meant to lead to — life, restoration, mercy.
Which brings us to the final question the text forces us to face:
If someone were watching how we apply God’s truth…
Would they see mercy?
Or would they see condemnation?
Because the heart of the law has always been love.
And anything that hides that — even obedience — has missed the point.
--- CONCLUSION
By the end of Matthew 12, the issue is no longer the Sabbath.
It’s no longer about grain fields or synagogue rules.
It’s no longer even about healing.
It’s about how people relate to God.
The Pharisees believed they were defending holiness. They believed they were guarding truth. They believed they were protecting God’s law. And yet, standing right in front of them was the One who gave the law — and they could not see Him.
That’s the danger of rule-religion.
Rule-religion doesn’t begin with rebellion.
It begins with responsibility.
It begins with good intentions.
It begins with a desire to get things right.
Slowly, quietly, the center shifts.
Rules stop pointing us to God and start standing in His place. Obedience stops being a response to grace and becomes a substitute for it. Before we realize it, the very things meant to lead us to God are shielding us from Him.
That’s why Jesus’ words cut so deeply.
“The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.”
“I desire mercy and not sacrifice.”
---
At the center of it all, this truth:
Jesus didn’t come to create a ruleless religion.
He came to rescue us from a rule-based righteousness.
---
That sentence doesn’t dismiss obedience — it redeems it.
Because Christianity is not lawless.
It is grace-centered.
The gospel doesn’t remove direction; it changes motivation. It doesn’t erase holiness; it redefines its source. Obedience still matters — but it flows from belonging, not from fear.
Rules are no longer the door.
They’re the fruit.
That changes everything.
It changes how we see ourselves.
It changes how we see others.
It changes how we respond when grace disrupts our expectations.
The Pharisees couldn’t rejoice when the man’s hand was healed because mercy didn’t fit their framework. It happened at the wrong time, in the wrong way, under the wrong authority.
The question we’re left with is not whether we would heal on the Sabbath — most of us would say yes. The deeper question is this:
What happens when grace shows up and doesn’t follow our rules?
What happens when God restores someone who doesn’t fit our categories?
What happens when mercy moves faster than discipline?
What happens when love reaches someone before we think they’re ready?
Do we rejoice?
Or do we retreat into regulation?
Rule-religion always asks, “Is this allowed?”
Grace asks, “Is this life?”
Rule-religion asks, “Is this safe?”
Grace asks, “Is this loving?”
And Jesus consistently stands on the side of life.
He stands in grain fields with hungry disciples.
He stands in synagogues with broken people.
He stands between rigid systems and real human need.
And He keeps saying the same thing in different ways:
God’s law was never meant to block mercy.
God’s commands were never meant to silence compassion.
God’s holiness was never meant to exclude restoration.
The tragedy of Matthew 12 is not that rules existed.
The tragedy is that rules replaced relationship.
That’s why this passage is here — not to shame us, but to warn us. Not to accuse us, but to invite us back to the center.
Every one of us is tempted, at times, to manage our faith instead of trusting it. To measure our standing instead of resting in it. To cling to what feels controllable rather than to what is true.
Jesus meets us there — not with condemnation, but with clarity.
He doesn’t abolish obedience.
He restores its purpose.
He doesn’t tear down the law.
He fulfills it.
He doesn’t invite us into chaos.
He invites us into rest.
So as we leave Matthew 12, the invitation is simple — and searching:
Don’t let rules replace relationship.
Don’t let obedience eclipse mercy.
Don’t let devotion drift into opposition.
And above all, don’t let anything — even good things — obscure the grace of the One standing right in front of us.
Because when Jesus is at the center, the law finds its place, mercy finds its voice, and faith finally becomes what it was always meant to be — not a system to manage, but a life to receive.
