=18. Because he had not only broken the Sabbath.= Literally _relaxed_ (λύω) the Sabbath. See note on Matt. 5:19 for meaning of the word. The Pharisees then, as the literalists now, believe that the sanctity of the Sabbath could only be preserved by putting the soul under bonds to a literal compliance with specific regulations. Christ broke these bonds asunder, gave the soul liberty, and preserved the Sabbath by inspiring the souls of his disciples with allegiance to himself, love for humanity, and sympathy with the redeeming work of the Father. He did relax what they supposed to be essential to the preservation of the day, but what was really destroying it. To keep this poor man on his bed, or watching it to prevent it from being stolen, would have destroyed for him the rest of the day, in order that he might comply with the letter of the Pharisaic regulations. So he who rides in a horse-car rather than remain away from church, or travels late Saturday night or early Sunday morning rather than destroy his Sabbath by spending it with strangers, seems to the Sabbatarian of to-day to be relaxing the Sabbath, while he may be in truth preserving it.--=But said also that God was his own Father.= (πατέρα ἴδιον.) Norton renders the sense accurately though freely, _Had spoken of God as particularly his Father_. The meaning of the original will be indicated to the English reader by Rom. 8:32, “Spared not _his own_ Son;” 1 Cor. 6:18, “Sinneth against _his own_ body;” 1 Cor. 7:2, “Have _her own_ husband.” It is clear that the Jews either did understand Christ by his language to claim peculiar relations with God, or pretended so to do. In his mere reference to God as Father there was no such claim, for he bids us all call him our Father (Matt. 6:6, 7). True, in the language “_my_ Father,” most commentators see a ground for the interpretation put upon his language by the Judeans:--thus Meyer: “They rightly interpreted ‘my Father’ as signifying peculiar and personal fatherhood;” Bengel: “The Only-begotten alone can say, ‘my Father’;” similarly Alford, Tholuck, and others. There is perhaps some ground for this view. Yet I can hardly think that Christ’s mere designation of God as “_my_ Father” implies more than Paul’s “Abba Father” (Rom. 8:15), which Luther renders “dear Father,” or the frequent designation of God as _my_ God by the patriarchs, and especially by David. See for example, Exod. 15:2; 1 Chron. 28:20; 2 Chron. 18:13; Ps. 22:1, 10; 38:21; 71:12; 2 Cor. 12:21; Phil. 4:19. And in Psalm 89:26; Jer. 3:4, man is directed by God to apply this very phrase “my Father” in his address to God. I believe then that the statement that Jesus said that God was _in a peculiar sense_ his Father, and the deduction that he thus made himself equal to God, are the malicious wresting of his words by the Judeans, for the very purpose of finding an occasion of offence. They manifested the same spirit in John 10:31, etc., though there they have better ground for