Mark 2:26

How he entered into the house of God when Abiathar was high priest, and ate the showbread, which it is not lawful to eat save for the priests, and gave also to them that were with him?

Abiathar ... The alternative reading (English Revised Version (1885)), "in the days of Abiathar" is correct, apparently because Abiathar was not high priest at the time referred to, but later when David was king. His father Ahimelech was high priest when David ate the showbread (1 Samuel 21:1-6). It could also be that Abiathar also bore the name Ahimelech, as the Bible gives many examples of persons called by two names.

Which it is not lawful to eat ... Christ here clearly indicated David's actions as unlawful, the point being that a genuine violation in the case of David was openly approved by the Pharisees, while the inconsequential thing Jesus' disciples did was blown up into a charge of sabbath-breaking. Christ was not here seeking to justify his disciples' sabbath-breaking by the statement that "David did it also"; but he was pinpointing the unfairness and unjust judgments of the Pharisees.

Christ never meant, as some assert, that "human need takes precedence over God's law." Christ taught no such doctrine. His refusal to permit his own dire hunger to cause him to yield to the devil's temptations to change stones into bread (Matthew 4:1-4) refutes the conceit that human need justifies setting aside God's laws. Christ's true teaching here is that God's law justifies setting aside petty human regulations.

Such interpretations of this as that advocated by Dummelow and many others should be rejected. He said:

Christ laid down the principle that even divine law itself, so far as it is purely ceremonial, is subservient to human needs, and can be broken without sin for adequate cause.[4]

As McGarvey expressed it:

If Christians may violate law when its

observance would involve hardship or suffering, then there is an end to suffering for the name of Christ, and an end, even, of self-denial.[5]

The fact of the Pharisees' approval of David's unlawful conduct, while at the same time pressing their silly little charge against the disciples, is evident in the fact that, if they had not approved it, they could have said, "Ah! So David was a sinner, and so are you!" That they did not so reply shows that they approved David's violation; thus their hypocrisy was open for all to see.

"Human needs take precedence over ritual law"[6] could be applied only to very few things in the Christian faith, because Christianity is not a ritual religion. Only two ceremonial ordinances distinguish the faith of Christ, namely, the Lord's Supper and baptism. To the extent that marriage and church attendance might be considered in any degree "ritual" or "ceremonial," these also would be excluded from any such deduction based on Jesus' teachings here. Moreover, the deduction cited above is not a logical derivation from New Testament teaching concerning this incident; but it is due to a failure to take account of Matthew's more complete narrative of it, that writer quoting Jesus as denying all guilt of his apostles. Expositors who ignore Matthew 12:7, set aside the Lord's statement of the apostles' innocence, accept the crooked charge of the Pharisees that they broke the sabbath, and then make our Lord's alleged approval of it the basis of a deduction that men may set aside God's laws whenever they fancy their "human needs" are in any manner denied by holy law - such expositors do violence to the word of God. To accept such "interpretations" would justify every divorce ever granted. It is clear that some who hold such views have not considered the logical consequences of such interpretations.

[4] J. R. Dummelow, op. cit., p. 666.

[5] J. W. McGarvey, Commentary on Matthew (Delight, Arkansas: The Gospel Light Publishing Company), p. 104.

[6] Earle McMillan, op. cit., p. 43.