Jesus, the Meaning and Picture of the Sabbath

Place yourself in the fields in Capernaum. You are resting on the Sabbath like all your friends and family. Then all of a sudden you see these men walking through the fields, picking heads of grain. You would recognize that Deuteronomy 23:25 allows them, “to pluck the ears with your hand, but not put a sickle to your neighbors standing grain.”

Then you would remember the long list of Rabbinic rules which indicated what you could and could not do (and how much you could do it). And you would think that Jesus was breaking the Law.

But Jesus appeals to a time when the Pharisees' rules did not rigidly apply. For Jesus replies, “Have you never read what David did, when he was in need and was hungry, he and those who were with him: how he entered the house of God, in the time of Abiathar the high priest, and ate the bread of the Presence, which it is not lawful for any but the priests to eat and also gave it to those who were with him?”

What does Jesus' response mean? Is Jesus advocating that he is simply allowed to break rules? Wouldn't this lead to antinomianism, or an attitude against the use of the law, which would be inconsistent with Jesus' statement that he did not come to destroy the Law but to fulfill it?