Fasting: “Moreover when ye fast, be not, as the hypocrites, of a sad countenance, for they disfigure their faces, that they may appear unto men to fast. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.” Matthew 6:16. These words of Christ are often read in a way that safely confines them to another people and another time. Most commonly, they are handed over to the Jews, and to the Pharisees in particular, as though the danger our Lord exposes belonged uniquely to a bygone religious class. At other times, the passage is spiritualized in a vague and generalized way, reduced to a warning against outward show while still treating fasting as a legitimate expression of self-denial or discipline, provided it is performed with careful discretion.
In his comments on this passage, John Gill treats fasting as an outward religious act, historically practiced, morally neutral, and spiritually dangerous when treated as righteousness. The address is primarily to Pharisaical religion, but by extension to any who fast for recognition or reward. Gill is warning the church against religion performed for visibility and reward. In Gill’s theology, fasting is an external religious act, and therefore always dangerous when confused with inward godliness. This is all very good.
Likewise, Robert Hawker approaches these words of Christ from the same ground, yet presses the matter further inward. Where Gill exposes fasting as an outward religious act easily corrupted by pride and reward-seeking, Hawker is chiefly concerned with what fasting reveals about the heart’s reluctance to rest wholly in Christ. In short, Hawker understands a true fast as something entirely internal and Christ-directed and thus warns against Christians importing law-religion into gospel ground. The “secret” is not the closet as a better stage, but the heart emptied of confidence in anything but Christ. All helpful and clarifying considerations.
Another thought naturally arises, and I can’t quite resist it, namely that, judging from the surviving portraits of both Gill and Hawker, neither man appears to have suffered much from excessive fasting. Whatever their views on the subject, they were clearly not malnourished saints. If they fasted at all, one suspects it was not very often, or else over-compensated on other days. Let’s bring this a bit closer to home. Who here has fasted in the last year? Go ahead, hands up, and feel free to explain how it went. Crickets. Apparently fasting has fallen on hard times, which is ironic, considering how little hardship most of us actually endure. I doubt any of us are wasting away. On the contrary, we are comfortably padded, amply supplied, and thoroughly attached to the necessities and luxuries of present life.
If we turn from the commentators to church history, the subject appears in another form. During the puritan period, particularly in the Cromwellian era, fasting was often formally appointed by churches and even by the state. Beginning in the early 1640s, Parliament proclaimed regular national fast days, commonly called “Days of Public Humiliation” or “Solemn Fasts,” which were observed publicly through closed shops and mandatory church attendance. Under Cromwell these practices continued, at times alternating with days of thanksgiving, and became woven into the moral and religious life of the nation. Well-known puritan figures such as John Owen, Thomas Goodwin, Jeremiah Burroughs, Thomas Manton, and Richard Baxter participated in and preached on these occasions, generally viewing fasting as a means of humbling the flesh and aiding prayer, while still acknowledging the danger of outward form overtaking inward exercise.
And yet, when read alongside our Lord’s own words on fasting, these appointed fasts raise an unavoidable question, not so much about motive, but about manner. Christ’s instruction on fasting does not merely warn against hypocrisy of heart, but against making fasting a visible, scheduled, and publicly recognized exercise. As Christ describes it, fasting is not something planned in advance or observed as a public appointment. It belongs to the secret dealings between the soul and God, arising from immediate need rather than future planning. When fasting is fixed upon a calendar it moves from inward response to outward form. Isaiah 1:13-14. Whatever the difference in intention, the resemblance in practice is difficult to ignore. None of this is meant to forbid fasting, nor to judge the exercises of another man’s conscience. What must be resisted is turning it into a rule, a measure of spirituality, or a duty imposed where Christ has left liberty.
Whatever one concludes about the fasting practices of earlier generations, it is hard not to notice how thoroughly the subject has been sidelined in our own. It is therefore not at all surprising how quickly “fasting” is passed over in much of what is called preaching today, and when it is addressed at all, it is most often spiritualized into a broad principle of self-denial. Fasting is reduced to the idea of giving something up, restraining some appetite, or denying some aspect of the flesh. In doing so, the focus subtly shifts from Christ Himself to the believer’s ability to restrain the flesh, manage appetites, or demonstrate seriousness. What is lost in this shift is precisely what both Gill and Hawker warn against, the ease with which religious acts, even well-intentioned ones, can subtly replace resting in Christ with a confidence rooted in self.
At this point, the question is no longer whether fasting has been misunderstood, but why our Lord speaks of it so differently than we do. When Christ is asked about fasting, He does not respond by prescribing its frequency or promoting its usefulness. Instead, He answers by locating fasting entirely in relation to Himself. “Can the children of the bridechamber mourn, as long as the bridegroom is with them?” Matthew 9:15. By this single question, Christ reframes the matter entirely, turning it from religious activity to relationship. As long as the Bridegroom is with them, fasting, identified here with mourning, is out of place. Psalm 16:11.
Fasting, as Christ defines it, is not a religious act to be initiated, but a response that arises when the Bridegroom is taken away and consolation is withdrawn. John 16:20. This places fasting outside religious manufacture and within the realm of communion. Where Christ is enjoyed, joy is full; where that enjoyment is interrupted, sorrow will arise. Christ addresses this very reality not by calling His people to manufacture sorrow, but by directing them to the true source of joy. I John 1:3-4. My aim in writing these thoughts has not been to revive fasting, discourage it, or regulate it, but simply to consider the subject in the light of Christ’s own words, and to leave it there. “These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full.” John 15:11. MPJ