The Yoke of Christ

Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.   ~ Matthew 11:28-30 (ESV)

Every Christian knows this passage, especially the closing verse. Many non-Christians know it, for that matter. It is used in all manner of ways to attempt to explain what happens when someone sheds the 'weight of the world' and realizes that Jesus Christ is Lord over all.

There is, however, a key word that is often misunderstood in this passage. That word is 'easy'. 'For my yoke is easy,' it reads. Too often we hear the word 'easy' and we think it means 'simple' or 'doable'. "Oh, I can do that - it's easy." However, given that Jesus preached the Sermon on the Mount just a few chapters prior to this (5-7), one cannot possibly come to the conclusion that Jesus is saying His yoke is 'simple'.

Therefore, since it is in the Bible, and since Jesus said it, we must understand what it means. Words are important. They matter so much to God that He has chosen to communicate most regularly with His people through a book (I stole that from John Piper). So, let's take a look at what 'easy' really means in the Bible.

The word 'easy' in this verse is the Greek word chrestos (pronounced khrase-tos' according to Strong's #5543). It is used in several places in the New Testament, but it is only translated as 'easy' in this verse. This begs the question: How is it translated in the rest of the New Testament? Primarily, it is translated as 'good', 'kind', or 'kindness'. We will look at each of these in turn.

*Important Study Note: When reading the Bible, it is critical to let the Bible interpret the Bible and not someone else first. When you run into a difficult passage, check out the cross-references so you can start grabbing onto the overall biblical context. In this case, this word is only translated this way in this passage. We must therefore look at how it is used elsewhere in the Bible in order to arrive at the best reading of this verse.*

Good:

• Luke 5:39 - Jesus is drawing the illustration of the wineskins, concluding with the statement, "No one says, 'The old is good.'"
• 1 Corinthians 15:33 - Paul is writing here about the resurrection of the dead 'on that day', essentially exhorting the recipients of the letter to live in light of eternity. In the midst of this he says, "Bad company corrupts good morals."
• 1 Peter 2:3 - Peter here is speaking about believers living in unity and experiencing God's presence in and through the Word. In referencing Psalm 34, Peter writes, "...if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good."

Kind/Kindness:

• Luke 6:35 - Jesus is making the point that His followers should love their enemies, and He makes the point that even God extends common grace to all by stating, "for He is kind to the ungrateful and the evil."
• Romans 2:4 - Paul is writing against believers casting judgment upon unbelievers. He writes, "Or do you presume on the riches of His kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?"
• Ephesians 4:32 - Paul here commends the Ephesians to put away their old selves and their old ways and instead put on Christ and His ways and thus live in unity. He writes, "Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you."

What we see in the above passages, and what we will use to inform how we interpret the word 'easy' from Matthew 11:30, is that the word 'chrestos' is used to convey a characteristic of God, namely His kindness, and specifically His kindness in extending His people grace and mercy and forgiveness through Christ! Each passage points out that, in light of the gospel, believers should live markedly different lives than they did before being saved, and these new lives will look different than the world. We should live as though Christ actually did something for us and the Holy Spirit has truly made us alive and transformed, and we should stop living in hypocrisy, claiming Christ once or twice a week only to put back on our 'garment of heaviness' the rest of the week.

Therefore, putting this word to use in Matthew 11:30, where Christ calls His yoke 'easy' (chrestos), the implication is that we live a wholly new life in light of the gospel, one that is free of worldly cares, concerns, and burdens, and is instead full of grace and joy through Christ for ourselves, other believers, and even our enemies. It is 'easy' in the sense that it is Christ's yoke, and as such, we were never meant to carry it. He took care of that while He walked the earth, while He literally carried the yoke of the cross up Calvary and had the full burden of sin, mine and yours, placed upon Him. It is 'easy' because He has already done it.