JOHN 7: 19-24
DEVELOPING PROPER JUDGMENT
[John 5:1-15 / 39 – 47]
Jesus has just explained that if their lives are in harmony with God, they will recognize the character and source of His teaching. [Similarly, in John 5:42-47, Jesus said that if they had the love of God in their hearts, they would recognize God’s teaching at once.] [Jesus’ mission is to honor God. He honors God by deflecting glory from Himself, which is also a sign of His authenticity and authority. He also honors God by His obedience to the Father.]
In other words, spiritual understanding is not produced solely by learning facts or procedures, but rather it depends on love for God and obedience to known truth. Obedience to God’s known will develops discernment between falsehood and truth.
Having laid down these general principles Jesus now applies them to a particular event in His own ministry in our text for this evening.
I. BREAKING THE LAW, 19-20.
II. MAKING MEN RIGHT, 21-23.
III. RIGHT JUDGMENT, 24.
Jesus takes up the raging controversy over His misunderstood action of healing during His previous visit to Jerusalem. Verse 19, “Did not Moses give you the Law, and yet none of you carries out the Law? Why do you seek to kill Me?”
It is clear that the Sabbath debate of chapter 5 still dominates Jesus’ relation with these Jerusalem authorities. In that chapter Jesus healed a man crippled for 38 year on the Sabbath in Jerusalem and instructed him to carry his bed. Rather than praise Him for this compassionate miracle, the authorities criticized Jesus for violating religious law. Jesus here returns to the argument for their hostilities against Him (5:39 – 47).
Jesus accepted the fact that Moses transmitted the Law to Israel and acknowledged the authority of that Law. He accused his opponents, who claimed to be champions of the Law, with failing to keep it. [Those who do not keep the law of Moses should be reluctant about judging others.]
Moreover, the leaders’ plan to kill Jesus (5:18) is in specific violation of the Law. Jesus’ charge can also be interpreted in the light of His own teaching on the sixth commandment (Mt 5:21-22), in which He declared that the act of murder results from contempt and hatred of another personality.
On more than one occasion the New Testament reports that some people were so intent on their hostility toward Jesus that they either made plans to kill him (Mark 3:6) or they tried to carry it out (Luke 4:29). The threat declared here is real. In these months before Passover, Jesus has to be cautious, protecting Himself from those who want to assassinate Him. His charge that they were plotting to kill him was also amply substantiated by their action at the end of the feast (7:30, 44-45).
Verse 20 helps us understand that it was a behind the scene plot to kill Jesus. The crowd answered, “You have a demon! Who seeks to kill You?”
The crowd here is distinguished from the authorities questioning with Jesus previously in 7:15 [unless they were trying to hide the plot from the people]. Perhaps they have come from Galilee for the feast, but at least we can say that they are astonished by Jesus’ claim and know nothing of an attempt to kill him. “You are demon-possessed” likely carries no theological weight and can be translated, “You’re crazy!”
The response of the crowd to Jesus’ accusation shows that the decision of the rulers had not been widely publicized. Those that were after Jesus began working behind the scene, or plotted among themselves, and did not inform the general populace the intentions their opposition to Jesus was taking them.
II. MAKING MEN RIGHT, 21-23.
Jesus singles out one miracles that was causing contention in verse 21. Jesus answered them, “I did one deed, and you all marvel.
Jesus is not saying that he did only "one miracle." By this time he had performed several; but these were squashed by the "Jewish leaders because the least publicized His good works were the better to them. The reference to circumcision on the Sabbath shows that the issue of healing on the Sabbath was central to Jesus’ controversy with the Jewish rulers. So, no doubt, the "one miracle" refers to the healing of the paralytic at the Pool of Bethesda (John 5:1-18), which initiated the hostile criticism of "the Jews."
Jesus recalls the attitude of the authorities which accompanied this good work. It was amazing that a man disabled for 38 years had been cured, but the amazement was also over Jesus going against the powers that be in doing what He did in spite of their stance. Jesus argues though that it was especially appropriate for the Sabbath day despite of their indignation over it.
Jesus now expands His line of reasoning more fully (7:22 – 23) in verse 22 into the area of circumcision. “For this reason Moses has given you circumcision (not because it is from Moses, but from the fathers), and on the Sabbath you circumcise a man.
[Circumcision was emblematic of separation from all other peoples, who were consequently called "the uncircumcision" (Eph 2:11). Cutting off of part of the foreskin was a sign of putting away the evil of the flesh.]
Circumcision was initiated by Abraham (Gen 17:9-14) and explicitly commanded in the law of Moses. They regard the command of Leviticus 12:3 to circumcise on the eighth day as so binding did that they didn’t hesitate to override the Sabbath. Thus, though they would scrupulously avoid all manner of things that even remotely looked like work not to profaned the Sabbath, they had no hesitation in carry out circumcision on that day.
Had they understood the significance of what they were doing they would have seen that a practice which overrode the Sabbath in order to provide for the ceremonial needs of a man justified the overriding of the Sabbath in order to provide for the bodily healing of a man. This point is most important for understanding of the Sabbath controversy between Jesus and His legalistic opponents.
Jesus finishes His point in verse 23. “If a man receives circumcision on the Sabbath so that the Law of Moses will not be broken, are you angry with Me because I made an entire man well on the Sabbath?
The Sabbath law permitted a ceremony of circumcision if a male child became eight days old on the Sabbath. Jesus was saying the reason Moses prescribed circumcision on the Sabbath was to set a precedent for such activities as the one Jesus performed. A man had been it need. Jesus met his need.
It is as if Jesus is saying, “Is it just and fair to be angry with Me, b/c I have done a far greater and more needful work to a man on the Sabbath, than the work of circumcision? I have not wounded his body by circumcision but made him whole. I have not done a work of necessity to one member of His body but a work of necessity and benefit to His whole body.
If a boy can be partially healed on the Sabbath as part of the rite of circumcision, why should not a man be completely healed on the Sabbath? [Jesus healing the man was what they did in trying to heal a baby after circumcision.] Jesus argues from the lesser to the greater, using circumcision as a precedent. Jesus is not simply reinterpreting the law but fulfilling what the law was meant to do: to bring renewal and redemption to God’s people.
[If a rite were permitted that marked purification by affecting only one
member of the body, why should he not be allowed to make the entire man whole on
the Sabbath?]
While the religious leaders allowed certain exceptions to Sabbath laws, they allowed none to Jesus who was simply showing mercy to those in need, a concept they knew little about.
III. RIGHT JUDGMENT, 24.
Jesus says for us to judge according to the spirit and purpose of the Word instead of how we see things in verse 24. “Do not judge according to appearance, but judge with righteous judgment.”
There was once a WISE OLD MAN sitting at the gate of an ancient city. A young traveler stopped before entering the city and asked the old man, "What kind of people live in this town?" The wise man answered with a question, "What kind of people were in the town you just came from?"
"Oh, they were liars and cheats and thugs and drunks, terrible people;’ the young traveler replied. The old man shook his head, "The people in this town are the same way:’
Later another stranger paused to ask the same question, and again the wise man questioned his questioner, "What kind of people did you just leave?"
The second traveler answered, "Oh, I left a fine town. The people were good and kind and honest and hardworking." The wise man smiled and said, "The people in this town are the same way:’
People who are kind and forgiving toward others usually experience tolerance from others themselves; those who are harsh, censorious and critical toward others find that others exhibit much the same disposition toward them/ Our judgment effects how we see things/
By the way, What kind of people live in your town?
The judgment problem here was that the leaders understood the Scriptures only superficially. They majored on minors or entirely missed the intent of many passages (Mt 23:23; Jn 5:39-40).
The command was to stop judging superficially but in accordance with right. The translation "stop judging" indicates that His enemies should cease making superficial pronouncements on His work & that they should evaluate it objectively. They were guilty of wrong judgment & were urged to mend their ways. They promoted a fallen human agenda rather than an agenda of God. [The agenda of fallen man is to be stopped, be it religious or secular in orientation.]
Jesus was forbidding judgments based on inadequate information or from inadequate spirituality. He was forbidding judgments in which the person assumes the position of God instead surrendering their life to live out the Word of God by the Spirit of God which alone can make men righteous.
CONCLUSION / TIME OF RESPONSE
The text is filled with hints of conflict and violence — the crowd must decide if their faith is stronger than their fear. And so must we if we would stand with Jesus.
There is also a deeper issue here that haunts this text. It is not simply the self-indulgence pagan world that is Jesus’ opponent. It is also religious authority and formidable experts hailing from the most religious city in the Bible, who stand militantly before Jesus. And we are ask to decide, to judge, who is right.
Jesus fields questions and interrogations in this chapter just as He has throughout the centuries by men and women eager to engage in religious dialogue but reluctant to meet with God and connect with His Spirit. There is darkness and there is light, the above and the below, truth and falsehood, God and Satan. As Jesus moves through the world, He unmasks the opposition to God wherever it is hiding. This unmasking causes greater hostility, as we see in the weeks ahead.
