Judge Not
Jesus said to them, “I did one miracle, and you are all astonished. Yet, because Moses gave you circumcision (though actually it did not come from Moses, but from the patriarchs), you circumcise a child on the Sabbath. Now if a child can be circumcised on the Sabbath so that the law of Moses may not be broken, why are you angry with me for healing the whole man on the Sabbath? Stop judging by mere appearances, and make a right judgement.” John 7:21-24
Jesus is highlighting two radically different attitudes to the Law of Moses. The ‘one miracle’ Jesus refers to is the healing of the paralysed man at the Pool of Bethesda (5:1-9). Because this happened on a Sabbath, Jesus was immediately accused of Sabbath-breaking. Jesus wanted the people to think about the purpose of the Law. Was it to stop people doing things or get them to do things that characterised them as people living as God always wanted?
To make the point, Jesus uses the example of circumcision. To keep the Law of Moses a boy will be circumcised on the eighth day after birth, even if it’s a Sabbath. So something that looks like it’s breaking the Sabbath has to be done, even on that day, in order to make one tiny part of a baby boy’s body conform to God’s will. But what if it was possible to make an entire body whole on the Sabbath? Wouldn’t that be even more important?
Underneath all this is Jesus’ on-going charge against His critics that they are using parts of the Law to assure themselves they are God’s children while openly violating other parts. Immediately prior to our above text, Jesus had exposed the hypocrisy of His questioners by accusing them of insisting on the Sabbath Law on the one hand but being ready to kill Him on the other (ready to break one law to uphold another one). Surely this would be wrong in Moses’ and God’s eyes and it couldn’t be what the Law intended.
In healing a paralysed man, Jesus knew His action was in full accord with the healing and redeeming purposes which lay at the heart of the old covenant. Far from being an enemy of Judaism and he Law, Jesus knew He was the one in whom the historic purpose of Judaism was being fulfilled.
The Jewish leaders were bringing a judgement on Jesus without understanding the very judgement itself. Any one who is prepared to judge others more strictly than they judge themselves will judge by appearance and not by the heart, and will go no further with Christ.
How quickly do you find yourself judging others? Do you apply the same standards that you judge others by to your own life? This was what Jesus’ accusers were doing. Ask God to help you show the same grace to others that He has shown to you.
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