John 7:19-24
Righteous Judgment
John 7:19-24 MKJV Did not Moses give you the Law? And yet not
one of you keeps the Law! Why do you seek to kill Me? (20) The crowd answered and said, You have a
demon! Who seeks to kill you? (21) Jesus
answered and said to them, I have done one work, and you all marvel. (22) Because of this Moses gave you
circumcision (not because it is of Moses, but of the fathers,) and you
circumcise a man on the Sabbath day.
(23) If a man receives circumcision on the Sabbath day so that the Law
of Moses should not be broken, are you angry at Me because I have made a man
entirely sound on the Sabbath day? (24)
Do not judge according to sight, but judge righteous judgment.
The Jews were proud of receiving the Law, and doubly proud of
their mark of circumcision on the eighth day. In these verses Jesus plays one
off the other to help deepen the Jews understanding of their faith.
Circumcision
came from the patriarchs (Abraham, Isaac and Jacob) and was incorporated into
the Law of Moses as a sign of the covenant. It was supposed to be performed on
the eighth day – and the Jews observed this strictly – even if the eighth day
fell on a Sabbath. So the Sabbath prohibition against work did not apply in the
case of circumcision. Jesus makes the point that if a ceremonial requirement
such as circumcision over-rode the Sabbath, then surely making someone
“entirely sound” (KJV: “every whit whole”) did also.
In Mark Jesus makes clear that God is not demanding as much as He
is blessing, God is more interested in making us whole - than in having us
fulfill a set of formal legalisms.
Mark 2:27-28 And he said unto them, The Sabbath was
made for man, and not man for the Sabbath:
(28) so that the Son of man is Lord even of the Sabbath.
And in Matthew there is a wonderful section on the true
meaning of the Sabbath:
Matthew
12:1-14 MKJV At that time Jesus went
through the grain fields on the Sabbath day. And His disciples were hungry, and
began to pluck the heads of grain and to eat.
(2) But when the Pharisees saw, they said to Him, Behold, your disciples
do that which it is not lawful to do on the Sabbath day. (3) But He said to them, Have you not read
what David did when he was hungry, and those who were with him, (4) how he entered into the house of God and
ate the showbread, which was not lawful for him to eat, nor for those who were
with him, but only for the priests? (5)
Or have you not read in the Law that on the Sabbath days the priests in the
temple profane the Sabbath and are blameless?
(6) But I say to you that One
greater than the temple is in this place.
(7) But if you had known what this is, "I desire mercy and not
sacrifice," you would not have condemned those who are not guilty. (8)
For the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath. (9) And when He had departed from there, He
went into their synagogue. (10) And
behold, a man having a withered hand. And they asked Him, saying, Is it lawful
to heal on the Sabbaths? This so that they might accuse Him. (11) And He said to them, What man among you
will be, who will have one sheep, and if it falls into a pit on the Sabbaths,
will he not lay hold on it and lift it out?
(12) How much better is a man then than a sheep? Therefore it is lawful
to do well on the Sabbath days. (13)
Then He said to the man, Stretch out your hand. And he stretched it out, and it
was restored whole like the other. (14)
Then the Pharisees went out and held council against Him, as to how they might
destroy Him.
This attitude to the Sabbath debunks the whole
religious establishment by making it the servant and not the master. Instead of
controlling people and condemning minor infractions of Sabbath observance the
Pharisees were to be healing them and having mercy on them. If the Sabbath was
made for man, then because it is the first of all “religious institutions”
(being instituted at Creation), and has priority, then all subsequent religion
must serve the needs of the wholeness and healing of humanity – and not
humanity serve the needs of religion!
To put it another
way: Church programs are first meant to help make Christians whole - and
Christians are not there as mere labor for church programs! Church is for Christians,
not Christians for church!
No wonder they wanted
to kill Jesus! (In John 7:25 we find that His “paranoia” in v. 19,20 is
justified!) He was turning religion upside down and ending its ability to hold
people captive to rules and regulations. He was taking away the social power of
the religious establishment by breaking their rules – but in a way that was
obviously good and right. He was showing up their laws as the silly power plays
they really were!
Righteous judgment is
when we see things as God sees them – with mercy, compassion, and with a love
that which is true and the good. Righteous judgment may contradict social norms
and religious rules based in the power of vested interests. The keeping of
slaves was one such issue.
The Good Samaritan
showed righteous judgment by acting in compassion even though he risked
defiling himself by touching a corpse (if the man left for dead had passed
away). Righteous judgment breaks human conventions in order to do good to
others. This is not the same as moral relativism (which breaks God’s laws in
order to pander to liberal human conventions).
Righteous judgment humanizes the faith and makes it a meek and
gentle servant of the saints. The overbearing requirements of legalistic
religion are not what God made religion for at all. Religion is meant to
harmonize with all Creation and bless it and to allow it to be fruitful and to
multiply. Church is therefore there for healing, wholeness and the growth of
the saints (see Ephesians 3& 4)
Our church is there to grow us - and we are not there merely to
grow the church as a human institution.
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