Judging Jesus
John 7:19-24
As we begin our study of John 7:19-24, let’s imagine the scene at that moment in Jesus’ life. It’s the week-long Feast of Tabernacles (or Feast of Booths). Jesus arrived unnoticed, went into the temple and began to teach publicly. This is a bold and courageous move. Jesus knows the Jews are seeking to kill Him. For the past six months, He has kept away from Judea to avoid arrest, or worse. And now, suddenly, Jesus appears in Jerusalem, boldly teaching in the temple! It is incredible.
A crowd of people has formed around Jesus to listen to Him. The Jewish religious authorities have arrived, have made their way to the front of the crowd, and are standing in front of Him, making accusations about Him; and Jesus is once again defending His authority. The Jews are amazed. They cannot understand how One who has not been taught by them could be teaching in their temple.
Our Lord answers their question in verses 16-18 as we saw last time. He tells them that the source of His teaching is God Himself; the initiative of His teaching is to do will of God; and the motivation of His teaching is for the glory of God. He is the One who “is true, and no unrighteousness is in Him” because He taught God’s truth, He did God’s will, and He sought God’s glory.
14 Now about the middle of the feast Jesus went up into the temple and taught.
15 And the Jews marveled, saying, “How does this Man know letters, having never studied?”
16 Jesus answered them and said, “My doctrine is not Mine, but His who sent Me.
17 If anyone wants to do His will, he shall know concerning the doctrine, whether it is from God or whether I speak on My own authority.
18 He who speaks from himself seeks his own glory; but He who seeks the glory of the One who sent Him is true, and no unrighteousness is in Him.
19 Did not Moses give you the law, yet none of you keeps the law? Why do you seek to kill Me?”
20 The people answered and said, “You have a demon. Who is seeking to kill You?”
21 Jesus answered and said to them, “I did one work, and you all marvel.
22 Moses therefore gave you circumcision (not that it is from Moses, but from the fathers), and you circumcise a man on the Sabbath.
23 If a man receives circumcision on the Sabbath, so that the law of Moses should not be broken, are you angry with Me because I made a man completely well on the Sabbath?
24 Do not judge according to appearance, but judge with righteous judgment.”
This is truly an amazing self-portrait of Jesus and it stands in stark contrast to the Jewish leadership. They certainly could not be described either as “true” or as having “no unrighteousness in them.” Starting in verse 19 Jesus draws the contrast between Himself and the attitude of the Jews who were accusing Him. Jesus takes the offensive position against them and assumes the control of the conversation. They had been questioning Him and His authority, now He questions them and their integrity. So in verse 19 we see,
1. The Accusation (7:19)
It’s time for Jesus to examine their words and their actions, and offer His conclusions. It’s time to bring them back to reality. He begins by saying, “Did not Moses give you the law”? They are thinking in their minds, “Of course he did!” They prided themselves on this. While they are gloating about their self-righteousness and their exalted position in the eyes of God, Jesus goes on to say “yet none of you keeps the law.” Those are stinging words to His questioners! These leaders revere Moses and try to give the impression that obey his every word. Jesus is telling them, “The reason you don’t accept My teaching is because you don’t follow the law of Moses.”
Remember what Jesus has told them in John 5:45-47?
45 “Do not think that I shall accuse you to the Father; there is [one] who accuses you–Moses, in whom you trust. 46 “For if you believed Moses, you would believe Me; for he wrote about Me. 47 “But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe My words?”
Think about that statement of Jesus to these very religious Jews, “yet none of you keeps the law.” That is the most comprehensive, accurate statement of truth regarding human sinfulness. None of you keeps the Law. None of you. It is still true of all people today. No one keeps God’s Law. That’s the clear declaration of man’s sinfulness. There’s none righteous – no, not one – Romans 3. Galatians 3, if you break one law, you’ve broken the whole Law and you’re cursed. These proud legalists were lawbreakers. The Law of Moses was never intended to make us righteous. It was intended to drive sinners to an overwhelming fear of divine judgment that would cause them to repent, cry out for mercy and grace from God.
As proof of their disobedience to the law of Moses, Jesus asks them a question: “Why do you seek to kill Me?” Moses gave them the law, and they all failed to keep that law. Why then are they seeking to kill Jesus as a law-breaker, when they break the law themselves?
Jesus is fully aware of their hatred for Him and their desire to kill Him. We saw it back in John 5 after Jesus healed the man at the pool of Bethesda, “16 For this reason the Jews persecuted Jesus, and sought to kill Him, because He had done these things on the Sabbath. … 18 Therefore the Jews sought all the more to kill Him, because He not only broke the Sabbath, but also said that God was His Father, making Himself equal with God.” (John 5:16, 18).
The plot against Jesus is real. In just six months from the time Jesus asks them “Why do you seek to kill Me?” they will be screaming for His blood, handing Him over the Romans to be crucified.
Jesus points out to them that their outrageous treatment of Him, seeking to murder Him, was an overt violation of the Ten Commandments. Exodus 20:13, thou shalt not what? Murder. Kill. So He indicts them. He is saying, “Where does Moses say that I should be killed for healing a person on the Sabbath day? You’re the ones who are breaking the law of Moses by seeking to kill Me.”
2. The Crowd’s Response (7:20)
I can imagine that the leaders of the Jews were standing there dumbfounded. Jesus’ reasoning was too solid. They weren’t prepared for this, and didn’t know what to say. The crowd, most of whom were from outlying areas and weren’t familiar with the plot of the Jewish authorities, come to the defense of their leaders. In verse 20 we read, “The people answered and said, “You have a demon. Who is seeking to kill You?”” These pilgrims take Jesus to be some kind of nut, someone who is mentally disturbed, paranoid that everyone is trying to kill him. They accuse Jesus of being demon possessed. They challenge Jesus as to who is trying to kill Him.
3. Jesus’ Question and Answer (verse 21-23)
I’m sure the leaders were relieved that the crowd directed the attention of Jesus away from them, but it didn’t last for long. Rather than become distracted by the crowd and direct His conversation toward them in defense of His sanity, Jesus ignores their remark and continues His conversation with the leaders of the Jews, answering His own question. In verse 21, “Jesus answered and said to them, “I did one work, and you all marvel.” Jesus takes them back to the outstanding miracle that He had done in chapter 5, when He healed, in an instant, a man who had been lame for 38 years, just by saying the words. It was a work that only God could do. They were amazed by the miracle. They were not marveling because they had seen Him heal a man. They were shocked because they had seen Him heal the man on the Sabbath day.
In verse 22, Jesus continues His argument. He is still building His case against them. This time He applies their Sabbath laws to the rite of circumcision when He says, “Moses therefore gave you circumcision (not that it is from Moses, but from the fathers), and you circumcise a man on the Sabbath.” First, He corrects their misunderstanding about circumcision. Moses was not the originator of circumcision. Before God told Moses to put the command of circumcision into written form in Leviticus 12:3, God had commanded it to be practiced by “the fathers” (Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob) over 700 years earlier. In Genesis 17:10-12, God said to Abraham,“This is the covenant which you shall keep, between Me and you and your descendants after you; every male among you shall be circumcised. . . . every male among you who is eight days old.” Therefore, in obedience to that law, every man-child (male baby) is circumcised on the eighth day.
There are no exceptions to the rule. It’s the law, and this ceremonial law even takes precedence over the Sabbath law. That was the teaching of the Jewish religious authorities of that day. Was this practice of circumcising Jewish boys on the Sabbath when the Sabbath fell on the eighth day right or wrong? The Jews would say that it was right even though it might on the surface appear to be wrong. Circumcising Jewish boys on the eighth day might appear wrong because it required work, but the judgment of the Jewish teachers was that it must be done even if it fell on the eighth day.
They made this judgment because the Jews believed that the requirement to purify a Jewish boy by circumcision on the eighth day took precedence over the Sabbath law. Jesus will now use the practice of the Jews and their belief about circumcision purifying a part of the body to show how what He had done, in healing the man at Bethesda, though it might appear to be wrong, should really be considered right.
So Jesus presents His argument in verse 23, saying, “If a man receives circumcision on the Sabbath, so that the law of Moses should not be broken, are you angry with Me because I made a man completely well on the Sabbath?.” Jesus is saying, “If you can righteously circumcise on the Sabbath to perfect one member of a man’s body, then I should be able to righteously heal the whole body on the Sabbath.” He’s telling them that they are contradicting themselves because they say one thing but do another.
4. The Lesson to be Learned (7:24)
While those teachers of the Law are standing there, looking at Jesus in wide-eyed amazement, experiencing the shame and agony of defeat, the Lord Jesus uses that moment to teach them a lesson in verse 24. Here are Jesus’ words of instruction to both the Jewish authorities and to the crowd as well. He says to them, “Do not judge according to appearance, but judge with righteous judgment.” He’s telling them to repent of the way they have mistreated Him and do what’s right in the sight of God.
They were judging Jesus because He healed a man and told him to carry his mat on the Sabbath, which was a violation of their legalistic additions to the Sabbath commandment. But at the same time, they were rejecting the true and righteous one and seeking to kill Him!
They had spent their whole life judging on appearance. It’s what hypocrites do. That’s what they sell. That’s what they produce. That’s the nature of hypocrisy. Stop doing that, Jesus said. Judge righteously.
The point here is that if you judge who Jesus is superficially, you’ll end up rejecting Him as He really is. The wonderful thing about studying the Gospel of John is that weekly we are getting a powerful picture of who Jesus is so that we will believe in Him and be saved. John helps us to see the false views of Christ and gives us strong reasons to reject those false views in favor of the true Christ who saves us from sin and gives eternal life to those who believe in Him.
There are still today, many inadequate and false views of Christ. Kevin DeYoung describes what people say about Jesus today.
There’s Republican Jesus—who is against tax increases and activist judges, for family values and owning firearms.
There’s Democrat Jesus—who is against Wall Street and Wal-Mart, for reducing our carbon footprint and printing money.
There’s Therapist Jesus—who helps us cope with life’s problems, heals our past, tells us how valuable we are and not to be so hard on ourselves.
There’s Starbucks Jesus—who drinks fair trade coffee, loves spiritual conversations, drives a hybrid, and goes to film festivals.
There’s Open-minded Jesus—who loves everyone all the time no matter what (except for people who are not as open-minded as you).
There’s Touchdown Jesus—who helps athletes run faster and jump higher than non-Christians and determines the outcomes of Super Bowls.
There’s Martyr Jesus—a good man who died a cruel death so we can feel sorry for him.
There’s Gentle Jesus—who was meek and mild, with high cheek bones, flowing hair, and walks around barefoot, wearing a sash (while looking very German).
There’s Hippie Jesus—who teaches everyone to give peace a chance, imagines a world without religion, and helps us remember that all you need is love.
There’s Yuppie Jesus—who encourages us to reach our full potential, reach for the stars, and buy a boat.
There’s Spirituality Jesus—who hates religion, churches, pastors, priests, and doctrine, and would rather have people out in nature, finding the god within while listening to ambiguously spiritual music.
There’s Platitude Jesus—good for Christmas specials, greeting cards, and bad sermons, inspiring people to believe in themselves.
There’s Revolutionary Jesus—who teaches us to rebel against the status quo, stick it to the man, and blame things on the system.
There’s Guru Jesus—a wise, inspirational teacher who believes in you and helps you find your center.
There’s Boyfriend Jesus—who wraps his arms around us as we sing about his intoxicating love in our secret place.
There’s Good Example Jesus—who shows you how to help people, change the planet, and become a better you.
And then there’s Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God. Not just another prophet. Not just another Rabbi. Not just another wonder-worker. He was the One they had been waiting for: the Son of David and Abraham’s chosen seed; the One to deliver us from captivity; the goal of the Mosaic law; God in the flesh; the One to establish God’s reign and rule; the One to heal the sick, give sight to the blind, freedom to the prisoners and proclaim Good News to the poor; the Lamb of God who came to take away the sins of the world…
Do not judge according to appearances or your preconceived biases. Instead, simply come to Jesus and be saved.
