Righteous Judgment

Continuing in John 7, Jesus proclaims that a "hit" has been put on Him. The Jewish leaders want to kill Him, and He is making it public. This is probably not the public statement His brothers had in mind when they encouraged Him to come early to the feast. It is though Jesus pulls back the covers and reveals the raw truth of their intentions. He does not "beat around the bush" but rather beats the bush itself. The elephant in the room has been acknowledged. There it is in all its hugeness. Yet some will not see the beast when it stands on their toe. Some immediately responded with a completely unrighteous judgment of "You have a demon." Here we go again. Jesus has already addressed that one. Is that the best they can do? When judgment is not righteous it can say whatever it wishes. Who cares if it makes any sense. Really? A demon? Of course Jesus' wisdom will be proved right by her children (Luke 7:35).

Jesus gives them an illustration of how flawed their reasoning was. Typically the Jewish leaders would administer circumcision as prescribed by law on the 8th day after birth for all male children. They saw this as a covenant and medical procedure designed to heal the person, bringing this child into right standing before God and the nation. Obviously the 8th day would occasionally fall on a Sabbath day, and the question of work would arise. Was it work to circumcise on this day? They judged that it was not since God commanded even before Moses that it be done. So they recognized that the higher benefit to man and command of God superseded any notion they had that the "do no work" rule was being violated. Circumcision in their mind was non-work. But they saw Jesus' miracle of healing a man on the Sabbath as work. But they were not thinking with righteous judgment. First, did the Jewish leaders understand the law to allow, and encourage, the taking care of their sick ones on the Sabbath? If they could have made them well on the Sabbath would they have done it? Surely they would. Second, did they ever think that if Jesus were healing on the Sabbath, by whose power was He doing the healing? Nicodemus acknowledged that without God's help Jesus would be unable to do the things He did. So, if a man was healed on the Sabbath, or any other day, who healed him? Of course, God did. So, who did the work on the Sabbath? God did. What boldness it would take for a Jewish leader to condemn God for breaking His own Sabbath laws! If God had not wanted His Son to heal on the Sabbath He would have turned the power off on that day.

But, Jesus is revealing something else here about their judgment. It was unrighteous simply because they did not like Jesus. They looked for any way to discredit Jesus even if it made no sense. If you do not like a person, it matters little what they do or say. They can't win for losing. But had they judged Jesus the person correctly they would have judged the matters of the law correctly. They were being given a living example of how to interpret the law, and they learned nothing from Him. Perhaps a new Hermeneutic would be 1) Acknowledge Jesus as Lord; 2) Look and listen to how He interpreted the Law; 3) Glean the principle He operated off of and use that principle to interpret other matters of similar nature. Our methods of interpretation would be greatly improved if we concentrated on studying Jesus' way of judging, not by mere appearance, but with righteous judgment. Jesus is the master interpreter. He judges from truth, pure principle, and grace. He sees every matter clearly. He is not confused by human logic and personal biases. In this case Jesus taught us that a person is more important than some rule created by man to protect one of God's commandments, especially a command to keep a day that was designed for man's well-being. That is righteous judgment.