This exposition of John 7:14-24 reveals Jesus confronting hostile crowds who had abandoned Him, demonstrating the courage required for faithful ministry. The sermon challenges us to examine whether we judge by outward appearances or with the right judgment that comes from hearts truly seeking God’s glory.
Listen above or download the audio file here. Transcript below.
Transcript below:
Scripture Text: John 7:14-24
Brothers and sisters, please listen carefully to our sermon text for this Lord’s Day from the Gospel of John, chapters seven, verses 14 through 24.
About the middle of the feast, Jesus went up into the temple and began teaching. The Jews therefore marveled, saying, “How is it that this man has learning when he has never studied?” So Jesus answered them, “My teaching is not mine, but his who sent me. If anyone’s will is to do God’s will, he will know whether the teaching is from God or whether I am speaking on my own authority. The one who speaks on his own authority seeks his own glory, but the one who seeks the glory of him who sent me is true, and in him there is no falsehood. Has not Moses given you the law? Yet none of you keeps the law. Why do you seek to kill me?”
The crowd answered, “You have a demon. Who is seeking to kill you?” Jesus answered them, “I did one work, and you all marvel at it. Moses gave you circumcision, not that it is from Moses, but from the fathers, and you circumcise a man on the Sabbath. If on the Sabbath a man receives circumcision so that the law of Moses may not be broken, are you angry with me because on the Sabbath I made a man’s whole body well? Do not judge by appearances, but judge with right judgment.”
This is the word of God. Thanks be to God.
The Context of Courage
Last week we heard about our Lord not going down to Jerusalem for the feast of booths or of tabernacles, but not out of cowardice because of God’s timing, and what we’re reading now in John seven, we see the Lord Jesus returning to Jerusalem, to the temple again, which he had formerly cleared, if you recall, from earlier in John, he’s returning to the temple, not to retreat from those who were seeking to kill him, but to confront them, to preach to them.
Now I just want you to appreciate that piece of context here as we contemplate what John has recorded for us by the Spirit’s inspiration in John seven. Remember what’s happening in our Lord’s earthly life at this time, and consider for yourself if you would have felt up to doing what he is doing in these verses.
At this point in his ministry, he had been, by and large, abandoned by those thousands of disciples who had previously been following him. If you remember in chapter six, after his teaching on God’s sovereignty and salvation, and his teaching upon his flesh being the bread of life, and his blood being something that must be consumed, of course, through faith, for one to receive eternal life, after hearing his teaching on these things, the countless thousands left him, and no longer followed him because of his teaching. And he was left with only his 12, and among those 12, there was actually only 11, because one of them was the devil, Judas, who did not actually believe.
That’s part of this context. Jesus had been abandoned. His popularity at this point was trending downward, not upward.
We also know that his own family, as far as we can tell, at least his brothers, his half-brothers, were turning against him, because even though the Jews were looking for a way to kill him, and again, remember, by Jews, it does not mean every single man of Judea. It means the particular influential men of Jerusalem who had something to lose with Christ rising to prominence. And so those were the particular Jews who were seeking his death.
That his brothers, in spite of the fact there were Jews who were seeking for a way to put Jesus to death, his own brothers said, go on down to Jerusalem and show yourself. And what’s implicit in that, perhaps, is that they, like other brothers we’ve seen in the past, namely Cain and the brothers of Joseph in the book of Genesis, they were seeking their own half-brothers’ death. That’s the context.
So Jesus is not having a great time of it here. Remember that, would you? Right, when you’re tempted to complain about the difficulties you face in life, and they are difficult, I’m not going to deny that. Life is hard, but when you are experiencing hardship and life is hard, just remember, yeah, and God the Son came down and endured even greater difficulties, too.
That’s why he’s a sympathetic high priest who knows how to help us in our time of need, because he knows what it’s like. He knows what it’s like to have to go do something that you really would rather not do. But it’s what faithfulness to God demands, and so you do it anyway.
The Hostile Audience
That’s what Jesus is doing here. Please remember that as he goes down to preach in Jerusalem. He is not going to preach to a bunch of willing disciples who could not wait to hear what he had to say.
This isn’t like at Capernaum, when they couldn’t wait to hear his every word because he had fed them miraculously. This is quite different. They had abandoned him.
Many of these were the ones who had abandoned him. If they had not abandoned him, they were the ones who were seeking to kill him. That is the crowd Jesus was going to address.
So appreciate his courage, would you? As you read what John records for us, appreciate the burden that our Lord was carrying in his own heart as he went to address this crowd. It was a hostile crowd, saints. It was not a friendly crowd.
It was one filled with hostility and even murder, some of them. The powerful ones, anyway, the ones who could actually make it happen, they’re the ones whose hearts were full of murder towards the Lord Jesus Christ. That’s who he’s preaching to.
And you hear, you heard already what he said to them. And he does not compliment them. He does not tell them they’re doing such a great job.
He does not give them three steps to self-improvement. He confronts them directly, especially their judgment. The exhortation at the end is key.
I’ve taken the title of the sermon from it. Stop judging by appearances and judge with right judgment. What an accusation.
The Real Jesus
What a testimony against them. They were false judges. That’s what Jesus is saying to them.
You have to appreciate this, saints. The gravity and weight of Christ’s words to these Jews to whom he was speaking, they were the ones, many of them, they were the ones who propped themselves up, promoted themselves, exalted themselves as the judges of Israel, the know-it-alls, the experts in the law who knew better than him, who knew better than anybody. They were the judges.
And Jesus is here saying to them, you are false judges. Your judgment can’t be trusted because you judge falsely by appearances. And in doing that, he’s calling them to repentance as we’re going to see, and he’s calling us to repentance.
But the thing I want you to understand is that here in this context, our Lord is going to a very hostile crowd that has no more use for him, that has abandoned him, many of whom want to kill him, and he’s saying these things to them. He’s calling them out. He’s calling them out.
This is the real Jesus, amen? Who is Jesus? Here, the Jesus of Scripture is the Jesus of history. Not a Jesus who is concerned with making us feel good all the time, but a Jesus who will confront us when we don’t want to be confronted, who will come find us when we’re trying to hide and ignore him, and will tell us the truth and cut us to the heart. That’s who Jesus is.
This is the Jesus we must worship, amen? This is the Jesus we must trust in, not some flowery false Christ that is made up by men and their effeminate dreams. This Jesus is the one we must worship and trust and follow as our King and as our Redeemer. So that’s the context.
The Sabbath Controversy
He has in mind here, he’s taking them to task over a miracle that he had performed at Bethesda. That is really the nub of his teaching. He had formerly, as we saw in chapter five, healed a man at the pool of Bethesda on the Sabbath, and that prompted many of those prominent Jews to look for a way to kill him at that moment.
Why? Because he was contradicting their traditions in respect to how the Sabbath was to be observed, and in their wrong-headed, heretical traditions, it was wrong to heal a man on the Sabbath. And so Jesus is confronting them on their understanding of the Sabbath. He’s confronting them on the falsehood of their foolish traditions, and he’s confronting them on their handling of God’s law.
So while God’s law is not mentioned by name within this passage, it is very clearly front and center because Jesus is talking about Moses and circumcision and the Sabbath. So God’s law is a chief concern within the context, and how God’s law is to be interpreted and applied to the life of God’s people. How are we to observe God’s law? What does God’s law require of us? That is an implicit question within this passage.
It’s an incredibly important question, and Jesus is saying to his original audience that they were answering it wrongly because their answer was God’s law prohibits us from healing on the Sabbath, and Jesus is saying no. Stop judging by appearances and judge with right judgment.
The Threat to Religious Authority
Notice what we see in verses 14 through 15.
John mentions this, and I think one of the reasons why John mentions this point to us is because the Spirit intends for us to understand the kind of threat that Jesus represented to the Pharisees and to the Sanhedrin, those who saw themselves as the authority, as the experts in respect to the law of God. Notice verse 14, this was the middle of the feast at the height of the celebration, so everyone is there. That’s when Jesus went into the temple where everyone would have been, and he began to teach then and there.
And we see in verse 15 that the Jews marveled, and why did they marvel? They were perplexed at what they heard Jesus saying. Why? Because he clearly had learning, but he had never studied. He had never gone to one of the rabbinical schools.
He was not one of the Pharisees. He wasn’t a priest. He was the son of a carpenter.
And yet, he had learning. More than that, as we see elsewhere in the other Gospels, we know that our Lord taught as one with authority and not like the Pharisees. Not like the Pharisees.
What so? How so? How is it that Jesus taught like one with authority and not like the Pharisees? Well, I think it comes down to this. The Pharisees were only concerned with repeating the same impotent traditions over and over again, and they never actually gave anyone understanding of God’s law. All that they would give people would be rules and rules and rules, but never actual meat, in other words, the meat of Scripture.
And yet, the Lord Jesus Christ, when he would teach, he actually fed the people. He actually gave them understanding of the text of Scripture. He did not give them useless, impotent, empty human traditions that were good for nothing but leading people astray.
And this would have made him a threat to the Pharisees, first and foremost, because it meant that the people saw Jesus as an authority. Even though they had stopped following him, they still marveled at him. They marveled at his learning.
And this would have been offensive and a threat to the Pharisees because they were supposed to be the learned ones. They were supposed to be experts. That was their status, and they coveted that status, and they would kill to protect it.
They would kill to protect their stranglehold on God’s people. Why? Well, the text tells us, Jesus says so, because those men were not concerned with the will of God, and they were not concerned with the glory of God, as we’re going to see. They were concerned with their own glory and their own authority.
Jesus Still Threatens Hypocrites Today
But in light of verses 14 and 15, we see that Jesus was undeniably a threat to those Pharisees. And I want to tell you something. This is something we should all acknowledge.
Jesus continues to be a threat to all hypocrites to this day, amen? Including hypocrites in the church. Jesus continues to be a threat. Why? Well, because as we’re going to see, he exposes our hearts.
He sees right through us. He’s God incarnate. First Samuel 16, seven doesn’t apply to him.
He knows the hearts of men. He knows what’s in men. His eyes see our intentions and our desires, and he knows what’s in there.
We cannot hide from Jesus. And that enrages hypocrites. Why? Because hypocrites hide behind their appearances.
That’s what hypocrites do. They want to impress you with how good they look. And so when you encounter someone like Jesus Christ, who you cannot impress with your appearances, who look right through you, and see the wickedness and sin in your heart, and say, you are like a whitewashed tomb.
That’s what you are. How does a hypocrite respond? No, I’m not. You have a demon.
Yeah. Wow. They’re gonna say that to Jesus here, and they’re gonna say it to him again in the next chapter.
Oh, he’s the one with the demon, you sons of the devil. Right.
God-Given Truth vs. Man-Made Tradition
So Jesus answered them. They’re marveling at his ability to teach, his knowledge, his learning. Listen to what he says. “My teaching is not mine, but his who sent me.”
In other words, I’m not giving you man-made tradition. Listen, read Mark seven, not right now, but reading Mark seven is essential to understanding this exchange that Jesus is having here. Because it’s in Mark seven that the Lord Jesus really takes the traditions of the rabbis to task, and accuses them of making void the word of God, and replacing the word of God with the teaching of men.
And so here in verse 16, Jesus is saying, listen, what I’m giving you is not, it’s not like what the Pharisees give you. It’s not mere, empty, man-made tradition. It’s from God.
It’s actually God-given truth. There’s a huge difference between man-made tradition and God-given truth. Do you know what the difference is? Well, God-given truth is actually true, and man-made tradition is a lie.
So the difference here is between truth and falsehood. And this is what would have made Jesus’ teaching so authoritative. It was actually true, as opposed to being a lie, like the traditions of the rabbis by this point.
The Heart Test
Then he goes on to say this in verse 17. “If anyone’s will is to do God’s will, he will know whether the teaching is from God or whether I am speaking on my own authority. The one who speaks on his own authority seeks his own glory, but the one who seeks the glory of him who sent me is true, and in him there was no falsehood.”
All right, now we have to stop and carefully consider what Jesus is saying in verses 16 through 18, because we might get lost a little in what he’s conveying to us. So we have to stop and think. And what we must recognize right away is that in verses 16 and 18, the Lord Jesus is aiming right at the hearts of his original audience.
He’s aiming at their hearts. He’s concerned with their intentions, their inner intentions. Because as I’ve already alluded, as God incarnate, he knew what was in their hearts.
He was able to see their intentions and their thoughts because he could not be deceived by appearances. And so what the Lord is saying in verses 16 and 18 is that those who were hypocrites, those whose intention was to glorify themselves and not God, would not be able to do that. They would not recognize his words as being from God.
So in other words, Jesus was saying to the crowd, if you don’t receive my teaching, the reason why you don’t receive my teaching is because your intention is evil. You don’t receive my teaching because your intention is not to glorify God, even though that’s what you claim. Your intention is to glorify yourself and your own authority.
You claim to want to glorify God. You claim to be so concerned about God’s law, but in reality, you’re an idolater. That’s what Jesus is saying implicitly when he tells them, as we’re going to see here in a few moments, that they did not keep God’s law.
He’s saying, you’re idolaters. If you break one commandment, you break all of them, you see. To break even one of God’s commandments is to break the first.
So he’s telling them, you’re idolaters. And then he’s also affirming that those whose intention, again, he’s cutting past appearances here. He says, it doesn’t matter how holy or righteous you appear. It has to do with the intentions of your heart.
If your intention is to seek the glory of God, to exalt God over yourself, then you will recognize that what I’m saying is from God. But if your intention is to glorify yourself, you’re going to reject what I have to say.
The Heart Behind Hypocrisy
And why is that? Why would those hypocrites, those self-exalting hypocrites who looked so much more righteous than everybody else, why would they reject what Jesus was saying? Well, for this reason, and this is something we have to understand about hypocrites and honestly about ourselves. What matters to a hypocrite more than anything else? Your appearance. The appearance of righteousness.
That’s what a hypocrite cares about. That’s what the Pharisees and the Sanhedrin cared about more than anything else, how good they looked to the people of Israel. Everything depended upon that.
Appearing to be righteous. Go read Matthew 23. I’m giving you other assignments, right? Mark 7, read Matthew 23, but this is exactly what Jesus says about the Pharisees in particular and Matthew 23, that they did their works to be seen by men.
So one of the ways you can tell whether or not you are a Pharisee or hypocrite is to answer this question, how much does it matter to you how you appear to other people? And how protective are you of that appearance? Because if you are overly concerned with your outward appearance, and by that I don’t mean do I look put together well or not. It’s do people recognize I’m better than them or not? That’s the real question. Do I convey a sense of superiority, so that others feel inferior to me? And if not, that’s a problem.
Because I want other people to feel inferior to me by putting on the appearance. That’s how Pharisees operated. Can you operate like that? Are you capable of that? I am.
If you’re not capable of such hypocrisy, you’re better than me, good for you. I don’t believe you, I think you’re self-deceived, but good for you. Yeah, we can operate like that.
Becoming so concerned about appearances. I gotta tell you, you already know this, but I think where do you find this kind of sin among God’s people? Because God’s people, how do hypocrites in God’s people function and operate? By pretending to want to glorify God, by pretending to be so concerned about his word and his law, when in reality all they’re concerned about is exalting and glorifying themselves, which is exactly what the Pharisees were doing, and that’s what Jesus is calling them out for in verses 16 through 18.
And then he’s going to prove it to them by what he goes on to say, which would have been very bracing for some of his listeners, because they would realize he’s reading our hearts.
Now I hate him even more, because how did he know we want to kill him? How did he know that?
Why Hypocrites Reject Christ’s Teaching
So these hypocrites, and it’s not just true of the hypocrites Jesus was preaching to, it’s true of all hypocrites, those who trust in their outward appearance, but not in Christ. The reason why they rejected Christ’s teaching is because his teaching robbed them of the glory that they coveted.
Because Jesus’ teaching is this, don’t trust in appearances.
We know that’s what he’s telling us. Again, look at the last verse of this text, verse 24. “Do not judge by appearances, but judge with right judgment.”
That is anathema to a hypocrite, because a hypocrite wants to judge by appearances. And this is why all hypocrites throughout all history reject the teaching, the true teaching of the Lord Jesus Christ, because he sets afire and destroys that thing that they love and idolize the most, which is outward appearances. And Jesus says, outward appearance doesn’t matter.
What matters? Your heart, your heart, your heart. That’s what matters. What is going on in your heart? What are the intentions of your heart? That’s what God looks at.
That’s what God is concerned with. He’s not concerned with how good you look. He’s concerned with the intentions of your heart.
That’s what he sees. And so that means if we’re going to believe Jesus, or if we’re gonna recognize that what he’s saying is from God, we have to be willing to see our own outward appearances in the same way God does, which means we don’t put much stock in them at all. We don’t trust in them at all.
We instead confess the truth about ourselves. We instead confess, yeah, it doesn’t matter how good I look. I’m a sinner inwardly.
My heart goes astray. There’s nothing good in me. That’s why I need Jesus.
I’m no better than you. I’m no better than any sinner. But this is why hypocrites despise Christ.
And his teaching. And this tells us something about our Lord.
How Jesus Preached to Hypocrites
You know, we have to pay attention to how he preached to hypocrites.
Pastors have to pay real close attention to this. Because it has to inform how we preach, amen? It must inform how we preach. And you notice something about the Lord Jesus.
When our Lord taught, and we can see a clear example of it here in John 7. When our Lord taught, it was never to impress men. He was never concerned with maintaining or promoting his own respectability and credentials. He wasn’t concerned with that.
He wasn’t concerned with convincing everybody what a gifted orator he was. And he certainly was not concerned with puffing men up to make them feel self-important by promoting them in their self-deception, by helping them and encouraging them to continue to believe the lies they were telling themselves. Namely, I’m okay the way I am and God loves me just the way I am because look how good I am.
No, the Lord Jesus instead, when he taught, it was always to glorify God and to humble men. You have to realize this about our Lord’s teaching. In glorifying God, Jesus always humbled men.
He never exalts men, amen? That is a recipe, the structure of all faithful Christ-centered preaching. God is glorified and man is humbled. If man is being exalted, Christ isn’t being preached, even if his name is used.
His name is being used falsely. God must be glorified and man must be humbled. And listen, that’s true even when we’re talking about the good news of the gospel that we are saved by grace alone through faith alone and Christ alone as a free gift.
That’s still humbling, amen? That’s humbling, why? Because when I confess that truth, I’m admitting I didn’t save myself. There’s nothing for me to contribute. It’s the free gift of grace.
There’s nothing for me to boast in. My only boast is in Christ and his righteousness. I have nothing to boast in myself.
The Heart of Faithful Preaching
So the faithful preaching of God’s word, truly Christ-centered preaching, always exalts God and always humbles men. And faithful preaching always, we see this in our Lord’s example, always focuses upon the heart and the intentions of the heart, especially toward God. And it confronts us with this question in one way or another.
Is your intention to glorify yourself and get your way and to be told what you want to hear, to have your itching ears satisfied? Or is your intention instead to glorify God? Because if your intention is to glorify God, then you want to hear the word, no matter what it costs you, no matter how painful it is, and no matter how humbling it might be, you want to hear the word.
But if your intention is not to hear the word, if your intention instead is to, like the Pharisees, to continue on trusting in your appearances and trusting in yourself and believing the lies you tell yourself, then you are going to plug your ears to Christ. You are not going to tolerate the preaching of his word.
You’re not gonna tolerate his preaching out of the gospels. You’re gonna turn away from it. And you’re gonna stop your ears because you will not be willing to endure it.
The Warning Against Itching Ears
This is what Paul warns against in 2 Timothy 4 when he charges Timothy to be ready in season and out of season to rebuke and exhort. Why? Because a time is coming when people will no longer endure sound teaching. What will they do? Having itching ears, they will surround themselves with false teachers who tell them what they want to hear.
And they’ll use the name of Christ, but the preaching won’t be Christ-centered. Why? Because the, listen, you’ve heard this preaching before. Hopefully, Lord willing, not here, may it never be.
But you’ve heard it in the past. What am I talking about? I’m talking about sermons that never call anyone to repentance. I’m talking about sermons that are just concerned with self-help, with therapy, with telling you you can do it, you’re great, you poor thing.
That’s not biblical preaching. That’s not how Jesus preached. And that’s not how his shepherds preach.
His shepherds address the heart. His shepherds seek to dispel and overturn and destroy lies and to save people from the lies they tell themselves by telling them the truth, not by satisfying their itching ears. This is how our Lord preached and this is how all of his servants ought to be preaching.
The Risk of Preaching Truth
And you must recognize something that in preaching in this manner, preaching to the heart is a messy and risky enterprise. Was it messy and risky for Jesus? Did his faithful preaching and addressing of people’s hearts and his condemnation of people’s false appearances, how did that turn out for him? It resulted in his crucifixion. They hated his preaching so much, they crucified him.
So it’s a risky enterprise because when you preach in that way, and I don’t just mean preachers, I mean Christians in general who teach the truth and declare the truth to the world, right? It doesn’t have to be from a pulpit. It can be at work, it can be at Walmart, it can be at home, wherever it might be. It is a messy, risky enterprise because in preaching the truth and applying the word of God faithfully, you’re exposing, as we see in Hebrews 4, we heard earlier from our New Testament reading today, you’re exposing the contents of the heart, you’re cutting past the division of joints and marrow.
And that’s humbling. People don’t like that. I don’t like that because it’s so uncomfortable.
And so the risk of preaching like Jesus is you’re going to earn people’s hostility and rejection and anger, which is why it’s so easy to not preach like Jesus did. But listen, this is what we need to recognize. We need preaching like this, amen? We need to have our hearts divided.
We need Jesus to speak to us in this manner and to confront us with our inner sinfulness so that we will see it and flee to him for forgiveness. We do not need to be encouraged to go on believing the lies we tell ourselves. We do not need to be encouraged to continue trusting in our outward appearance.
What we need is to continually have our hearts divided and our intentions exposed and confronted by the word of God. That’s what we need. Whether we feel like it or not, that’s what we need.
Jesus Exposes Their Lawbreaking
And in verses 19 through 20, we know, we see, and so did our Lord’s original audience, that he knew their intentions, many of them anyway. Listen to what he says.
“Has not Moses given you the law? Yet none of you keeps the law.”
Them there is fighting words. When Jesus said that to them, he was convicting them as lawbreakers. They said the opposite about themselves.
So here, this is a showdown. Jesus is speaking to men who said that they were paragons of righteousness who were exemplary in their keeping of God’s law. And yet Jesus says to them publicly at one of the highest feasts of the year, at the temple, in hearing distance of thousands of people, he says to them, “none of you keeps the law.”
How many? None. None of you keeps the law. And then he tells, he convicts them of their lawbreaking.
And the next sentence in verse 19, “Why do you seek to kill me?” You know, did you know, maybe you didn’t, but I’ll enlighten you. Do you know that God’s law prohibits murder? Did you know that? “You shall not kill.” That’s one of the commandments.
And so you understand why Jesus says none of you keeps the law. Well, how so? Because they were intending to murder him, an innocent man, a sinless man, the sinless man. And so because he could see past their righteous appearance and he could see their hearts and he knew what was happening in their hearts and he could see their murderous intentions toward him, he says to them, “none of you keeps the law.”
And listen, he’s not polite about it. He doesn’t say, hey, can we talk privately over coffee somewhere where no one will hear? Because I don’t want to embarrass you. No, he comes right out with it in front of everyone.
Because here’s why, they display their hypocrisy publicly. It’s like, if you’re gonna just put your hypocrisy on display in public, then don’t be shocked when Jesus comes and destroys it publicly. So you’re gonna be a peacock in public, be prepared when the Lord plucks your feathers publicly.
Because this is what the Lord Jesus is doing here. “None of you keeps the law.” Why not? Because you’re murderers.
“Why do you seek to kill me?” Now, if you want to get a gauge as to where the crowd was in their level of self-deception, verse 20 shows us the crowd answered, “You have a demon who is seeking to kill you.” Now, we read that, we read the crowd’s response, and we might be tempted to say, well, not everyone there knew what they were intending to do. That’s true, but also at the same time, in that crowd were the men who were intending to kill him.
They’re part of this response. That was their response to him. “You have a demon.”
No, we don’t. We don’t intend to kill you. No one’s intending to kill you.
Yeah, you do. So not only were they murderers at heart, they’re also liars at heart. They’re self-deceived.
They’re self-deceived and lawbreakers.
Jesus Confronts Their Sabbath Hypocrisy
And so here, finally, in verses 21 through 24, the Lord Jesus takes them to task, having demonstrated that they are indeed lawbreakers who do not know how to rightly handle God’s law, who do not know how to apply the law to anyone, including themselves. He goes on to take them to task for their condemnation of his healing of the man by the pool of Bethesda back in chapter five.
“Jesus answered them, I did one work, and you all marvel at it. Moses gave you circumcision, not that it is from Moses, but from the fathers, and you circumcise a man in the Sabbath.”
So here, the Lord Jesus is arguing from the lesser to the greater to follow his logic.
“If on the Sabbath a man receives circumcision so that the law of Moses might not be broken, are you angry with me because on the Sabbath I made a man’s whole body well?”
So his argument is this. Listen, if God’s law does not prohibit anyone from being circumcised on the Sabbath, those who are prescribed by God’s law anyway, then how on earth can you make the case that God’s law prohibits healing someone on the Sabbath? God’s law didn’t prohibit anyone from being healed on the Sabbath, not at all. Where did that come from? Why did they condemn what Jesus was doing on the Sabbath, his healing of the man on the Sabbath? Well, because it violated their traditions, and their appearance of righteousness depended upon their traditions.
One of the ways in which the Pharisees made themselves look so righteous compared to everybody else was because of their observation of all the extra rules they had added to Sabbath keeping. And so by threatening all those man-made traditions and rules that were not imposed by God’s law, by threatening those things, Jesus was threatening the Pharisees’ status in Jerusalem. He was threatening their appearance.
And by the way, this is a slam dunk argument against them. They don’t have a rejoinder to what the Lord Jesus, the argument he’s presenting them with. They don’t have a comeback, because there was no comeback.
And how did they respond to this fact, that the Lord Jesus dismantled their traditions and exposed their hypocrisy? How did they respond to that? Well, not with humility, not with repentance. As we know, they responded with anger, and eventually with murder.
The Call to Right Judgment
And he gives them this last exhortation, which I mentioned at the outset, at the beginning of the sermon, from verse 24.
He implicitly calls them all false judges. “Do not judge by appearances, but judge with right judgment.” What is he saying to them there? Well, it’s self-evident what he means.
“Don’t judge by appearances, but judge with right judgment.” All right, what does he mean by right judgment? It’s actually very simple. How do we judge with right judgment? We judge ourselves according to God’s law.
You see, here’s the irony in all of this, is that these Pharisees who claim to use God’s law as their standard of judgment, that was a total lie. They did not, God’s law was not their standard of judgment. What was their standard? Outward appearances.
And so when Jesus says, “don’t judge by appearances, but judge with right judgment,” he’s saying, judge according to God’s law. Judge yourself according to God’s law. You’re not doing that.
Here’s the thing about God’s law, and it’s easy to miss if we’re not paying attention. God’s law actually requires us to look past appearances. Did you know that? It’s right there in the law.
God’s law does not settle with just observing how we appear to others. It’s not just a matter of appearing to not be an idolater. It’s not just a matter of appearing to be a faithful husband or a faithful wife, or appearing to not be a murderer.
You know, the law of God takes a laser beam and drills us right in the heart. It does this. Where? Where does God’s law just jab us right in the heart? Boom, direct hit, the 10th commandment.
“You shall not covet.” Do you know what you covet with? Not your hands, your heart. And when God’s law says “you shall not covet,” God’s law is saying, judge yourself rightly.
Don’t just keep a list of the things you don’t do outwardly. Pay attention to your heart. Examine your heart.
Judge your heart according to God’s law. And here’s the thing. When any sinner, which includes all of us, judges himself according to God’s law, what is the verdict? Every single time.
Well, I don’t know about, well, I do know about you. I’m not gonna be so nice. No.
Are we all coveters by nature? Yeah. Maybe you never committed adultery. Maybe you’ve never murdered somebody.
I certainly hope not. But you have coveted. What have you coveted? You’ve coveted God’s glory.
So have I. You’ve coveted what your neighbor has, what didn’t belong to you. You and I are all coveters. And that means when we judge ourselves with right judgment in light of God’s law, we are all condemned.
This is what Paul tells us in Romans 3 and 4. We’re all condemned. No one is justified in God’s sight by keeping the law. Why? Because only through the law we receive knowledge of sin.
The law condemns us. It cannot save us because we’re coveters. And so the reason why hypocrites want to avoid judging with right judgment is because they don’t wanna hear that verdict.
Guilty. Yeah, but look how good I appear. Look at all the good things I’ve done.
Look how hard I work. It doesn’t matter. The law doesn’t care about that.
The law cares about your heart. What is going on in your heart? Are you a coveter? The only answer is yes, guilty.
Where the Law Drives Us
What do we do then with that guilty verdict? Where do we go when we judge ourselves with right judgment? Well, we have two choices.
To plug our ears, close our eyes, and ignore God’s law and judge ourselves falsely according to appearances, which is what the world does. I’m fine just the way I am. I’m not that bad.
I’ve made mistakes. Oh, I bet. That’s one choice.
The other choice is to hear that verdict from God’s law, which demands that our hearts be tested and judged, to respond to that verdict by saying amen, guilty. But you see, the moment you say your amen to that verdict, what happens to your outward appearance? Your appearance of righteousness falls to the ground. Oh, well, you look really good outwardly, but the truth is you’re a sinner.
The truth is you’ve broken God’s law. You’re a lawbreaker. It’s okay, so am I. Now where do we go with this? Well, who is speaking here? Jesus.
That’s where the law drives us, right? Paul tells us the law is a schoolmaster that does what? That drives us to the Lord Jesus Christ, to go before him and say, “Lord Jesus, I have judged myself with right judgment according to your holy law. I have examined my heart according to your law, and the law has condemned me as a covetor, at the very least, a covetor. Forgive me.
Save me from my sin. Save me from the penalty that I deserve. Save me from my covetousness, from my murderous intentions, from my adultery, from all of the sins, my idolatry.
Save me, Lord Jesus, from me, from my sin.” That is where the law drives us. That is how we can tell when we are judging ourselves with right judgment.
Our Response to Christ’s Teaching
Not by considering what men think of us, not by considering how good we look, but by evaluating ourselves honestly in the light of God’s law, and in seeing the verdict that God’s law gives against us every time, guilty, fleeing to Christ for the forgiveness of our sins, rather than hiding behind our lies, our self-deceit, our traditions, and our appearances.
So, saints, what are we to do in light of this episode in our Lord’s earthly ministry? How are we to respond to this? What do we do with this? We do two things.
First: Confess Our Capability for Hypocrisy
The first thing we do is to confess and admit that we are just as capable of hypocrisy and judging ourselves according to appearances as the Jews to whom Jesus was originally speaking.
Amen? We have to admit that. I’m not above this. I could very easily be numbered with those people and be guilty of the same thing they were doing.
I could be guilty of the same hypocrisy. Oh, Lord, help me. That’s the first thing we need to do.
Second: Repent and Judge Rightly
And here’s the second thing we need to do. We need to do exactly what Jesus says in verse 24. We need to repent, and I do say repent because, listen, in our fallenness, in our depravity, we do judge ourselves by appearances.
So, we need to keep on repenting of judging ourselves falsely according to appearances, and we need to instead continue to judge ourselves with right judgment in light of God’s law, by recognizing our need for Christ, and by continuing to confess that need, and by putting no trust whatsoever in our own outward appearance, but putting our trust in Christ and in Him alone, not in ourselves, not in the things we do, not in the things that are done to us, but by trusting in Christ and His righteousness alone.
That is how we are to respond to this text, by fleeing to Christ, by believing Him, and giving glory to God, rather than seeking our own glory.
So, saints, I’ll leave you with this exhortation, and then we’ll pray.
Judge yourself with right judgment. Do not trust in appearances. Certainly do not trust in your own appearance.
Rather, judging yourself rightly, trust in Christ and in Him alone.
Prayer
Let us pray. Father in heaven, we thank you for your Son, who preaches the truth to us, who sees past our outward appearances, who delivers us from our self-deception, who exposes our hypocrisy so that we can repent from it.
Lord, we pray, Father, that you please would help us to believe what your Son has said. Help us to not judge by appearances, which only leads to death, and deception, and rebellion. Help us instead to judge ourselves rightly, with right judgment, according to your law.
And as we judge ourselves according to your law, help us to flee to your Son, to find forgiveness and justification that only He can provide to us. Save us from hypocrisy, Father. Save us from false appearances.
Help us to not be like those who refuse to listen to Jesus because of our hypocrisy. Help us instead to be like those who genuinely intend for you to be glorified, so that we will gladly receive and believe the preaching of your Son. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, amen.
Participating Worthily at the Lord’s Table
Well, saints, coming to this table certainly does not depend on appearances. That’s not what it means to partake in a worthy way. Not at all.
How do we partake in a worthy way? The passage we’re reading from every Lord’s Day, 1 Corinthians 11, has a very stern warning that if we eat and drink in an unworthy manner, then we are guilty of the body and blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. I do not want to be guilty of Christ’s own body, do you? So I must be very concerned with what it means to participate in His supper in a worthy way.
Does that mean that I have to come to the table, if I’m going to participate in a worthy way, that I have to look a certain way? That I have to appear to be righteous enough? Not at all.
It means the opposite of that. If you think you can come to this table on the basis of how righteous you appear, that means you are not worthy, because your faith is completely in the wrong place. You’re trusting in yourself, and your own outward appearance, and not in Christ.
So as you come to this table, I exhort you, eat and drink in a worthy way by not trusting at all in how you appear to the rest of us, because how you appear to the rest of us doesn’t matter. What matters is what is in your heart in respect to Christ, that as we come to this table, we must come intending to proclaim His death until He comes. That’s what Paul says.
This is what we’re doing when we come to the table. We’re proclaiming the Lord’s death until He comes, and in doing that, we are glorifying Jesus. We are proclaiming what He has accomplished for our salvation.
That needs to be our intention as we come to the table, not to glorify ourselves, not to boast in ourselves, but to boast in Christ, agreeing with God’s law, guilty. That verdict that stands against us. Yes, I’m guilty, but behold the body and the blood.
That is Jesus’s answer to that guilty verdict. Thanks be to God. Yes, the law has found us guilty, but Christ, in response to that verdict, that record of debt that stood against us, He has given His own body and blood to cancel that record of debt, and we are rejoicing in that.
That’s what we’re boasting in as we eat and as we drink. I had an awful record of debt that I could not take care of, that I could not cancel myself, but the Lord Jesus has canceled that record of debt. How? By the means of His own flesh and blood.
So as you come near, saints, as you eat and drink, do so in a worthy manner, and do so in a worthy manner by not boasting in yourself, by not glorying in yourself at all, but by giving all glory to the Lord Jesus Christ in light of the great thing He has accomplished in our redemption.
Taking the Gospel to the World
Something for us to appreciate and grasp as we go back out into the world to bear witness to Christ, because that’s our chief purpose in the world, amen? As baptized Christians professing the name of Christ, something for us to recognize is that as we go out and share the gospel with the world, those who are perishing in their sins, we are at bottom saying the same thing to the world that Jesus said to that crowd at the Feast of Booths, the temple in Jerusalem in John 7.
Stop judging yourself according to appearances and judge yourself with right judgment. That’s the gospel.
When we call people to put their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, we have to tell them why. Why do they need to trust in Christ? To be saved from that record of debt I mentioned during the Lord’s Supper, that record of debt that stands against them. And that means when someone comes to Christ, they do so because they repent of judging themselves falsely and instead judge themselves according to God’s word, recognize their sinfulness, their need for Christ, and then turn to him for forgiveness.
So have the same courage as the Lord Jesus himself. You have the Holy Spirit, I have the Holy Spirit by God’s grace. We have what it takes to go into the world and to faithfully bear witness, to say the same thing that Jesus said.
We must not shrink back from doing that no matter whether or not we are met with hostility or rejection. Jesus was met with hostility and rejection. It’s okay.
Tell the world what the world needs to hear. Judge yourself with right judgment in light of God’s law and in light of the cross of Christ. Amen.
Benediction
Saints, receive the benediction with faith.
Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you is faithful. He will surely do it.
Saints, go in peace.
Photo by Daniel Páscoa on Unsplash