Philip Schaff's Popular Commentary (4 vols)

John 7:22

John 7:22. For this cause hath Moses given you the circumcision (not that it is of Moses but of the fathers), and ye on the sabbath day circumcise a man. The very law was intended to teach them the fundamental principle upon which Jesus rested His defence, to look beyond the letter to the spirit, and to see that sometimes an ordinance is most honoured when its letter is broken. ‘For this cause ‘ to teach this lesson Moses, who gave the Ten Commandments (John 7:19), one of which enjoined the sabbath rest, took up into the law which he gave (see John 7:23, ‘the law of Moses') the far earlier ordinance of circumcision, laying down or rather repeating the strict rule that the rite must be performed on the eighth day (Leviticus 12:3). When this eighth day fell on the sabbath, the Jews, however inconsistent the rite might seem with the rigid sabbath rest, yet, with a true instinct, never hesitated to circumcise a child. They felt that to receive the sign of God's covenant, the token of consecration and of the removal of uncleanness (and may we add? the token of the promise which was before and above the law, Galatians 3:17), could never be really inconsistent with any command of God. In acting as they did, therefore, they proved that in this matter the lesson which the lawgiver designed to teach had been truly learned by them; yet it was a lesson essentially the same as that which the healing by Jesus on the sabbath day had taught. This passage is of great interest as showing that in many respects the law, even whilst seeming to deal in positive precepts only, was intended to become, and in some measure actually was, a discipline, preparing for the ‘dispensation of the Spirit.'

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Philip Schaff's Popular Commentary (4 vols)

John 7:22

Old Testament

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