Justification of his conduct.
The allusion to unrighteousness is the point of transition from Christ's teaching to his conduct.
I. HE IS CHARGED BY THE JEWS WITH BREAKING THE SABBATH LAW.
1. He had healed the impotent man at a former visit to Jerusalem on the sabbath day. "I have done one work, and ye all marvel."
2. The Jews would have stoned him as a transgressor for the act. "Why do ye seek to kill me?" He knows the designs of the rulers, though the multitude may not have suspected them, and therefore say, "Thou hast a devil: who seeketh to kill thee?" But Jesus meekly passes over the reproach without a reply.
II. HE RETORTS UPON THE JEWS EXACTLY THE SAME CHARGE. "Did not Moses give you the law, and yet none of you keepeth the law?" He refers to the sabbath law, and shows that it allowed circumcision to be performed on the sabbath. "For this cause hath Moses given you circumcision (not that it is of Moses, but of the fathers); and on the sabbath ye circumcise a man."
1. They ought not, therefore, to condemn in Jesus what they approved in Moses; for the healing of the impotent man was as necessary as the circumcision of a child on the sabbath.
2. The principle he lays down derives its force from the fact that "the sabbath was made for man." Man is more than the sabbath.
3. The fairness of Christ's argument. "Judge not according to appearance, but judge righteous judgment." The argumentum ad hominem is