John 7:23 Commentary and Bible Study

The law of Moses required that every child should be circumcised on the eighth day after birth, and this was so rigorously practiced that even if the eighth day happened to fall on the Sabbath, the circumcision should still go ahead. The Sabbath day requirement that there should be no work gave way to this requirement to circumcise the child, and God intended that this should happen, because the Sabbath was given to man to help him to worship God, not to be blindly obeyed. It was the self-righteousness of many of the Pharisees that made them exalt the Sabbath beyond what God intended. But if even a sign had precedence over the Sabbath day, a sign which represented the healing of a man from sin, then how much more should something, which was not merely a sign but the real thing, be carried out on the Sabbath day? Christ had by this miracle made the man completely well again.