If a man on the sabbath day receive circumcision, that the law of Moses should not be broken; are you angry at me, because I have made a man every bit whole on the sabbath day?
All Commentaries on John 7:23 Go To John 7
Cornelius a Lapide
AD 1637
If a man on the Sabbath day receive circumcision, &c. If circumcision, which in its own nature is a servile, troublesome, and tedious work, as well as one causing pain, is not only lawful, but even commanded to be done on the Sabbath; why am not I equally allowed to heal on the Sabbath a man who has been paralysed for so many years, and with a word to restore him to health, and that too to the alone praise and glory of God? For the law of piety and kindness is a law of nature, to which every law, human and divine, such as that of the Sabbath, should give way. Observe here, "the whole man." For as Euthymius remarks, since his whole body was shattered by palsy, He rendered it entirely whole. Christ appositely compares the healing to circumcision, because as a superfluous part of the body is cut off by the one, so the palsy, which was attacking his whole body, was cut off by the other. But circumcision took place with pain and wounds, the healing by Christ with pleasure and complete health, for He healed the whole Prayer of Manasseh , that Isaiah , body and soul together. Christ appears to have cut off from the soul of this sick man his vices and sins, and to have justified and sanctified him, as well as others who were healed by Him, just as circumcision by circumcising the flesh circumcised the soul also; cut away from it original sin, and clothed it with the grace and righteousness of God.
