John 7:24

Judge not according to appearance, but judge righteous judgment.

Jesus here charged his foes with having made a false judgment, based solely on the fact that Jesus had APPARENTLY broken the sabbath; but here he explained that the performance of an act of mercy and salvation took precedence over sabbath law, a principle which they recognized in connection with a far lesser thing, the rite of circumcision. Thus, their judgment that Jesus was worthy of death as a sabbath-breaker was an evil judgment, based solely on superficial and unsound premises. Jesus, by this discussion, also replied to the ignorant denial of some of the people that there was any plot to kill him. By openly discussing the charge on which they sought to put him to death, Jesus did two things: (1) showing that the multitude was ignorant of the truth, and (2) exposing the falsity of the charge on which they wanted to kill him.