Judge Not?
Pastor Dave Monreal, Lead Pastor
“Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you. Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.”
Matthew 7:1-5
The first verse is one of the most well-known and often misquoted verses of Scripture from non-Christians. They take the first sentence to mean that Christian should never judge if something is right or wrong. We know it cannot mean that because in verse 6 Jesus says, “Do not give dogs what is holy, and do not throw your pearls before pigs, lest they trample them underfoot and turn to attack you.” Clearly Jesus has made a judgment about the attitude and behavior of the religious leaders who were leading people astray with their false doctrine and rejecting the God in the flesh walking among them. He tells the disciples to make a judgment of those who are hearts are so hard and they are so violent against the truth that it is a waste to try to talk to them at the moment.
We get a clue with the next two points that Jesus makes. First, with the same judgment that we use, that judgment will be made against us. He is not saying that we should never make a judgment, but rather that we should not be judgmental and condemning. We can judge in a way that we think we are superior to others, and we have the right to look down our noses at them in righteous condemnation. Some people are strict and exacting with others but very lenient and overlooking their own faults. We yell at the “idiot” who cuts us off on the road but when we “accidentally” pull in front of someone else we think that they should understand that we’re only human and make mistakes.
Second, we must first look at our own sin and face it squarely. This ties in with the first point above. When we don’t see the depths of our own sin and our desperate need for grace, we start to think we are better than we really are and have a right to be judgmental of others. When we understand that we are desperate sinners with no hope of heaven apart from God’s mercy and the sacrificial death and resurrection of Christ we become humble people. Your sin may not be the same as my sin, but we are all sinners in need of grace. I don’t look down on you as your judge, I come alongside you as a brother.
Finally, we come full circle and find that we ARE supposed to “judge” the sin of others and help them to get that sin out of their lives. Jesus does not say to ignore the speck in our brother’s eye. He says, first see the log in your own eye then you will have the right heart attitude to help a brother to get the speck out of his eye. How much more open we are to correction when someone comes to me in humility recognizing he needs the same grace that he is extending to me. The only way we can see the speck in our brother’s eye or the log in our own is to have biblical discernment and make correct judgments.
