When to Judge, or how Not to Judge (Matthew 7:1-6)

One of the outlooks of contemporary life is that everyone should be free to do what they want. A consequence has been that most people are aware of verse 1, whether or not they know that it comes from the Bible. It has become very difficult to say that certain activities are wrong, especially if they are not harming anyone else. We should not be judgemental, we are told. Does Jesus support such an attitude in his teaching here about judging?

What happened this past week according to the newspapers? Plenty to criticise, apparently. Politicians were criticised strongly. So too were footballers, although it all depended on whose side the supporters were. Were the criticisms valid? Does Jesus teach his disciples here that they should not have an opinion on political suggestions or sporting failures?

In the religious world too, unusual things took place. At a Christian gathering in America, a prayer was offered to Allah. People criticised the gathering. Should they have done so? I hope we know how to answer that question. Inevitably, someone will say that should not judge.

The teaching of Jesus in chapter 6 was mainly about how his followers should relate to God as Father. He spoke about how they should engage in spiritual practices in the presence of the Father and how they should trust the Father to provide what they need in life. Now Jesus moves to explaining what it means for God to be a judge. Often people don’t like the concept of God as the judge. Yet it should help us to consider that the judge is the Father.

This particular instruction has been taken out of its context and used in a manner that forbids any critique of what others say and do. It is obvious from other biblical passages that the disciples of Jesus must assess what they hear and see, which means that they have to judge. If there is a biblical statement that forbids a particular practice, then the biblical statement must be obeyed, and it is appropriate for others to judge those who disobey it. The alternative is to allow everything and to accept that nothing is wrong.

In what kind of situations must we judge? Here are a few examples that the Bible mentions:

• All believers are to assess the contents of the teachings they hear by the Bible. They are not to assume that what they hear is the truth (1 John 4:1).

• A congregation must decide who among them have the qualifications for being elders and deacons (1 Tim. 3).

• The elders of a church, on behalf of the church, are to judge if a member should be disciplined and to what extent he or she should be disciplined (Matt. 18:17). An example of this occurred in Corinth (1 Cor. 5:9-13).

• Church members should assess when other believers are causing problems and should respond to them in a biblical way (1 Thess. 5:14).

• An individual Christian, when he sees a brother do something that is wrong, should make every effort to restore him (Matt. 18:15). But he cannot do this unless he has judged the activity to be wrong.

On the other hand, there are some situations in which we should not judge another believer. Here are some of them:

• We should respect the consciences of individual Christians regarding issues that in themselves are neither right or wrong. Paul describes how they should be treated when he discusses weak and strong believers in Romans and 1 Corinthians.

• We should not judge people by appearances. James warns his readers not to assume that rich, well-dressed people who attended the Christian gatherings would help, and he also warned them not to despise the poor.

• We should not judge the service that another Christian gives to the Lord as long as that believer is following biblical guidelines (1 Cor. 4:1-5).

• We should not attempt to judge another person’s motives. After all, only God knows the heart.

Who is Jesus rebuking?

It is obvious that Jesus is describing a possible problem in the lives of his disciples. We can see this from his use of the term ‘brother’. Yet he is also probably describing a wrong way of dealing with people that was common at that time. He is still speaking about the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees that his disciples are to exceed.

The righteousness of the Pharisees was connected to all the additional rules that they added to God’s requirements. There were several hundred such additions to God’s law. Those additions were not required by God, but the Pharisees made them as important as God’s commandments, and they judged anyone who failed to meet their extra rules.

Jesus likens those extra requirements to a big log that is in the Pharisee’s eye. What does this illustration tell us about their extra rules? First, it means that they had no vision. In Psalm 19, David tells us what the effects of God’s commandments are – they give light, enabling a believer to make progress in the life of faith. In contrast, the rules that the Pharisees added were of no help at all in discovering the revealed will of God. Remember that Jesus later called them blind Pharisees.

Second, the rules they produced prevented close contact with other people. Whenever a person met a Pharisee, he would be hit by the log in the Pharisee’s eye. Jesus is saying that the requirements of the Pharisees damaged other people severely. They would not get a little tap from the log – after all, it was not a splinter that was sticking out of the Pharisee’s eye.  

Third, the Pharisees found fault with trivial things. Jesus likens the matters they criticised to specks. Of course, the specks were not good, but they were not dangerous. Yet the self-righteous Pharisees majored on the minors. Of course, in order to find a speck, one has to engage in focussed scrutiny. Most people would not notice specks, but Pharisees do.

Fourth, the requirement for a person dealing with the faults of others is to get rid of his own faults first. How was the individual in the illustration going to get rid of the plank in his eye? It would be impossible for him to pull it out because it was beyond his reach. So he would need to get help from someone else. He could ask a friend to help him, but would his friends have the skills to deal with it? They would not. Instead, the only person who could remove the plank safely is God. It looks as if Jesus was saying that such sins can only be removed by the special treatment of the heavenly Physician.

It is interesting to observe biblical accounts where people with planks in their eyes were judgemental quickly of others. An example often referred to is David. When Nathan the prophet came to rebuke David over his sins of adultery and murder, he told the king a story about a rich man who used a poor man’s lamb to feed a guest. David was outraged and wanted to put that man to death. Although the man’s actions were cruel they did not deserve the death penalty in Israel whereas the two sins of which David was guilty – adultery and murder – were. The plank in David’s eye blinded himself to the seriousness of his plank. But when Nathan identified the problem, David did not turn to Nathan for help. Instead he turned to the only one who could help him – the Lord, and we read about that contact in Psalm 51.

An encouraging aspect in David’s experience is that once the plank was removed he was able to teach others about God and his grace. Many of the psalms were written by him after his recovery and each of them still helps believers today. Contrary to all expectations, he would even be used by God to bring sinners to know him. When the plank was removed, he could deal with specks.

Danger of false judging

The obvious danger is that censoriousness has its comeback on the individual who engages in it. Jesus points out that the same treatment will be given to the one who so judges. This probably does not mean the decisions on the Day of Judgement that God will make because he will not judge according to our standards. Rather we have here a reference to what he allows in providence, perhaps even arranges. After all, we are familiar with the phrase, ‘time will tell.’ That is only another way of saying that God will reveal the truth in his providence.

Perhaps a biblical example of this is Diotrophes who is mentioned in 3 John. He was engaged in assessing who should be allowed into his church and had refused admittance to some travelling Christians who had a connection to John. What was going to happen to him? The one he opposed, John, would yet deal with him when in God’s providence they met.

A definite biblical example of this is Peter. He made an assessment about the spiritual devotion of himself to Jesus in contrast with that of his fellow-disciples. Having looked at himself and at them, he acknowledged that they might deny Jesus, but he affirmed that he would remain loyal. We know the outcome in providence. Peter sadly fell because he made a wrong judgement.

An example of judging

The Saviour instructs his disciples not to give what is holy to dogs or their pearls to swine. Obviously, a dog would not understand what to do with something that is dedicated to God and nor would a pig know what to do with pearls. At one level, this is common sense. Jesus is teaching his disciples that they have some things that others will not appreciate.

Jesus also teaches that it is not wise to try and give what is holy and what is valuable to people who are going to be enraged by it. This means that his disciples must work out if a situation is appropriate for them to mention what is holy or talk about their pearls. Although his people will be opposed at times, they have to judge when to speak.

We need to work out what is meant by holy and pearls and who are meant by dogs and pigs. Things that are holy belong to God and things that are pearls are valuable and attractive. It is not hard to see here a reference to the gospel and its benefits. Dogs and pigs describe animals that move aggressively in packs and herds. All they are interested in is their next meal. Did Jesus have the Pharisees and Sadducees in mind by those animal pictures? They would be the initial opponents of the disciples.

The disciples of Jesus will discover that many people will hate and despise and oppose the gospel, and sometimes do so violently, as is happening in many places today. Therefore, they need to be wise when they share their spiritual treasures with hostile unbelievers. In the Book of Acts, the apostles stopped preaching in the synagogues whenever the listeners became abusive and threatening. Spiritual treasures include the gospel, the teachings of the Bible, and the personal experiences of Christians.

Application

The first comment is that we must always take a biblical statement in its context. Otherwise, we will say Jesus taught something that he did not. This set of verses about judging is frequently taken out of context. The second application is that Jesus here is speaking about personal relationships and how we interact with one another. So he is warning his disciples about relationship problems. The third is that we should ask God to remove the sinful planks that distort our judgement before we cause damage to others. And the fourth is that we have to judge when we should speak about biblical matters and when we should not.