Feb 5 – Judge Rightly

“¹ Therefore, every one of you who judges is without excuse. For when you judge another, you condemn yourself, since you, the judge, do the same things. ² Now we know that God’s judgment on those who do such things is based on the truth. ³ Do you think — anyone of you who judges those who do such things yet do the same — that you will escape God’s judgment?”

In the last devotion, we discussed our double standard of judgment and what God’s judgment is like. We also asked the question: Is Paul telling us that we should never judge anyone? We’ll answer that today. Let’s do a quick refresher. Remember that Paul had just finished producing a rather exhaustive list of unrighteous traits back in Chapter 1:

“They are filled with all unrighteousness, evil, greed, and wickedness. They are full of envy, murder, quarrels, deceit, and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, arrogant, proud, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, senseless, untrustworthy, unloving, and unmerciful.” — Romans 1:29-31

Everyone is included, that is, there is not a single person, less Jesus, who has not done something on this list. Therefore, according to verse 1, every single person who judges brings condemnation upon themselves because they are doing the very same things as the person they judge. So, let’s answer that question we had earlier: Is Paul telling us that we can never judge anyone, lest we be condemned also? In summary, yes, that is what he is saying, but there is more to it than that.

No person who has ever lived, with the exception of Jesus, has lived perfectly. No human being is without fault. No person has remained free from sin. Paul will address this later in chapter 3 where he says:

“For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God;…” — ‭‭Romans‬ ‭3‬:‭23‬

What Paul is saying in chapter 2 is that there is not a single human being, except Jesus, that has a leg to stand on when judging others. Paul can know, without a doubt, that whoever is casting judgment has also sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Despite this, there are still several times that the Bible calls on Christians to judge others. How can this be reconciled? 

“…they are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.” — ‭‭Romans‬ ‭3‬:‭24

Paul reveals that though we have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, in Christ Jesus and His gospel, we have the opportunity to be redeemed and justified. This is what enables us to judge. God wants us to call sin what it is. Sin is disgusting; it is filthy. Sin lives in direct defiance of everything God wants for us and calls us to be. Sin leads to death and eternal suffering. We would never want anyone to continue down that road! We must judge those who are persistently living in sin because they are heading straight for their rightful destruction. What Paul is telling us in Romans 2:1 is that our redemption and justification in Jesus changes our attitude when judging others. We are in no position to call out to those in sin and tell them that they are wrong, we are right, and they should be more like us. How could we? We were in the very same position before Jesus stepped in to save us. Instead, we must approach others with humility, walk alongside them, judge their sinful living for what it is, and implore them to repent, confess, “Jesus is Lord”, and believe in His resurrection. This is the only thing that brings true life. We don’t have the solution, nor do we have the power to judge. Only in Christ can we be saved, and only in Christ can we understand what it is to judge rightly. A couple of examples may be helpful. 

“If any of you has a dispute against another, how dare you take it to court before the unrighteous, and not before the saints? Or don’t you know that the saints will judge the world? And if the world is judged by you, are you unworthy to judge the trivial cases? Don’t you know that we will judge angels — how much more matters of this life?” — ‭‭1 Corinthians‬ ‭6‬:‭1‬-‭3‬

In his first letter to the Corinthians, Paul chastises the Corinthian Christians for taking their disagreements with one another to the secular courts. Paul is critical of them, telling the Corinthians that they should be judging their disputes with one another among themselves. Paul is saying, if you can’t even make a judgment between two fellow brothers or sisters in Christ, how can we expect you to make judgments on anything else? This should be easy. Not only that, a much more important and difficult judgment is coming. The saints, that is, the church will be called to judge the world and the angels! Paul is telling the Corinthian church that making judgments in disputes among themselves should be easy and insignificant in comparison to what we will be called to do in the future. It is clear from this passage that Christians are expected to make judgments. Whether we will be good or bad at this will, like with the Corinthian church, depend on our ability to discern between what is right and godly, and what is unrighteous and evil. 

Here’s another example:

“‘Do not judge, so that you won’t be judged. For you will be judged by the same standard with which you judge others, and you will be measured by the same measure you use. Why do you look at the splinter in your brother’s eye but don’t notice the beam of wood in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the splinter out of your eye,’ and look, there’s a beam of wood in your own eye? Hypocrite! First take the beam of wood out of your eye, and then you will see clearly to take the splinter out of your brother’s eye.’” — ‭‭Matthew‬ ‭7‬:‭1‬-‭5‬

Many use this Scripture to tell Christians they have no business judging others. However, just like with our passage in Romans 2:1, this cannot be the case, as that would contradict many other portions of the Bible which clearly call on Christians to judge, some of which were noted previously. Similarly to what Paul is saying in Romans 2, Jesus here warns against the attitude with which we are judging others. We must approach with humility. Notice how Jesus calls attention to the one casting judgment, warning that they may well have an entire beam of wood in their own eye whilst they are attempting to remove a spec from the other person’s eye. This is hypocritical! This shows no gratitude for Christ’s saving grace and mercy in our own lives and displays an arrogant pride in our own hearts. In doing so, we are refusing to acknowledge our own struggle with sin, and we rob God of the glory due to Him for the work He has done and is doing in our hearts that has allowed us to change. The warning from Jesus is that if we possess an attitude such as this, it would be better for us not to judge at all, lest we bring judgment on ourselves. Instead, we must approach the judgment of sin in the lives of others with substantial humility and caution, being prayerful and gracious, yet firm and truthful. 

God will have the final and total judgment upon those who use their own authority to judge hypocritically. Not a single guilty person will escape God’s judgment. God’s judgment will be based on the truth. He will reveal the true heart condition of those He judges, exposing the arrogant and ungodly nature of their attitude towards others. Let that be a warning to us.