Do Not Judge?

              For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. (John 3:17)

 

            “Do not judge, or you too will be judged.”  (Matthew 7:1)

 

                Some people love to quote Jesus’ command not to judge because we’ll be judged. They’re likely to have the same response to John 3:17,  in which Jesus describes Himself as not being here to condemn the world, but so that God could save the world through Him. And what they don’t seem to get is that in telling others not to judge, they are judging the others. In threatening, warning, or promising judgment upon those who judge, one must judge. And they also seem to miss that God’s sending His Son into the world to save the world means that the world is already condemned. Otherwise, the world wouldn’t need to be saved.

            The second tidbit about the passage in John is that Jesus makes it clear that the only way the world can be saved is though Him. So those who say “Don’t judge” and follow it up with the notion that everyone is going to go to heaven, or that there’s some other means to get to heaven are calling Jesus a liar. And if He is a liar about who gets to be saved, then there’s no reason to believe Him that not judging is the proper way to go.

            The goal here isn’t to say, “Go ahead and judge. It’s OK!” Jesus did tell us not to judge. It’s important that we understand what He meant. I looked up the Greek term translated as “judge.” It is transliterated krino. Here’s the definition as provided by Walter Bauer in A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature.

                “1. Separate, distinguish, then select, prefer…

                    2. judge, think, consider, look upon…

                    3. reach a decision, decide, propose, intend…

                    4. as a legal term: judge, decide, hale before a court, condemn, also, hand over for judicial punishment…” It goes on from there. In each case, the ellipsis indicates a long passage of quotes involving the use of the term, and the print is small, but I didn’t notice Matthew 7:1 in any of them. The point is, there’s judging, and there’s judging.

            Logically, if we separate ourselves from someone else, we are separated from them. How can we not be? If we distinguish (perceive or point out a difference), we cannot help but be seen as different. If we select ourselves, we are selected.

            Again, this doesn’t mean “judging” isn’t included. There are times in Scripture in which God uses the standard set by a person (often a king) as the standard by which that person is judged. One of the examples some people give of Jesus “not judging” is the story of the woman who was brought to Him after being caught in the act of adultery. Jesus wrote in the dirt, then said that the one without sin should be the first to cast a stone. People speculate about what He wrote. My own speculation is that it was Leviticus 20:10, “If a man commits adultery with another man’s wife—with the wife of his neighbor—both the adulterer and the adulteress are to be put to death.” To bring only the woman was a violation of the law – a sin. They were judged by the standard they set. And after no one accused her, He didn’t accuse her either, but told her, “Go now and leave your life of sin.” (John 8:11). He may not have accused her, but He didn’t pretend that what she was doing wasn’t wrong. And neither should we.