Judging
By
Shelby G. Floyd
July, 2009
John 7:24
Do not judge according to appearance, but judge with righteous judgment.”
NKJV
In John, chapter five, we have the record of Christ going
up to
“Has not Moses given you the law? Yet not one of
you keeps the law. Why are you trying to kill me?” *** “Yet, because Moses gave
you circumcision (though actually it did not come from Moses, but from the
patriarchs), you circumcise a child on the Sabbath. Now if a child can be
circumcised on the Sabbath so that the law of Moses may not be broken, why are
you angry with me for healing the whole man on the Sabbath? Stop judging by
mere appearances, and make a right judgment" (John
There is a
common human tendency to condemn in other people that which we allow in ourselves
and our friends. The Jews had condemned Christ in that which they allowed
themselves to do. This was plainly inconsistent and unrighteous. The apostle
Paul once said, “Blessed is the man who does not condemn himself by what he
approves” (Romans
In
condemning Christ for healing a man on the Sabbath day the Jews had condemned
themselves. Moses had given them the law, and yet none of them kept the law.
Why then should they go about to kill Christ for allegedly not keeping the law?
A good rule works both ways. If Christ should be put to death for allegedly
breaking the law, then also they should be put to death, for they had not kept
the law. But the old adage which says, “They measure our corn by their
bushel,” certainly applied to them. As an example therefore of their
unrighteous judgment and inconsistency, Jesus applied to his critics an Argumentum
ad Hominem—an argument to the man, his interest and prejudices.
Moses had given
unto them the law of circumcision which stated that a male child should be
circumcised on the eighth day. Sometimes the eighth day would fall on the
Sabbath day, and they would circumcise a man on the Sabbath day. They did not
condemn themselves as a violator of the law for circumcising a man on the Sabbath
day. Therefore, if they could circumcise a man on the Sabbath day and not be
guilty of breaking the law, why could not Christ then heal a man on the Sabbath
day, who had been paralyzed for thirty-eight years,
and not be guilty of breaking the law of the Sabbath? But on the other hand if
Christ was to be condemned as a law violator for healing a man on the Sabbath
day, then they must condemn themselves as being law violators for circumcising
a man on the Sabbath day. If not, why not?
If Christ were a
law violator, they were much more so, for it was more of a secular work to
circumcise a man than it was for Christ to heal a man on the Sabbath day by
simply speaking the word. They had allowed a privilege for themselves which
they would not allow for Christ, and therefore, they were unrighteous in their
judgment which they had pronounced upon Christ for the good work which he had
performed. From this Jesus draws the following conclusion, “Judge not
according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment” (John
Definition of the Term “Judge”
In John 7: 24, the term “judge” translates the Greek word
[krinw-krino], which Thayer says in this context means, “to
pronounce judgment; to subject to censure; of those who act the part of judges
or arbiters in the matters of common life, or pass judgment on the deeds and.
words of others” (Thayer, page 361). This term therefore means to select,
separate, to choose or decide. Judging then always involves the process of
making a decision or a judgment. This judgment may either be based upon fact or
opinion. When upon fact it is a righteous judgment; when upon opinions it becomes
an unrighteous judgment.
Examples
of Making Judgments
Let us notice some incidents in which judgments or
decisions were made. In Luke 7, we have the parable of the creditor who forgave
his two debtors. Christ asked Simon,
“And when they had nothing with which to repay, he
freely forgave them both. Tell Me, therefore, which of them will love him
more?” Simon answered and said, “I
suppose the one whom he forgave more.” And He said to him, “You have rightly
judged” (Luke
You will observe that Simon had to make a decision or judgment based upon the story that Christ had just related. Since his decision was based upon the facts, and upon common logic, it was a true judgment.
In Acts 16, we
read of Paul and Silas going to
Judge
Not Superficially
In the gospel according to John, we have the record of
Christ being judged guilty of death by the religious leaders at
Prima
Facie—Evidence Based of the First Glance
But this is
precisely what the people had done in condemning Christ for healing the man on
the Sabbath day. They had judged him merely with prima facie evidence
which is evidence based on the first glance. They had not judged Christ based
upon a thorough, fair and. impartial hearing and trial. Therefore, their
judgment of Christ was not a righteous judgment which the law demanded on the
part of all the judges of
Later, in John,
chapter seven, when the chief priests and Pharisees were chiding the temple
officers because they had returned empty handed without Christ, Nicodemus, one
of the rulers of the Jews, stood up for Christ and asked this pertinent
question, “Does our law judge a man before it hears him and knows what he is
doing” (John 7:51)? They did not answer the question of Nicodemus, but
rather sarcastically replied, “Are you also from
The Principles of Justice in the Law
Let us notice some of the principles established by
Moses in the law concerning righteous judgments in civil and religious matters.
1. Exodus 23: 1-3, “You shall not circulate a false
report. Do not put your hand with the wicked to be an unrighteous witness. You shall not follow a crowd to do evil; nor
shall you testify in a dispute so as to turn aside after many to pervert
justice. You shall not show partiality
to a poor man in his dispute.”
2. Leviticus 19: 15, “You shall do no injustice in
judgment. You shall not be partial to the poor, nor honor the person of the
mighty. In righteousness you shall judge your neighbor.”
3. Deuteronomy 1: 16-17, “Then I commanded your judges
at that time, saying, ‘Hear the cases between your brethren, and judge
righteously between a man and his brother or the stranger who is with him. You
shall not show partiality in judgment; you shall hear the small as well as the
great; you shall not be afraid in any man’s presence, for the judgment is
God’s. The case that is too hard for you, bring to me, and I will hear it.”
4. Deuteronomy 17: 8-13, “If a matter arises which
is too hard for you to judge, between degrees of guilt for bloodshed, between
one judgment or another, or between one punishment or another, matters of
controversy within your gates, then you shall arise and go up to the place
which the LORD your God chooses. And you
shall come to the priests, the Levites, and to the judge there in those days,
and inquire of them; they shall pronounce upon you the sentence of
judgment. You shall do according to the
sentence which they pronounce upon you in that place which the LORD chooses.
And you shall be careful to do according to all that they order you. According to the sentence of the law in which
they instruct you, according to the judgment which they tell you, you shall do;
you shall not turn aside to the right hand or to the left from the sentence
which they pronounce upon you. Now the
man who acts presumptuously and will not heed the priest who stands to minister
there before the LORD your God, or the judge, that man shall die. So you shall
put away the evil from
5.
Deuteronomy 19: 15-21, “One witness shall not rise against a man
concerning any iniquity or any sin that he commits; by the mouth of two or
three witnesses the matter shall be established. If a false witness rises against any man to testify
against him of wrongdoing, then both men in the controversy shall stand before
the LORD, before the priests and the judges who serve in those days. And the judges shall make careful inquiry,
and indeed, if the witness is a false witness, who has testified falsely
against his brother, then you shall do to him as he thought to have done to his
brother; so you shall put away the evil from among you. And those who remain shall hear and fear, and
hereafter they shall not again commit such evil among you. Your eye shall not pity: life shall be for
life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.”
The Unjust Judgment of Christ
These verses teach that every man charged with
breaking the law deserves a fair and impartial trial. Christ had not received a
fair and impartial trial by the religious leaders at
Judge and Judge Not
Let us remember again that Christ said, “Judge not
according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment” (John
The Woman Taken In Adultery
In John, chapter eight, we have an example of unrighteous
judgment concerning another individual. After Jesus had spent the night in the
The Bible tells us that they had framed this problem
to Christ in order that they might tempt him and find something to accuse him,
thus showing that their real motive was not to carry out justice concerning the
breaking of the Law of Moses. After all, the law had stated that both the
adulterer and adulteress should be judged and punished. Why had they brought
only the woman and not the man? And why did they bring her to Christ instead of
taking her to the judicial authorities who had been appointed to hear such
cases. They were more interested in destroying Christ and this woman than they
were in any sense of honor for the Law of Moses.
Jesus stooped down and wrote on the ground as if he had
not heard them. When they continued to press him for an answer, he finally
stood up and said to the accusers, “He that is without sin among you, let
him first cast a stone at her.” When the accusers heard that statement,
their conscience convicted them and each one of them left the presence of
Christ and the woman that they had condemned. This strongly implies that they
were seeking to put to death a woman who was guilty of the same sin that each
one of them had committed. This is an excellent example of making unrighteous
judgments. Our judgments are unrighteous when we seek to condemn in others that
which we are guilty of and approve in ourselves.
In the days of Christ and the apostles, the Jews had been guilty of doing this for a long time. They condemned the Gentiles for being guilty of sins which they practiced openly themselves. Paul said,
“You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge the other, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things” (Romans 2:1, NIV).
To the Jews Paul also said,
“You, then, who teach others, do you not teach
yourself? You who preach against stealing, do you steal? You who say that
people should not commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols,
do you rob temples? You who brag about the law, do you dishonor God by breaking
the law? As it is written: "God's name is blasphemed among the Gentiles
because of you” (Romans
The scribes and Pharisees who had brought the woman
taken in adultery for Christ to judge had actually judged themselves because
they had been guilty of the same type of sin for which they sought to put her
to death. We are never in a position to judge others when we are guilty of the
same sin we seek to condemn in them.
“Judge
Not, That You Be Not Judged”
A man is not in a position to judge others when he seeks to cast the moat out of their eye when he has a beam in his own. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said,
“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,
Biblical Principles of Judging Others
Let us notice some of the principles taught by Christ and his apostles that should be taken into consideration in our judgment of the mistakes, sins and faults of other people.
First, in Mark 4: 24, Jesus said, "Pay attention to what you hear: with the measure you use, it will be measured to you, and still more will be added to you.”
Secondly, in
Luke
"Judge not, and you will not be judged; condemn
not, and you will not be condemned; forgive, and you will be forgiven; give,
and it will be given to you. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together,
running over, will be put into your lap. For with the measure you use it will
be measured back to you.”
Let
us make sure in our judgments of others who are at fault that we consider
ourselves also, and may we also remember that God sent not his Son into the
world to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved (John
3: 17). Our purpose in judging others should be to save them and not to destroy
them. When James and John once wanted to call down fire from heaven to consume
the Samaritans, Jesus said, “For the Son of man is not come to destroy men’s
lives, but to save them” (Luke 9: 56). Let us be merciful and righteous in
our judgments of others.
Some in the
religious world today are teaching that we should make no judgments concerning
other people whatsoever. But this is manifestly false for we are commanded to
try the spirits to see whether they are of God:
“Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God; because many false prophets have gone out into the world. By this you know the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God, and every spirit that does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God. And this is the spirit of the Antichrist, which you have heard was coming, and is now already in the world. You are of God, little children, and have overcome them, because He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. They are of the world. Therefore they speak as of the world, and the world hears them. We are of God. He who knows God hears us; he who is not of God does not hear us. By this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error (1 John 4: 1-6, NKJV).
We are even
commanded to make judgments concerning differences between brethren (1
Corinthians 6: 5). Also, the apostle Paul commanded the Corinthian church to
pass judgment upon those involved in immorality (1 Corinthians 5: 1-5). And the
apostle exhorts the Thessalonians to prove all things and to hold fast to that
which is good (1 Thessalonians
But when we judge let us judge with righteous judgment. The following words illustrate what we mean:
Pray don’t find fault with the man who limps
Or stumbles along the road,
Unless you have worn the shoes he wears
Or struggled beneath his load.
There may be tacks in his shoes that hurt,
Though hidden away from view,
Or the burden he bears, placed on your back,
Might cause you to stumble, too.
Don’t sneer at the man who is down today,
Unless you have felt the blow
That caused his fall, or felt the shame
That only the fallen know.
You may be strong, but still the blows
That were his, if dealt to you
In the self same way at the self same time,
Might cause you to stagger, too.
Don’t be too harsh with the man who sins,
Or pelt him with words or stones,
Unless you are sure, yea, doubly sure,
That you have not sins of your own.
For you know, perhaps, if the tempter’s voice
Should whisper as soft to you
As it did to him when he went astray
‘Twould cause you to falter, too.
As Abraham Lincoln
remarked one time, “No one knows how the shoe pinches the foot as the man
who wears the shoes.” Or as the American Indian proverb goes, “Do not
criticize until you walk a mile in my moccasins.” Copyright © 2009 Shelby Floyd, All Rights Reserved