When Should Christians Judge and not Judge?
Many years ago, it may have been on Christmas Day, I saw a
movie called “Tess.” My mother took my family to see it when I was almost
15. This movie, however, which was
based on the famous English novel “Tess of the D’urbevilles” by Thomas Hardy,
wasn’t exactly conventional family entertainment. It’s a tragedy, set in the 19th century English
countryside. The lead character, Tess,
is seduced, really raped, by Alec
D’urbeville. She gives birth to a baby
who soon dies. She later does marry,
but her husband, Angel Clare, rejects her after the ceremony but before getting
into bed. They trade stories, in which
he confesses he had given in to sexual sin.
She forgives him. But after she
tells her story about her situation, he rejects her, and chooses not to live
with her. Although, in the novel, he
tries not to condemn her self-righteously, and even technically “forgives her,”
he still can’t abide with the negative reputation his wife and their children
would have should anyone down the road find out about her story. In the movie, as I recall it, he comes off
much more self-righteously hypocritical, for he’s guilty of the same thing he
condemns her for and rejects her for.
She forgives him, but he doesn’t forgive her. True, he does near the end of the movie, when they get together
again. But that’s only after she, being
dirt poor, moves in with the man she had had the baby by as his (reluctant)
mistress, and then kills him.
Now this story should make us think about a key issue: When are Christians allowed to judge
others? When shouldn’t Christians judge
others? And when should we do one
rather than the other?
We need to consider how to deal with the sins others commit
or apparently commit, whether or not they are in the church. And knowing what to say in criticism when is
a balancing act. For we don’t want to
condone sin, but then we shouldn’t be condemning others either.
S.P.S. Christians
have to be careful to neither condone sin nor condemn harshly sins of others.
Now, does the Bible contradict itself on this issue? Does it say in one place we shouldn’t judge
others, but then say in another we should judge others? This issue about judging others correctly
really becomes a “difficult Scripture” problem.
So I intend to look at one text when Jesus said not to judge
others, and another where Paul tells Christians to judge each other. And then we’ll turn to where Jesus dealt
with the adulterous woman to show how to reconcile the two.
Matthew 7:1-5
V. 1: “Condemn” and
“judge” overlap in meaning in English and in Greek. The Greek word “krino” here can mean “pass an unfavorable
judgment upon, criticise, find fault with, condemn.”
Wuest translation: “Stop
pronouncing censorious criticism, in order that you may not be the object of
censorious criticism, for with that judgment by which you are judging, you will
be judged.”
Misused for relativism purposes to condone sin by those who
do judge (say) on racist or sexist acts.
V. 2: If harsh on
others, others will be harsh on you.
Ayn Rand’s provocative inversal of the principle actually correct
ironically.
If guilty of same sin as attack others for, such as Tess’s
husband was in the story above, we should be especially wary. Or suppose we’re guilty of a lesser version
of the same sin, it should restrain us as well. For example, is the mental state of a man cruising the internet
to visit porn sites one night really any different from that of a woman one night
who, like in Tess’s case, made love to a man she wasn’t married to and then had
a baby by him? Just because the latter
situation is much harder to cover up doesn’t mean the level of sin is really
any less than the man who’s guilty of lusting after women in his heart on a
screen. 12-letter “M” word issue.
Furthermore, such sins as pride, vanity, and power lust are
much more concealable than the outcome of many sexual sins are, yet they reach
to the core of Christian morality in a way that sexual sins don’t. After all, what turned Lucifer into
Satan? It sure wasn’t the desire to
commit adultery! Or consider
alcoholism, drug addiction, etc.
V. 3-4: Notice this
section is connected to the prior two verses as explaining them. We see other’s faults more clearly than our
own. Standard common weakness, so we
see their minor problems more than our big ones. Human heart self-deceiving.
V. 5: We have a duty
to reform ourselves if we intend to correct others. The failure to fix all our sins doesn’t mean we can’t say
anything about others’ sins, such as through the process that begins with
“going to your brother alone.” But we
had better be wary of specifically condemning publicly others’ sins if
we struggle with the same problem without
improving much. When
we name names, and assign sins, we’re on dangerous ground.
I Cor. 5:9-13
V. 9+: Paul here is
explaining why someone who committing a type of incest should be put out of the
church.
V. 11: Obviously,
one has to notice the sins of others, and react to them when fellow Christians
are unrepentant about them.
V. 12: Paul is aware
of the principle of Jesus’ above, for a close parallel to it appears in
Romans. No linguistic solution here,
same Greek word for “judge” used, “krino.”
Key issue: The
people in the world won’t have a penalty inflicted on them by people in
the church: Still have to deal with
them, regardless of what sins they commit.
For example, you should shake the hands of (say) a customer who is
cohabitating and a coworker who is an unreformed alcoholic. To “judge” someone here involve
inflicting punishment on them by refusing to let them come to church or by
not having normal full friendship with them.
God will get around in His time to punishing the people in the world who
are sinning, but, says Paul, there’s a need to punish unrepentant Christians
who are guilty of major sins.
John 8:3-11
Illegal capital case, almost a lynching, so Jesus throws the
case out of court effectively, not overriding Mosaic law here.
v. 7-9: Jesus
doesn’t dispute the guilt of the woman.
But he puts into effect the principle he proclaimed in the Sermon on the
Mount, that you shouldn’t condemn her if you’re guilty of sin also.
v. 10: He doesn’t
condemn her, but tells her to stop sinning. He could look into her heart, an advantage we don’t have, so it
would appear she was really repentant, not just someone afraid of being
punished. He doesn’t harshly publicly criticize
her, nor does He inflict some kind of penalty on her, since she already had an
acute consciousness of her sin, so that wasn’t the issue. But He doesn’t condone her sin, or pretend
it didn’t happen. He tells her to
become and stay repentant by not sinning in the future.
Different Greek word, “katakr,” here, “to judge one down,
condemn.”
Conclusion:
Christians have to maintain a careful balancing act when it comes to
judging others. We must be wary of
singling people out for harsh public criticism, and that includes gossip,
especially when we are guilty of the same sin or lesser versions of the same
sin. We must not be like Tess’s
husband, who refused to really forgive his wife for the very same kind
of sins that he himself had committed.
Yet on the other hand, Christians must not condone major sins in their
midst or pretend the sins didn’t happen.
Many sins others commit can be dealt with by going to one’s brother
alone in a spirit of helpfulness, not as an avenging angel. In cases in which serious sin occurs, the
ministry does has the authority to disfellowship for it, when it involves
inflicting a penalty on someone who’s unrepentant. So let’s neither harshly condemn others specifically for their
sins nor condone them by pretending they didn’t happen. Let’s be more forgiving than Tess’ husband
Angel Clare was when she first confessed her sin to him on their wedding
night.