Re: Judge not...

JUDGE NOT

Todd Nibert

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I recently had a conservation with a man concerning the Gospel of God's grace. I told him that according to the scriptures, God's grace is not some general goodwill of God toward men. It is God's action in salvation. He elected a people before time began to be saved by His grace, Eph. 1:4. It was God's grace that caused Him to lay the sins of His people on Christ on Calvary's tree Rom. 3:24. It is God's grace that causes Him to give spiritual life to his people, Eph. 2:4-5. Why, even the faith we have is the gift of God's grace and not the product of our will, Eph. 2:8-10. From the beginning to the end, salvation is wholly a work of the sovereign grace of God. If we do not believe this, we do not really believe salvation is all of grace.


This man attended a church where the truth of salvation by the sovereign grace was not preached or believed. When I asked him how he could attend there when the message was contrary to Scripture, he said, "I don't want to be judgmental."


Is that what the Lord meant when He said, "Judge not"? Did He mean we should not judge a situation like that even though it is contrary to Scripture? I believe we need to find out because if that is what He means, truth is meaningless. Martin Lloyd Jones said, "If I were asked what were the particular need of today, I should say it is a consideration of this particular statement.......Judge not."


I agree with Lloyd Jones because a mistaken interpretation of what the Lord meant by "Judge not" will lead to an unwillingness to stand against error out of fear of being judgmental.


So, what does the Lord mean by "Judge not, that ye be not judged"? Does He mean "Judge not at all"? If He does we need to get rid of our judicial system and abandon all laws. After all, who is to say what is right and wrong. We should abolish the police force. We have no right to impose our value system, or even to judge people we deem as criminals. If we are not to judge at all, we do not have the right to discipline our children. If one of them comes home with drugs, we have no right to judge them. All of these judgments are wrong if the Lord meant by "Judge not", that we are not to judge at all.


The immediate context of this command of our Lord's tells us He does not mean "Judge not at all." The very next thing He says in Matt. 7:6, is "Give not that which is holy to the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine." We are called on immediately to make a judgment concerning who the dogs and swine are. In the same chapter we are called on to "Beware of false prophets". We are commanded to make a discerning judgment concerning false prophets. Obviously the Lord did not mean "Judge not at all".


The reason this is such an issue in our day is illustrated by the man who was in a church where salvation by grace alone was not taught. He used this statement of our Lord as a reason to blind himself to it.


Salvation by grace is a principle from God's word that must be stood for at all costs. By salvation by grace I mean the whole scope of salvation, from God's election of His people unto salvation, to their final glorification is 100% free grace, "not of works less any man should boast". There have been ages in the church where standing for principles was praised. But that is not so today. Such people today are regarded as narrow, difficult, non-cooperative, and so on. The man who is now glorified is the man who can be described as being in the middle of the road, not at one extreme or the other. Life, we are told, is sufficiently difficult and involved as it is, without our taking a stand on a particular doctrine. This is the controlling mentality of our day. But that is evidently not what the Lord meant. As a matter of fact, in John 7:24, He said, "Judge not according to appearance, but judge righteous judgment." When the Lord said, "judge not", He was condemning a harsh, critical, "holier than thou" attitude. He was forbidding us to ever look down our nose at anybody else.


The reason this is such an issue in our day is because we must be able to judge if what we are hearing is the Truth! And how can we judge? We can only judge by scripture. Isaiah gave us this standard of judgment ,"To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them" Isaiah 8:20. I encourage you to weigh what has been said in the light of God's word.


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Todd Nibert is pastor of
Todds Road Grace Church
Lexington, KY

Judge Not

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