“We’re Not Supposed to Judge”

• Scriptures: Matthew 7:1-5; John 7:24
• Inspecting Fruit

• Luke 6 in “Bible Commentary”

Transcript

Kerry Duke: Hi, I’m Kerry Duke, host of My God and My Neighbor podcast from Tennessee Bible College, where we see the Bible as not just another book, but the Book. Join us in a study of the inspired Word to strengthen your faith and to share what you’ve learned with others.
We’ve said that the Sermon on the Mount has some of the most misquoted verses in all the Bible. And we certainly come to one of those verses today. This is where Jesus said, “Judge not.” Many people today quote those words and have no idea about what Jesus means by them. They don’t understand these words and so they misapply them. They misquote them. They tell Christian people, “You’re not supposed to judge.” And sometimes people who claim to be Christians tell other Christians “You shouldn’t be judging because Jesus said ‘Do not judge’ in the Sermon on the Mount.”
But what does Jesus mean by these words? I find that many times, when people quote these words, they have no idea about how Jesus explained this. If we’re going to understand and properly apply what Jesus said, then we’re going to have to allow Jesus to explain to us what He meant by His own words instead of just quoting them and applying them to whatever situation and to whomever we choose.
Now, the truth is this: Jesus said, “Do not judge” in Matthew chapter 7 verse 1. There’s no question about that. There’s no debate or argument there. But Jesus also said in John 7 verse 24 that we are to judge in another way. In John 7 24, Jesus told the Jewish leaders who were being inconsistent and hypocritical in how they applied the law—He said in John 7:24—”Do not judge according to appearance.” Don’t judge by how things look. Don’t judge by the appearance. That’s the wrong kind of judging. But then in the last part of the verse, He tells them to judge in the right way. He said, “But judge,” that is, do judge, “with righteous judgment.” Judge with fair judgment. Be fair and just in your discrimination and in your discernment.
So, in John chapter 7, verse 24, Jesus plainly shows that there is a right kind of judgment. He shows that this is not only right, but it is commanded. When he says judge righteous judgment, that is a command, just the same as Matthew chapter 7 verse 1 is a command. So if Jesus said in John 7 verse 24 “Judge,” you’re supposed to judge, but then in Matthew 7 verse 1 He said “Do not judge,” what does that tell you as a Bible reader? That tells you that Jesus is talking about two different kinds of judgments in those two different passages.
So, let’s read Matthew chapter 7, beginning in verse 1, and notice how Jesus explains his own words here. In Matthew 7, verse 1, He said, “Judge not that you be not judged. For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged. And with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you. And why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me remove the speck from your eye,’ and look, a plank is in your own eye. Hypocrite, first remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.”
Let’s start in verse one. Jesus said don’t judge so that you will not be judged. Judged by whom? Is He talking about being judged by God? Or is He talking about being judged by men?
Everybody’s going to be judged by God anyway. It doesn’t make any difference if a person obeys this verse or not, he will be judged by God. The Bible says in 2 Corinthians 5, verse 10, “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ.” The Bible also says in Romans 14, verse 12, “So then every one of us shall give an account of himself to God.”
The great judgment scene in Matthew chapter 25 verses 31 through 46 shows that everybody will give an account to God. So He’s not talking about God judging us here. He’s not saying that if we just remain neutral about this whole issue of right and wrong and heaven and hell. If we just say, “I’m not going to pick sides with anybody,” and “I’m not going to judge anybody,” that in the day of judgment, God is not going to judge us.
That’s not true. Jesus said in Matthew chapter 12 verse 30, “He that is not with me is against me.” Jesus is talking about being judged by others. He says don’t judge others so that other people will not judge you. And a great commentary on that is in Luke chapter 6, beginning in verse 37. Jesus said, “Judge not, and you shall not be judged. Condemn not, and you shall not [00:05:00] be condemned. Forgive and you will be forgiven. Give and it will be given to you. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over, will be put into your bosom. For with the same measure that you use, it will be measured back to you.” Jesus is saying that the way you treat others is usually, generally speaking, the way that they’re going to treat you.
If you’re a giving person, people are going to be giving to you. If you’re a forgiving person, people are going to be forgiving to you. But if you’re unmerciful, if you are judgmental, if you’re always criticizing other people, that’s what they’re going to be doing to you. That’s what He means when He says judge not that you be not judged.
And He gets even more clear about that when He says this in verse 2: “For with what judgment you judge, you shall be judged.” And that simply means the way you judge others is, generally speaking, the way that they’re going to judge you. Whatever standard you use, they’re going to use toward you. So ask the question: what kind of judgment do you have and do you use toward other people?
If you’re fair with other people, generally speaking, they’re going to be fair with you. So be patient, be slow to condemn with other people. If you jump to conclusions, then people are going to jump to conclusions with you. So be fair. The Bible says in Proverbs 18 verse 13, “He that answers a matter before he hears it, it is a folly and a shame to him.”
If we’re just, if we are impartial, if we get the facts and give the benefit of the doubt, then people generally will do that with us. But, if we’re harsh, if we’re overbearing, if we’re always critical and never give encouragement to other people, it’s going to come back on us. That’s what he’s saying here.
In a manner of speaking Matthew 7, 1 through 5, is about sowing and reaping. Galatians 6, verse 7 says, “Whatever a man sows, that shall he also reap.” How we treat others in this life is how they will treat us. If we treat other people well, they will treat us well. If we are evil or unfair with other people, and hypercritical of others, then that’s how they’re going to treat us.
We will reap what we sow, either for good or for bad. Jesus said in Matthew chapter 7 verse 2, “For with what judgment you judge,” that is, whatever kind of judgment you perform on other people is what they will give back to you. And then He says it this way: “And with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you. Now the word for measure here, or measurement, is the word from which we get our word in English, meter. So just think of a measuring stick by way of illustration. The closer that that measuring stick is, the more demanding you’re going to be of other people. In other words, if you have a measuring stick, and let’s say that it’s in a meter, and then it has the centimeters and the millimeters and so forth, if you have very small marks on your stick, spiritual or your moral measuring stick, then it’s going to be hard for people to measure up to that.
And they’re going to use that same kind of measurement against you. They’re going to demand the same kind of standards that you use about them. So what kind of measuring stick do you use? What do people have to do to measure up to your standards or my standards? If we’re picky, we’re always demanding that others get everything right the way that we want it and the way that we see it, then they’re going to demand the same thing of us.
Now, another illustration would be to say, what kind of glass are you using? When you look at other people, do you use a magnifying glass? Or do you use a microscope? Because if you do, other people are going to use that same kind of judgment toward you. That’s what Jesus means here when he says, “With the measure,” that is, the kind or the standard of measurement that you use toward others, “they will measure it back to you.”
In verse 3 he says, “And why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but you do not consider the plank in your own eye?” Now this is what the King James Version refers to as the mote and the beam. Instead of the word mote, the New King James Version has the word speck. Now, this comes from a word which means a dry stalk or twig, a straw or chaff. It means a speck, a chip, a small piece of straw, chaff, wood, etc. So if you can just picture being outside working, and let’s say that you’re weed eating, let’s say that you’re mowing, or let’s say that you’re sawing some wood with a chainsaw, and there is a speck of straw or wood that gets in your eye.
That’s what Jesus is talking about here. They didn’t have those instruments back in those days, but they did cut these things, and sometimes these kinds of things would get in their eye. So what this represents is a little mistake. It represents a small error or fault. And Jesus asked why are you staring at this? Why are you being so critical? So this is, as we would say, nitpicking. It’s looking for the least little thing to criticize. And so the speck, or the mote, represents something that is very small in a person’s life. Now on the other hand, the person who is criticizing here has, as the King James says, a beam of wood in his eye, or as the New King James Version says, a plank of wood.
So this is a big piece of wood. It would be like us saying, he has a 2 x 4, or a 4 x 4, in his eye. Now this represents a big mistake, a major fault, a huge, glaring error. This represents a person who criticizes other people for the least little thing, but at the same time, turns right around and does something that is much, much worse.
Now, obviously, we have a figure of speech here that we’ve seen several times in the Sermon on the Mount already. That figure of speech is known as a hyperbole. That is a deliberate or intentional exaggeration to emphasize the point. Here, when Jesus talks about this huge piece of wood protruding from somebody’s eye, He’s showing how ridiculous this is, perhaps even how humorous this is. But that’s the whole point. It is ridiculous. It is absurd for somebody who has this kind of problem in his life to have the audacity to criticize somebody else for something that is much, much less. So the beam or the plank represents some sin that is huge or big, and the speck or the moat represents something that is relatively smaller.
What does this do, then, to the idea that there are no big sins or little sins in God’s sight? Sometimes people say, we’re all sinners, all sin is the same, there’s no difference between any kind of sin or any kind of sinner. That is not true. Else, how could Jesus talk like this in the Sermon on the Mount?
How could he make this comparison about the mote and the beam or the speck and the plank? That wouldn’t even make any sense if all sins are on the same level. Do you remember what Jesus said to Pilate in John chapter 19 verse 11? He said, “He that has delivered me to you has the greater sin.” Now, that one verse by itself shows that there are some sins that are worse than others.
Somebody says, “But where does the Bible say that—that some people are worse than others or that some states of sinners are worse than others? Well, 2 Timothy 3, verse 13 says this: “But evil men and seducers,” or impostors, “shall become worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived.” Then, in 1 Timothy chapter 5, verse 8, Paul said, “But if any provide not for his own, specially they of his own house, he has denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel.”
And this is what we find in Matthew 7, 1 through 5, in the story, or the illustration, of the mote and the beam, or the speck and the plank. In Matthew 7, verse 4, Jesus has a question for anybody who would be that critical, and that hypocritical. He says, “Or how can you say to your brother…” Now again, He’s talking to a person who has a huge glaring sin in his life and he’s criticizing somebody over the least little thing.
He says, “How can you say to your brother, let me remove the speck from your eye and look, a plank is in your own eye.” You’re not going to be able to see clearly because you’ve got that sin in your life. You’re not seeing clearly or you wouldn’t criticize that person. So Jesus asked the question “How?” This person is still trying to straighten out other people, but he can’t see clearly because he’s got sin in his own life.
The problem is, as Jesus says, you are not “considering.” Look at verse 3 again. He said, “And why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but you do not consider the plank in your own eye?” You’re not seeing clearly here. And there’s no way that a person can really see clearly into another person’s life until he gets that sin out of his life.
Now, I’m not talking about being sinless here. I’m talking about getting that huge sin out of a person’s life and being fair about this and just instead of being hypocritical about it. The problem is he’s not considering. He’s not even thinking about his own sins when he ought to be doing that. You know, the Bible says that even when Christians are restoring somebody who has fallen away from the truth, that they ought to consider themselves while they’re rescuing that person, that sheep that has gone astray.
In Galatians 6 verse 1, the Bible says, “Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, you which are spiritual, restore such a one in the spirit of meekness, considering yourself, lest you also be tempted.” In 2 Corinthians 13, verse 5, the Bible says, “Examine yourselves, whether you be in the faith. Prove,” that is, test, “your own selves.”
In James chapter 1, verse 23, the Bible says, “If anyone is a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror. For he observes himself, goes his way, and immediately forgets what manner of man he was.” The Bible is like a mirror. But if we have sin in our life, and we’re trying to criticize or straighten out somebody else, then we’re not going to be able to see clearly.
And that is exactly what Jesus says in verse 5. And Jesus tells it like it is. He doesn’t pull any punches here. He says that is being hypocritical. Verse 5, he says, “Hypocrite.” He calls this person who misjudges like this a hypocrite. He says first you need to remove the plank from your own eye and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.
The first thing you need to do is to make sure that you have your own life cleaned up and then you’ll be able to help your brother with his sin. He doesn’t tell this brother that he cannot judge, period. He doesn’t say, you’re never to judge that person. You’re never to get that speck or help your brother get that speck out of his eye.
But he says, don’t tell that brother that he needs to clean up his eye when you’ve got this huge problem in your life. You’re being a hypocrite when you do that. And notice in verse 5 that he uses the word first. He says, “Hypocrite, first remove the plank from your own eye and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.”
Does that remind you of anything that you’ve seen in the Sermon on the Mount? Do you remember back in Matthew chapter 5 that Jesus talks about a man that goes to the altar to bring his gift? And there he remembers that his brother has something against him because evidently this person who is at the altar has wronged somebody.
He says, “Leave your gift there before the altar, and go your way. First, be reconciled to your brother and then come and offer your gift.” So, so many times in the Sermon on the Mount, the Bible points to personal responsibility. Each individual chooses what he does in life, and we choose whether we’re going to do the right thing.
So here the Bible says in Matthew chapter seven verses one through five, that it is hypocritical judging that Jesus is talking about. So, in Matthew 7 verse 1, when he says judge not, he’s not talking about just any judgment. He’s not saying you can’t ever say that something is wrong in someone else’s life.
He doesn’t mean that at all. But what he is saying is that if we’re going to be hypocrites about it, and we’re going to do something much, much worse than the thing that we’re criticizing in somebody else’s life, then we need to be quiet until we clean up our own act. That’s all he’s saying here. It is not a blanket condemnation or prohibition against judging in general.
There are many times in the Bible where you see this kind of mote and beam approach. One person having a beam of wood or a plank in his eye, and he’s criticizing somebody else because they have some little flake, some little speck of wood in their eye. I think of Eli back in the Old Testament. In 1 Samuel chapter 1, you find Eli, this priest of God, this judge of the people. He’s supposed to be a spiritual leader of the Jewish people. In 1 Samuel chapter 1, Hannah is this married Jewish woman, and she has no children. Her heart is breaking. She’s praying to God. And Eli sees her. Now as she’s praying, she’s saying the words in her mind. She’s not saying them out loud, but her lips are moving.
So when Eli saw her lips moving and he couldn’t hear her saying anything, he said, “You’re drunk.” He judged her. He condemned her. And he wrongly judged her. He misjudged her. And I say that that is an example of the mote and the beam because Eli let his sons go wild. We read about that in First Samuel chapter two, verse 12, all the way through chapter three, verse 13. So he’s letting his sons get away with fornication as leaders of God’s people, supposedly. And yet he’s going to criticize this woman because he thinks she’s drunk when she is not. She’s doing the best that she can.
Another example is Judas Iscariot. In John chapter 12, Mary brought out an expensive ointment. It is an alabaster box of ointment, and she anointed Jesus with that. Judas Iscariot said she should have sold that, and we could have taken that money and helped the poor with it. The Bible says that he said that not because he cared for the poor, but because he had the bag that was more like a purse. It was like a billfold. Judas Iscariot carried the money that the disciples used to buy food and things like that. So, Judas Iscariot is criticizing this woman over a matter of judgment, when he himself, the Bible says, in that same section, John chapter 12 verse 6, was stealing money out of that bag. That’s an example of a hypocrite. That is an example of a man who has a plank in his own eye, but he’s going to get the speck out of somebody else’s eye.
Then you have the church at Corinth. The Bible says that there were many problems in the church at Corinth. There were moral problems, there were doctrinal problems, there were personality problems. But one of the big issues at the church at Corinth was the fact that there was a man there that was living with, he was committing fornication with, his stepmother. And that was a problem. That was a big problem. That was a glaring fault in that congregation, because Paul said, even the people outside the church, the Gentiles, don’t put up with what you’re doing there.
And they don’t tolerate what you’re tolerating in that congregation of God’s people. At the same time, you read in first Corinthians chapter six, that some of the Corinthian brethren were taking each other to court. They were suing each other. And here’s the interesting expression in the Bible about what they were doing.
Paul said that they were suing each other over the “smallest matters.” So think about it. They were making a mountain out of a molehill over the smallest things and taking each other to court in 1 Corinthians chapter 6. All the while they were closing their eyes to a huge problem and that problem was a man in the church there was committing fornication.
Now, that’s an example of the kind of judging that Jesus says we’re not to do in Matthew 7, verses 1 through 5. That is an illustration of the mote and the beam, or the speck and the plank. And if you’ll go back and read 1 Corinthians chapter 5, where he tells the people in the church at Corinth to withdraw fellowship from that fornicating brother, you’ll notice that Paul uses the word “judge” there.
And he says that that is a kind of judgment. So, that is righteous judgment. Those Corinthians not only had the right to discipline that man, they had the responsibility to discipline that man. And that man, who was guilty, had no right to look back at them and say, “Wait a minute. You’re judging me. You can’t do that because Jesus said you can’t judge.”
Again, had that man done that, he would have been missing the mark just like a lot of people miss it today in their so-called interpretation and use of Jesus’ words. And by the way, in 2 Corinthians chapter 2, the Bible shows that that man from whom they withdrew fellowship in the church at Corinth repented. He came back. And here again, we see Jesus’ words going against conventional wisdom. And we see people misquoting what Jesus said.
Another example would be the death penalty. There are many people that say the death penalty is anti-Christian. It is unbiblical. It goes against Jesus’ teaching in the Sermon on the Mount. That is not true. When Jesus said, “Judge not,” He’s not talking about something like capital punishment. The Bible plainly authorizes capital punishment in Romans 13:1-7. That passage says that civil government is ordained by God and that it bears the sword. He said, “If you do what is evil, be afraid, for he bears not the sword in vain, for he is the revenger of God, to execute wrath upon them that do evil.”
Civil government is placed here by God to keep law and order in society. Now, sometimes they misuse that power. There’s no doubt about that. But the intended purpose, the ideal purpose of civil government, is to maintain peace and order and stability in society, which means that the death penalty must take place sometimes.
That’s what the sword is meant for. The word sword in the Bible, obviously, is a literal sword, unless it’s some kind of figurative passage like Ephesians 6, verse 16 and 17, where the Bible is the sword of the Spirit. But in Romans chapter 13, when the Bible says that civil government bears the sword and does not bear it in vain, that is the instrument of putting people to death. That is the power to take human life. Now God authorizes that, and Romans 13 is just as much the Word of God as the Sermon on the Mount. So when you hear people today say that the death penalty goes against the teaching of Jesus, especially what Jesus said about judging, then they need to be taken to what the Bible says in Romans 13, and they also need to look at the context of Matthew chapter 7.
But what about John chapter 8? That’s the story of the woman who was caught in the act of adultery. These Jews brought this woman before Jesus, and they said, “Moses in the law said that such should be stoned. But what do you say?” They were trying to trap him. Because if Jesus had said, “Yes, go ahead and stone her,” they would have gone immediately to the Roman government and said this man is being antigovernment here because the Roman government had taken the death penalty away from the Jewish people at that time. On the other hand, if Jesus had said, “No, don’t stone her,” then they would have told the people, “See, He doesn’t believe in the law of Moses because the law of Moses said to execute this woman.”
That’s when Jesus finally said, “He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.” That’s John chapter eight. Now there are a lot of people that say that that means that you have no right to tell someone else that he’s wrong because you’re not sinless yourself. That is false. That is not what Jesus is saying. What happened there is that these men who brought this woman before Jesus were guilty of this sin themselves.
When He says “he that is without sin,” he’s talking about that very sin. That has to be the case because in the Old Testament, when the death penalty was carried out, it was not executed by sinless people. What aboutt those people that threw the rocks? God knew that those people were not sinless. And yet, He told them to execute those people who were guilty of capital crimes. There is a difference there. The problem in John chapter 8 is that these Jews were being hypocritical about that.
Then today, we oftentimes have people who tell us that it’s wrong to tell people they are sinners, especially if it’s a sin like adultery, or even more especially, about homosexuality. You know, the Bible says in Romans 27 that homosexuality is against nature. That passage says, “For even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature. Likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one for another, men with men, committing what is shameful, and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due.”
Homosexuality is against nature. That means nature itself judges homosexuality. If nature judges homosexuality, and Scripture judges homosexuality, it can’t be wrong for us to say that it is a sin and it is wrong.
Another misuse of Matthew 7, 1 5 is when people tell us that you can’t ever tell someone that his religion or his belief or his doctrine is wrong because you’re judging him.
Well that’s strange because in Matthew 7, verse 15, Jesus said, “Beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening or ravenous wolves.” He’s judging them. He’s saying stay away from them. Notice that he also says, down in verse 21, “Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father which is in heaven.”
And what about Matthew chapter 7 verse 6? Jesus said, “Do not give what is holy to the dogs, nor cast your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet and turn and tear you in pieces.” Is that not a kind of judging? It’s not some kind of subjective judging where a person just makes up his own opinion and then pronounces condemnation on somebody else, but it does involve discernment, and that’s what we mean by this.
We’re talking about discerning good from evil, right from wrong, according to the standard of God’s will. Paul told the Galatians, “I marvel that you are so soon removed from him that called you to the grace of Christ unto another gospel. But though we or an angel from heaven. Preach unto you any other gospel than that which we have preached to you, let him be accursed.”
People can say that that’s judgmental and they can accuse us of being judgmental when we teach that passage, but that comes from God. That is God’s judgment. That is God’s decision. And we could say the same thing about eternal damnation in hell. There are a lot of people today that say that’s just judgmental, that you’re judging people, and they tell us we shouldn’t talk about it, we shouldn’t preach on it.
And yet, Jesus did. The Bible says in this same Sermon on the Mount that Jesus mentioned hell several times. Matthew 5:22: “Whoever shall say, ‘Thou fool,’ shall be in danger of hell fire.” In Matthew chapter 5, verse 29 and 30, Jesus said if your right hand offends you, pluck it out, because it’s better to lose that member than it is to go to hell. He said the same thing about your hand in verse 30. And in Matthew chapter 7, verse 13 and 14, here’s what Jesus said about eternity. In Matthew chapter 7 verse 13 He said, “Enter by the narrow gate. For wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate, and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.”
So those are just some of the ways that people misapply Jesus words to issues of today. But it doesn’t stop there. If Jesus is saying in Matthew 7 verse 1 through 5 that you can’t judge at all, ever, about anything, you couldn’t even have a court. You couldn’t pronounce a sentence on a man who is found guilty of murder because you don’t have any right to say that he’s guilty. You couldn’t have any kind of discipline in the home. The parents could never even get on to their children because they would be judging them. And no Christian could live the Christian life with this kind of mentality because the Bible demands that we judge.
In 1 Thessalonians chapter 5 verse 22, the Bible says to “test all things and hold fast that which is good, and abstain from all appearance of evil.” We have to discern between good and evil. That’s what the Bible tells us in Hebrews chapter 5, verse 14.
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