Judgment Between Men

(It’s Sarah here.  I just want to apologize for this post being several weeks late.  Mark had it written and ready for me to post a while back, but I just haven’t had the time to get around to it these past few weeks.  Again, my apologies!)

We understand that true justice, and judgment, comes from God.  We are not given authority to judge between saved and unsaved; to give ultimate judgment of a man’s soul.  However, Man is still able to make judgments on people – commanded to, in fact.  In this he is not commanded to judge between eternal condemnation or redemption, but for smaller matters.

Who gave you the right?

Who has the authority to judge someone else?  This is a very important question.  In the court of law, there is the plantiff and the defendant.  Each of them believes themself to be correct and the other person to be at fault, but neither has the authority to actually make a ruling.  Nor do their lawyers, when it comes down to it.  It is the judge alone who has the authority to make a ruling on the court case.  But even then, the judge only has that authority because it has been given to him by the government and by the law.  It is the power of the government and the law that pronounces judgment, wielded by the judge.

We need to look at Christian judgment in the exact same way.  The question is not “Who should I judge” or “When should I judge,” but rather “Do I even have the authority to judge in this matter?”  Christians do not automatically have the authority to judge because we’re such great and holy people.  We can be just as broken and sinful and limited as the world.  Only God has the authority to judge.

A response to sin

Before I get into the heart of the matter here, I would like to clear the air first about a large misconception about judgment that I feel is hindering a lot of Christians.  It seems to me that Christians are labeled as being ‘judgmental’ for nothing more than believing the Bible to be accurate when it describes what constitutes a sin.  Christians are shamed by non-believing critics for saying that socially acceptable forms of sexual immorality, drunkenness, lying, and coveting (and more) are indeed sins.  Because it is God’s Word that tells us that these actions are sinful, it is his judgment we are affirming, not our own.

Nor is it judgmental for the Christian to merely recognize a sin in others.  After all, we are all sinners; we have all transgressed against God in some way.  We humans have eaten the fruit of knowledge of good and evil and have the capacity to see sin for what it is.  Judgment, reproof, correction, and the like are not the act of recognizing a sin.  Instead, they are one’s response once they have first recognized the sin.

To illustrate, I’d like to revisit the verses I used last week, beginning with Jesus’ words:

Who am I to judge?

Christians, like any other minority (and believe me, we are a minority) are subject to many different stereotypes.  We are seen as hypocrites; overly pious, self-righteous people who look down at everyone else for being an awful sinner.  We’re viewed as being overly judgemental for having a definite black and white view of right and wrong, a view which clashes against worldly thinking on several accounts and doesn’t adapt to fit modern thinking.  And, unfortunately, cases of a few hateful extremists have done nothing but to cement this view amongst non-Christians.

Knowing Him

The last point of my series is an extremely important one, and on it hinges the validity of all others.  It is impossible to be a disciple of Christ if you do not know Him.  At first glance, this seems like a completely obvious and almost unnecessary statement.  Think about it for a moment, though:  what does it really mean to ‘know God’?  Can a living man ever truly know Him?  And if two people believe two separate creeds but both believe they are Christian, can they both know Christ?

Agápe

Love can mean many things to many people.  We tell each other love stories in movies and books, in which two protagonists fall in love with each other by the end.  ‘Love’ is used to describe feelings as shallow as “I love this song!” to a commitment as deep as a parent’s unwavering love for their child.  We even acknowledge it as a strong, yet platonic bond – two buddies clasping arms and saying “I love you, man.”

Why is this important?  The Bible has a lot to say about love, especially when describing the heart and mind of believers.  Biblical interpretation can be a tricky thing – and additional care should always be taken when examining critical passages.

Works

The average person, when questioned why they believe that they will go to Heaven when they die, will say that it’s because they’ve lived a good life.  Faith and works go hand-in-hand, so it is easy to confuse the two.  However, even though we know that it is faith that saves, works are equally important – not because one must earn his place into Heaven, but because the lack of works is an indication of a lack of saving faith in the first place.  Faith without good works is dead.

Faith

I hope you will forgive me for taking a step backward for a few weeks.  In order to fully address what makes a person a disciple, it is necessary to first examine what makes one saved in the first place.  This is a question that, on the surface, looks fairly straightforward.  However, given the wide range of responses to this question, it’s critical we set a foundation to work upon.

Am I a disciple?

When I was growing up, it was pretty simple to be able to tell whether you were a Christian or not.  Actually, it boiled down to a simple yes/no question:  “Have you ever been baptized?”  If yes, congrats!  Go bask in the warm glow of eternal life.  If no… so sorry, not yet – but we can fix that with little fuss.  It was quick, simple, easy, and you could go on with your daily life uninterrupted.  In essence, we humans could make God save anyone we wanted just by doing one quick ritual.

Jesus never said that being a follower of him was easy, and he also made it clear that not everyone who claimed to follow him would truly be saved.  

Welcome to Mature Manhood of Christ!

This blog was created with two intentions.  The first intent is purely personal; it is a journal of sorts for myself.  I strive to put importance on reading the Bible and books on theology, and find it disheartening how much bad teaching and bad theology is in the world.  Therefore, I’m writing my own findings, my own beliefs, my own convictions.  In this, I hold the Bible as the ultimate authority; not my own personal preferences and convictions.  I do the best that I can to not interpret the Bible in order to give preference to my own particular feelings and thoughts.  It is the Word of God, not just some literary text.

The second purpose of this blog is to be instructional.  I do not pretend to be anything more than a layman; I am not formally educated in theology or religion (yet) and have only my own faith and understanding to stand upon.  However, God equips all true believers to understand His Word, and the Bible makes many facts plain which many churches choose to ignore.  I would like to share my findings to you, from one believer to another.

This brings me to another point – if you have not accepted Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, then a lot of what I talk about on this blog may not make sense.  If you are a nonbeliever and are reading this, I’m happy that you have interest and want to learn more, and would be happy in helping you in your faith.  However, the articles here probably will not be a good place to start.  After all, when learning anything new, you don’t start with the more technical details.  A child begins learning math with addition and subtraction, after all, not fractions and cosines.

Join me each week as I talk about different points of theology, the Bible, and Christian life!

for His glory,

Mark

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