The Judgment of Jesus

This topic has been weighing on my heart for a little while and I do think it’s important. Many people may not agree with me; some religious types may even get upset with me should they read this, but I don’t care. I’m just going to tell you what I think, and why, based on the scriptures of the Bible. You don’t have to agree with me, just know where I stand on this topic: judging.

Now, I should clarify first what I mean by the word, ‘judge.’ Many people feel put upon and unfairly treated when someone calls them on the carpet for something they’re doing wrong. ‘Don’t judge me,’ they’ll say, ‘the Bible says you’re not supposed to judge!’ Many people who claim the Bible in such a way don’t even read it. They have just heard the smallest snippets of scripture such as, ‘judge not lest you be judged.’

But the Bible does teach about how we ought to judge things and people, not in a critical or self-righteous way, but according to the teachings of Christ. A lot of self-proclaimed Christians don’t even know what Christ taught, which makes them a living contradiction. In those cases where we actually need to judge something (hopefully those cases are few) we need to lean on the teachings of Christ which can be found in the Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) of the Bible as well as the various epistles written by his disciples, so that we may judge properly according to what pleases God.

And let me clarify concerning criticism. Being critical of people is a form a judging. People who are familiar with the context of ‘judge not lest you be judged’ are well aware of this and I’ll explain it more later on.

One of the main things to keep in mind (possibly THE main thing) aside from ‘learn what Christ taught,’ to be able to judge as a proper Christian should, is ‘don’t be a hypocrite.’ There were many examples of hypocrisy in Jesus’ day, most of them were called Pharisees. Jesus railed on them more than once for being hypocrites, and he warned his disciples against the ‘leaven’ of the Pharisees, which is a reference to their doctrine (or at least some part of it) which was hypocrisy.

The Pharisees (as well as the Sadducees) were hypocrites in that they burdened the people under them with all the laws, traditions, customs, and standards of Judaism while they themselves were lazy and ungrateful (those two tend to go together) putting forth less effort and suffering less for the sake of the law than the people they had rule over. No wonder Jesus called them a generation of vipers (remember that serpents are not generally spoken of kindly in the Bible). The Pharisees often took the laws of Moses, which were burdensome enough as they were, and added even more to them, creating oppression for the Jewish people. They also came up with traditions and customs which contradicted Moses’ Law and served no one but the Pharisees themselves. And as if that weren’t enough, Moses himself had to create laws for the Jews (not just the Pharisees) the only reason for which was, as Jesus put it, ‘because your hearts were hard.’ Aw, man… that’s bad.

And even after Jesus taught a new law, one that would suffice for those who kept tender hearts before the Lord, there were people (more Jews) who not only wanted the Christians of the early church to follow the teachings of Christ, but also all of the Jewish laws, customs, traditions, etc. which they had been taught to follow their whole lives. This of course was what they whined about after they started sharing the gospel of Jesus with the Gentiles (the non-Jewish) and they never really stopped causing trouble for it either.

Paul and the other ministers discussed this matter and concluded that following the old laws of Moses was not needed to fulfill the teachings of Christ and so the Gentiles of the Christian church were not compelled to do so.

Today, however, I can see that many churches, professing to be Christian, do not follow this pattern; they take the teachings of Christ, often misusing them, misunderstanding them, and sometimes just missing them altogether, before adding a bunch of traditions, standards, customs, rituals, etc. which they say a member of their church must follow or else be ostracized from the group. This, as unfortunate as it is, seems to be a constant with the nature of mankind: unless you do things my/our way, you can’t be a part of us.

Of course, Jesus said things very similar, but his way is a perfect way that leads to eternal life and happiness. Others may try to make a similar claim about their groups and about their methods and about their doctrines, but Jesus is truly the only way, because his is the way that comes straight from God Himself.

In the world, as we see it today, especially in America, we see people trying to win moral and social arguments based on liberalism vs. conservatism, or even try to find a balance between the two, whether it be in politics, or the church, or some other area of life. The truth is, however, that you can miss God just as easily on either side or both sides. You can also get a hold of God on either or both sides. God is the point; He sent His only-begotten son, Jesus, to show us the way to find Him.

When we don’t get God, we get something else. If we miss God on the side of liberalism, we allow earthly and wicked worldliness into our lives and into our hearts; and if we miss God on the side of conservatism, we’ll still usher in that same worldliness, only now it’ll dress itself up with religiosity and self-righteousness.

The point is that we should want God, and God does not want His people to be worldly. Truly, God’s people are full of love, meek, godly, righteous, pure, and clean in their hearts.

Of course, many churches, even the truly good ones, may have certain standards and even certain rituals. Good people know how to use such things to guard their hearts against sin.

For example: a good approach to drinking may be to not drink anything ever, because that way you can’t possibly get drunk.

Being so irresponsible that you actually allow yourself to get drunk is a sin; it says so in the Bible in a number of places (read it yourself) however the teachings of Christ never say that you can’t have any alcohol at all. Drink without getting drunk (a ‘know your limit, drink within it’ kind of a thing).

Now a bad example: so many people in religion today boycott alcohol with such a militant and proud attitude, that they actually will teach their standard against alcohol as if it were a doctrine of Christ himself, that if you drink alcohol, you actually have sinned (which isn’t Biblical) and you can’t be a part of the Body of Christ (which is absurd; Jesus won’t refuse you if you occasionally have a glass of wine or a beer).

Such standards should be encouraged, absolutely, to help people stay away from sin. But even without them, if you follow the teachings of Christ found in the Gospels and the epistles of the apostles, you will not sin.

The best way, of course, to know if someone’s stance and standard against sin is Biblical (and Christian), is to read the Bible and learn the teachings of Christ for yourself.

Nowhere does Jesus say you can never ever drink, and nowhere does Jesus teach that God is actually impressed when you are dressed to the nines for Sunday service (I guess it’s better than you showing up in your underwear or PJs, but somehow I’m not worried).

Jesus does teach to help the needy and give to the poor, Jesus does say that you need to practice forgiveness or else God won’t forgive you (Does that mean you have to forgive all those annoying religious pinheads who say that you have to do such and such which are not in the teachings of Christ? YES), and Jesus does teach quite a bit actually about moral living before you even read as far as the epistles.

One key thing I’ll give you here is the knowledge that God’s concern is with your heart. If you can’t, with a clean conscience, go to church without dressing up first, then get dressed up. But, for Christ’s sake (and I mean that literally), don’t impose such things of YOUR faith onto others. It will very likely engender bitterness, angst, hatred, and dispassion for God and his saints and that poison in their hearts will be on YOUR head.

If you are genuinely concerned for others’ salvation, don’t look at the petty things they do and the habits they have that don’t mean anything in the light of the faith we have in the gospel of Jesus Christ. Look at their behavior; those who are truly ‘presenting their bodies a living sacrifice unto God’ won’t be able to hide the fact of it. They worship with their hands raised (hands are hard to fake) and their voice actually making noise (again, this is hard to fake), they are able to discuss the Bible because they’ve actually been reading it, they receive answers to prayer because they’ve actually been praying, they are able to be happy even in the most miserable circumstances because their joy does not come from the things of this world but from the Lord. Let it be known, ‘God is not mocked’ and such ‘a city’ that is ‘set on the hill’ of the salvation we have in Jesus Christ ‘cannot be hid’. Selah.

Now, I feel that I must admonish you, whoever may be reading this: do not be critical of people, even if they are completely insane. Look at the scripture which Matthew wrote of Jesus’ teaching: Judge not, that you be not judged. For with what judgment you judge a man, you, yourself, shall be judged: and with what measure you measure a man, it shall be measured to you. (Matthew 7:1-2)

That scripture is talking about criticism, an expansion, you might say, on what Jesus taught earlier: forgive or God won’t forgive you. And Jesus is comparing measurement to judgment. Why is he doing that? Because you can’t get to heaven on the coattails of someone else faith; it’s not a one-size-fits-all kind of deal. We all have our own faith and our own standards, in case you didn’t notice, but these are for ourselves, not for others. If you look at others through the filter of your personal standards, you will become critical of them, because they won’t fit your measurements of faith. Maybe you have a standard against alcohol, or smoking, or men having beards, or whatever other petty thing that doesn’t really matter to God, who looks at people’s hearts, but is really just a superficial thing. Don’t assume other people have to measure up to your standards.

If it helps, just change the wording slightly. Instead of measure, say… ridiculousness. If you get ridiculous in the way you judge others, then God in similar fashion will hold you to a ridiculous standard when your day of judgment comes.

For example: you might judge another person for drinking a single glass of wine, because if you drink too much wine, you might get drunk, and that’s very bad. God, in similar fashion, may judge you for let’s say… eating all the candy, because all that sugar is unhealthy, and may even lead to diabetes, and that would be very bad because your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, and it is a principle of Christ that you be sober-minded i.e. responsible, which that isn’t.

You see it’s ridiculous, yes? But people will amaze you by their capacity for ridiculousness. I, as in my own personal standard, want to be as nice, and as patient, and as forgiving as I possibly can be, because when the day of judgment comes, I want God to judge me in similar fashion.

Lastly, I feel I should remind you; this hypocrisy can be quite divisive, causing unneeded separation between people. Although Jesus did say that he and his teachings would come between people, when he said, ‘blessed are you, when men shall hate you, and persecute you, and shall falsely say all manner of evil against you, for my sake,’ he was referring only to HIS sake and HIS word. He was not talking about the trouble you may get yourself into just for being a religious pinhead or self-righteous moron. That, you should try to avoid.

Remember also that God does hate certain things, and one of the principle things He hates is that which sows discord (creates separation) among the brethren. Proverbs 6:19

If any person says that you have to follow a certain tradition or standard which is not based in the principles of Jesus’ doctrine, otherwise you can have no part in their church or their fellowship, leave that person and that church and find one whose identity is hid in Christ, one whose message is never one of pride (come unto me; I am the best) or one obsessed with superficial tradition (come unto me when you’re properly dressed) but always based in the powerful redeeming love of Jesus Christ (come unto me and I’ll give you rest), and find a church whose attitude towards people is one of inclusivity (whosever will, may come) and not one of exclusivity (whosoever will look and act just like us, may stay).

Now I imagine that there will be two basic groups of people who may end up reading this: the liberal people who deeply want to thank me for expressing my Biblical views against the oppressive tyranny of religious nut-jobs and the conservative people who are seriously offended by what I have to say as it goes against so many of their ‘traditions’ and ‘teachings’ and such.

To the liberals I say, ‘you’re welcome, but seriously… GET A LIFE!’ It does you no good to live in such a way that you’re stuck waiting for some guy like me to come along with a Biblical viewpoint that validates your ‘precious feelings.’ Go and search out Jesus, the one who can really satisfy.

To the conservatives I say, ‘someone had to say it, if not me, then someone else. And you need to take another look in the mirror.’ The Bible calls itself (or the scriptures) a mirror, one that we can look into and use to cleanse our hearts of sin. So ask yourselves: What does God see when he looks into my heart? Have I let my heart become hard towards Him? What more can I learn from the scriptures about such things?

As for the more well-adjusted outliers here, ‘I’m glad you came!’

It is my hope and my aim that I can actually help sincere people find more enrichment for their lives in our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Until next time, God bless!