Man's Judgement Vs. God's Judgement

Introduction

A slave is not a judge. A good slave is obedient to his Master regardless of what those around them do. An evil slave is one who is disobedient and covers up their disobedience with judgement on their fellow slave, or the enemies of their master.

Human Judgement

For a man to step up and become a judge is a gross and dangerously presumptive position to take. God gives us his word to be obedient in heart to it. When man took from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, he took the position of moral judge. In a sense, becoming a was the first sin. It puts us in a position over others, it helps us escape our own condemnation for sin, and it even puts us in a place to challenge God.

Judging as Hypocrites

No excuse for the one who judges, just as the Gentile has no excuse. Both have the revelation of God and both misuse it in different ways.

A hypocrite judges with two standards: one for themselves and one for others. They take great care to conceal this, but when God’s law is observed objectively they come out equally as lawbreakers.

The Pharisees a prime example

Mark 7:5–12 ESV

And the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, “Why do your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?” And he said to them, “Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written, “ ‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’ You leave the commandment of God and hold to the tradition of men.” And he said to them, “You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to establish your tradition! For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and your mother’; and, ‘Whoever reviles father or mother must surely die.’ But you say, ‘If a man tells his father or his mother, “Whatever you would have gained from me is Corban” ’ (that is, given to God)— then you no longer permit him to do anything for his father or mother,

Their judgment of Jesus was based on tradition, but by their tradition they had cut a loophole in God’s law. A hypocrite always has a holy-sounded excuse for their hypocrisy, but it is always done with the same hard heart as a lawbreaker.

Man’s Duty: Action, not Judgement

The problem with judging other is that it puts us out of our place as slaves of Christ. A slave has nothing to do with the responsibilities of other slaves except that which is commanded by their Lord to deal with.

James 4:11–12 ESV

Do not speak evil against one another, brothers. The one who speaks against a brother or judges his brother, speaks evil against the law and judges the law. But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge. There is only one lawgiver and judge, he who is able to save and to destroy. But who are you to judge your neighbor?

Bonhoeffer on judging the law and the danger of becoming a Pharisee.

The place of Righteous Judgement

There is, however, some kind of judgement that is right for us to partake in: righteous judgement.

John 7:24 ESV

Do not judge by appearances, but judge with right judgment.”

Here Jesus is talking to the Pharisees who judged Jesus healing a man on the Sabbath, which was inconsistent judgement since circumcision was lawful on the Sabbath. His point is that we should be careful to judge only as God judges, since he is the judge and we are not. We are called to enforce God’s judgments in the church through church discipline or communicate God’s judgments both to the church and the world, but not to be judges ourselves.

God’s Judgement

Ecclesiastes 3:17 ESV

I said in my heart, God will judge the righteous and the wicked, for there is a time for every matter and for every work.

Judgement on Hypocrites

Romans 2:9 ESV

There will be tribulation and distress for every human being who does evil, the Jew first and also the Greek,

God judges hypocrites first and more harshly. They have the law, they know God’s judgement, but instead of doing them they take from the tree of the knowledge of the tree of good and evil and make themselves judges of the law rather than doers. This makes them guilty not only of lawbreaking, but of presumption and self-idolatry.

Judgement on the Hard-Hearted

Ultimately, God judges the hard-hearted, not those who do not meet human standards. Even the OT law was meant to show sin, not to be the ultimate form of God’s judgement. While actions are the fruit of the heart, it is the heart that God judges and it is the heart that we cannot clearly see. When we, having a hard heart towards God, judge others we condemn ourselves because we are making ourselves the Lord of the law rather than one under it.

God’s Mercy: Not a sign that you are favoured, only of God’s patience.

Righteous Judgement: According to the Gospel

Conclusion

God has not called your to judge, but to obey.

While obedience means exercising righteous judgement, it means the focus will be on us and our behaviour, not others. Even in church discipline, we are doing it to be faithful to God, not to judge the one being disciplined.

Search your heart before God: are you one who delights in God’s Word to do it, or one who loves to use it as a gavel against others?

God’s righteous judgement is connected to 1:16-17. His righteous judgement will be ultimately how we responded to the revelation of God’s righteousness in Christ.