Luke 6:37

Luke 6:37

Christian Judgment of Others.

I. When we read, "Judge not," "Condemn not," I believe we must approach the prohibition with some such thoughts as these: "Judge and condemn I must. I cannot go through life as a good Christian, or as a useful citizen, or as a worthy filler of any of the relations of life, without repeatedly, and even daily, doing both these things. But what my Master commands seems to be: that I should not make this, which is a duty and a necessity, to be my constant habit and propensity. I must judge, true, but I need not always be judging; I must condemn, true, but my judgment must not always come to that result. 1 must judge of all men, at one time or another, but let my judgment, where it is an approving one, issue in confidence, so that I may sympathise with, and love and trust, others not in an unsatisfactory habit of ever breaking up the grounds of charity, in want of confidence, withholding of sympathy, absence of trust, refusal of love. I must judge, but I may never pre-judge."

II. How are we to understand the promises by which these commands, "Judge not and condemn not," are followed? "Ye shall not be judged," and "Ye shall not be condemned." Two meanings at once occur to us, both, I believe, included. The first regards the judgment of men, "Ye shall not be judged, if ye judge not others." Men are accustomed to deal easily with one who deals easily with them. But we should be falling short of our Lord's intention in both cases were we to stop with this reference. This appears both à priori,from its unsatisfactory nature, as furnishing a Christian motive, and by the concluding words of this verse: "Forgive, and ye shall be forgiven." For this same saying occurs in another form at the end of the Lord's Prayer, in Matt. vi., where Christ says: "For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you." The persons addressed are Christians persons justified by faith, and waging the Christian conflict in the power of the spirit. In each case the command is one enjoining a mind or an act suitable to their high calling of God in Christ; the promise is one belonging to God's covenant in Christ. Everyone who endures in that covenant shall be forgiven; not because he has forgiven others, but because he has appropriated the blood of Jesus Christ by faith, and that blood cleanseth from all sin.

H. Alford, Quebec Chapel Sermons,vol. v., p. 49.

I. How are we to understand these words? Does the Saviour mean that we are to form no opinion whatever about the character and conduct of persons with whom we come into contact? Or that, if we form an opinion, it must always be a favourable one? Obviously not. In the first place, to do so were simply impossible. The same faculty in us which inclines us to approve of a noble deed, inclines us also to disapprove of an ignoble one. We like the one; we dislike the other. Instinctively and gradually, by fine and almost imperceptible accretions, an estimate of our neighbour grows up in our mind, which is most truly and really a judgment which we pass upon him. Our Saviour here means that there can be no legitimate judging of others, except where there has been previously a severe and thorough-going judging of oneself. He means that the only man to form a proper estimate of the conduct of his neighbours is the man who lies humbly before God as a sinner himself; and who, conscious of his own deep need of forgiveness, is continually coming to the fountain opened for sin and uncleanness. Such a man will indeed for he must form opinions about others. Sometimes he may even be constrained to blame and to rebuke; but when he does so, he will do it with reluctance, and not with satisfaction with moderation, and not with exaggeration with love, and not with harshness. Such a spirit would show itself (1) in our putting the best possible construction we can on the behaviour of others; (2) another result would be that we should never dare to pronounce upon the final doom of a fellow-creature.

II. "Forgive, and ye shall be forgiven." God will mete out to us the severity with which we deal with others. Christianity does not forbid us to discern sin in others; nay, it enjoins upon us occasionally to rebuke sin, but always in a tender, loving spirit, and as those who, being conscious of the evil in themselves, desire their brother's real and lasting benefit. But Christianity also says: "If you take pleasure in condemnation, and condemn others in a censorious and self-exalting spirit, beware of the consequences which you are bringing down upon yourself. You are dictating to God the method in which He shall deal with you at the great day of judgment; you are for giving others justice without mercy, and you shall have justice without mercy yourself."

G. Calthrop, Words Spoken to My Friends,p. 284.

Reference: Luke 6:37. H. J. Wilmot-Buxton, Sunday Sermonettes for a Year,p. 142.