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JUDGING

“For I, the LORD, love judgment”, Is.61:8 

There is a judgment God loves to effectuate among the children of men which we should not disdain, unless we wish to displease God.

There is a wrong way to judge things, for it comes from a selfish and protective motive in man. Judgment makes part of the constitution of any man and just as any other feature or virtue, man can use it or take hold of it and live by it to glorify God and turn his own life into a blessing, or, while walking against God, man is fully able to use it as well to hide sin away from his own eyes. It is like sex or money: if used for the glory of God they are good things and God upholds them; if not, man is able to stumble through them. God has put many things in man and many around as well: if he lives with God and in genuine peace, he will be able to make the right and proper usage of them; if away from genuine life and holiness, man will maintain his original features and will be able to live with it in a perverted way and in a fashion of its own. Just as there is no sound marriage without any sexual holiness, there is no sound Christian without a sound judgment of things. We read here that God loves judgment. We read, also, that sinners love to judge as well. Hence, when there is a turn back to God and we are advised not to judge, I believe we misunderstand it in some way. We are to understand by this that it might be a similar thing to “if one’s eye makes us to stumble it is better to pluck it off speedily”, for judgment made near God is different in all its ways and opposite in motive and roots – it is a tree which grows in the garden of God.

We know just how important confession of sin is to all Christians, especially such as are new to the faith, for it grants them victory by full, particular and detailed exposure of sins to the killing light of God. Judging others then, when we are aware of our own sins and feel disappointed about ourselves at this stage of early living in Christ, is the opposite of confession, for people are not used to look into their own sins, and consequently of being fully aware of their own misdeeds. For this reason and in a certain way they misunderstand and miss-grasp it easily, for they see in others all that they are aware of in themselves without taking notice or be willing to take it in, in a personal way. Besides, being somewhat embittered because they cannot now share in the world, there might be a huge fighting going on within them, a bad spirit which easily judges upon what it is fully aware of things which are deceitful, and for that reason it easily grasps it as happening in others being misled concerning consciousness of sin. (If you want to know which sins you have, just do a kindness to yourself and make a list of such sins you see in others – once you have them all, you can confess them to God). At this stage, if the spirit is bad and we see other people’s sins easily, we may rest assured those sins are the ones we have to deal against in ourselves in one way or another, for that’s why we are so aware of them to the point of judging others concerning it. From there we get to understand easily what the words of Jesus mean and why is it that if we judge we will be judged ourselves: it is because we have those sins which will be judged with the same judgment, this meaning that we will be judged because we have those sins and not because we judge, and that, if we hadn’t them, we would not be so judging at all. Judging is not what brings condemnation, but the sins we have which leads us to judge.

But, this may not come to open a door to excuse sin once we become aware we have certain sins ourselves. We may not become selfish because we became aware of our sins and wish to find a way to live on with it by not being judgmental about any of it. Anyone who accepts sin as it is, wherever it may be found, wants to live with it in some way or another.

Nevertheless, there comes a time when, by deciding to look inside and up to a cleansing light through exposure and open confession of all sins one by one, we easily are aware of them, and we are made free of all them and are able to rejoice greatly when we do it the right way and the way God leads as well. Some may even rejoice at this point for various motives, I mean, because they are not sharing in those sins anymore and it makes them confident when they pray, walk and talk. The wrong kind of judging vanishes then, consequently, for there is no more a root of bitterness to be found once sins are fully dealt with that way. But, here starts a new road of the judging God loves: till then we judged people because we had been conscious of our own sins and tried to overlook it and be blind to them by being judgmental. But now we come to rejoice because we suddenly see just how easy it is to please God and we love to share the new way found with others; we find also, that our great Lover hates sin and that God and sin will never match for alliances and that these two will never be friends or shake hands in any way. (Sin often attempts to achieve just that, but it shakes its own hand and assumes God is shaking it). And because we start loving God so much, and due to the fact that we realize now that sin is disgusting and perverse in all its consequences, and because we start hating the opposite of holiness which is selfishness, we start getting rid of sin’s ashes and leftovers in us as we are made fully able to judge it in a new light – in ourselves; we judge sin itself and not sinners anymore (even if people under conviction misjudge us as we do so). This is the judgment God still loves. By this, there is a new start in a new life the world resents to look at. The world hated being judged by the wrong motives; now, they hate it being fully convinced to be wrong due to the real life they are able to mark and see. This kind of judgment is holy because holy people do it not to judge, but they do it to live holy themselves and sinners judge themselves from what they are able to see in saints. Judging sin is not the same as judging the sinner.

Holiness without judgment is an impossible achievement. We read that it is a Holy Spirit who comes to convict of sin, of righteousness and of judgment. There is a holy judgment which people learn to stick by and uphold if it is only able to save and make free by taking knowledge of truth – love drives us to do just that and not selfish motives anymore. But, at this point we do it not out of an embittered spirit, not anymore at least. It is this un-judging spirit which judges sin to its uttermost capacity, in practical terms of unawareness of the existence of holiness, which leads sin to take knowledge of itself as well in an unmistakable way, especially because it does not become befriended with any such who share in sin in some way or another, yet without stopping to love – we just do not feel at home in there and, by being wise enough to avoid it, we start changing and removing our own steps from roads dusted by any kind of filth and avoid the void of sin by being displaced from there to a kind of holiness which pleases the cause of God. There is no way to be holy but through walking as we ought with such as we ought to, alone. The world hates it to have it this way, because it is effective in showing out sin and revealing the ones who share in it as such, who are greedy towards it still and that they are no more as good as they thought they were, for there is an absence of a bad spirit with such people who live holy lives free of any bitterness wherever they are, and please not people, for they feel they are not able to practice sin any longer. The world sees this as judging on them for they cannot see either the difference between this and former judging in sin; the way sins are looked unto this time is pure and has a good spirit in approach. They cannot justify themselves based on others’ many sins either, for people are holy in front of them and they resent it being so, so much so that it leaves them to think others see their sins and they cannot accuse to defend any longer, and they assume that’s why holy people are made to deviate from them in conversation and friendly fellowship – because they have those sins which they saw being removed from others, being saved from them. This is the main reason why the world stones Christians who are able to live upright, killing the innocent because they are not judging any longer as the world would do; "I can do nothing of My own self. As I hear, I judge, and My judgment is just, because I do not seek My own will, but the will of the Father who has sent Me", Joh 5:30." Do not judge according to sight, but judge righteous judgment", Joh 7:24. And because the world has no rules of truth to stick by, these easily tell lies about holy people and believe those lies themselves very easily. “Jesus said to them, If you were blind, you would have no sin. But now you say, We see. Therefore your sin remains”, John 9:41.

There is a holy judging which God loves and woe to such as walk away from it! " I have many things to say and to judge of you, but He who sent Me is true, and I speak to the world those things what I heard of Him", Joh 8:26.

José Mateus

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