Quotes about Judgment

JOHN 5:22 You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge the other, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things.

STOP JUDGING AND EVALUATING YOURSELF, for this is not your role. Above all, stop comparing yourself with other people. This produces feelings of pride or inferiority, sometimes a mixture of both. I lead each of My children along a path that is uniquely tailor-made for him or her. Comparing is not only wrong; it is also meaningless. Don't look for affirmation in the wrong places: your own evaluations or those of other people. The only source of real affirmation is My unconditional Love.

Do not judge others who hesitate in trembling fear before an act that would be easy for you. If each of My children would seek to please Me above all else, fear of others' judgments would vanish, as would attempts to impress others. Focus your attention on the path just ahead of you and on the One who never leaves your side.

He's staring into the face of fellow Israelites who don't know the grace of enemy love and who want to appeal too quickly to the lex talionis or who want to become judges like God (7:1—5; cf. Jas 4:11—12). Moreover, that same audience needed to hear that forgiveness is the way kingdom living works. Those who genuinely love others forgive. Those who don't are not kingdom people.

John's core chapters (6—19) tell us, and this concludes our observations, that the three times seven judgments are disciplines designed by God to woo people from the way of the Dragon to the way of the Lamb.

At the judgment Jesus will not ask us about our gifts. He will ask if our cheeks have touched the cheeks of those who suffer, if our hands have held the hands of those who endure pain, and if our gifts are directed at those who most need them.

Many in our day climb under the moral shade of Matthew 7:1 to take the supposed high road in saying, "I'm not the judge." Those who take this supposed high road may be missing the whole point of Jesus' words: sin is sin, and one cannot follow Jesus and turn a blind eye to sin. What Jesus is calling us to here is not the absence of moral discernment.

we must learn to distinguish moral discernment from personal condemnation.2 This distinction—the ability to know what is good from what is bad and to be able to discern the difference versus the posture of condemning another person—enables us to see what Jesus prohibits in this passage.

Calvin saw in the words "Do not judge" a tendency to become overly curious about the sins of others (including those closest to us) that needed to be checked and handed over to God—who alone is the Judge.

John does not adjudicate how to engage in politics. Instead, John instructs Christians how to discern the moral character of governments and politicians and policies and laws.

Judgment, then, is not an impersonal, legalistic process. It is a matter of love, and it is something we choose for ourselves. Nor is punishment a vindictive act. God's "curses" are not expressions of hatred, but of fatherly love and discipline. Like medicinal ointment, they hurt in order to heal. They impose suffering that is remedial, restorative, and redemptive. God's wrath is an expression of His love for His wayward children.

To deny the force of divine judgment, then, is to make God less than God, and to make us less than His children. For every father must discipline His children, and paternal discipline is itself a mercy, a fatherly expression of love.