Righteous Judgment

A brother in the Lord recently shared biblical wisdom pertaining to judgment.  With his permission, I share it below:

 

 

How do Christians judge righteously?

John 7:24
Do not judge according to appearance, but judge with righteous judgment.” – Jesus Christ

1 Corinthians 2:15
But he who is spiritual judges all things, yet he himself is rightly judged by no one.

1 Corinthians 6:2-3
Do you not know that the saints will judge the world? And if the world will be judged by you, are you unworthy to judge the smallest matters? Do you not know that we shall judge angels? How much more, things that pertain to this life?

Should We Never Judge?

Love without Truth is unbalanced. The bible says that a false balance is an abomination to the Lord. Love isn't always kisses and hugs, telling people the truth is an example of the love you have for them. If I ignore the condition of this backwards generation and say nothing, then that means I don't love them and I wouldn’t be walking in Christ-like characteristics. There is an extremely serious error that is being believed by the vast majority of people in the world and sadly even in some churches. This error is literally making those people unable to discern righteousness, truth or holiness. Do you want to know what the serious error is? It is believing that all “judgment” is wrong. If this is true, then what would we have to say about the inspired writers of the bible or even Jesus’ words above? Jesus Christ clearly tells people to judge righteously, aids people in their judging, and judges manners himself. Humanity cannot avoid its responsibilities to discern good from evil or eventually what will happen is a slow decaying of justice, peace, prosperity, love, etc.

The primary point that we all must understand is that not all judgment is wrong. But there are certain types of judgments that can be wrong. The types of judgment that are wrong according to Jesus Christ are condemnation, as well as hypocritical and self-righteous judgment. Righteous judgment includes the judging of manners to be either right or wrong in light of God’s truth. God is the ultimate form of “right”, and He gives us of His Spirit to discern situations rightly. The sincere, serious and sober judgment of our own sins, as well as the gentle and compassionate judgment and correction of other beliefs concerning sin. We must not sentence people, but we must warn people for their spiritual betterment.

Tragically, through this form of failure to discern, Satan is taking advantage of some so-called Christian organizations in regards to confusing people over the issue of judgment. People have been lead to believe that it is “un-loving” to correct someone who is walking in error. And of course some people have aided this false doctrine of "don't judge nobody" by being carnally and fleshly led, resulting in them being overly harsh and unmerciful in their judgments concerning hell. It is easy for an individual to jump on the false doctrine ban-wagon when they encounter a person who mis-represents the gospel of Jesus Christ resulting in that individual being pushed to believe that all “judgment” is wrong. But coming from another perspective an individual could very will experience the conviction by the Spirit of God and ignore the call to repentance to suit they worldly desires to stay the same. In many, many passages in the bible, Jesus Christ spoke about heaven and hell, and the Lord delights that we are whole in our communication as He is. We are commended to communicate the goodness and severity of God. Again, we must not sentence people, but we must have a love led desire to warn people out of their perishing conditions and into their spiritual triumph through Jesus Christ.

The ideas behind the concept of “don't judge nobody” or “all judgment is wrong” are ludicrous from the roots because the same people that are quoting these types of phrases are judging and can’t live by them. Righteous judgment is necessary for life to progress both physically and spiritually. Guess who is being judged as un-loving in these last days? The same Jesus Christ himself is being judged as un-loving by many because they don’t understand that Jesus Christ is Love in action and is ultimately the reinstated Peace between God and man. Nothing else matters until a person knows Him and commits to Him. Jesus’ bold statements cleared up all vagueness concerning eternal life, “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life, and no one comes to the Father except through Me.” (John 14:6).

Don’t we all make judgments? For example: If you’re witnessing your neighbor’s home being robbed while he wasn’t there, then you call the cops on his behalf. Aren’t you making a judgment? If your very young child linked up with some very bad behavior, reckless friends which influenced your child to do various juvenile crimes and your child was escorted home to you by the cops, and you told your child not to be friends with them anymore for his/her own good. Aren’t you making a judgment? If you are a non-smoker and you’re waiting on a bus sitting on a bench at a bus stop. Then someone else who does smoke comes along and sits next to you on the bus bench and begins to pull out a cigarette to smoke, and you politely stand up and move to be at a slight distance as to not inhale any of the cigarette smoke. Aren’t you making a judgment? Telling people not to judge is irrational, to doing so, you yourself have judged their words or actions, and that is why you told them not to judge.

The Lord delights in righteous judgment (John 7:24, 4:24, 8:28-32) God gives wisdom and discernment so that we would be a blessing to everything around us through the revealing of His truth. And again, I must stress that we must not get caught up in the sentencing of people, but we must have a love led desire to warn people out of their perishing conditions and into their spiritual triumph through Jesus Christ.

“JUDGE RIGHTEOUSLY, WE HAVE THE MIND OF CHRIST.”