“Judge not, that you not be judged. For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and the measure you give will be the measure you get. Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.
Matthew 7:1-5
There is a list called “The Ten Commandments in Preparation for Confession” (there are different iterations of this in prayer books and other sources) that we encourage people to look over before they come to confession. The Ten Commandments are listed, and under each there are examples of different ways we have violated each commandment. Most people think, regarding the Ten Commandments, “I have never murdered anyone” so I can’t possibly be guilty of “Thou shalt not commit murder.” Under this commandment are listed things like gossiping, not taking care of one’s body, and judging others, which are three things that we all do, a lot. Probably the most frequent sin we commit is gossiping, it is very easy to do, we all get sucked into it. Most of us can do a better job with our diets and exercise. As my spiritual father says, the cause of death for many of us will be “death by donut,” in other words, we eat too much of the wrong things and our lives, many of them, will be shortened as a result. We are quick to judge those who have a mental breakdown and end their own lives in a sudden moment, but we often fail to realize that we are doing the same thing, just more slowly.
And this is where judging others comes in. Judging means to make some kind of valuation of someone else’s life or circumstance. Notice, we didn’t use the word “evaluation.” These are actually two different things. To evaluate someone does involve judgment, but there is a good purpose behind this kind of judgment. Generally, we evaluate others, and ourselves, with the goal of helping someone to get better at something. For example, a job evaluation is done once a year with many employees, not to make them feel bad but to help them improve. Evaluations often provide needed feedback and encouragement.
To assess someone’s value is to place subjective worth on them, and often in doing this, we find judgment. We intentionally look to place ourselves above someone else, to value ourselves greater than someone else, and in doing this, we de-value someone else. In other words, for our value to increase, the value of someone else must decrease. It’s not enough to think “I am good”, but instead we like to think “I am better.” If I want to think of myself as “I am the best priest,” or even as “I am a good priest,” then I have to classify others as lesser priests or bad priests in order to value myself above them. I have to judge others poorly in order to judge myself well. What I should be aiming for is saying, and more importantly being, a faithful priest. If my goal is to be a “faithful priest,” then I can do that without devaluing or competing with another priest. The goal then should become looking at our own faithfulness to God, and to whatever role we are called to play—spouse, parent, worker, friend—and not make everything a competition, where we are constantly judging others in order to keep ourselves at the head of the pack.
Jesus says very clearly, “Judge not, that you not be judged.” (Matthew 7:1) This is one of those examples where if we did only one thing right, that could be the ticket to our salvation. If we went through life, doing nothing else except withholding judgment on another person, then God will not judge us. People often set lofty, or complex spiritual goals for themselves, when it comes to prayer or Scripture reading or even charity. Imagine just setting one goal of not judging others. This would actually improve other areas like prayer, Scripture reading and charity. If we work hard not to judge, then part of that would involve praying for the people we are tempted to judge. It would include reading Scriptures for encouragement not to judge and for humility to realize our own faults before looking at the faults of others. And it would even improve our generosity, because rather than judging ourselves as worthy of everything we have, we find a greater sense of gratitude for what we have which spawns a greater desire to share with those who do not have.
“For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and the measure you give will be the measure you get.” (7:2) This reinforces the phrase from the Lord’s Prayer, “And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors” (Matthew 6:12) (or more commonly said “and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us”). In other words, as we pray to God to forgive us in the same way in which we forgive others, Jesus is saying that we will be judged in the same way we judge others. And hopefully this reality motivates us to forgive more easily and to judge less harshly (or not at all), trusting that if we forgive generously and do not judge, that God will be generous in His forgiveness of our many sins and withhold judgment from us. If all we do is judge and condemn, Jesus is saying we can expect judgment and condemnation from God.
Then, how do we refrain from judgment? The answer is found in the next three verses, where Jesus tells us that before we see the speck in the eye of our brother, we must see the log in our own eye. Rather than focusing on the imperfections of others, be they big or small, it is much better for us to focus on removing our own blemishes. In Matthew 7:5, Jesus tells us “first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.” This isn’t an invitation to fix ourselves so that we can judge others. Quite the opposite. If there isn’t a log in our eyes, there will at least be specks in our eyes at all times. Because of our sinful nature, we will never see with perfect vision to judge others. Only God has that kind of vision. The perfect God renders perfect judgment. We cannot render perfect judgment or anything else. So, even if we don’t see ourselves as having logs in our eyes, we all have specks, and so how can we judge the specks in our brother’s eyes, if we have specks, or logs, in our own? Going back to verse 2, Jesus says “The measure you give is the measure you get.” Hopefully, we work toward withholding judgment, so that God will withhold His righteous judgment from us. Let’s stop putting value on everything, and evaluate one another only for good. Let’s work on our own sense of faithfulness, rather than judging ourselves better than others, or judging others worse than us. And in terms of our sins, let us realize that common things like judging and gossiping actually fall under the commandment to not murder. Let us realize that to murder someone doesn’t mean only to take the life of another, but to devalue the life of another, and this is what happens each time we judge someone.
One more comment on judgment—we will all be judged unfairly at times. When this happens, let’s work hard to resist the urge to return judgment. Let us remember that God is the ultimate judge, not us.
O Lord my God, in Thee do I take refuge; save me from all my pursuers, and deliver me, lest like a lion they rent me, dragging me away, with none to rescue. O Lord my God, if I have done this, if there is wrong in my hands, if I have required my friend with evil or plundered my enemy without cause, let the enemy pursue me and overtake me, and let him trample my life to the ground, and lay my soul in the dust. Arise, O Lord, in Thy anger, lift Thyself up against he fury of my enemies; awake, O my God, Thou hast appointed a judgment. Let the assembly of the peoples be gathered about Thee; and over it take Thy seat on high. The Lord judges the peoples; judge me, O Lord, according to my righteousness and according to he integrity that is in me. O let the evil of the wicked come to an end, but establish Thou the righteous, Thou who triest the minds and hearts, Thou righteous God. My shield is with God, who saves the upright in heart. God is a righteous judge, and a God who had indignation every day. If a man does not repent, God will whet his sword; He has bent and strung his bow; He has prepared his deadly weapons, making his arrows fiery shafts. Behold, the wicked man conceives evil, and is pregnant with mischief, and brings forth lies. He makes a pit, digging it out, and falls into the hold which he has made. His mischief returns upon his own head, and on his own pate his violence descends. I will give to the Lord the thanks doe to His righteousness, and I will sing praise to the name of the Lord, the Most High. Psalm 7
Points to ponder: What are some of the logs in your own eye that need to be removed? How can you evaluate others without devaluing them?
