Judging Rightly
Luke 6:36-42
In the Name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.
St. Luke 6:36-37 36 Therefore be merciful, just as your Father also is merciful. 37 “Judge not, and you shall not be judged. Condemn not, and you shall not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven.
Dear fellow redeemed in Christ our Lord… One of the most misquoted Bible verses in all of Holy Scripture has to be, “Judge not, and you will not be judged.” I have had this used against me so many times, I’ve lost count. When it first happened, as a young pre-sem student, I was caught off guard and it gave me pause to reconsider what I had just said. Was I judgmental and under the condemnation of Jesus? The conversations were usually in the context of talking about sin, of course. I don’t remember what the conversations were about, but I do remember how that quote tended to put an end to the conversation.
Today, we could be talking to someone about homosexuality, same-sex marriages, or abortion, and the person we’re talking to could retort, “Don’t judge, lest you be judged!” expecting us immediately to stop talking about how homosexuality is against God’s design, that only one man and one woman constitute a Godly marriage, and that abortion is the murder of a human being. But is this what Jesus meant? Did He mean that we were not to speak about right and wrong, truth and error, good and bad? Of course, that’s not what He was saying, or He would be contradicting what He says everywhere else in Scripture. And we know that Scripture does not contradict itself.
Our Lord is not condemning all forms of judging. Parents, obviously, not only have the right, but the duty and obligation to judge their children’s behavior. God gave the government the right to establish laws, judge, and punish criminals. Jesus told Pontius Pilate that Pilate’s authority, as governor, was given to him from above – from God. St. Paul wrote that the civil rulers are God’s servants when they exercise the power of the sword.
If no one has the right to judge criminals, they would get away with their crimes, and innocent people would get hurt. There would be no order in our society. National laws are what keep the strongest from oppressing, hurting, and killing the weaker. Yet it is not just parents and the civil authorities who have the right to judge. Now, one could very well argue that the laws of the land are currently being ignored in all too many cases, but we will pray about that instead.
Just a few verses later in both Luke’s record of Jesus’ Sermon and Matthew’s parallel Sermon on the Mount, Jesus instructs us to “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. 16 You will know them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thorn bushes, or figs from thistles?….19 Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 20 Thus you will recognize them by their fruits” (Matthew 7:15-20 [Luke 6:43-45]). Therefore, we ARE to discern – we ARE to judge – the fruit to see whether it is good or bad. And when we do, we are to accept the good and reject the bad.
Every single Christian has the duty to judge the doctrine and outward words and actions of those around them; and by judge we understand discerning truth from error, discerning right and wrong. Jesus said, “Beware of false prophets.” One cannot beware of false teachers unless one judges what they teach. We must always ask the question, “Does what they teach agree with the Holy Scriptures?” If it does, fine. But if it does not, run away and warn others.
Pastors, especially, have the duty to judge doctrine and to warn those under their spiritual care of threats against the truth. St. Paul repeatedly urges pastors to teach only the pure doctrine. This entails judging what is and is not false doctrine. St. Paul concludes his list of qualifications for a pastor in Titus 1:9 with these words: “He must hold fast the faithful word as he has been taught, that he may be able, by sound doctrine, both to exhort and convict those who contradict.”
When Jesus says, “Judge not,” He is not denying parents, or civil authorities, or ministers of his church, or any Christian the right to judge according to the Word of God and according to their vocation. This kind of judgment is absolutely necessary and even demanded by our Lord, or we would be swept away by the latest, trending, worldly opinion.
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So what is our Lord trying to teach us by saying, “Judge not, and you shall not be judged. Condemn not, and you shall not be condemned”? Context. The right understanding of our Lord’s words all hinges upon the sentences that come before and after these words. “Therefore, be merciful, just as your Father also is merciful.” And “Forgive, and you will be forgiven.” And with this, we see why the Old Testament reading for today is the account of Joseph forgiving his brothers.
Joseph was hated by his brothers; he was stripped of clothes, humiliated, thrown in pit, and then sold into slavery. Yet God highly exalted him, and made him the most powerful man in Egypt. And later on, when he had his chance for revenge later in life, when he had the chance to at least berate his brothers with indignation, instead he showed them mercy. They were expecting harsh words and revenge, but he spoke kindly to them, he cried tears of joy, and he embraced them as brothers. He showed them mercy. A better example of mercy could not be found in all the world.
But, dear fellow redeemed, we need more than just an example. We need a Savior. We need someone who forgives us our sins. We need someone to take our place under the unbending Law of God and fulfill it. So, God the Father sent someone better than Joseph. He sent Jesus, His beloved Son, true God, to become man. As you recall, Jesus was hated by his brothers too. He was stripped of his clothes and humiliated, betrayed into the hands of men, and thrown into a pit of death.
Yet, after three days in the tomb, He was raised from the dead, highly exalted into the highest heavens, and enthroned at the Father’s Right Hand. And He did this not so that he could take His revenge on those whose sins put Him on the cross. He did it so that he could reconcile us to God. Our judge, the One who can judge us guilty of breaking His law, is judged guilty in our place, so that we are acquitted. Our judge, the only one who could condemn us, is condemned in our place. And instead of condemnation and certain eternal punishment, He absolved us. The one who alone can get back at us and treat us like He Himself was treated, instead treats us as royal sons and daughters.
In our Old Testament reading, Joseph could only say to his brothers, “Am I in the place of God?” while Jesus says to you and me “I am God in the flesh.” In Jesus you and I have the kind of mercy that deals with all sins – our neighbor’s specks, our own planks, our ever-present pride – by taking them on Himself and dying for them. Not only that, but He rose again so that we could be born again through the life-giving waters of Holy Baptism and be adopted in His family as beloved brothers and sisters. And as family, He has given us the right to sit at His table and to share in His eternal inheritance. That is how merciful our Lord is.
Therefore, when Jesus says “be merciful, just as your Father also is merciful,” and “Forgive, and you will be forgiven,” He is not telling us to overlook the sins of others and to pretend they aren’t sinning. He is not telling us to accept people no matter what they do or what they say. He is not telling us to “live and let live,” or just go along to get along. We must be faithful in our witness to the world that hates us, and we must call sin what it is. Yes, acknowledge right and wrong, acknowledge truth and error. But we need to recognize first that WE are sinners in need of the Father’s forgiveness. The Father shows us unimaginable mercy in Jesus which means that we get to go out and give as mush mercy as we have been given.
The Father has shown mercy to us in the death of Jesus. We are free from our sin because of Jesus’ bloody, horrible death on the cross. He paid the debt we could not pay. He bought forgiveness for us by the price of His blood. What that means is that now we are free and even commanded to forgive those who sin again us when they come to us in repentance.
This is what the Christian Church is all about: being forgiven and forgiving; being loved and showing love. This is what it means to desire and seek after dwelling in the house of the Lord all the days of our life as we sang in today’s Introit. And in the Lord’s House here on earth we are constantly being given to by our Lord. We remember His name being put on us in our Baptism in the Invocation and Benediction. We are absolved of our sins in the Absolution. We hear, as we just have done so again, Jesus’ Gospel preached into our ears in the sermon, a message that brings comfort and strength to the sinner. And we have Jesus’ real and true Body and Blood placed into our mouths for the forgiveness of our sins in His Supper; it is literally the food of heaven.
Our Lord Himself has judged us worthy to partake of His sacramental gifts. He has judged and paid for all sin in His death. We are His beloved, redeemed, and forgiven children, and He gifts us with His righteousness. As we continue to walk in Him, let us judge rightly all things given to us, so that we may be His people in our world and communities, and give all glory to Him in all that we do.
In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.
