Are Christians not to Judge Non-Christians?

The command "Judge not lest ye be judged" is one of the most often quoted Bible passages. Less frequently cited but perhaps more applicable is the passage in 1 Corinthians 5 where Paul tells the Christians to not judge non-Christians? What are we to make of these passages? In this short video, Lenny offers some clarity to how we should understand Paul's command in light of the examples we've received.

Image courtesy Andrew Hughey and licensed via the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0) License.

What Does "Thou Shalt Not Judge" Really Mean? (video)

One of the most often quoted verses in the Bible is also one of the most misunderstood by Christians and non-Christians alike. Just what did Jesus mean when he commanded his followers not to judge in Matthew 7? Does this mean Christians cannot criticize any action by someone else? No; the command was focused on another idea prevalent in Jesus' day.

In this short video, Lenny explains how Jesus' listeners would have understood his words and how we can apply them today.

Image courtesy Jonathunder - Own work. Licensed under GFDL via Commons.

What "Thou Shalt Not Judge" Really Means

"Thou shalt not judge" is a phrase that Christians hear over and over again. Even those who don't believe in Jesus will cite his teaching in Matthew 7:1 to try and say that Christians shouldn't tell others certain actions (things like abortion, homosexuality, and the like) are wrong. But that's a bit too cavalier. We must take Jesus's words in their proper context to understand exactly what he meant.

In this passage from his web site, Dr. J.P. Moreland gives a great explanation on the different types of judging and why Jesus did not say moral judgments were out of bounds. He explains:

We need to distinguish two senses of judging: condemning and evaluating. The former is wrong and is in view in Matthew 7. When Jesus says not to judge, he means it in the sense that the Pharisees judged others: their purpose was to condemn the person judged and to elevate themselves above that person. Now this is a form of self-righteous blindness that vv. 2-4 explicitly forbid. Such judgment is an expression of a habitual approach to life of avoiding self-examination and repentance and, instead, propping oneself up by putting others down.

But there is another sense of judging that is central both to moral purity/holiness and to showing tough love to another: evaluating another’s behavior as wrong, pointing that out to the person with a view to their repentance, restoration and flourishing. This form of judging another may bring short-term pain in the form of guilt, embarrassment and a experience of the need to change, but its long-term effect is (or is supposed to be) the flourishing and uplifting of the other.

Sometimes the most loving thing you can do for another is to tell him or her something hard to hear. This form of judgment is absolutely biblical. In fact, in Matthew 7:5, Jesus basically says that after one has appropriately engaged in self-examination and personal repentance, he/she is now in a position accurately and helpfully to evaluate another. This very same form of judgment is commanded in Galatians 6:1-2. It is moral confusion and cowardice to eschew evaluating other’s behavior. It is moral clarity and courage not to condemn others.

Today it is more important than ever for the church to recover and proclaim judgment as evaluation gently yet firmly. 1

I agree with J.P. To not be allowed to make any moral judgments is insane. We rely on people such as whistleblowers to come forward if they see corporate executives who are embezzling funds. In the same way, we rely on whistleblowers to call out Planned Parenthood when they are taking live-born babies and cutting them up for their parts. Both serve the same purpose, to help diminish the amount of evil in the world.

References

1.Moreland, J. P. "Search On Judging Others: Is There a Right Way?" JPMoreland.com. J.P. Moreland, 19 Dec. 2012. Web. 1 Oct. 2015. http://www.jpmoreland.com/2012/12/19/on-judging-others-is-there-a-right-way
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Is It Fair for God to Judge Those Who Never Heard?

Christianity teaches that all people are born sinners. They have a natural desire to rebel against the things of God, to be selfish and immoral. But God does not abandon them here. The good news of the Gospel is that God sent his only son Jesus to become a man and redeem us from our sins. Once we put our trust in Jesus and his act of redemption, we are reconciled to God and we can commune with him forever.

In the Christian story, both the judgment of men and the reconciliation of them are acts of God. But some cry foul at this story, claiming God is unfair for judging those who may have never heard about Jesus or their need for redemption. Is God truly unfair to those who were isolated by geography or history from the Gospel? The Apostle Paul argues they aren't, and offers a couple of reasons why.

1. God Revels Himself to All Men

In Paul's day, most of the world wasn't familiar with Christianity or even the Jewish ideas from which it sprang. When writing to the Romans, Paul realizes that the church in Rome would include people from many different backgrounds and locations across the known world. He tells the Christians there that while God had revealed himself and his holy standard to the Jews through the writings of Moses and the prophets, the Romans didn't. However Paul contends the Romans should still realize there is a God to whom they are accountable. In Romans 1:20 he writes, "For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse."

Imagine those who were first settling the country. Immigrants didn't speak the same language. They came from places with different laws and different customs. One family travels west and finds a picturesque spot with a stream and a meadow. However, there's a fence that encloses the land. Though the immigrant understands little of the law, he would assume that the fence is an indicator that someone had claimed this land. He would realize the fence doesn't simply appear. Even if he comes from a culture that had never used fences to mark property boundaries, through a quick examination he could easily conclude its purpose and meaning.

Similarly, no matter how isolated any culture is from the Gospel, every human being can recognize that there is design in our world. In fact, every culture has recognized that they didn't appear from nothing and there is an order to nature, to survival, and to reproduction. That's why all cultures adhere to some kind of religious practice. It demonstrates how all cultures have recognized there is something higher than themselves to whom they are beholden. In other words, mankind is never the final authority. One must look beyond himself to discover the deepest truths about his design and purpose in the world.

2. People Don't Even Measure up to Their Own Standards

The second point Paul makes is while different cultures have varying standards of morality, no one can claim innocence before God. Of course, no one can measure up to God's requirement of perfection, especially if they don't know all of what God's perfection entails. Yet, Paul states the Romans have within their own consciences enough of God's law to be accountable for that much. He writes:

Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law, since they show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts now accusing, now even defending them.) This will take place on the day when God will judge men's secrets through Jesus Christ, as my gospel declares (Rom 2:14-16, NASB).

Here, Paul simply claims that commandments like "Do not lie, do not murder, do not commit adultery" are universal. There would be many societies who had never heard of the Ten Commandments, yet would recognize the wrongness of such actions. While in some cultures a man may have only one wife and in others a man may have four wives, there is no culture where it is OK to take another man's wife.

The hook is all people fail not only at achieving God's standards, but even at holding their own. Think about two men who work at an office. One is coming in three to four minutes late and sometimes stretches his lunch hour to an hour and a half. The other is strictly prompt, but from time to time will use the work printer to make flyers for a birthday party or take a highlighter and some pens home to use there. The first man may justify his actions, thinking "I may be a few minutes late, but at least I don't steal like that guy!" while the second is thinking "I may use a few extra office supplies, but at least I care enough about my job to be on time!" The fact is both men are guilty and their attempts at self-justification prove it.

Driving on the Freeway

The clearest example I can give on how all people fail to measure up to their own law is by simply asking you to think about your experiences on the freeway. In what ways do you criticize others? If your driving was judged by the same standard as you judge everyone else, do you think you would have no strikes against yourself? I know I would!

If God did nothing more than judge each person on their own standard of conduct they held for others, each one of us would be found completely guilty before him. So, how can anyone accuse God of not being fair? It certainly isn't in his judgment of them. Perhaps they are complaining that he hasn't made redemption sufficiently clear. We can address that topic in another post.

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Are Christians Wrong to Believe in Only One Way?

Paul Copan comments on how those who quickly criticize Christians for believing they hold to the one true faith are wrong in their own assumptions. In his book True for You, But Not for Me: Overcoming Objections to Christian Faith he writes:

For the relativist, it's a curious assumption that those holding to the reality of absolute truth are absolutely arrogant. There's no intrinsic contradiction between (A) holding firmly to convictions and (B) treating with love and dignity those who disagree; living harmoniously with people who hold radically different views is a hallmark of maturity. We'd all benefit from the courageous words of qualified people who display both firmness of conviction and civility (or respect)-as Paul says it, "speaking the truth in love" (Ephesians 4:15). Martin Marty (b. 1928), noted observer of religion, states that the problem of modernity is that the people "who are good at being civil often lack strong convictions, and the people who have strong convictions often lack civility."

Are We Not to Judge Unbelievers?

The most often quoted verse in the Bible is not John 3:16, but Matthew 7:1, "Judge not, that you be not judged." I'm sure most Christians have heard this verse thrown out as soon as they point out the failing of a friend or family member. It's a common response, given even by those who know nothing else about the Bible. However, I recently had a conversation with a self-identified Christian who believes the Bible teaches Christians should not judge the actions of unbelievers, since they are lost and therefore unable to live a Godly life. In fact, he claimed:

The directive to REFRAIN from judging outsiders, has ONLY ONE context in the narrative: "You WILL be judged by whatever judgment criteria you use against un-believers", period! Paul FRIMLY reiterates this in 1 Corinthians 5

• 1Cor. 5:12 "For what have I to do to judge them also that are without? Do not ye judge them that are within?"
• 1Cor. 5:13: "But them that are without God judgeth. Therefore put away from among yourselves that wicked person."

There is only one judgment allowed to Christians: to ascertain the legitimacy of those who call themselves Christian, and yet indulge in those practices Paul outlines in great detail as forbidden to believers.

This is a claim that I think needs some attention. It seems superficially that the verses above warn against judging others in any way, but the concept of judgment that both Jesus and Paul are talking about does not exclude any kind of condemnation or criticism of sin. Basically the command against judging others simply means that no Christian should ever write off an unbeliever as irredeemable nor should they somehow look down upon unbelievers as somehow less valuable than a believer. In order to demonstrate this, I offer three ways the Bible shows that pointing out moral failings is appropriate when done appropriately.

1. First Century Understanding of Judgment

First off, our 21st century concept of judgment has been warped by those who would say any kind of criticism of another is wrong. In understanding Jesus and Paul, it is crucial to remember they were first century Jews. Ancient Jewish culture divided the world into two simple categories: the Chosen Ones (themselves) and the Gentiles (everyone else). As Merrill Unger notes, Jews of this time were taught the laws of cleanliness and eating kosher were things that separated the clean from the unclean.1 Therefore, nonbelieving heathen were unclean and were fit only for eternal hellfire. Jewish rabbis of this time even taught the faithful Jew to daily pray thanking God that he is "not a Gentile, not a slave, and not a woman."2 This is one of the reasons that the Judaizers were starting to make so much headway in the Galatian church. Jews felt not merely superior to the rest of the world, but confident that God was on their side. Unger states, "the Jews seemed to regard the heathen only as existing for the purpose of punishing the apostasy of Israel… or of undergoing vengeance for their enmity toward her.3

When looking at the culture and language of first century Judaism, one can see that the type of judgment Jesus and the New Testament warns against in the passages above is a wholesale condemnation of other people. Christians cannot simply "write off" another person as unworthy or incapable of salvation. The Theological Dictionary of the New Testament expounds on the Greek word for judge and explains "In light of God's judgment, we should not judge others. This does not mean flabby indifference to moral wrong but recognition of solidarity in guilt."4

2. Jesus and His Disciples Call Out Sinners for Their Sins

If we look to the apostles, we see that Paul did some judging of his own. In 2 Timothy 4:14, he calls out one man by name and writes it in the scriptures for all to see: "Alexander the coppersmith did me great harm; the Lord will repay him according to his deeds." A little earlier he condemns the actions of another: "For Demas, in love with this present world, has deserted me and gone to Thessalonica" (2 Tim 4:10). These sound like pretty big judgments to me. Of course, Paul directly instructs Timothy to "reprove, rebuke, and exhort" as his part of preaching the word. One cannot reprove without judging.

The apostle John not only judges Diotrephes, but says, "So if I come, I will bring up what he is doing, talking wicked nonsense against us" (3 John 1:10). He wants to make it public! Jesus even gave us a set procedure for those who would sin against a person of the church in Matthew 17. Surely this requires judgment. We also have the admonition in James 5:20 where he writes, "let him know that whoever brings back a sinner from his wandering will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins." Is judgment required there?

I think the Bible is very clear that we are not to retreat into some holy huddle and let the unbelievers go to hell, taking the world with them. Part of that requires us to point out their sin, just as John the Baptist did toward Herod. Even when looking at Corinthians 5, which is the example given above, we can see judgment taking place. Paul clearly judged the person sinning in Corinth. "For though absent in body, I am present in spirit; and as if present, I have already pronounced judgment on the one who did such a thing."

The biggest example of a judgment against unbelievers is Stephen's sermon in Acts 7. Facing the Sanhedrin, he uses some of the harshest language he can in condemning their actions:

You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit. As your fathers did, so do you. Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? And they killed those who announced beforehand the coming of the Righteous One, whom you have now betrayed and murdered, you who received the law as delivered by angels and did not keep it (Acts 7:51-53).

Either Stephen was wrong to call out the priests or we are also called to be the witnesses of Christ, which must include telling others how they violate His law. Otherwise, why would they ever wish to repent?

Jesus Commanded His Followers to Stem the Moral Decay of the World

You write, "The directive to REFRAIN from Judging outsiders, has ONLY ONE context in the narrative: ‘You WILL be judged by whatever judgment criteria you use against un-believers', period!" But Jesus just a few verse later called us to inspect the fruit of others and to make judgments about them based on their actions. He also taught in that same Sermon on the Mount that "You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people's feet" and "Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven"(Matt 5:13, 19). Jesus clearly teaches his church to instruct sinners and to act rightly. Instruction requires correction; you cannot get around it. Being the salt of the earth means the church must seek to preserve a certain moral value in society.

Judging people as beyond salvation is clearly forbidden in the New Testament just as allowing sin to progress unchecked is also. To think that the unbeliever is somehow immune from criticism for his actions would mean that we never share that another person is in need of salvation! For one must be saved from something, and that something is the sin that plagues all of humanity. If we are not able to declare immoral acts sinful, then evangelism is worthless and Christianity becomes a feel-good group, not the truth of the ages.

References

1. Unger, Merrill F., R. K. Harrison, Howard Frederic Vos, Cyril J. Barber, and Merrill F. Unger. "Gentile." The New Unger's Bible Dictionary. Chicago: Moody, 1988. 466. Print.
2. Kahn, Yoel H. The Three Blessings: Boundaries, Censorship, and Identity in Jewish Liturgy. New York: Oxford UP, 2011. Print. 10-12.
3. Unger, 466.
4. "Krino." Theological Dictionary of the New Testament: Abridged in One Volume. Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdsmans, 1985. 472. Print.