One Lawgiver and Judge
Stephen Terry
Commentary for the November 29, 2014
Sabbath School Lesson
Jesus told them another parable: “The
kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field. But while
everyone was sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went
away. When the wheat sprouted and formed heads, then the weeds also appeared.
“The owner’s servants
came to him and said, ‘Sir, didn’t you sow good seed in your field? Where then
did the weeds come from?’
“‘An enemy did this,’
he replied.
“The servants asked
him, ‘Do you want us to go and pull them up?’
“‘No,’ he answered,
‘because while you are pulling the weeds, you may uproot the wheat with them.
Let both grow together until the harvest. At that time I will tell the
harvesters: First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned; then
gather the wheat and bring it into my barn.’” Matthew 13:24-30, NIV
Sometimes
when I am walking in front of my house, I will look over at the lawn in my
front yard. When I do, I may see a bright, yellow face looking back at me.
Realizing that an errant dandelion has found its way into that lush, green
pasture, I look in the garage for my trusty dandelion pruner and soon set to
work uprooting the interloper. I do so in order to prevent the sunny little
flower from going to a seed head and launching hundreds of seedlings in an
effort to colonize the rest of the yard. Sometimes the dandelions come out
quite easily, but other times, the effort creates a dark, dirty hole in the
yard that is more noticeable than the original weed was. It is at that time
that I often remember Jesus’ parable of the wheat and the weeds.
When we see
sin in the church it is often just as compelling a case to us as the dandelion
was to me to go and root it out. We reason that if we don’t, just like the
parasailing dandelion seeds, sin will take over the entire church. We dig, and
we dig at that sin. Too often we
overlook the pain we are causing to the sinner in the process, and we justify
the damage we cause by claiming that we love the sinner but hate the sin. However,
does it feel that way to the one on the receiving end? Are we in danger of
turning that person and their membership into just another dark, dirty hole in
the church? Have we forgotten that we are also sinners?[i]
How would we fare if treated the same? How many would become discouraged and
forlorn under a constant hail of judgment and criticism over their failings?
Some might
argue that they are not judging but merely using “spiritual discernment.” In
fact, I had a friend in theology school who told everyone he was a “fruit
inspector” and not a judge. While there may be some hair-splitting theological
points here, they are more useful for debating than for practical Christian
fellowship. If I judge someone for their sins, but tell then that I am not
judging them, but only using spiritual discernment, how are they to tell the
difference? Do we really believe that someone would say, “Since you are not
judging me but only inspecting my fruit, I’m fine with that?” When we disregard
the feelings of our brothers and sisters in this way, perhaps we have already
cast them aside in our hearts and minds, preferring to be right over being
compassionate, no matter the relational cost.
I have wondered
at times if being judgmental is a part of Christian growth. Perhaps when we are
immature learn about the Decalogue and other, lesser standards of behavior, we
are like a child who discovers a hammer. He goes around looking for everything
the hammer can strike. And as the aphorism states, “When the only tool you have
is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.” In this case, when the only tool
you have is the Law, then everyone looks like they need judging. But just as
the child learns that there are other tools besides hammers, the growing
Christian learns that there is more to Christian maturity than the Law.
Maybe we get
stuck in this early stage of Christian growth because we feel a sincere desire
to protect the church from sin. However, there are several problems with this
view. First and foremost, perhaps we need to realize that without sinners,
there is no church. We all stand in need of the cleansing and salvation offered
through a growing relationship with Jesus. But just as a washing machine is
useless without a constant flow of dirty clothes that need cleansing, so also
the grace of Christ is useless if we never allow sinners to come in contact
with Him because of our overzealous desire to keep sinners away from the
church.
A second
problem with wanting to protect the church from sin is an implication that God
is not able to save His people without our effort to root out sin. This is not
righteousness by faith, but righteousness by faith plus works. It represents that
our works are an essential addition to God’s grace, lest that grace fail. Therefore
it elevates us and our role in salvation and diminishes God to the same degree
that we are elevated.
A third
problem is directly related to this self-elevation aspect of judgmentalism. To
judge another is to assert by implication that we are free of sin. At this
point some might be saying, “I am not free of sin, but I am free of the sin I
am judging.” But are they? The Bible says that if we are guilty of any sin we
are guilty of all.[ii]
What does that mean? It means that we are also guilty of the same sin we are
rebuking in someone else. Perhaps Jesus was penetrating to the very heart of
this fact when He stated that the one who is without sin should be the first to
cast a stone at another.[iii]
First, He knew that all men are sinners, and second, by making such a
statement, since He is the only sinless one, He was reserving all judgment to
Himself. Is it not then some kind of arrogance to wrest that judgment from His
hands to take it into our own?
Perhaps we
feel justified in pursuing personal judgment against others because judgment
has become so institutionalized within the Christian church. We have all too
often codified intricate processes for judging one another. At times, we may
approach the ideal found in Matthew, chapter eighteen, but we most often
overlook the admonition that this process is for when someone sins against YOU,
not for someone who sins against the denomination or against someone else that
you happen to know. This is not an institutional process divorced from personal
injury. And even when we find it necessary to involve the church, we must still
realize that doing so is asking other sinners to pass judgment regarding a
sinner in their midst. This can also be problematic, for sinners have wrought
many corruptions in the church as the influences of money, power and political
maneuvering have penetrated to virtually every level of the modern church. Those
corruptions also may influence those institutional judgments. Many are the
souls that can trace their estrangement from the church to the influence of
these three failings. Unfortunately, some may have come to feel that by virtue
of their power and position, their sanctity is unassailable.
The reality
is that no one is free from condemnation except through the grace of Christ.[iv]
Strangely though, while we may claim that freedom from condemnation for
ourselves, we are at times loathe to allow that same freedom to others who are
also sinners. We may delude ourselves into thinking that because we feel we can
see their sin, they are not in a relationship with Jesus, but we perhaps
overlook that someone who is further along the pathway of spiritual growth may
feel the same way about us. We may also fail to understand that where the one
we are judging is today, is where we may have been not so long ago ourselves.
Even if we might be tempted to do so, we should not look below us on the ladder
to heaven and then begin stepping on the fingers of those on the lower rungs to
get them off the ladder simply because they have not reached the rungs we are
on.
Perhaps
Jesus told us not to judge, lest we be judged[v]
because He understood that if we, as sinners, were to judge other sinners, then
that would establish the precedent for other sinners to also judge us, and since
all are sinners, that could cause the entire world to be nothing but petty
judges and spies seeking to derail one another from the Christian pathway in an
effort to advance ourselves at the expense of those who had no money, power, or
influence to protect them from such judgments. In such a system those three
become more important than Christ Himself, and instead of being drawn to the
church by the love of Christ, the very sinners He died to save are driven away
and the church loses sight of the purpose for its existence.
We can avoid
that if we can come to understand that just as we must surrender our sins to
Christ, we must also surrender our judgmentalism to Him as well. Then the
church can become about what the grace of God can do for all of us and not
about what our judgment or “discernment” can do to save the church.
