Jesus Judged Not

What Did Jesus Do?

“If anyone hears my words and does not keep them,
I do not judge him, for I did not come to judge the world
but to save the world.”
John 12.47


This just in—the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has judged the Word, and found it guilty of being judgmental. So the PC(U.S.A.) has cast all judgment (and restraint) to the wind, and has now turned back to the time of the Judges of Israel, which is to say that, forsaking the lordship of Jesus the King, everyone in the PC(U.S.A.) is now free to do whatever is right in his own eyes.

In case you have manged, like most of the world, to not notice anything the PC(U.S.A.) does or says anymore, be advised that, by vote of the majority of the presbyteries in the denomination, all impediments to the ordination of adulterers, fornicators, homosexuals, and practitioners of pretty much every other sexual perversion imaginable, have been removed.

Oops, did that sound judgmental of me?

I just “googled” something this morning, and got some disturbing results in 0.13 seconds! In less time than it takes your average fifth grader to lose interest in a history lesson, my entry of “judgmental Christians” pulled up nearly 700,000 hits. Now, 700,000 hits might be insignificant in Google terms, but, as I said, I found the result disturbing. And this is because it seems to me that God's winsome grace may be getting obscured by the judgmental attitudes being projected by many of Christ's followers, including me. Jesus judged not, and cautioned us not to judge (Matthew 7.1),so why do so many of us, who purport to be his disciples, spend (I should say “misspend”) so much of our time and energy doing what the Lord never did, and doing so to the neglect of what he did do?

I know, I know, just because a lot of non-believers, and Presbyterians (Is that now a redundancy?), like to characterize anyone who talks about sin as being “judgmental” does not mean that they are. But, if “perception is reality” (And that got 8 million hits on Google in 0.11 seconds!), then I believe we Christians might need to do something about what we are perceived to be by so many people, because their reality is that many of us have taken the Great Commission to be a matter of judging and condemning, rather than loving and saving, the world.

Now, this is not to say that there is no such thing as judgment. Rather, we should, like Jesus, leave the judging to the Judge, which is the Word of God. Jesus did not spend time passing judgment because judging was, and is, the work of the Word, and it is a work that is accomplished for salvation if received in this life, or for condemnation if received on the last day. The work that Jesus concerned himself with, and which every believer should be thoroughly engaged in, is the work of saving souls, not judging them.

Most certainly, the Word must be proclaimed. And the Word is a word of judgment, but it is, over and above judgment, a word of grace and mercy to those whom it judges. As Dave Currie, a good friend and mentor during my seminary days, advised me long ago, the Gospel is by its nature offensive, but we should not be! In other words, let the Word do the work of convicting while we do the work of winning and wooing. If someone hears, but does not receive (accept) the Word, the Word nevertheless remains with them. It will either bring them to a place of conviction in this life, where they recognize their need of the forgiveness and grace of the Father in and through the Son and receive the Father's gift of eternal life (John 12.50), or it will ultimately judge and condemn them on the last day (John 12.48). The great tragedy of what the PC(U.S.A.) has done is that they have now voted to make the Word say and mean what is never said or meant.

By no means should we ever “sugar coat,” soften, or truncate the Word, as many do today, so that we rob it of its power to convict—the Word must be the whole Word in order to retain the necessary force to bring about conviction and repentance. We do no one a favor by leading them to believe that anything which the Word condemns as sin will not ultimately be judged. Jesus did not save the world by getting the Father to cancel the judgment, rather Christ earned a “not guilty” verdict for those who receive his Word. The PC(U.S.A.) has chosen to throw judgment, and the Word, out the window.

Jesus was a cross-bearer, not a stone-thrower, and he has not called us to throw stones (i.e. judge), but to take up our cross and bear it daily for the salvation of the world. Caring, compassion, forgiveness, mercy, and love, not judgment, should characterize our life as disciples, even as they characterized the life of our Lord. Having been “invited” to leave the PC(U.S.A.), and then having been dismissed without ever actually submitting a request for dismissal, I am at rather a disadvantage to exercise much care, compassion, forgiveness, mercy, and love for that franchise and its rapidly dwindling membership. However, freed from the PC(U.S.A.), but still bound to the Word and devoted to the Lord, I am privileged, like others who struggle with getting the cross-bearing call right, to proclaim the Gospel, and to love, not judge, the lost. That's what Jesus did.

S.D.G.

Jim
www.jimwilkenministries.org
Marion, NC
PS 37.4