"Judge Not..."

By Fr. Thomas Kulp

 

 

St. Macarios the Great often said to his disciple, "Condemn no man, and you will be saved." If you think that this is an easy formula for salvation—think again!

None of us can get through a single day without judging or condemning someone, if not with our lips, then with a glance, a gesture, or a thought. Remember that God judges us not only according to our actual deeds; He sees right into the depths of our hearts. He can read our innermost thoughts like an open book.

Our Lord assures us that whoever looks at a woman lustfully commits adultery with her in his heart. The same principle applies to every aspect of our spiritual lives. It is the very attitude of condemnation, however secret and hidden, that must be rooted out of the heart as a deadly poison.

So does Christ warn us, "Judge not, and ye shall not be judged... For with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again." Unless we judge and condemn ourselves first, we ourselves shall stand convicted on the final day of reckoning. This is the real key to a God-pleasing life. We cannot see clearly to remove the splinter in our brother's eye, unless we have first removed the plank from our own.

You may say that you are as good as the next guy, or perhaps better than most. But how have you arrived at this conclusion, unless you have already judged others by your own exalted standards and found them lacking? It is impossible for us to think ourselves better than others, unless we have first judged them.

We are all guilty of this sin. In fact, we do it so often that we are hardly even aware of it. As soon as someone says or does something that offends us, we are right away passing judgment on him.

None of what I have said means, of course, that we must be naive fools, willing to take everyone at face value. We do not necessarily condemn someone when we judge him to be bad company for ourselves or our children. There are people with whom we do better not to associate. Nor are we wrong to chastise those who may have gone astray. It is one thing to judge and condemn our brother, quite another to condone and accept obvious evil.

Our first step is to put our house in order. When we see a sinner, our reaction must always be, "There, but for the Grace of God, go I." If we are not guilty of the same sin, praise God for his mercy. If we begin to evaluate others by first condemning ourselves, the thought of judging others will never occur to us. We are all imperfect. Can we therefore waste our time condemning others when we will one day stand naked and defenseless before the Judgement Seat?

 

Source: Orthodox Tradition, Vol. VIII (1991), No. 4, p. 6.