Welcome to The MHB Podcast. This is Michael Baun. And welcome to my 198th episode. In this episode we’re continuing our study of the gospel of Matthew. We are in chapter 7. This chapter finishes Christ’s sermon on the mount which has been an unprecedented journey of practical wisdom. The sermon on the mount is sometimes called the Constitution of Christianity because it teaches us how to align ourselves properly in relationship to God and to our neighbor. The purpose of the sermon on the mount is to inform us how we might be more like Jesus and that means its purpose is to help us be better.
In this chapter we see principles established for the judgment of others. We’re given encouragement to pray so that we might ask God for the things we need. This chapter presents what’s often known as the golden rule: to treat others how you wish to be treated. We’ll see Christ make a distinction between the narrow gate of righteousness and the broad path of destruction. Later in the chapter Christ gives instructions on how to distinguish false prophets — or for our modern context we can think of false prophets as fake Christians. I don’t think we’ll get that far today but it’s definitely on the horizon. Let’s begin our study by reading verses 1-6:
Mat 7:1 “Do not judge so that you will not be judged.
Mat 7:2 “For in the way you judge, you will be judged; and by your standard of measure, it will be measured to you.
Mat 7:3 “Why do you look at the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?
Mat 7:4 “Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ and behold, the log is in your own eye?
Mat 7:5 “You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.
Mat 7:6 “Do not give what is holy to dogs, and do not throw your pearls before swine, or they will trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you to pieces.
Much like in His prior teachings, Jesus frames the proper way of considering judgment by pointing out the transgressions of the Pharisees. The Pharisees were strict and unforgiving in their judgment of others, and they used condemnation as a way to lift themselves up. Instead of speaking truth in love, they pointed out sin in other people as a means of justifying themselves. When evaluating your own spiritual condition it can be very tempting to use the status of those worse off than you to make yourself feel better. This is not the right way of thinking about it. You should not be comparing yourself to other sinners, you should be comparing yourself to Jesus Christ because measuring yourself against Him allows you to see your own shortcomings.
It’s important to note that Jesus isn’t suggesting we eliminate the office of judge or that we cease to uphold laws. Scripture says kings reign and rulers decree justice by God. So powers of earthly governance like presidents and senators are only in those positions because God has allowed them to be. Instead of being directed at these official positions, Christ’s warning against judging others is directed more-so at private persons. As Christians we are called to be subject to one another and this kind of humility isn’t possible if we also seek to impose authoritarian judgments over each other. Your capacity for judgment is important but it should be used primarily to judge yourself and your own actions.
Certainly you’ve met someone whose had the repulsive habit of casting his or her own predilections as universal, authoritative laws others should follow. The entire transgender movement is a good example of this. Activists have a certain opinion which is predicated on their own feelings, and they wish to impose this opinion over the nature of reality itself. They seek to draft laws which ignore objective reality in service to their own personal delusion — and they want you to be punished if you fail affirm them. That’s the kind of judgment Jesus is warning against. That’s what it looks like when a person subordinates God’s law to their own ideas and then assumes the judgment-seat to grant sovereign authority to their misguided conceptions.
In addition to this kind of judgment activity, Christ’s warning encompasses speaking evil of your brothers and sisters. The obvious reason is because each of us already has a sovereign Judge in God. All of us will face God one day, whether we believe it or not, and take account of our actions. Those who are found in the Lamb’s Book of Life — who are covered in the righteousness of Jesus — will not pay the divine penalty for their sins. The reason God reserves the work of salvation for Himself is the same reason Jesus warns us against judging others: He is omniscient and we are not.
If you cast moral judgment on another person you will almost invariably be making mistakes of accuracy. You simply do not know what’s going on in the heart and circumstances of that person and so your judgment can’t possibly take into consideration the full complexity of the equation. Not only are you vastly ignorant, but you’re also contaminated by jealousy and ill nature. If you ascribe invidious motives to a person’s actions while operating on incomplete information, it’s possible you might needlessly destroy the relationship. Do this enough times with enough people and you’ll be living in a solitary hell-on-earth where no one likes you, you don’t trust anyone, and you’re convinced your own fixable shortcomings are irreparable constructs of systemic oppression. The quickest way to lock yourself into a tomb of pointless misery is to be incorrect in your assumptions and then to imbue those assumptions with the authority of absolute truth.
There are a couple things to watch out for when being tempted to cast moral judgment on a person. First is whether you’re being merciful. As a Christian it’s generally better to err on the side of mercy. Scripture teaches that you will be allotted the same measure of mercy you extend to others — so being merciless will lead to a merciless outcome for yourself. Second is whether you’re judgment is motivated by a spirit of revenge or a desire to cause mischief. A vengeful person is quick to make judgments even when they lack the relevant information. This is one of the reasons why conflicts and grievances are more effectively arbitrated by a dispassionate third-party. Part of the desire to cause mischief could look like judging a person in order to elevate your own status or to cut them down so you can steal their share of the market.
You should also remember that it’s not a one-to-one path from a person’s actions to a person’s intentions. A person might have good intentions but their flawed execution results in poor action. Scripture teaches that God judges the contents of a man’s heart. Nothing is hidden from God including the motives of the heart. Since our own access to a person’s motives is so limited, it’s best we avoid forging judgments based on unreliable insight. It’s also tempting to declare who a person is based on who the person is to you. So if someone rips you off and owes you money, it can be tempting to assume he is dishonest with everyone in all areas of his life. But in reality he may have been singularly dishonest with you for reasons you aren’t aware of. Resisting broad judgments doesn’t justify the dishonesty, it simply preserves the highest possible precision in your estimations.
An important part of being a Christian is resisting the temptation to use low-resolution labels to categorize other people. Again we’ll use the example of someone not paying you properly: to label that person a crook is to reduce their identity to a dimension so narrow that it’s guaranteed to import errors. The person who cheats you remains a human being made in the image of God. This means they are incredibly complex with many dissonant layers to their identity. They’re likely better than you in some ways and worse than you in others.
They also have the capacity to be fluid in the makeup of their personality. The trope that you can’t change people is nonsense. Life circumstances change people all the time and you can even inculcate behavior changes in animals using techniques like Pavlovian classical conditioning. If you attach a low-resolution label to someone there’s a sense in which you’re condemning them to forever be that thing — which just isn’t accurate in light of what we know about the human condition.
We touched on this earlier but it bears repeating that being quick and merciless in your judgment of others will cause you yourself to face merciless judgments. There’s a character in Genesis named Ishmael, he is Abraham’s firstborn son and the brother of Isaac. Scripture says Ishmael’s hand was against everyone and everyone’s hand was against him. This is a good indication that Ishmael was censorious and condemning in his mannerisms toward others. Behaving this way will virtually guarantee you are rejected by your own community.
To put this in perspective, almost everyone loves dogs because dogs demonstrate the opposite of this negative attitude. A dog is always excited to see you and is happy just being with you even if you have a lot of problems. In the same way that dogs are almost universally loved because of these traits, you will be almost universally hated if you demonstrate the opposite. It doesn’t matter how skilled, talented, intelligent, or interesting you are — no one wants to be around someone who condemns them.
If you indulge a spirit of condemnation, you will generate a long line of enemies who are waiting in the shadows to pounce on you the moment you do something worthy of condemnation. Many people will enjoy watching you fall and seeing you lose. If that sounds terrifying, scripture says merciless people who lord judgment over others will be judged of God and will receive the greater condemnation. So if you don’t fear becoming a pariah among your people you should at least fear becoming an enemy of God. In the final analysis God will relieve the humble sufferer while resisting the haughty scorner. Being merciful and being quick to forgive others is Christlike because it demonstrates humble deference to God. It doesn’t matter if you get your revenge because you trust God’s judgment more than your own and you trust Him to set things right.
When God judges people He uses a rule of proportion. He grades on a curve, so to speak. This is another reason why you are unfit to be a moral judge. You can’t possibly know where to place the curve because you don’t have access to the inner-workings of a person’s heart. We know that God will be glorified in His judgments and therefore we know we can trust Him. We aren’t going to question what God has done when we enter into eternity in His presence. If we know we’ll be satisfied with His judgment in eternity, then why are we worried about judging others or feeling judged by others in this moment? I think it has to do with lack of faith in the judgment of God.
I contend the primary cause for judging others is a fear that if we don’t judge them no one will and they will get away with it. The primary cause for being worried about others judging us is a failure to appreciate the authority of God’s own judgment. If we trust God when He says vengeance belongs to Him and if we trust the Spirit of God to His work of sanctification, then we’d feel less inclined to act in a judgment role ourselves. If we actually believe that God’s judgment is what matters most, it becomes much easier to let go of what others think about us. We don’t spend enough time meditating on the reality that the Spirit of God is always with us and He is the one who most effectively convicts and restores sinners.
We’ve come to the point where we need to draw a crucial distinction between judging others and reproving others. It is sinful to judge others, but it is dutiful to reprove others. Reproving others is a necessary part of Christian life because these acts of reproof assist in the sanctification of your own soul. I don’t think it’s possible to permit sin without corrupting your own soul. This doesn’t mean you have to force or coerce others to stop sinning, rather it means a steadfast insistence that a sin is in fact sinful even if others are partaking in it. The moment you redefine sin in service to pride or tolerance you cause distortions in your own worldview. These distortions take you further away from God because they are rejections of His word. If you call righteous what God calls sinful, you’ll either generate enmity with God or you will lose sight of who He actually is in favor to who you wish He is.
I think every Christian, regardless of their position on the timeline of sanctification, is obligated to accept the word of God truthfully and faithfully. So you can issue public reproof by teaching the scriptures truthfully even in areas where you yourself fall short of the standard it’s describing. This is a little different than reproving an individual in one-on-one relationship. When it comes to individual reproof there are more stringent criteria for determining whether you are qualified to issue correction. One such criterion is that you yourself should not be guilty of the same or worse sin for which you are reproving another person. This goes back to Christ’s admonition against pointing out the mote in your brother’s eye while not considering the beam in your own eye.
But that doesn’t mean you attempt to justify the sin in conversation either. You merely admit the sin is sinful and that you both should not be doing it, then you pray to God for sanctification. That might sound too easy to the point of being trite, but the difference it makes from a kind of circular affirmation between you and the other person attempting to justify sin is immeasurable. It’s the difference between you putting your life back together for a brighter future and you sitting in a ditch of pointless misery with the other person, both of you building your resentment against humanity and against God.
When you read the scriptures and teach them faithfully, conviction for sin will follow as a consequence. So you can actually reprove others for misconduct without ever pointing out the individual or the specific misconduct. Yes there are certain instances, like criminal offenses, which require serving justice targeted at an individual — but in noncriminal moral offenses I’ve found that boldly preaching the word of truth is usually enough to inspire conviction. I like this technique because it magnifies God instead of myself. It allows me to point to Jesus as the Source of all power and wisdom instead of pointing to myself as some kind of guru or life coach. I want a person to turn their life around because of wisdom found in scripture and I want them to know it was because of scripture.
You’ll sometimes hear Christians say all sins are equal and none are more depraved than others. I don’t think this is true in light of scripture. When Jesus talks about the mote and the beam He’s indicating a variance in the degree of sin. A mote is a small speck like a splinter or a piece of dust. A beam is a large piece of wood like a log. His caution against us pointing out the mote in our brother’s eye while ignoring the beam in our own eye indicates (in this example) our own sin is worse than our brother’s sin. There are in fact degrees of depravity and some sins cause more severe and lasting damage than others. The worst of all sins is blasphemy of the Holy Spirit — and it’s the worst of all sins because commission of it forecloses the possibility of being forgiven and restored in the future.
Equality of sin is found only insofar as every sin, no matter how comparatively minor, sullies us against God’s glorious standard and causes us to fall short of His design. So every sin equally requires forgiveness and the blood of Christ for atonement. It’s also the case that every sin requires sanctification by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Another perspective one might take on Christ’s illustration of the mote and beam is that you should view your own sins as more egregious than the sins of others. A spirit of humility and maximum charity would cause you to view your brother’s sins as less severe than your own. In some real sense, your smallest sin left unrepentant is more dangerous than that of the forgiven murderer.
There are many people who walk through life bearing the weight of the guilt of sin without realizing it. These people will do many things in an effort to justify themselves and so assuage the guilt. Their attempts at self-justification prevent them from acknowledging their need for repentance. Virtue-signaling is one of the most common modes of self-justification we see today. A person who feels the guilt of sin will agree to a moral precept made popular by the culture, and then they will advertise their agreement with the precept. This is an attempt to display how “good” they are to other people. Affirmation is another common means for self-justification. We see groups of people constantly clamoring for affirmation and that’s because affirmation temporarily numbs the guilt they feel as a consequence of unrepentant sin.
People who are living in unrepentant sin will commonly flock together and build communities which are oriented around that sin. They do this because it gives them a sense of “safety in numbers” and lodges them within a fortress of collective affirmation. You are perfect just the way you are and you should love yourself just the way you are. These are common sentiments of this kind of communal sin. The moral blindness associated with unrepentant sinners would be lifted if they would investigate the source of their guilt rather than trying to numb it or justify it. This blindness is compounded the more entrenched a person becomes in sinful community because they enter a space where not only are they blind, but their false teachers convince them they’re the only ones who can actually see — and everyone else is blind to their truth.
A person who is beset by the guilt of unrepentant sin, and then attempts to alleviate it by way of self-justification, ends up losing their sense of forgiveness altogether. They become harshly unforgiving of others and quick to condemn those who they perceive as transgressors. This is where the cancel culture comes from. This is why it’s no accident the community who preaches tolerance has lost their ability to forgive and tolerate those who disagree with them. They are living in sin, justifying themselves, convincing themselves they need no forgiveness, and then refusing to extend forgiveness to others. This is the same basic progression the Pharisees followed which led to Christ’s condemnation of them.
Self-justified narcissists are harsh with their condemnation of their opponents, but that’s not the only issue these people have. Sometimes, despite their best efforts at self-justification, they can’t shake the guilt caused by their sin. This often leads to what is known as projection. Projection happens when a guilty person accuses others of committing the sins they themselves are committing. Anti-fascists using fascistic tactics to target people they perceive as fascists is a good example here. Sometimes the guilt of a secret sin causes them to harshly condemn others who are convicted of that sin. We see this with secret adulterers condemning others who are caught in adultery.
The stoic philosopher Seneca said, “Reflect that perhaps the fault of which you complain might, on a strict examination, be discovered in yourself; and that it would be unjust publicly to express indignation against your own crime.” We’re beginning to see the wisdom behind Christ’s injunction against condemning others, lest we be condemned. He understood that none of us are purified from sin and therefore none of us are in a position to render final judgment against a person for sinning. When you condemn someone for sinning, you’re not showing yourself as an enemy of sin like you might think, but you’re showing yourself as an enemy of the person you’re condemning.
Galatians teaches us to restore with a spirit of meekness, considering thyself. When you’re trying to reprove someone of sin, you need to remember who you are, who you have been in the past, and who you might be in the future — especially if you had never come to Christ. The best rule for reproving others is to take the log out of your own eye before trying to remove the splinter from your neighbor’s eye. You can accomplish a lot in influencing other people simply by living an honorable life. In fact I would say your words will land impotent if your lifestyle is not in congruence with them.
This doesn’t mean we forsake reproving others or accurately preaching the word of God simply because we ourselves struggle with sin. We must never edit the scriptures to accommodate areas we struggle with. It means we need to make every effort to allow God to reprove us before and during our attempts to reprove others. Sometimes this looks like preaching to ourselves while we preach to others. I’ve often heard good pastors tell their congregations the sermon they’re preaching is for themselves as much as it is for the people.
The project of sanctification is not to permit everything because you yourself have issues, the project is to strive for a better way of living yourself and then to help your brothers and sisters meet this standard as well. It’s not a good idea to accuse others of the things you also struggle with. It’s better to overcome these things yourself and then illuminate the path you took to others. That’s essentially what you’re doing when you share the gospel. The gospel of Jesus Christ gave you a path to go from death to life, and then you’re simply sharing that path with others. Alerting people to the good news that there’s a better life on offer is not at all the same as condemning them for their sins.
Scripture doesn’t call for elders in the Church to be above reproach merely for good publicity. It calls for this because those who are above reproach have the knowledge and tools necessary for helping others walk towards such a life. To live a good life everyone needs a noble aim and presenting leaders who are above reproach helps clarify and solidify a standard for them to aim at.
A critical part of reproving others well is knowing when a person is not fit for reproof. This is the biblical idea of not casting your pearls before swine and not giving that which is holy unto the dogs. It’s super important to understand this idea is not explicating a division between classes or between anything immutable like race or ethnicity. It’s simply saying there are certain people who are not in the proper position to be reproved. A good example is one who spurns the gospel. It’s not a good idea to continually preach Jesus to someone who blasphemes Jesus. Their eyes are not open and their ears are shut up.
The reason you shouldn’t reprove a person who’s not open to reproof is because you stand the possibility of driving them deeper into their sin. A defensive or obstinate person will try to argue his position as a consequence of your reproof and this will make him further rationalize why his sin is not sin. The hole he is in becomes deeper and even more difficult to escape. Continually preaching the gospel to someone who rejects the gospel may ignite in them a hatred for the gospel. Not only is this lost labor on your part, but it might actually be a net negative because you’re reinforcing their position in their defiance of God.
Metaphorically speaking, when you throw a pearl to a swine the swine thinks you’ve thrown a stone at it. The prophet Jeremiah, when speaking about those who are shut off to God, said they consider the word of the Lord to be a reproach against them. They have no delight in it because they fail to see that it’s their necessary life. They simply feel judged. You should treat your reproofs as valuable treasures — and in the same way you are judicious with valuable treasures you should be judicious with your reproofs.
Proverbs teaches that a wise reprover upon an obedient ear is like fine gold. It also describes wise reproof as a tree of life and Psalm 141 calls it an excellent oil. These are all great and valuable things but if the receiver of reproof fails to recognize them then it doesn’t matter. Part of the tragedy of life is accepting there are some who have so thoroughly given themselves over to wickedness that they’ve rendered themselves irredeemable. This is not because Christ can no longer redeem them — indeed the wells of His grace are unsearchable. It’s because their hearts are so hardened as to render their own likelihood of submission to Christ’s redemption virtually zero.
A necessary aspect of humility is understanding and accepting that you’re not responsible for the salvation of others. It’s prideful naïveté to insist all people are good or will choose good. When blood-chillingly wicked people profess their hatred for instruction and their defiance against God, you should believe them. Evil is real and the spirit of evil is ancient. There are people gripped by this spirit who have no mercy, no compassion, no desire whatsoever for love.
Attempting to reprove people like this exposes you to serious danger. One form of this danger is the possibility that you yourself will become infected by this poison. If evil wasn’t tempting then no one would be evil. Another more obvious danger is the risk of becoming the target of a person’s wickedness. A person who is traumatized becomes to 2 to 7 times more likely of being traumatized again in the future. This dramatic increase in probability is almost entirely due to a predatory person’s ability to detect vulnerability in others. Naïveté is a form of vulnerability and if you approach evil people with this mark you will become a bug light for predators.
It’s important to remember that even if you have the best intentions a reprobate person will not see it this way. You could speak healing words to an unrepentant sinner and they’ll turn around and wound you for it. Despite the terrifying nature of the repeated judgments given by God against the wicked in Revelation, the wicked only double and triple-down on their sin. King Herod beheaded John the Baptist because of John’s faithfulness. Christ was crucified because of His faithfulness. The apostles were martyred because of their faithfulness. Make no mistake that in this life you are sent out as sheep among wolves — and you must be shrewd as serpents while being harmless as doves.
When you give holy things to unrepentantly wicked people, you diminish the value of the holy thing while hardening the wickedness of the person you gave it to. It’s better to dust off your feet and move on. At this point you might be worried about falsely condemning a person as unfit for reproof and thereby missing your opportunity to help them. I think the solution to this is less about determining who is who and more about being faithful to the scriptures. So long as you teach the Bible faithfully, the sorting process will take care of itself. If you’re teaching accurate doctrine then unrepentant sinners will dismiss your teaching. Pastors and Christians run into trouble when they twist the scripture in an effort to be accepted by the unrepentant.
So your main focus should always be speaking the truth faithfully. With that said, it doesn’t make any sense to suggest you can navigate life without ever assessing another person’s character. So when you must do this, I think you should approach a person with maximum possible charity until proven wrong. There is a dangerous form of cynicism which whispers to your soul that every professor of good is simply a hypocrite. While I do hold to the doctrine of total depravity and I do believe each of us have sins we struggle with — that doesn’t mean all of us are aiming down while deceiving others about our aim. It’s good to assume a person means well until they supply evidence to the contrary.
Cynicism will also cause you to see every sinner as an unrepentant sinner. Soon enough you’ll stop preaching the gospel altogether and you’ll cloister yourself off with other self-righteous Christians. You can see there’s something of a balance here: we want to recognize and accept evil for what it is, yet we don’t want to condemn all sinners as unrepentant. I don’t think you need to take on the task of managing this balance yourself — that would be far too complex for the limited mind of a human. You need only accept the word of God as authoritatively true and then teach it as accurately as you possibly can.
In the final analysis you can go a long way by simply committing to love your neighbor as yourself. Scripture teaches that love covers a multitude of sins. Always remember that you’re not alone in your march uphill toward the city of God. Jesus is marching with you and His desire is to work through you. He already knows the end from the beginning and His plan is perfect. His sovereignty is unshakeable and like a good shepherd He is leading you in paths of righteousness for His name’s sake. That gives us not only reason to feel at ease, but reason to praise. It gives us reason to lift up our eyes and declare to the heavens: all to glory to God in the highest.
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