The Speck In Your Eye

One of the most well known verses, even among non-Christians, is "judge not." In an age of Postmodernism, the only absolute moral left is toleration (or "judge not"). "It's OK if you believe what you want to believe" they say, "but don't judge me for what I believe." Was Jesus really telling us to never judge anyone? Was He saying that His Law must not be used as a standard of judgment anymore? The following was written by Gary North and it sheds some light on this topic...

"Jesus was not denying the legitimacy of biblical law. On the contrary, He was affirming biblical law. We love God first; God commands us to keep His word; therefore, we must enforce the law on ourselves. We start with ourselves because we have more knowledge of ourselves and more responsibility over ourselves. This is the meaning of progressive sanctification. Jesus was not calling us to ignore biblical law; He was calling us to enforce it first on ourselves, before we enforce the same laws on others.

Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again. And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye. (Matt. 7:1-5)

Notice what he did not say. He did not say that it is all right to go through life with motes (small chips) in our eye. The eye is the most sensitive organ in the body. A mote in an eye could blind it, or seriously interfere with our vision. Jesus did not condone sin in any form. Sin is a horror; it jeopardizes our very existence. It should not be allowed to remain in your eye, and we are required by God to do what we can to help remove chips from our neighbors' eyes. We are to use biblical law to assist them. What Jesus was saying is that we need to be constantly on the lookout for motes in other people's eyes, so that we can help them remove them. But to accomplish this, we must first get rid of the beams in our own eyes. We must be able to go to the other person and tell him: "Look, I used to have a really bad beam in my eye, and it blinded me. But through the grace of God, I was able to remove it. I see that you're suffering from the same thing. Let me show you how God's word speaks to your minor problem, just as it spoke to my major one." In other words, "I've been there. I know what it is. It leads to blindness and agony"....

The context of the "Sermon on the Mount" shows clearly that the "judge not" passage is a call to dominion. It instructs us to begin with ourselves, so that we can then work to extend the principles and enforcement of God's principles to areas of life over which we have lawful authority."

Gary North, The Sinai Strategy: Economics and the Ten Commandments (Tyler, TX: Institute for Christian Economics, 1986), pp. 310-312 .