“11 Brothers, do not slander one another. Anyone who speaks against his brother or judges him speaks against the law and judges it. When you judge the law, you are not keeping it, but sitting in judgment on it. 12 There is only one Lawgiver and Judge, the one who is able to save and destroy. But you—who are you to judge your neighbor?”
We are humans are quite judgmental. You are prone to make judgments that are not yours to make and so am I. You are quicker than you would like to judge other people’s motivations. You are quicker than you would like to judge other people’s decisions. You are quicker than you would like to judge whatever you find unfamiliar in someone else and since other people are unlike you in so many ways, you find much to judge. I have the same proclivities. Ever since the fall into sin, we all share these proclivities. We are quick to judge.
Each of us has also been on the receiving end of unfair judgment. Others are quick play the judge when it comes to you just like you are quick to play the judge when it comes to others.
How can we stop? More importantly, how can we stop being judgmental while still making proper judgments? How can you, as a parent, teach your children good from evil in a culture than confuses the two without being judgmental? How can you as a church member lovingly correct a fellow church member without being judgmental?
You must make judgment calls and yet you must not be judgmental. You must make judgments, but you must not play the judge. How can you do this? I imagine you want to do it.
I fear that the world has no proper answer to this question. The world has no proper answer to this question because it does not acknowledge any Judge with a capitol ‘J.’ These poor people are caught in a terrible bind. They have no Judge by which to judge.
The only way to avoid being judgmental is to have your judgments made for you by God. That is the claim of this sermon: The only way to avoid being judgmental is to have your judgments made for you by God.
We see this in two points. First: you are not the judge. Second: God is the judge. We see that you are not the judge in verse 11. We see God is the judge in verse 12.
First: you are not the judge. The men and women of the church to which James wrote were behaving in a judgmental fashion. You see that in verse 11, “Brothers, do not slander one another.”
Slander is judgmental by its very nature. When you slander someone, you act as if you have the right to denounce that person. To slander a man is to comprehensively and purposefully judge him as deficient. When you slander a man, you reduce that man to your judgment.
In fact, you slander him in order to reduce him. You reduce that man to exalt yourself. John Calvin is right, “we are by nature hypocrites, fondly exalting ourselves by [denigrating] others.” You feel exalted when you play the judge which is part of why you do it. It is part of why we all do it.
James clearly connects slandering one’s neighbor with judging one’s neighbor. He begins verse 11 by speaking about slander, “Brothers, do not slander one another.” He finishes verse 12 by speaking about judgment, “who are you to judge your neighbor?” When you slander your neighbor, you sit in judgment on your neighbor. When you slander a man, you play the judge. You put yourself in the place of God.
Now God has given His judgments to prevent you from playing the judge. He has given His judgments between good and evil because you have no business doing so by your own authority. He told Adam and Eve not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil because the right to judge between those two was never theirs to make. The knowledge of good and evil was His and His alone to determine. Adam and Eve should have accepted His judgments between good and evil. We should accept His judgments between good and evil as outlined in His law.
When you don’t submit to His judgments, you wind up playing the judge. Whenever you play the judge, you are taking God’s place. You are pronouncing what only He has the right to pronounce. You are declaring God’s law to be inadequate by setting up your own law. That is part of verse 11, “Anyone who speaks against his brother or judges him speaks against the law and judges it.” That is what you do when you judge a man. You put him before yourself rather than acknowledging that this man stands before God.
Whenever you put yourself in God’s place, you are dishonoring God. Whenever you play the judge, you are dishonoring the Judge. You are no longer submitting to God’s law; you are imposing your own law upon others. You can either submit to God’s law or you can set up your own law. You can either listen to the judge or you can play the judge. You see that in the next part of verse 11, “When you judge the law, you are not keeping it, but sitting in judgment on it.”
The Judge doesn’t want you judging. He wants you obeying. Rather than judging others’ motivations, decisions, and unfamiliarities be concerned about God’s judgment of you.
To avoid being judgmental, you need to recognize that there is a judge and that you are not Him. To avoid being judgmental, you must have your judgments made by God.
You see this in Jesus. He said, “I judge only as I hear, and my judgment is just, for I seek not to please myself but Him who sent me.” His judgments were made by God. This is one reason why when you read through the gospels, you will never consider Jesus to be judgmental even as he constantly judges right from wrong. The Son of God did not make any judgments apart from the Father. You have no business making any judgments apart from the Father.
To avoid being judgmental, you must have your judgments made by God. You must give up the right to judge for yourself. You must, in other words, have God’s law written upon your heart. This is part of the new birth.
If you have God’s law written upon your heart, you will not only fear breaking that law, but you will also fear making judgments that are contrary to that law. You will not want the right to judge anyone because you know that your judgments are always inferior to God’s.
The born-again man can make judgments without being judgmental by putting himself and others under the judgments of God. Jon Bloom explains what that looks like in the church. He says, “Christians must judge the explicitly sinful behavior of a professing Christian. Jesus said a “tree is known by its fruit.” When do the hidden sinful purposes of the heart reveal themselves? In a person’s explicitly sinful behavior. When we sin, our Christian brothers and sisters have an obligation to judge us. They must not condemn us, but they must, out of love, call us to repent. Such judgment is a grace, an expression of God’s kindness, and we only compound our sin if we take offense.”
The born-again man who behaves that way is not being judgmental. He is judging sin to be sin because God has judged it to be so. He is calling his brother to repent not because he is judgmental but because God judges sin and his brother is sinning. The born-again man doesn’t want his brother to be judged in condemnation and so he reminds him that there is a coming judgment.
These verses themselves display a man invoking God’s judgment without being judgmental. James judged slander as sin because God had judged it to be so. He called these professing Christians to repent not because he was judgmental but because he didn’t want them to be judged and there is a coming judgment.
This is what the world needs. The men and women of this world do not need judgmentalism; they do need to know how to escape the coming judgment. The world doesn’t need your judgment. The world needs to know about God’s judgment and about how to hear, “well done good and faithful servant,” rather than receive the condemnation due their sin. We see that in our second point: God is the judge. The words of the claim of this sermon were carefully chosen: the only way to avoid being judgmental is to have your judgments made for you by God. The judgments are always God’s to make.
As a Christian, you agree with God’s judgment upon sexual immorality, but you know that no man, no matter how sexually immoral, stands before you. That man stands before God. You are naming that sin as sin because God has judged it to be so. You call that man to repent not because you are his judge but because God judges sin and that man is sinning. You want that man to find grace not judgment.
You must recognize that you are never the judge while God is always the judge. You must recognize both: you are never the judge and God is always the judge. That is the thrust of verse 12, “There is only one Lawgiver and Judge, the one who is able to save and destroy. But you—who are you to judge your neighbor?”
There is only one Lawgiver and it never has been and never will be you. Now, your laws, your shoulds and should nots, are very important to you. You have all sorts of thoughts about what a man should be, about what a woman should be, about how a child should behave, about how people should treat each other. You don’t realize how many of these judgments you make because they are as normal to you as water is to a fish. Your death will prove to be a shock to you because the moment you stand before God the vast majority of those should and should nots will disappear. They were just laws which you had made; they were not the laws of the lawgiver. You had no business binding yourself or anyone else by them.
One of the most liberating things you can do for others is to make your judgments only by the law of the Lord. There is one man who did so. Jesus of Nazareth made judgments only by the law of the Lord. This is why he could say, “my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” It is not the thou shalls and thou shall nots of Scripture that burden humanity. It is the should and should nots we put upon ourselves and each other which weary us. Our culture would be much happier if we only lived and made judgments by God’s laws. Remember what Chesterton said, “If men will not be governed by the Ten Commandments, they shall be governed by the ten thousand commandments.”
Most of the judgments that you and I have made which have offended others have been made not by God’s law but by our own laws treated as if they were God’s. “There is only one Lawgiver… who are you to judge your neighbor?”
There is only one Lawgiver and it never has been and never will be you. There is only one Judge and it never has been and never will be you.
All your judging will, in the end, prove to be nothing. There is only one judge so in the end no judgmentalism will matter. When on the last day, Christ given his judgment, all merely human judgments will be forgotten. The apostle Paul looked forward to that day, when he told the Corinthians who were constantly criticizing him, “I care very little if I am judged by you or by any human court; indeed, I do not even judge myself. My conscience is clear, but that does not make me innocent. It is the Lord who judges me.”
Paul knew that the Corinthians’ judgments about him were irrelevant because they weren’t his judge. If their judgments of him squared with the judgments of God, he was willing to listen. If they were just playing the judge, he saw no point in listening because those judgments were void.
Your judgments of a man add nothing to God’s judgments. Either they agree with God’s judgments and if so, they are superfluous, or they disagree with God’s judgments and if so, they are irrelevant. Fredrick Dale Bruner is right, “We are not to make final judgments on anyone, nor to speak assuredly of people’s real character, nor to pretend we know God’s verdict on other people’s lives.”
Consider your own tendency towards judgmentalism, and then consider Jesus who said, “If anyone hears my words but does not keep them, I do not judge that person. For I did not come to judge the world, but to save the world. There is a judge for the one who rejects me and does not accept my words; the very words I have spoken will condemn them at the last day. For I did not speak on my own, but the Father who sent me commanded me to say all that I have spoken. I know that his command leads to eternal life. So whatever I say is just what the Father has told me to say.” If Jesus was so careful in his judgments, we should be far more careful.
No one will stand before you on the final day. No matter what evil has been done to you, your perpetrator will not stand before your judgment seat. He or she will stand before God. “There is only one… Judge… who are you to judge your neighbor?”
There is only one Judge and it never has been and never will be you. There is only one who is able to save, and it isn’t you.
I want you to imagine that I have a very favorable opinion of a particular man. I consider this man to be exemplary in every way. I would do anything for the sake of this man. If this man were in any sort of trouble, I would do all I could to save him. I can’t do anything for that man on the final day. It isn’t my recommendation of that man that can save him on the final day.
God can save and therefore his judgment of a man matters. I cannot save and therefore my judgment of a man does not matter in the end.
Yet we humans are so wrapped up in our assessments of each other even though these assessments can’t save. We have magazine upon magazine devoted to assessing one another by appearance, personality, wealth, and character yet none of this will have the least bearing on a man’s salvation.
My guess is that each of us in this sanctuary has far too high a view of our own assessments. No one in this world needs your approval because your approval can’t save. Everyone in this world needs the salvation. Your love for people in the world can’t save but God loved the world in this way: He sent His one and only Son that whoever believes in him might not perish by have eternal life. “There is only one… who is able to save… But you—who are you to judge your neighbor?”
There is only who is able to save, and it isn’t you. There is only one who is able to destroy and it isn’t you.
Now you might have the power to harm a man as a result of your judgments. You might have the power to fire someone. You might have the power to evict someone. These are, at times, wise judgments to make. You do not, however, have the power to destroy anyone.
Certain men have the power to kill. There were rumors that North Korea had executed a diplomat after the failed summit with the US. It seems now that those were only rumors but no one doubts that those government leaders have the power and willingness to kill diplomats. Those leaders, however, do not have the power to destroy. Jesus was clear, “I tell you, my friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body and after that can do no more. But I will show you whom you should fear: fear Him who, after your body has been killed, has authority to throw you into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear Him.”
Unless you have the authority to damn people, don’t damn them. Jesus was clear about this. He said, ‘whoever speaks of his brother with [a term of contempt] is answerable to the court, and whoever says, “you fool,” will be in danger of the fire of hell.’ God is the only one with the authority to destroy and He will not tolerate any pretenders to that power.
He will not tolerate it, in part, because only He is able to wield such power rightly. You know that your own executions of wrath upon others have rarely been as justified or carried out as properly as you would like to think. Not surprisingly, every time you try to destroy someone else, you quickly find yourself sinning because there is only one who has the power to destroy, “But you—who are you to judge your neighbor?”
God is the only lawgiver. That means you are not the lawgiver and you don’t need to be. God is the only judge. That means that you are not the judge and you don’t need to be. God is the only one with the power to save. That means that you are not the savior and you don’t need to be. God is the only one who can destroy. That means that you can’t take up that power and you don’t need to take up that power.
This situation really is the best one imaginable. Rather than play the judge, you can ask with Abraham, “will not the Judge of all the earth do right?”
If you don’t claim Christ and you are listening in this moment or online because you are interested in this line between proper judgments and being judgmental, I urge you to consider that the only way to escape judgmentalism is to recognize God as Judge. The only way to stop imposing your own laws upon yourself and others is to recognize there is only one lawgiver. The only way to stop taking up the power to save or destroy others is to submit yourself to the only one who is able to save and destroy.
You are not God. You are neither the judge of the living and the dead nor are you the template of what people should be. In short, you are not Christ.
Read the gospels. Watch Jesus make judgments without once being judgmental even though he is, in fact, God. Don’t set yourself up in his place. Rather, acknowledge that he set himself up in your place. You, who are so quick to judge, are really quite worthy of judgment. The cross is the place of that judgment. It doesn’t say that judgment is wrong. It says that judgment is God’s to make in whatever way He sees fit. Don’t take his place. Be thankful that he took yours. Amen.