and if any one hear my words and do not keep [them], I judge him not, for I am not come that I might judge the world, but that I might save the world.
Here is a striking claim: the One with every right to condemn says He will not. Two things stand side by side — a hearer who ignores His words, and a Saviour who will not sentence him.
Commentators tie this saying to the difference between Christ's two comings.
Here is what God has done in the coming of the Lord Jesus — I mean His first coming. Everything that would have to be dealt with in judgment at His second coming has already been dealt with on the cross for the believer. He who is to come as judge has come as the Saviour. That is what I get in the gospel. He who is to come as judge has come in a wholly different way and character: He has come as a Saviour... God has dealt with the world about its sins in grace before He deals with it in judgment.
That order — grace first, judgment after — has held for a long time.
He was the Light that exposed evil. Yet if men refused to believe on Him, He was not here to judge them, as He will in a future day. He had come in pure grace, not to judge, but to save the world. Grace despised will of course bring judgment in the end. But salvation has stood open to the world for nearly two thousand years, showing the great heart of this blessed Saviour.
A person can hear the words of Christ and do nothing with them.
He has the light of life, and not life only; He is light in the Lord. So it was ruin to have heard His words and not kept them. But He came in such grace that He could add, "I do not judge him; for I did not come to judge the world but to save the world."
One writer points back to John 8, where Jesus' critics used a question about stoning to trap Him.
Not every question put to the Lord Jesus came from a genuine difficulty. The scribes and Pharisees asked their question in John 8:5 to trap Him. Had Jesus said, Do not stone the sinner, they would have said, You are opposing the law of Moses. Had He said, Let her be stoned, they would have said, Where is this grace you have been speaking of? How rich was the wisdom that answered the question and also reached the consciences of those who asked it! ... There was only One "without sin," but He had come "not to judge the world, but to save the world."
Declining to judge did not mean the world went unexamined. Its true condition came out anyway.
He had not come to judge the world, but so that the world through Him might be saved. Yet it had been judged — not by the Son of man sitting on a throne, but by the Son of God walking through the world in grace and truth. That walk exposed its moral and spiritual condition. Scripture records its hatred to guide the children of God, who are to walk through it as He walked.
Refusing to sentence a man now is not the end of the story.
We are warned of the judgment that must overtake the one who hears and does not believe. It is true that the Lord came not to judge but to save the world. Still, His words, if rejected, would be a witness in the last day against the one who rejects Christ. That is all the more so because they were the words the Father had given Him to speak. The Father gave them for life and blessing, but if rejected they would become words of condemnation.
That day will bring nothing new. The message He spoke in grace is the message that will judge.
At His first coming the Lord, as the Apostle of the faith we confess, spoke the word of God. When He returns to judge the world, He will judge by the word He has spoken. As He says, "The word that I have spoken will judge him on the last day." His testimony was one of grace, expressing all that God was in grace to sinners. And when He comes again, He will judge by that same word.
- The Judge came as Saviour. The One who will judge one day came first in a different character. The cross has already dealt with what would otherwise meet the believer in judgment.
- Grace runs first. God deals with the world in grace before He deals with it in judgment. Salvation has stood open for nearly two thousand years.
- The word is the offer. To hear His words and not keep them is ruin, yet even to such a person He says He does not judge him.
- The word is also the exposure. He passed no sentence, yet the Son of God walking in grace showed what the world really was.
- The word becomes the verdict. Words given for life and blessing become words of condemnation when rejected. He will judge by what He has already spoken.
He that rejects me and does not receive my words, has him who judges him the word which I have spoken, that shall judge him in the last day.
Jesus has just said He came to save the world, not to judge it. So this verse raises two questions: how the one who turns Him away already has a judge, and what "the last day" means.
Grace does not cancel judgment. It delays it, and the words spoken in kindness become the evidence.
We are warned of the judgment that must overtake the one who hears and does not believe. It is true that the Lord came not to judge but to save the world. Still, His words, if rejected, would be a witness against the one who rejects Christ in the last day. That is all the more true because they were the words the Father had given Him to speak. They were given for life and blessing; but, if rejected, they would become words of condemnation.
The one who rejects Christ already has a judge. Commentators point out the reversal here: a man who sits in judgment on Scripture has the roles the wrong way round.
The word of God is not judged — it judges. Woe to the man who hardens his heart against it! Men did just that then. Hardening their consciences against the conviction of sin, they — to use the words of the blessed Lord — rejected the counsel of God against themselves; that is, to their own eternal ruin. That word was spoken and sent in grace, and, blessed be God, it still is. It will judge them, and all who reject it, in the last day. For God knows that when He sent it in grace, He sent it with clear proof to men's hearts and consciences that it is His word.
Commentators render "rejects" as "slights" — to treat Christ as of no account. The verse gives its own reason why that is so serious: Jesus did not speak on His own authority.
How is His glory upheld when a man slights Him and does not receive His words? He already has the thing that judges him — the word. "The word that I have spoken will judge him on the last day." This is all the more certain because Jesus did not speak from Himself, as if He sought His own will or glory. He was always subject to the Father, who not only sent Him but told Him what to say and speak. And He knew the Father's commandment to be eternal life.
That day brings no new standard. Christ already spoke the word that will judge, and He Himself returns to judge by it.
At His first coming the Lord came as God's sent One, and He spoke the word of God. When He returns to judge the world, He will judge by the word He has spoken. As He says, "The word that I have spoken will judge him." His testimony was of grace, expressing all that God was in grace to sinners. And when He comes again, He will come judging by it. Having given the mind of God, He returns to heaven; and then He returns as King to judge by the word which He had spoken.
The phrase does not mark a single date. Commentators read it as a span wide enough to hold the resurrection of the saints, the thousand-year reign of Revelation 20, and this judgment.
"The last day" has a broad moral sense, like "the day of the Lord" in 2 Peter 3. But it reaches further still, taking in the resurrection of the saints, which "the day of the Lord" is nowhere said to include. Between John 6:39-40 and John 12:48 the Millennium (Revelation 20:4-5) comes in. "The last day" begins a little before it and ends a little after it. It is a general expression for the whole closing scene, when man's day is over and God acts in power, whether in blessing or in judgment.
One writer places this verse at the final judgment, where God opens the books He has kept.
The books tell their tale; a holy God has recorded everything faithfully. The Word of God will be there, even as the Lord Jesus said, "the word that I have spoken will judge him on the last day" (John 12:48). Every word heard, every chapter read, only increases responsibility, if it is not received by faith.
- Word sent — Jesus did not speak on His own authority. The Father told Him what to say, and that is what gives His word its weight.
- Word offered — the same word came in grace, given for life and blessing, and its purpose now is to save, not to judge.
- Word refused — words given for blessing become words of condemnation when a man turns them away. He already has his judge.
- Word returns — Christ spoke the mind of God, then returned to heaven. He comes again as King to judge by that same word, on "the last day" — a closing scene, not a single date.
- Word stands — Scripture is never on trial before man; it puts man on trial. Every chapter read raises the reader's responsibility.