But why lookest thou on the mote which is in the eye of thy brother, but perceivest not the beam which is in thine own eye?
The Lord is teaching His disciples how to treat the faults of other people. He does not ask whether the fault in the other person is real. He asks why the small fault in someone else is so easy to see, while the large one in your own eye is not.
The verse sets a speck (older translations say "mote") against a log or beam. One writer explains what each one stands for:
The Lord Jesus now gives His disciples a very clear picture. It shows how foolish a person is who thinks he can judge his brother while looking down on him. The speck in the brother's eye is the wrong thing one thinks he sees in him. But the beam in the eye is the evil in one's own heart. A person deliberately overlooks it, though it is plain to see. An experienced man once said: "I do not know as much evil about anyone as I know about myself. That makes me careful in judging others."
The comparison of sizes is also a comparison of knowledge:
And this self-judgment is always of the "beam" as compared with the "mote" in others. For what can we know of others compared with what we may and should know of ourselves?
The Lord asks "why". One writer names the root:
Then there is another danger, and that is being critical. We should warn against the habit of always seeing faults in others, and watch against it. "Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye?" What is the real root of it? Wherever there is the habit of noticing faults in others, there is always an overlooking of our own... love would meet another's need. Self is blind and busy. It forgets its own faults, but can be eager to correct others for its own glory.
Why does the beam matter so much? It ruins the sight a person needs to help anyone else:
The picture of the eye points to the state of the heart, as it does in chapter 6:22-23. The Lord seems to be thinking especially of the spiritual ability to judge. Think of someone whose ability to judge is badly blocked by his own unjudged sin. How could he help another who may have been caught in a fault through spiritual carelessness? It is simply impossible.
The Lord calls the other man "your brother". One writer weighs that word:
"To your brother." There is no spirit of love in it. A person cannot say "brother" sincerely while doing this. There is really pleasure in seeing the fault, a spirit of comparison... No one ought to find fault until he is able to say "Brother," in that spirit and because he loves him... "You do not notice" — it may be forgetfulness. But there is surely a real moral fault in this: we see our neighbour's sin and not our own. It is not so with the repentant man. Until he is cleared, he is full of his own sins. Then he can speak in the spirit of love that knows forgiveness.
The Lord's order is not "never notice". It is "deal with yourself first":
Get the large thing removed first — the thing that stops you from seeing clearly. Most likely you will then find that the speck in your brother's eye is gone too. Very often people in a bad, sour state of soul are the ones who spot these specks. And if we really do see failure in another, what is the best use we can make of that discovery? To correct it in ourselves. Then we may help our brother.
Clear sight is not the only result:
Self-judgment by grace always tends to produce humility and love. Take the man who has been through such an exercise about the beam in his own eye. He will be able to act far more tenderly in taking the speck out of his brother's eye.
- Look. The speck is the wrong thing you think you see in someone else. The beam is the evil in your own heart that you overlook on purpose.
- Root. A habit of noticing faults in others always comes with an overlooking of our own. That is the root the Lord's question exposes.
- Blindness. The eye pictures the state of the heart. Unjudged sin blocks the ability to judge, so you cannot help anyone else.
- Brother. Do not find fault until you can say "Brother" and mean it in love. Otherwise the correction is only a spirit of comparison.
- Removal. Take out the large thing first. Very often the speck is then gone too. Where it remains, self-judgment makes the hand that removes it a tender one.
or how canst thou say to thy brother, Brother, allow [me], I will cast out the mote that is in thine eye, thyself not seeing the beam that is in thine eye? Hypocrite, cast out first the beam out of thine eye, and then thou shalt see clear to cast out the mote which is in the eye of thy brother.
The Lord has just pictured a man who offers to take a speck out of his brother's eye while a log blocks his own sight. Now He names that attitude with one sharp word — hypocrite — and then promises clear sight to anyone who deals with himself first.
(The quotations below use the older wording "beam" and "mote" where the ESV has "log" and "speck.")
The contrast is one of size:
Any small particle or splinter. It pictures small failings, in contrast to larger faults, called "beams." The Lord Jesus was exposing the hypocrisy of those who see and magnify small faults in others, and pass over greater ones in themselves.
But the measurement is not fixed by the fault itself. Samuel Ridout reads the two words as describing where the fault sits rather than how bad it is:
No matter what it is, if it is in my eye it is a beam, and no matter what it is in my brother's eye it is a mote until I have judged myself — "and then you will see clearly to cast the mote out of your brother's eye."
The charge is not that the fault-finder is wrong about the fault. It is that his own mind has never changed about the same thing. The word "brother" on his lips is hollow:
There is not the spirit of love in it. One cannot say "brother" sincerely in doing it, for indeed there is pleasure in seeing the fault, a spirit of comparison... Therefore He says elsewhere: "You hypocrite." It shows our mind is not changed about the thing, yet we find fault with it in another. So it is plainly not love... you are bad enough yourself, and so you cannot have a right moral judgment to direct others.
The order of judging decides the character of the whole act:
We must judge evil within ourselves before we judge it outside. This will give tenderness and compassion, as well as clear sight. Judging without self-judgment is but hypocrisy.
William Kelly traces the sharp eye for others back to a blind eye for oneself. Self-judgment, he says, gives more than clear sight:
Wherever there is the habit of beholding faults in others, there is an overlooking of our own... Our own fault, unjudged, always obstructs our giving real help to another. But when we have judged ourselves, we not only see more clearly. We also take up the work more humbly and lovingly.
There is another reason we make poor judges of other people. We do not know them as we know ourselves:
If we fail to see our own grave shortcomings and sins before God, we do not know our brothers with anything like the same certainty and clearness. So love and the fear of God call each of us to think others better than ourselves. We judge ourselves for what we do know, instead of judging others for what we do not know and ought not to think.
Once the log is out, the result is often a surprise — and one a loving heart welcomes:
Again and again we find that when the beam is gone, the mote is nowhere to be seen. It has already disappeared... Should I not rejoice to find the grace of the Lord in my brother, if I discover in self-judgment that only I was wrong?
The verse ends by sending you to your brother's eye, not away from it. Commentators warn against turning the Lord's words into a shield:
How often devout people use it to fend off any criticism of their own position! They use it to avoid any care against false doctrine, evil associations, or the responsibility for the discipline Scripture calls for. But this is a failure in godliness. Godliness covers not only personal conduct but also public walk.
So why does evil so often go unchecked? Not because God is content to leave it, but because the qualification is missing:
Does God want evil like that dealt with in His Church? Surely He does. But what is the reason there is no power to deal with it? The reason is this. If I am to carry out any discipline on my brother, there must first be the deepest judgment of self. There must be the sense of my own sin and shortcoming, and the most unbending judgment of myself.
- First — the log. Whatever fault is in my own eye counts as the large one. The fault in my brother's eye stays a speck until I have judged myself.
- First — the heart. Hypocrisy is not misreading the fault. It is never changing my own mind about it, and enjoying the comparison. Then I cannot call him "brother" and mean it.
- Then — clear sight. Self-judgment does more than sharpen my sight. It also makes me humble and loving toward my brother.
- Then — a surprise. Often, once the log is gone, the speck is nowhere to be found. A heart set on the Lord is glad to have been wrong.
- Then — real power. The verse does not cancel dealing with evil. It gives the one qualification for it, so the speck really comes out.