Judge not, that ye may not be judged;
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
for with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged; and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you.
Jesus has just told His disciples not to judge. Here He gives the reason: the standard you use on others comes back onto you. So what judging does He forbid? And who hands the measure back?
The first mistake is to read this as a ban on all discernment. Yet the same chapter commands the very thing such a ban would forbid.
The Lord here does not at all blame spiritual discernment of persons or things. Such discernment is a clear and weighty privilege of the Christian, for his own guidance and for the help or warning of others… What the Lord warned the disciples against is the bad habit of censoriousness. It so often leads to suspecting evil motives without ground, against the holy instincts of love… The very context proves that we can and ought to judge. The Lord supposes it not only workable but right and necessary when He says, "Do not give dogs what is holy, and do not throw your pearls before pigs."
The line runs between judging what is set before us and judging what is not. One is obedience; the other is a takeover of an office that is not ours.
To judge things and people when it is our duty is to be obedient and to serve. But to judge what is not before us for judgment is another matter. To volunteer in it, to pronounce on motives and springs of action, to assume knowledge of what is not open to us — this is to take authority, not to be subject to it. It is to assume what belongs only to the Judge of all, and so it intrudes on His office.
This is not advice but a law. One writer sets it beside sowing and reaping.
What our Lord says here is a law the believer cannot escape. It is like that other law in Galatians: "Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap."… Many will yet learn, through sad experience and much heartache, that this law is never slow. The word that criticised a brother's motives, and belittled him to lift up the self of the accuser, was soon spoken. But it will not take long before someone steps up with the same measure and the same judgment and does the same to us. Nothing is so damaging to spirituality as a habitual critical spirit.
It matters who hands the measure back. One writer points to people rather than to God's final sentence. (In his older translation, Luke 6:38 reads "shall men give into your bosom" — men give it back.)
Harshness comes back as harshness. The measure we give to others comes back to us. The language shows that God permits this in His government, but it is not the sentence of the divine Judge. The parallel passage in Luke (6:38) states it openly: "good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap."
Commentators differ here. Another reads the verse as describing how God Himself deals with us, though never unjustly:
Of course this does not mean that God will deal unrighteously with someone who judges unrighteously. He will judge every man according to His perfect righteousness. With this goes the assurance that the disciple who judges in love and grace will also receive loving treatment from his heavenly Judge.
Why does anyone fall into this habit? The trouble starts in the critic, not in the other person.
The inevitable effect of a judging spirit is that we get judged ourselves. Everyone speaks ill of the soul whose habit is censorious… Where this proneness to judge is, there is another still more serious evil. It is an evil in the spirit that the person never judges, and it makes him restless and eager to prove others wrong too… And He shows the way to deal rightly, if we desire the good of His people and their deliverance from evil: begin with self-judgment.
The same law runs the other way, and that is where its promise lies.
In the words the Gospel writers record, grace was giving a revised version of the law of retaliation. The Lord was not saying to them, "eye for eye, tooth for tooth." He was laying on them a newer and nobler command: "give, and it will be given to you… For with the measure you use it will be measured back to you."
- Measure — one law, two directions. Harshness comes back as harshness. Generosity comes back pressed down and running over.
- Motives — the ban is not on discernment. It falls on verdicts about springs of action we cannot see, and that claims an office belonging to the Judge of all.
- Mirror — a critical eye signals an unjudged beam at home. Self-judgment is the way to help a brother.
- Mercy — commentators differ on whether people or God hand the measure back. Both readings ask the same of us: judge in love and grace, and loving treatment comes back.
- Momentum — this law is never slow. The quick word comes back just as quickly. Choose now which measure you want handed back.
But why lookest thou on the mote that is in the eye of thy brother, but observest not the beam that is in thine eye?
The Lord has just warned against a judging spirit. Here He asks why a small fault in someone else catches our eye while the far bigger one at home does not.
The verse sets two actions side by side: the man sees the speck and does not notice the log. One writer shows how the two go together.
But He reminds us of what we easily forget. If others are a trial to us, are not we a trial to them? Unless we are walking in the light, are we not as slow to see our own faults as we are quick to notice — and even imagine — wrongs in our brothers? How sharply the Lord puts the case, so that we may loathe ourselves! … The Shepherd and Overseer of our souls strips off the mask that failure in self-judgment puts on. Suppose we do not see our own serious shortcomings and sins before God. Then we do not know our brothers with anything like the same certainty and clearness.
Another writer gives the reason in one line.
And why, then, do men see the little speck in their brother's eye? Because they do not see the great log in their own.
A speck is a splinter of sawdust; a log is a plank of timber. Commentators read the log as an evil in the critic himself that he has never dealt with.
The speck in the brother's eye is the wrong thing that someone thinks he sees in him. But the log in the eye is the evil in one's own heart. A person overlooks it on purpose, though it is easy to see. An experienced brother once said: "I do not know as much evil of anyone as I know of myself. That makes me careful in judging others."
Another writer points to what settles the size: not the offence, but whose eye it sits in.
As the Lord says, "You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye." No matter what it is, if it is in my eye it is a log. And no matter what it is in my brother's eye, it is a speck — until I have judged myself.
Writers trace the habit to a restless heart, and to motives that bend the verdict.
Where this readiness to judge appears, a still more serious evil lies behind it. Some evil in the spirit has gone unjudged for so long that it has become a habit. It makes the person restless and eager to prove others wrong too.
This may be mere fault-finding; or it may be temper, prejudice, or self-interest at work in us. In any case there is a log in the eye, and it blocks a true and righteous judgment.
The passage does not forbid believers to tell right from wrong. One writer marks off the kind of judging it rules out.
To judge things and people as a matter of duty is to be obedient and to serve. But some things are not put before us to judge. To volunteer an opinion on them, to pronounce on motives and what drives people, to claim knowledge of what is not open to us — this takes authority instead of submitting to it. It is in fact to assume what belongs only to the Judge of all, and so it intrudes on His office.
The Lord does not tell the critic to stop caring about his brother's eye. He tells him to change the order and start with himself.
The one who has not judged himself is completely unfit to deal with another. … Get the large thing removed first — the thing that stops you seeing clearly. Most likely you will then find 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.
The change is not only in eyesight but in touch.
Self-judgment by grace always tends to produce humility and love. A man who has been through that exercise over the log in his own eye will act more tenderly in taking the speck out of his brother's eye.
- Look — We are quick to spot faults in others and slow to spot our own. A sharp outward eye is the sign of a dull inward one.
- Log — Location decides size. Whatever is in my eye is a log; whatever is in my brother's is a speck — until I have judged myself.
- Blindness — Temper, prejudice or self-interest sit in the eye and block a true and righteous verdict.
- Limit — Judging what duty puts before us is service. Judging motives we cannot see takes a seat that belongs only to the Judge of all.
- Sight — Remove your own log first. Often the speck is gone; where it remains, you handle it tenderly.
Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Allow [me], I will cast out the mote from thine eye; and behold, the beam is in thine eye?
The verse pictures a man walking up to his brother with an offer of help — while a plank juts from his own eye. Older translations call the two objects a "mote" and a "beam" — a speck of dust and a length of timber.
The whole force of the picture lies in size. Behind that mismatch, one writer finds a deeper problem in the man who is looking.
The Lord puts a particular case: "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?" (v. 3). That is, where this readiness to judge exists, there is another and still more serious evil. It is a habitually unjudged evil in the spirit. It makes the person restless and eager to prove others wrong too. "Or how can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' when there is the log in your own eye?" (v. 4). The speck, of course, was small, but people made a great deal of it. They passed over the log, an enormous thing.
Why does the small fault catch the eye at all?
And why, then, do men see the little speck in their brother's eye? Because they do not see the great log in their own.
The offer sounds warm. The speaker even says "brother."
"To your brother." There is no spirit of love in it. One cannot sincerely say "brother" while doing it. In fact there is pleasure in seeing the fault, a spirit of comparison. … No one ought to find fault until he can say "Brother," in the spirit of love and because he loves him.
Real love would move toward the need. Something else is at work here.
Love would meet another's need. Self is blind and busy, forgets its own faults, but can be eager to correct others for its own glory. Our own unjudged fault always blocks us from giving real help to another.
An eye with a plank in it cannot do delicate work on another eye.
Suppose a person's own unjudged sin badly hinders his ability to judge. How could he then help another who may have been overtaken in a fault through spiritual carelessness? This is just impossible.
The Lord's order is not "never help." It is "help second."
The one who has not judged himself is completely unfit to deal with another. Whoever has judged himself before God knows that whatever another has done, he is capable of doing the same or worse. … Get the large thing removed first — it is the thing that stops you seeing clearly. Most likely you will then find the speck in your brother's eye is gone too. Very often the people who spot these specks are in a bad, sour state of soul. 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.
Self-judgment does more than clear the sight; it changes the hands that do the work.
Self-judgment by grace always tends to promote humility and love. Think of the man who has been through such an exercise about the log in his own eye. He will act more tenderly in taking the speck out of his brother's eye.
Some turn this warning into a shield against all correction.
Yet it is worth being on guard against a very common misuse of our Lord's warning. Religious people often use it to fend off any criticism of their own position. They use it in the same way against any care about false doctrine or evil associations, and against the responsibility for the discipline Scripture calls for.
- Log first. Correction is not the problem. The order is: your own eye first, your brother's second.
- Log blinds. Unjudged sin does more than make you wrong. It destroys the eyesight this delicate work needs.
- Log shrinks him. You see the small fault because you do not see the large one. A sharp eye for others is a dull eye for yourself.
- Log removed, sight restored. With the plank gone, the speck is often gone too. And the hand that reaches out now is a tender one.
- Log, not silence. The verse bans fault-finding from an unjudged heart. It does not ban the discipline Scripture calls for.
Hypocrite, cast out first the beam out of thine eye, and then thou wilt see clearly to cast out the mote out of the eye of thy brother.
Just before this, the Lord pictured a man offering to clear his brother's eye while a plank sticks out of his own. Now He names that man and sets the order: deal with yourself first, and then you can help your brother.
Up to this point in the Sermon on the Mount, the word "hypocrite" has belonged to other people. Here it lands on the listener.
The Lord has already used the expression 'hypocrite' three times in the Sermon on the Mount (ch. 6:2, 5, 16). Each time He was speaking of the religious hypocrites among the Jews, not of His disciples. His use of the expression again shows that even the disciples are not safe from the danger of hypocrisy.
The hypocrisy is not the fault-finding itself. It is the split it exposes: I condemn a sin in someone else and keep it at home.
He says elsewhere, "You hypocrite." It shows our mind is not changed about the thing, and yet we find fault with it in another. So it is plainly not love, and we have no right in this to say "Brother."
The habit of finding fault does not stay where it starts.
I believe the habit of finding fault, as a rule, leads straight to hypocrisy. It makes people claim a spirituality they do not have.
One object is tiny and the other is huge. The man keeps his eye on the tiny one.
The speck, of course, was only small, but the man made a great deal of it; and the log, an enormous thing, he ignored. The Lord is bringing out, in the most emphatic way, the danger of a suspicious, judging spirit. And He shows that the way to deal rightly, if we desire the good of His people and their deliverance from evil, is to begin with self-judgment.
The size does not depend on the kind of sin. It depends on whose eye holds it.
If I am to carry out any discipline on my brother, I must first judge myself deeply. I must feel my own sin and shortcoming, and judge myself without excuse. As the Lord says, "You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye." Whatever the fault is, if it is in my eye it is a log. Whatever it is in my brother's eye, it is a speck, until I have judged myself.
The word "first" is not a delay. The log is the very thing that blocks the sight this job needs.
The one who is self-judged before God is conscious that whatever another has done, he is capable of doing the same or worse... Get the large thing removed first, the thing that stops you seeing clearly; and most likely you will find the speck in the brother's eye is gone too... 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 only half of it. Self-judgment also changes how a man comes to help.
Our own unjudged fault always blocks us from giving real help to another. But where we have judged ourselves, we not only see more clearly. We also come to the work more humbly and lovingly. This is what makes a man spiritual. Nothing but self-judgment can ever do it — self-judgment joined with a sense of the Lord's great grace and holiness.
Knowing our own forgiveness shapes the way we help.
We will only be able to judge others if we have recognised and confessed our own sins in the light of God. We will be of real spiritual help to our straying brothers only if we live conscious of God's grace. He has forgiven us all our sins, and as Father He forgives us again and again.
Sometimes self-judgment ends the case. A heart set on the Lord is glad when it does.
Again and again we find that when the log is gone, the speck is nowhere to be seen. It has already disappeared. And where the heart is set on the Lord, would we be sorry to find we were mistaken about our brother? Should I not rejoice to find the grace of the Lord in my brother, if in self-judgment I discover that I alone was wrong?
- Log — whatever the sin is, in my own eye it counts as a log, and my brother's stays a speck until I have judged myself.
- Hypocrite — the title falls on a disciple, not an outsider; the mark of it is condemning in another what my own mind has never turned from.
- First — self-judgment takes away the very thing that blocks my sight. Fault I have not judged leaves me unfit to help anyone.
- Clearly — the man who has dealt with himself sees better and also comes more humbly and lovingly, conscious of grace that keeps forgiving him.
- Brother — the speck is still meant to come out; often it has vanished by then, and a right heart is glad to have been wrong.
Give not that which is holy to the dogs, nor cast your pearls before the swine, lest they trample them with their feet, and turning round rend you.
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
Ask, and it shall be given to you. Seek, and ye shall find. Knock, and it shall be opened to you.
Three short commands, each with a promise attached, tell the Lord's disciples how to deal with God. The words rise in force. But the reason given in the verses that follow is not our persistence. It is the character of the Father who hears.
The verse just before this one spoke of holy things and pearls, and of people who cannot value them. One writer draws the contrast directly, and lets it shape what we should be asking for.
Verse 6 shows the ungodly in no state to receive the things of God, since they do not ask. We, on the other hand, are invited to ask and receive. This dependent, earnest state of soul is what the Father delights to answer... But let us remember that the "holy things" and "pearls" should be what we want most.
Each verb describes a different situation, and the effort rises with each one.
"Ask" means something I want to have. "Seek" means something I have lost. "Knock" means I want to be let in. Each step presses harder than the last. There is more intensity in "seeking" than in "asking", and more again in "knocking" than in "seeking".
The ladder from asking to knocking makes room for something we all meet — the answer that has not yet come.
Asking reveals the desire of the one praying. Seeking and knocking, however, show that God will not always answer prayer at once. We are all in danger of becoming tired and weary in our prayers.
The original wording carries this sense in the form of the verbs themselves, as one note on the tenses brings out:
Matt. 7:7. "Keep asking, and it shall be given you; seek again and again, and you shall find; knock persistently, and it shall be opened to you."
Scripture records people who asked, sought and knocked, yet went away empty. The promise does not cover every kind of request.
Some asked wrongly, meaning to spend what they got on their own pleasures (James 4:3). Others sought, but not in faith (John 6:34). And some will knock only to be shut out (Matt. 25:11). But the Lord encourages His own to deal simply and directly with their Father in heaven. This is the opposite of all empty repetition.
The Lord grounds the promise in something every hearer already knows — how a parent treats a child.
His love goes out to His children in every request that is for their good. He holds back only what they foolishly asked for that would harm them... If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him!
Commentators differ here. Some read the rising words as a call to press on until the answer comes. Kelly calls them "a clear climax, all leading to urgent prayer before God." Others say the increase is on our side only, never on God's.
In our judgment, it would be a mistake to use this Scripture as a call to persistence in prayer... It expresses instead a growing, energetic confidence in the Father for the blessings the heart is set on, through grace.
Another writer puts the same caution more sharply.
See how ready God is to answer human need. Never say that persistence moves God... You may have been praying for a long time with no answer. Be sure the waiting has not been wasted. If the work was not done in heaven, it was done in the training of your spirit.
- Ask — the invitation follows a warning about people who cannot receive holy things. The one who asks is in the very state the Father delights to answer.
- Seek — the second word assumes a gap between the request and the reply. Seeking and knocking exist because answers are not always instant.
- Knock — the third word presses hardest. The danger is that we grow tired before the answer comes.
- Rightly — asking for pleasure, seeking without faith and knocking too late all fail. The promise is for simple, direct dealing with the Father.
- Given — the guarantee rests on His heart, not our effort. If evil parents give good gifts, how much more will He? He holds back only what would harm us.
For every one that asks receives; and he that seeks finds; and to him that knocks it shall be opened.
Having told His disciples to ask, seek and knock, the Lord now gives His reason — the same promise again, this time with "everyone" attached. Why repeat it, why three words instead of one, and does it hold without exception?
Verse 8 gives no new command. It fastens a guarantee onto verse 7, and behind that guarantee stands the character of the Giver:
Now the heart of God comes into view as the ready and generous Giver. His fullness can never run dry. His word to His people is always, "Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it." There is only one limit: the limit that little faith may set. On God's side there is a safeguard, which is no limit at all — that the gift be good. And the Lord clasps His commands shut with a double assurance: everyone who asks receives, the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. What a door is opened for us here, and what possibility of blessing! How rich we may all be, if we only will be!
Ask, seek and knock are not three words for one thing. Each names a different need:
"Ask" implies something I desire to have; "seek" something I have missed; and "knock" wanting an entrance. It means increased urgency. There is more intensity in "seeking" than in "asking", and again more in "knocking" than in seeking.
These words address people already in God's family, not a sinner seeking pardon. That is also why a shut door can be part of the answer:
This is not a sinner needing life and forgiveness of his sins. These are saints told to appeal to God, sure of their Father's answer of love, whatever their needs may be… So they must persevere and be earnest. Asking will secure receiving — yes, for everyone who asks. Seeking will not be fruitless; it will find. And to the one who keeps on, God will open the door — a door He shuts only to exercise faith.
The same writer points to a foreign mother who lived through a shut door:
There may be something important for the person asking to learn before the request can be granted. So it was with the Syrophoenician woman. She begged the Lord to pity her, for her daughter was badly possessed by a demon. At first the Lord did not answer her a word. She pleaded as if she were one of the lost sheep of Israel's house. In fact she was a Greek, with no claim on the promises made to the Messiah… But she drops the title Son of David. She sees from His answer where her mistake lay, and she bows before Him, saying, "Lord, help me."… This did help her soul, for it led her to the secret of sovereign grace, and she threw herself upon it at once… The door opened to her knock. She was deepened and made clearer in her faith, as her daughter was healed from that hour.
The verse says "everyone", and one writer presses how wide that word runs:
The heart can spring upward to the throne in prayer and supplication at any time. Our Father's ear is always open, His reception room always accessible. Come when we may and with what we may, He is always ready to hear, ready to answer. He is the Hearer, the Answerer, and the Lover of persistent prayer… These words apply to everyone. They are meant for all God's children. The feeblest child of God can pray, can watch, can get an answer, and return thanks.
Another writer applies the promise to knowing the Bible itself:
God never intended theology to be for a class of men called theologians. Instead, all the treasures of His Word are for all His people. Nothing is hidden, except from the careless and the indifferent… Teachers are only God's pledge of how eager He is to have everyone know His Word.
Some people in Scripture asked and received nothing. So the promise assumes honest dealing with God:
Some asked with wrong motives, wanting to spend it on their pleasures (James 4:3). Others sought, but not in faith (John 6:34). And some will knock, only to be turned away (Matthew 25:11). But the Lord encourages His own to deal simply and directly with their Father in heaven. This is the opposite of empty repetition… His disciples were free to voice the deep feelings of their souls to God and to bring their needs to Him.
- Doubled — verse 8 repeats verse 7 as a guarantee: the same three promises, clasped shut on God's side.
- Rising — asking wants what it lacks. Seeking hunts what it missed. Knocking presses for entry. The urgency climbs.
- Delayed — a shut door is not a refusal. God shuts it to exercise faith, as with the foreign mother who saw her mistake before she got her answer.
- Everyone — no exceptions and no experts. The feeblest child of God can ask, and the treasures of His Word are open to all His people.
- Real — the promise covers honest need, not requests aimed at our own pleasures (James 4:3).
Or what man is there of you who, if his son shall ask of him a loaf of bread, will give him a stone;
This verse sits in the middle of Jesus' teaching on prayer, and here He stops arguing and paints a picture of an ordinary father. The question He raises is simple: is God's heart at least as good as the heart of a human father?
He describes a household anyone has seen, and a particular kind of asking inside it.
The Lord Jesus uses an illustration which everybody can understand. He speaks of the normal relation between a son and his father which is marked by love and confidence. The son is in trouble and asks his father for bread or a fish, that is, the things he needs for daily life. He does not demand, as the son in Luke 15:12 did. Nor does he ask wrongly, to satisfy his own selfish desires (which James 4:3 warns us about). No, he asks his father with trust and without doubting, for what he really needs.
Two Greek words in the New Testament both become "ask" in English. The one used here has its own tone.
Both aiteo and erotao are translated "to ask," and in many places that is right. But some passages lose much of their force, because the translation does not keep a very real difference between the two words. Aiteo is the word for pleading, as when someone lower asks someone higher — a beggar asking for money, Acts 3:2; a child asking his parents (Matt. 7:9), and the disciples asking God the Father (1 John 3:22; James 1:5-6).
The two items Jesus names in verses 9 and 10 fail the child in different ways, and the second is worse than the first.
If a child asks for bread, will his father give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will his father give him a serpent? No father is likely to be so callous as this. The stone is useless, but the serpent is dangerous. On the other hand, if a child asked for a serpent, what father would give it to him? Why would we ever think of asking for what is useless or harmful?
One writer names what such a gift would really be. It would not just be a poor gift. It would mock a hungry child.
Who would not reject such mockery of a son's hunger?
This verse is one half of an argument. The other half, in verse 11, moves up from what any father would do to what God will do.
A response from our Father is certain. If we ask for necessary things we shall get them, for He will not give us instead something worthless like a stone, or harmful like a serpent. We may rest assured that He will give us "good things," for His Fatherhood is of heaven. His standard therefore will not fall below that of earthly fatherhood. We may apply Isaiah 55:9 to this, and say that as the heavens are higher than the earth so are His Fatherly thoughts higher than our thoughts.
The comparison also exposes something about us. Jesus calls the fathers in His picture evil, and that is what gives the argument its weight.
If we call God Father, do we expect to find Him less than such a title implies, even among men? Is not this, in fact, however real, only a feeble suggestion of what God is as Father? It would have to be, even if people had never fallen into sin. But "if you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more" — there, indeed, is a calculation for faith to make.
One writer traces both the giving and the refusing back to the same love.
The Father's love goes out to His sons in every request that is for their good. He holds back only the things they foolishly asked for that would harm them.
Another writer applies this to prayers that seem to get no reply.
He will not give that which is useless or harmful in answer to requests for necessary food. Nor, we may add, will He give what is useless or harmful if we foolishly desire it and ask for it. Many an unanswered prayer is, no doubt, accounted for by this.
- Ask. The word here is the one used of a beggar, and of a child before a parent. It is not a demand. It is a plea made from need to someone able to meet it.
- Bread. The son in the picture asks for what he needs for daily life, not for what would feed his own desires.
- Stone. A stone is useless when the child needs bread. A serpent instead of a fish is worse, because it is dangerous. No decent father gives either.
- How much more. Jesus argues upward. Fathers He calls evil still give good gifts, so the Father in heaven will not fall below them. That is a calculation for faith to make.
- No. A good Father will not hand over what is useless or harmful. So some unanswered prayers are answers. He holds back only what we foolishly asked for that would hurt us.
and if he ask a fish, will give him a serpent?
Jesus pictures a hungry son asking for a fish, and a father handing him a snake instead. The absurdity is the point. The verse is not about fish. It asks what God is like as a Father, and why some prayers go unanswered.
Jesus is speaking to people who already know God as Father. No decent father plays a cruel joke on a hungry child, and He builds His argument on that instinct.
Here the Lord is not speaking to a sinner who needs life and the forgiveness of his sins. He is speaking to believers, who are told to appeal to God and are assured of their Father's answer of love, whatever their needs may be… The Lord also encourages His disciples through the affection planted in a parent's heart. If their Father makes His sun rise on evil and good, and sends rain on just and unjust, how does He feel toward His sons? His love surely goes out to them in every request that is for their good. He withholds only the foolish requests that would harm them. So He says, "Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent?" Who would not reject such mockery of a son's hunger?
The two images are not saying the same thing. The picture can also be turned around: what if the child asked for the snake himself?
The stone is useless, but the serpent is dangerous. On the other hand, if a child asked for a serpent, what father would give it to him? Why would we ever think of asking for what is useless or harmful?
Everything turns on the way the son comes.
The Lord Jesus uses an illustration everyone can understand. He speaks of the normal relationship between a son and his father, marked by love and confidence. The son is in trouble and asks his father for bread or a fish — things needed for daily living. He does not demand, as the son in Luke 15:12 did. Nor does he ask wrongly, to satisfy his own desires (which James 4:3 warns us about). No, he asks his father trustingly and without doubting, for what he really needs. The Lord teaches in such a way that the father's answer to the son's request is "yes." He will not disappoint his son's confidence by giving him a stone instead of bread. He will not put him in danger by giving a serpent instead of a fish.
Love alone is not enough. A father who loves his child but lacks judgment could still hand over the snake.
God does not limit Himself to our requests. He gives what He sees we need. He gives according to His wisdom, and according to the love of His heart… There is affection enough in the heart of man to make him respond to the cry of need from the lips of a child. But affection is not enough. Wisdom is also needed, so that he may give a good gift. Parents do not always give everything their children ask for. They are not inattentive to their requests, but they consider what will be suitable and good to give.
Turn the verse around. If God will not swap a serpent for a fish, He will not hand one over just because we asked for it by name.
The Father in heaven is not to be thought of as less interested and considerate than an earthly father. He will not give what is useless or harmful in answer to requests for necessary food. Nor, we may add, will He give what is useless or harmful if we foolishly desire it and ask for it. Many an unanswered prayer is, no doubt, explained by this.
The gap between what a child needs and what he wants explains much of this.
If God is our Father, we are blessed indeed. He has infinite wisdom, love and power. He knows what we need. What we want is another matter. A child in a family gets its needs supplied, but if the little boy of three wants his father's sharp razor to play with, he is refused. God is as loving in His refusals as in His answers.
- Ask — the son comes in trust, for what he truly needs. He does not demand, and he does not ask to please himself.
- Father — the argument rests on relationship. God is not less caring than a human father.
- Never a serpent — a stone is useless, a serpent harms. He gives neither, even when we ask for one.
- Wisdom with love — love alone can still give the wrong gift. God answers by His wisdom, not by the wording of our prayer.
- Refusal as love — this explains many unanswered prayers. He is as loving when He withholds as when He gives.
If therefore *ye*, being wicked, know [how] to give good gifts to your children, how much rather shall your Father who is in the heavens give good things to them that ask of him?
Jesus ends His teaching on asking, seeking and knocking by comparing a flawed human father with God Himself. Three phrases carry the verse — being evil, how much more, and good things — and each one changes how we pray.
This promise is not aimed at a stranger. It speaks to people already in God's family, learning to lean on their Father.
This is not a sinner needing life and forgiveness of his sins. It is God's people, told to appeal to God and assured of their Father's answer of love, whatever they need... Asking will bring receiving — yes, for everyone who asks. Seeking will not be fruitless; it will find. And to the one who is still more persistent, the door will open. It is only shut to exercise faith.
Jesus does not soften His verdict on the people He is encouraging. That blunt word about human nature makes the comparison work.
The Lord mentions the evil of the human heart to stress a difference. The love of the kindest human father is not the perfect love of God. If even flawed people, evil by nature, like to give their children what they ask for, how much more will God, the great giver, do so!
The title "Father" carries a set of expectations. Jesus asks whether God will turn out to be less than the word implies.
If we call God Father, do we expect to find Him less than such a title implies, even among men? Real as human fatherhood is, is it not only a faint hint of what God is as Father? Even if people had never fallen into sin, it would still be only a hint. But "if you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more" — there, indeed, is a calculation for faith to make.
Our folly tends to run the sum the other way:
Do not put it in your mind, "how much less," as we so often do in our folly, but, "how much more."
God's kindness already reaches everyone alike. His own children stand nearer still.
If their Father makes His sun rise on evil and good, and sends rain on just and unjust, how does He feel toward His sons? His love surely goes out to them in every request that is for their good, and withholds only what their foolishness asked that must do them harm.
Heaven is where this Father lives. That sets the level of His giving.
A response from our Father is certain. If we ask for necessary things we shall get them, for He will not give us instead something worthless like a stone, or harmful like a serpent. We may rest assured that He will give us "good things," for His Fatherhood is of heaven. His standard therefore will not fall below that of earthly fatherhood. We may apply Isaiah 55:9 to this. As the heavens are higher than the earth, so His Fatherly thoughts are higher than our thoughts.
Luke records this teaching with one difference in the closing words.
In Matthew we learn that God can give good things. Luke names the giving of the Holy Spirit as a blessing to enjoy.
That request belonged to one moment in history. It changes how a believer prays today.
Jesus said this to disciples who had not yet received the Spirit to live inside them. They could not, until Christ was glorified after His death and resurrection (John 7:39). He encouraged them to ask for the Spirit, for God intended to give Him. Now that the Holy Spirit has come and dwells in every believer (Rom. 8:9), it would be a mistake for a believer to ask for Him again. Instead we may thank God for Him and seek grace to "walk in the Spirit" consistently.
- The premise. Jesus gives an honest verdict: human givers are evil. Even so, they know how to give good gifts to their children.
- The leap. "How much more" is a sum faith must do; the folly of our hearts keeps writing "how much less" instead.
- The measure. His Fatherhood is heavenly. His giving never falls below the best human father — it rises far above.
- The filter. His love answers every request that is for our good. It withholds only what our foolishness asked, because that would harm us.
- The gift. Matthew says "good things." Luke names the Holy Spirit. The disciples asked for Him then; He lives in believers now, so thanks replaces the asking.
Therefore all things whatever ye desire that men should do to you, thus do *ye* also do to them; for this is the law and the prophets.
The rule sits at the end of a passage about asking, seeking and knocking. Its opening word ties it to what came just before. One writer traces the logic: what you have received from God sets the measure of what you give out.
If you take in how generous God is — the generosity He has been speaking about — you will be generous yourself. Your conduct toward others will not be measured by how they treat you. It will be measured by how you would have wanted them to treat you. A large heart is the result of living in the enjoyment of the King's generosity.
Another writer warns that keeping this rule takes real effort.
It will take real effort to stay completely fair here. When others treat us badly, we are easily caught off guard. This is no excuse for our doing the same.
The standard is not what the other person deserves or has done. It is what you would want done to you — which means the other person's behaviour never sets your course.
This is not dealing with people according to their ways. It is the opposite. It is as if He says, "You who know the heavenly Father, who know what His grace to the evil is, you know what is fitting in His sight; always act on that. Never act according to what another person does to you. Act according to what you would want them to do to you."
Similar sayings existed before. But they were put the other way round, as a warning against harming people. The Lord's version asks for something more.
What a contrast to the well-known saying: "Don't do to others what you don't want them to do to you." Even the Rabbis and the Greeks had a similar saying! It contains no more than the negative warning not to do evil to our fellow man. In contrast, the Lord Jesus sums up His teaching with a positive command. Do for others everything we would like to receive ourselves. We can only do this in the strength of God's love.
The reason given is not fairness between people, and not kindness as a natural instinct.
This closing verse takes up what is right for the disciple among people. It lays down a simple, sound principle: do to others as we would have others do to us. This rests on no ground of human rights or natural kindness. It rests on agreement with God's revealed will.
The closing line reaches back to something the Lord said earlier in the same sermon.
This verse has been called the "golden rule" of love. It closes the first paragraph of chapter 7. It also closes the whole teaching that began in chapter 5, verse 17, with the words of the Lord: "Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them."
One writer sees in this a single divine aim running through every stage of God's dealings, while still keeping law and grace distinct.
The new order of God's dealings follows the same line as everything before it. The same God has been aiming at the same results all through. The means may change at each step forward, but He keeps the goal in sight and moves steadily toward it. The righteousness which the law had in view, grace has brought in — and yet law and grace are contrasts.
People boast about this rule. One writer says they do not understand it, and no one actually keeps it.
Yet with all this boasting in a rule they do not understand, no one keeps it, nor would think of keeping it. The Lord gives this practical word to the true disciple. Anyone born again is born of God. He has the nature of God, and that is love.
- Bounty first. The opening word ties the rule to God's giving: those who live in the enjoyment of His generosity become generous themselves.
- Bounty measured. Your conduct is not measured by how people treat you, but by what you would have wished from them.
- Bounty active. Older versions of the saying only forbid harm; this one commands positive good, and that takes the strength of God's love.
- Bounty grounded. The rule rests on God's revealed will, not on human rights or natural kindness. It gathers up the Law and the Prophets in one line.
- Bounty possible. Admiring the rule is not keeping it; only one born of God has the nature that is love, and so can live it.