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.