“Do not speak evil of one another, brethren. He who speaks evil of a brother and judges his brother, speaks evil of the law and judges the law. But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge.”
But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge
When we assume the place of a judge, we assume far-reaching consequences of taking God’s place as Judge. By slandering fellow Christians, we judge the Word of God. The Bible is the ultimate authority for the Christian. When the Christian judges the Bible, he makes himself the ultimate authority. This is blasphemy.
PRINCIPLE:
It is one thing to judge the actors, but it is another to judge the acts.
APPLICATION:
It is one thing to judge the actors, but it is another to judge the acts. Judging the motives and judging the acts of a person are two different things. We become purveyors of the law rather than doers of the law when we subjectively judge others.
Derogatory and critical speech against other Christians puts us in place of God. When we take the position of disparaging other people, we take a position of priggish self-righteousness. We are not always right on issues, but we take that position anyway. When we do this, we pass judgment on others as someone superior.
Gal. 5:13-15, “For you, brethren, have been called to liberty; only do not use liberty as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. 14 For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ 15 But if you bite and devour one another, beware lest you be consumed by one another!”
Php 2:3-4, “Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself. 4 Let each of you look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others.”
We usurp the place of God by judging others. When we set ourselves up as a judge of God’s Word, we no longer submit to its precepts but judge its principles. We become the final authority for life. We put ourselves in the place of determining what is right and wrong. Our standard for right and wrong is our own opinion, and that opinion is greater than God’s opinion.
Yet, God will not relinquish His authority. If we judge others, we invade God’s prerogative. This exalted sense of self and a low estimate of others is without objective justification. It is someone so wise in his own conceit that he cannot think objectively about others. He injects his judgment about them without facts.
If we judge the entire person because of one act, we make an unjust extrapolation about them. This is an unfair generalization. We can brand people with a small set of facts or by no facts at all. Someone fails to invite us to a party, so we brand him as “unfriendly.”
“People who live in glass houses should not throw stones.”
