“Judge not that you be not judged”

“Judge not that you be not judged.” Matthew 7:1 

Increasingly in America, freedom of belief is being redefined as the absence of morals, or literally, as freedom of immorality. Increasingly, we are told that it is wrong to call another’s actions wrong (ironic). We cannot condemn; we cannot judge. So, culture clamors to point out inconsistencies in the beliefs which hold a moral standard, and thus “Judge not that you be not judged” is quickly becoming one of the most widely quoted verses in the Bible in America today. What’s backwards about the use of this verse in our culture, however, is that it actually implies that the one being judged is guilty.

The verse does not read, in meaning, “Judge not [a man] that you be not judged [by a man]”. It reads “Judge not [a man] that you be not judged [by God]”. The point here is that we are, as men, equally guilty before God without Christ. Rather, I should say, it is the application of that truth. The sin of the man judging his fellow man is equally as heinous in its rejection of God as the specific sin (which is being judged) of the judged man. For the judged man to quote back to the judger “Judge not that you be not judged” is for that man to admit the sinfulness of the sin for which he is being judged. It is to say “God will judge you for pointing out that what I am doing is sinful, because what you do is also sinful.”