The J word

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The J word

By Ivan Ho   11 Jan 2017

 

 

I mentioned “God judges…” in a group discussion and I was immediately corrected by the group leader: “not judge…”.  I was wondering if I used the wrong word but I couldn’t find another better term for it.

Just thinking about it, the words “judge, judgement, judgemental” seem to have been removed from the vocabulary by some Christians who either don’t like the word “judge” or don’t believe the fact that God judges anybody anymore, as if it is even wrong to mention the J word.

The J word is neither evil nor wrong, only some Christians seem to think so, because of some weird ideology that they hold. All over the world the courtrooms make judgement everyday and we are fine with it but as soon as we make judgements, people say: “Don’t be judgemental!“.

We make judgement on matters all the time. There is nothing intrinsic wrong about the words judgement or judgemental. In fact, being judgemental is an essential character of God, and He is a loving Father and a righteous judge at the same time. The enemy doesn’t like the word because he has been judged by God.  Being judgemental is actually a God thing so we don’t have to be made to feel guilty if we do it. Judgement is an important word in the vocabulary that has no evil connotations whatsoever. There’s only sound and poor judgements but being judgemental is not a sin.

When Jesus says “Do not judge…“ what he actually means is “Do not condemn someone based on your judgement”. Jesus did not condemn the woman who committed adultery but in no time did Jesus think that she hadn’t committed the act of adultery. There is a vast difference between condemnation and judgement. There is a major difference between passing a sentence on someone and making sound judgement based on the word of God.

We, as human beings, have limitations when we make judgement on things and regarding people because we tend to see things in the flesh instead of from God’s perspective, not to mention the fact that we only know things in part. Paul knew his limitations when he said “I judge not myself” (1 Cor 4:3).

 

God, who knows all things and who is all righteous is the Ultimate Judge, and He certainly is judgemental! Jesus Christ is the Eternal Judge who will judge the living and the dead when He returns (2 Tim 4:1)!

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