Error has no dignity except as a possible motivator to lead us to truth. But if we are not confronted in our error, how can we be motivated to move toward truth?
St. Paul instructs us to judge:
I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus who is to judge the living and the dead,… preach the word, be urgent in season and out of season, convince, rebuke, and exhort, be unfailing in patience and in teaching. For a time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own likings, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander into myths. —2 Timothy 4:2-4
We are to judge the teaching of teachers, the opinions of people, the attitudes and behaviors of people. If we don’t, then we allow sin and Satan to exploit the weak and ignorant and vulnerable with his lies. We are to preach the Truth and rebuke those who assert error—not in an attitude of rock throwing or some sort of controlling self-righteousness, but in a loving attitude of helping the person return to God (2 Timothy 4:2). We are our brothers’ keepers (ref., Mark 12:31; Luke 10:25-37; Matthew 7:12; 18:23-35; Luke 6:31). We have a responsibility to warn and admonish our brethren in the faith, just as we have a responsibility to our blood-brothers to warn them when they go astray because we love them.
St. Paul to the Romans exhorted us to instruct one another (Romans 15:14). To instruct someone necessarily means to evaluate (another word for judge) the one to whom instruction is given.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church states
(No 1868): “… we have a responsibility for the sins committed by others when we cooperate in them: by (among several actions on our part)
not disclosing or not hindering them when we have an obligation to do so.”
We cannot “disclose” a sin without first assessing (yet another word for judging) that the sin is in fact there in the first place.
In addition, one of the traditional seven Spiritual Works of Mercy is to “Admonish the sinner.”
Again, we cannot admonish that which we refuse to recognize in the sinner. We must make an assessment (judgment) that the person is sinning and thus “needs” admonishment.
All of this sometimes requires “tough love”.
Our model in this tough love is no less that Jesus Himself (who, contrary to popular opinion was not a 60’s flower child with flowers in his hair repeating a mantra of peace and love). Jesus preached a demanding love, a love so demanding that in some cases it would rip apart families:
“Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to turn a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law – a man's enemies will be the members of his own household. Anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and anyone who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me.”
—Matthew 10:34-38
Truth cannot be compromised—even if it makes enemies of our relatives. Some people will not accept the truth and will hate those who preach it. Truth demands judgment; that is, truth demands we see things truthfully and to call things what they are. If we see sin or error, we must call it for what it is.
The Bible is filled with passages talking about how we are to judge others. Before listing some of those, first let us look at the kind of judgment we are not to do.
The most famous of the several “do not judge” passages:
Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and the measure you give will be the measure you get. Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own…” —Matthew 7:1-3
In this passage we see three kinds of judgment we are not to do:
1. Judgment of Condemnation:
Judgment in this passage is referring to condemning (“pronouncing” judgment on a person’s soul). We are not the “Judge” to pronounce condemnation on anyone (not even ourselves). Only God can do that. The Church, for example, never pronounces “anyone” in hell. And even in the assessment of a person declared a saint, it is done by special dispensation granted to the Church by her authority of the “keys”. But even with this authority, we need to note that it is never applied to judging a person in hell. If the Church, who has the authority of the keys will not judge a person to condemnation, how can we? We are never to judge a person’s state of soul. Jesus tells us that we will receive ourselves the judgment of soul that we place on others if we attempt this usurpation of God’s sovereignty.
2. Judgment from Double–Standards:
When we use double–standards for judgment, apply one measure to others and a different measure to ourselves we commit a sin. Jesus says that we will not get by with that (a form of hypocrisy). The standards we apply to others will be applied to us as well.
3. Judgment from Self-Righteousness:
The last sentence of the passage quoted refers to seeing sins in others but not in oneself. This is self-righteousness (another form of hypocrisy).
In this passage, Jesus does not say that we cannot judge. He says that we are not to judge in the manner of presuming condemnation on another or to make judgments borne from hypocrisy (double-standard & self-righteousness).In verse 5 Jesus continues: You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you can see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.”
Taking the speck out of our brother’s eye is not condemned in itself. Hypocritical judgment is what Jesus condemns.
We can immediately see this is the meaning of these passages by going on to the very next verse:
Do not give dogs what is holy; and do not throw your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under foot and turn to attack you.
Dogs? Swine? How are we to know who is a dog or a swine? We cannot take Jesus’ advice, which is advice for self-protection (e.g. when Jesus said the swine will “turn to attack you”), if we do not judge a person, that is, to identify a person as a metaphorical “dog” or “swine.”
Who are the dogs and swine? Verse 15 gives us one clue when it talks about false prophets who come in sheep’s clothing. Verse 21 Jesus talks about people calling to him, “Lord, Lord” yet some of these will not enter heaven. They will not enter heaven because despite their calling upon the name of the Lord, they are people who refuse to do God’s will.
Verse 26 tells us more about these people. They are people who do not just fail to follow God’s will, but who actively disobey the teachings of Jesus and thus they build their house on sand (and that includes disobeying the Church, who has been given authority to speak infallibly and definitively in Jesus’ name to the faithful—when the Church speaks, Jesus speaks).
Throughout Scripture we are given examples of these dogs and swine and are repeatedly told to shun them, to avoid them, and even to kick them out of our community as to give them up to Satan. In Matthew 10:13-14 Jesus tells the disciples to shake the very dust off their clothes of any city that refuses to listen to them. That requires a judgment.
St. Paul in Titus 3:9-11 tells us to warn a heretic (divisive person) twice and then have nothing more to do with him because such a person is
“perverted and sinful; he is self-condemned.” We don’t condemn him, he condemns himself, but we do judge him to be divisive beyond tolerance because we tried to admonish him (judge his behavior and warn him of his sin) twice but he would not repent.
St. Paul commands us in 1 Corinthians 5:9-13 to not associate with people calling themselves Christians who are
“guilty of immorality or greed, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or robber—not even to eat with such a one.”
Then Paul actually says and confirms in black and white language in verse 12 without any shades of gray that we are to judge our fellow Christians (but interestingly to
not to judge those outside of the church):
“Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge? God judges those outside.”
We are our brother’s keeper and if we love, we will admonish a brother in sin or error.
St. Paul also tells us in 2 Timothy 3:1-9 that we are to avoid people who are
“holding to a form of religion but denying the power of it” (e.g., liberals who strip our Church of its sacramental power). Other we are to avoid include those who are
“Lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, inhuman, implacable, slanderers, profligates, fierce, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God…”.
And finally, St. Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 5:1-5 that some people must be excommunicated—completely removed from fellowship and handed over to Satan. Paul specifically says,
“I have already pronounced judgment in the name of the Lord Jesus on the man who has done such a thing… you are to deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.”
This form of judgment (excommunication), by the way, is one reserved to the Church and is not a personal judgment exacted by the faithful.
Jesus, Himself, calls for this formal judgment on the part of the Church in Matthew 18:15-18.
As we have seen, the idea we are not to judge is a lie.
We cannot judge a person’s state of soul, of course. We cannot condemn him. We are also not to judge out of hypocrisy.
But we are to make proper judgments, borne out of love, to admonish a sinner in order to encourage him to repentance. That is the goal, to save the sinner’s soul, to lead him to repentance. We are to make judgments of behavior, attitudes, and ideas in order to protect our loved-ones and ourselves from danger. People who practice such dangerous and sinful behaviors, or have such dangerous attitudes and ideas, we are to avoid. We cannot avoid them until and unless a judgment has been made that such people are of the type the Bible tells us to avoid.
The idea we are not to judge is a doctrine of demons.
Satan would love us to avoid making judgments. If he can convince us of this, sin can abound without criticism and we could continue in our sin without accountability and the philosophies of Satan can contaminate all of us with impunity unchecked and unchallenged.
Oh, how Satan loves those who think we are not to judge and those who think Jesus was a love-freak hippie from the 60’s.
Three Secret Strategies of Satan
