Matthew 7:2 Commentary and Bible Study

When we judge others for doing the very things that we do, we judge ourselves, and God will complete our judging for us by bringing down upon us the sanction that we assign to others. An over critical person in human arena is judged and particularly with God who judges our hypocrisy. This is remarkable. Surely God has a fixed unchanging standard to apply for any particular sin and the punishment does not alter. Yes, but our inclination to act as judge over others aggravates our sin and causes a heavier judgment to fall on us. The one who is harsh towards another is, in the administration of God, harsh towards himself, and the one who is merciful towards others is merciful towards himself. There is no better way to show we know the standard than by applying it to others, but how can the standard be applied to everyone else and not to ourselves. God will not allow us to be impartial with ourselves. It will be God himself who applies the judgment back to us and he will do so with vigour, for he hates hypocrisy above all other sins. Christ’s strongest denunciations were reserved for the scribes and Pharisees just because they were guilty of secret sins for which they condemned others. Of course hypocrisy is not so dull that it does not attempt to cover over what it does. The hypocrite tries to make a sufficient difference between what he does and what he condemns others for doing, so that the two things appear not to be the same. Nevertheless they are the same in God’s eyes and he will not allow us to play games in the matter of judgment. The true spirit in which to exercise any judgment is the spirit of Moses, who he heard their rebellious words fell on his face (Numbers 14:5; 16:4). It is a spirit of fear that dreads that we may do the same things. It actually fears sin and sees sin not just as a danger to the one who has fallen in to it, but to ourselves. It treats it like a scientist handling a highly infectious pathogen in the lab. At the same time it is motivated by a true love for God’s standards. The trouble with those who forbid judgment altogether is that they fail to see that the Spirit of God can create a measure of integrity in the heart; that the Christian is significantly different from the unbeliever in the eyes of the Lord; that there is such a thing as a man who fears God and eschews evil. True judgment is not an exercise in self-righteousness, but operates with a deep sense of our unworthiness before God, and with reliance on his pardon. True judgment applies the standard of God’s law first to itself, before daring to apply it to any other. It is also filled with zeal for God’s name and his honour. The same measure we use to measure out judgment to others will be used to measure judgment out to us also. This is a figure of speech obviously as judgment is not measured in any physical container, but Christ loves to use these very concrete pictures to explain spiritual realities. Are we to think of a believer or an unbeliever here? Who is going to have the same measure meted back to them? Certainly these words applied to the Pharisees, who were listening on the fringe of the gathering, who were very fond of passing judgment on others, and who were regarded as hypocrites by the Lord. These would be condemned on the last day and would lose their eternal souls in the final judgment. Likewise it applies to all unbelievers, but the words also apply to Christians and the warning should be used by them to flee from that same hypocrisy that brings damnation on the wicked. The judgment of God will be applied back again on those who judge unrighteously; it will be applied in providence in our lives in this world, perhaps to bring men to repentance, as well as in the final judgment at the last day on those who have not repented. There could not be a fairer way of dealing with us.