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I John 4 says God is love. Is it love to judge people and condemn them to eternal hell fire?
What we will learn is that it is good to judge things, not good to judge people.
John 8:15, 16 You judge after the flesh; I judge no man. And yet if I judge, my judgment is true; for I am not alone, but I and the Father that sent me.
These two verses can seem confusing. “Well, Jesus, should we judge or shouldn’t we?” “No,” answers Jesus, “even I don’t judge anyone, but if I DO judge, my judgment is true.” What??! Is he saying, “Don’t do it, but if you do it, do it right?” Seems like a Catch-22, in other words, you can’t win!
Jesus is saying he doesn’t judge after the flesh. He told his listeners that they judged after the flesh, but that he didn’t. You can almost hear those words “after the flesh” immediately after him saying “I judge no man…..” Leaving out this phrase, which the mind of the reader expects to read, is a figure of speech, ellipsis, actually drawing attention to the phrase’s absence. Jesus is saying, “You judge after the flesh, I judge no man after the flesh!”
Then he goes on. “And yet if I judge, my judgment is true….and he attributes that quality of any of his judgments to the fact that it is his Father, God, working in him.
The word judge comes from the Greek word meaning “to divide.” You draw a line, and by placing a person, or a thing on one side of that line or the other, you judge. The trouble comes in judging things that change. People change. So when I call someone an idiot, I have judged him an idiot. The truth is that he may have done an idiotic thing, but he himself is not an idiot.
Our judgments of people, the condemning, final-judgment-worthy-of-punishment judgments, are simply too rigid for the life God has designed for us. All people are on a journey (though not everyone knows they’re on a journey), and are designed for adaptation, growth….change! Satan, on the other hand, is not on a journey of change. When he had Jesus killed, he was judged guilty of all sin for all time…..Yay!
However, what we are to judge are spiritual matters. Because those never change. It is never loving to hate, to argue, to lust. Our judgment is to place a given attitude or impulse or influence on one side of that line of love or the other. Is that influence love? Is that impulse of God, or of Satan? Those are the judgments, the discernments that we are to make.
I Corinthians 2:15 But he that is spiritual judges all things, yet he himself is judged of no man.
Only a man with the spirit can judge/discern spiritual things.
I Corinthians 2:14 But the natural man receives not the things of the spirit of God; for they are foolishness unto him; neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned (judged).
In conclusion, the devil and his workings have been exposed and judged by God through the work of His son, Jesus Christ. Our abilities to judge, or discern, are now to be turned toward recognizing what is of Christ, and what is of the world (Satan)…..not used to judge people, who have been designed by God to change.
John 3:17 For God sent not His son into the world to judge the world, but that the world through him might be saved.
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Related studies:
To Judge or not To Judge
Judgment Day – You May be Surprised.
Agape Love – A Study of I John 3 and 4
How to love other Christians
On love, forgiveness and being offended.
