“Don’t judge me!”

He cries out in judgement of what the other person has just said.

“Don’t judge me” is the famous statement we hear all the time even as it oozes hypocrisy. When you say don’t judge me you are making a judgement. You are deciding that to judge is wrong and you are judging that the other person has made a judgement. By doing that you are also defeating your own argument.

Is it better then to live in a world in which there are no judges?

Those who say yes may agree until they are the victim of a crime or injustice. How does one have justice without a judge? Someone needs to come along and say that whatever happened was wrong and needs to lay out the terms of retribution. That person is a judge.

Who then is fit to judge?

Most people are happy to play the judge but not allow the shoe to sit on the other foot. I’m happy to judge others but don’t you dare judge me. You don’t know me. You don’t have all the facts. You don’t understand the motives of my actions. So, I judge that it is better that you do not judge me. I do not trust you to do it well. I alone should play God.

Is this not exactly the temptation that Adam and Eve fell into in the garden?

The serpent (Satan) offered them the knowledge of good and evil so that they could be like God, knowing good from evil (Genesis 3:5). The problem is that mankind is not all knowing. We are not omniscient. We like to play God, to judge God, to judge others based on our very limited scope of knowledge. We have it in us to know right and wrong when we listen to that voice, but as Romans 1:18-32 tells us, we tend to suppress that voice so that we can instead do what we want. We make poor, self-serving judgements. We are exactly the kind of judges that we want to avoid.

Who then is fit to judge?

Someone who knows all the facts, all the motivations. Someone who can see every silent thought and know the end from the beginning. Someone who is all knowing, wise, and even better, overflowing with love.

In Jesus we see the perfect judge. The one who does not let the guilty go unpunished. The one who enacts justice. In Christ alone we have the only true hope of justice. Otherwise, all those who died in concentration camps, as innocents in war, those who died while slaves or being trafficked will never see justice for the injustice done to them.

God promises to judge and if I do not see justice in this life I have the promise that it will be done. I have a hope to cling to.

Jesus promises to return and to judge the living and the dead.

He is the only one able to do it. He has proved his overwhelming love, his care for all. He paid the price in our place so that justice would be done and yet at the same time we experience his unending love and mercy. He held nothing back and gave everything. He was willing to take that judgement on himself so that those who trust him may be saved.

So, the question is, will I let him?

Will I let Jesus be the judge and follow along with his judgements? Or will I continue to try usurping his place? Playing the judge even in my ignorance. Thinking I know better than the one who knows all.

It comes down to trust. If I trust him to be judge, if I trust that he has done all that is right and good and true. If I choose to place my trust in him and to follow what he has said, to believe that he has defined right and wrong, then, I can call myself Christian. If not, then I dare not use that name in vain.

I want to live in a world in which there is justice. I want a judge that I can trust to deliver that justice. Jesus Christ is my only hope.