With me it is a very small thing that I should be judged by you or by any human court. In fact, I do not even judge myself. For I am not aware of anything against myself, but I am not thereby acquitted. It is the Lord who judges me. Therefore do no pronounce judgment before the time, before the Lord comes, who will bring to light the things now hidden in darkness and will disclose the purposes of the heart. Then each one will receive his commendation from God. – 1 Corinthians 4.4,5
Paul, the writer of 1 Corinthians, was convinced that he should not judge himself, much less anyone else. He did not mean by this that he should not exercise judgment—we cannot even cross the street without exercising judgment—but that he should not judge motives or be condemning. He hints at his reasoning. We shouldn’t judge because, first of all, we just don’t know enough. We almost never have all the facts, and we are incapable of reading the minds of those who do. We have difficulty recognizing our own motives, for that matter. Secondly, we shouldn’t judge because we are all somewhat dysfunctional because of sin. Sometimes we can look straight at a thing, have the facts holding our cheeks and staring us in the eyeballs, and we can still find a way to avoid seeing. Oftentimes we are unwilling to face truth because it is too disturbing to our presuppositions…or to our conveniences.
This is why God tells us to leave the judgment business to him. This does not mean there is no place for judgment within the courts, which is an unfortunate necessity. It means there is no place for finger-pointing, name-calling, condescension, character assassination, or lynchings, whether figurative or literal. Denied judgmentalism, social media would probably collapse. Okay, good.
Martin Luther was the most influential individual driving the Protestant Reformation. Martin was an unusual character—both dramatically hard-headed and tender-hearted. In his younger days he was afflicted with extreme guilt, brought on by his own honesty, in combination with the prevalent Christian teachings on salvation at the time.
The Church taught that salvation was a gift of God that was mediated through the formal church. How this worked was not clearly spelled out. However, the individual was also expected to contribute to his salvation by always doing the best he could. It was difficult to have confidence about one’s salvation within this understanding. Those sensitive souls, to whom the issue was paramount, could be extreme in their efforts. One “good work” of the time was the renunciation of earthly possessions and ambition. For many, the holy life meant becoming full-time beggars. There were so many beggars that the city of Marseilles passed an ordinance forbidding religious beggars from passing its walls. Most cities limited begging activities in one way or another.
Confession of sins was also a normal practice of the time. Confessions involving ordinary citizens could be colorful events. However, this was not usually the case for monks, who were restricted to their monasteries and were under careful supervision. Since there were rarely blatant sins to which the monks could confess, their sessions tended to be very different.
“Rather than questioning penitents about the particular misdeeds they had done, the confessor sought to uncover motives, emotions, thoughts, and even repressed feelings. These revealed the evil in the heart. And like the body, the heart, too, had to be purged of every impurity.
“These rigorous examinations horrified Luther. After the fact, he would suddenly remember a thought or an emotion that contradicted his vocation and stained his heart. He knew that it would rightly bring the wrath of God down on him. These daily and sometimes hourly experiences were so terrifying that he once said, ‘When it is touched by this passing inundation of the eternal, the soul feels and drinks nothing but eternal punishment…’” – James Kittelson, from “Luther the Reformer”.
So Luther had a problem. He loved God but suffered terrible fear over whether God could accept him. While Luther continued to struggle with his own sin, those observing him saw both his brilliance and Christian sincerity. Eventually he was awarded the position of Doctor of the Church. As such, he was expected to teach theology. Through his studies he came to many different views from those prevalent in the church of his day. Famously, he posted 95 theses on the Wittenberg door, calling for theological debate among church leaders over his concerns.
Of particular concern here is his wrestling with the means of salvation. A major shift took place in his mind as he meditated on Romans 1.16,17: For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.”
For years Luther read this verse to mean that those who are righteous shall be the ones who live and that they will live according to the Christian faith. From this perspective the key was to be righteous while the rest would fall into place. The conundrum for Luther was that he was sure he was not righteous and that he even failed at his confessions, leaving him ever exposed to condemnation.
Over time he began to see the verse differently so that the key to it was the word “faith”. If faith is something given by God so that individuals come to trust him, then the verse becomes a promise rather than an exhortation. Christ lived a pure life and the sacrifice of his life served as the substitute for the sins of all humans for all time. As such, when the Father looks on those who trust in Jesus, what he sees is the righteousness of Christ which covers sins. At this point Luther came to see the verse in Romans as no longer a terrifying threat but as an amazing gift.
“For if some complaint should be registered against a heart that believes in Christ, and testify against it concerning some evil deed, then the heart turns itself away, and turns to Christ, and says, ‘But he made satisfaction. He is the righteous one, and this is my defense. He died for me, he made his righteousness mine and made my sin his own; and if he made my sin his own, then I do not have it, and I am free.’” – Luther
This altered perspective was a profound theological shift with implications for many church teachings, and it was the lynchpin of the Protestant Reformation. It is well worth our time to meditate on these things, as well. Not to meditate on how wonderful Luther was but on the implications of the freedom inherent in the Gospel.
There is considerable comfort in realizing that the Lord and Creator of the universe looks at me and sees purity. Am I pure in my thoughts and actions? Certainly not.
I have a story that I think works to illustrate sin. I love to eat chocolate chip cookie dough so, even though it is not much good for me, every once in a while I will invade the kitchen to make a batch of it. I will not cook any of the batch; I will just take a blob of it night after night and munch away, dough chased by milk, until the whole batch is gone. It’s a practice I both recommend and warn against. (Not very useful advise, I’m afraid.)
When I was a young man, still living with my parents, the craving for cookie dough came upon me, so I set about mixing the ingredients. There happened to be a tub of soft margarine in the refrigerator. I decided to use it since soft margarine is easier to work with than hard. So in it went. Eventually, all the ingredients were mixed in, including the chips. The time to enjoy the fruits of my labor had come.
“Ahhgh! What in the world?!” It turns out that my mother had mixed garlic into the soft butter for making garlic toast or some such thing. “Achhk!” I tried to eat that garlic chocolate chip cookie dough. I tried several times. The dough looked just the same as always. I looked at it and my mouth watered. I had mixed the dough properly and it included all wonderful ingredients I had used many times before. But I couldn’t eat it. What could I do with it? I couldn’t get the garlic out. With pain and sorrow I threw the entire batch out.
Sin is like that. It may be a small part of the whole, but it permeates and ruins everything.
Luther didn’t say that sin goes away, nor did he say that it is not really a problem. Sin remains in us, causing real harm in many different ways. We still must struggle against it. But with respect to our relationship with God and our status before him, it is no longer a factor. It is as if we have been ushered into the heavenly courts to be tried for murder. The Father sits as Judge, while the Son stands as our defense attorney. The Judge reads out a crime. The Attorney responds, “The punishment for that crime has been served, your honor.” The Judge reads out another crime. “The punishment for that crime has been served, your honor. The Judge reads out another crime. “The punishment for that crime has already been served, your honor.”
At this point the Judge pushes away the documents he has been reading. He peers over the top of his reading glasses and, with an affected acerbic tone and a glint in his eye, asks, “Are there any crimes in this document for which the punishment has not been served?”
“No, your honor. They have all been served.”
“Then, Mr. bar Joseph, is there some reason why you are wasting the time of this court?”
“If it please the court, your honor, I believe it is my client who is need of hearing the judgment of your honor.”
“Harrumph. I see. Well, then, it is the ruling of this court that, since the punishments for all crimes listed herein, which is to say, all the crimes for which the defendant has been charged, have already been served, the defendant is declared free of any and all further punishment. Case dismissed. You are free to go.”
“But I am guilty,” we whisper to Jesus. “You are not guilty,” he replies.
God has made each one of us wonderfully and unique. There is something special in each one of us that no other creature has. In this sense, each one of us is indispensable. But the quality of how we have been made is not the issue. To judge the quality of our formation is to judge God himself. We do not have to strive to be accomplished enough, strive to be strong enough, strive to be beautiful enough, strive to be admired enough, strive to be rich enough. There is no need to prove our value. The One who made us is satisfied. Therefore, we can be, too. In fact, we are obligated to be satisfied. With a confidence in his goodness and wisdom, we can rest assured that each one of us is truly valuable.
Okay, so we can’t look down on ourselves based on how we have been formed or over our fundamental human value, but what about the evil in our performance? Doesn’t our ongoing sin cause irreparable harm to ourselves, to our neighbors and to our dearest loved ones?
Harm? Yes. Irreparable? No. This is the message of the grace of Christ. We are reparable and all relationships are reparable. Sins can be forgiven; injuries can be healed. Just as every morning is new, we are also continually renewed by the knowledge that God has freed us from all our crimes, made us innocent.
There’s no end to the chorus of sources pronouncing our inadequacies. At work the boss tells us our production numbers aren’t high enough…and the ketchup stains on our shirt at the board meeting was an embarrassment. The spouse lets us know we’re not bringing enough money into the household. The kids complain that we’re so old fashioned, and they laugh at our ignorance of the latest social media platforms. Our bathroom scale lies to us about our growing weight…but it’s getting increasingly difficult to move and breathe in the clothes we wear, so we wonder whether those mean scales might be honest after all. Advertisements are unrelenting in their enthusiastic, over-loud proclamations about all we lack: our insurance coverage leaves us exposed and we’re paying too much for our present plan; the vehicle we drive doesn’t instantly transport us to a vacant, scenic highway, with a gorgeous person of the opposite sex smiling in the passenger seat; our teeth are not white enough; our band width is not fast enough…or wide enough; our TV is not big enough, and is embarrassingly short of pixels; our medical coverage has critical gaps; and we have much too little in retirement savings, for which the solution is to double our monthly contributions and to keep working for another ten years. Too bad if we already have a pacemaker and need replacement knees.
Is it any wonder we feel depressed at ourselves? Is it any wonder that we often join the chorus and become self-abusive. Or similarly, is it any wonder that we become overly sensitive and defensive about critical remarks aimed our direction?
In the final analysis, I don’t see any remedy other than, “Jesus loves me, this I know”. To be able to say, “The Lord and Creator of the universe is good and wise, and he is satisfied with the me he made”. And to be able to say, “Whatever my weaknesses, whatever my failures, whatever my bad habits, whatever my sins, He has purified me of those and made me completely lovable to him,” well, it becomes a place to stand. It becomes a place to rest. God’s love simply obliterates all my shortcomings.
Once purified, we are free to be righteous, not out of a sense of obligation, or a need to earn credits for the construction of heavenly mansions, or a need to impress anyone, including ourselves, with how righteous we are.
We can act righteously because we know to do so is in accord with the heart of God, and it is our joy. We are not driven, but guided by the Holy Spirit to think and to act in ways that are pleasing to God and are blessings to our fellow human beings. Life no longer is a trial; the trial is over. This is the end of the burden of judgment from others, and from self condemnation. Life becomes an adventure, an opportunity, a time of bearing fruit. This is the freedom of being accepted by God.
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