I'm a very imperfect person, just like we all are. This is important to remember because I'm constantly learning how impossible it is to demand perfection from others, when I myself am not perfect. By demanding perfection from others, I am setting an expectation that is impossible for even me to meet. If I can't meet it, I can't expect others to meet it. But that doesn't mean we should stop trying. God sees our innermost hearts, sees our effort, and gives us more strength to try. Even when we don't stand up to temptation, there is grace and repentance.
What I'm about to say may be different from what you've heard before. You may have heard it from various popular preachers. They may espouse the ultra-modern approach to church, faith, and obedience. But what I’m trying to use in this post is a Bible-centered approach to Christianity. The Word of God, not “mere human rules (Matthew 15:9)” about whether or not we “have to” obey God. Jesus says if we love Him, we will obey His commands (John 14:15).
One of Jesus’ commands is not to condemn (Luke 6:37). Another is not to judge (Luke 6:37). Another is to show mercy (Luke 6:36). Another is to forgive (Luke 6:37). The two most important are to love both God and humans (Matthew 22:34-39), and they cover all other commands and laws (Matthew 22:40). There are many commands, but these two sum up every law ever written and everything ever spoken by the prophets (Matthew 22:40), so this makes it easy and simple: just obey these two, and all others are encompassed in them. Obeying the commands of God, even these two, is impossible without God's help. But when we ask for the Lord's help and continue to ask through successes and failures, He is faithful to us. And even though we fail, there is abounding grace.
All of the Bible's commands are interrelated, and when we seek them all, we realize the potential good that God has in store for our lives. Seek, and we will find (Matthew 7:7). When seeking the command not to condemn (Luke 6:37), I've come to realize the plain truth that it is a universal command – there are no amendments attached to it. There is no case in which we are allowed to condemn another child of God.
In this vein, God says we are not allowed to condemn lost people. Even homosexuals. We cannot condemn someone for anger, adultery, or even witchcraft. But this doesn’t mean that we can’t call lost people to God through the example of Jesus Christ. Read on, this is completely Biblical and you will see the verses as I enumerate them. And even when we do condemn, there is always repentance. This article seeks not to condemn, but to speak truth in love, which is also what God calls us to do (Ephesians 4:15).
Jesus named condemnation as a sin, and He took it extremely seriously. So seriously, in fact, that if we even call someone a “fool” or “worthless," we are “in danger of hellfire (Matthew 5:22)).” Don't panic, just read and understand. Jesus said that we are “in danger” of hellfire, not in it, when we insult others. So this is how seriously Jesus took this command. We cannot even insult, much less condemn or judge.
This command applies especially to lost people because it is impossible for someone who is not close to God to come out of their sin. So when we condemn lost people for their sin while they are lost, it’s like trying to help a child who lost their Father in a store by hitting them. It won't help them find their Father, and they are worse off than before we tried to help. When we condemn the lost, we condemn children of God that Jesus died to save, instead of enacting His will to save them (2 Peter 3:9). We who sin while we are still in Christ have not even conquered fully, so what gives us the right to condemn those who don’t even have the power of their Father at their side? And 1 John 1:8 says there is no one without sin, so there is no “out” here. It would not be loving for God to give us an “out,” because we would use it to justify condemnation.
A sinner condemning another sinner is the same concept as the mob condemning the adultress in John 8. Jesus spares her. He says that only someone without sin may throw a stone (John 8:7). He is the only one without sin, and He does not throw a stone. Later in John, He says He came to save the world, not to condemn it (John 12:47). Why don’t we look at John 8 and apply it in our lives today? We are too caught up in condemning others for their sin to see our own. We have the log of condemnation in our own eye, yet we point out the splinter of sin in every one of our neighbors’ eyes (Matthew 7:3-5).
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