'Judge not, that ye be not judged. 2. For with what judgment ye
judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall
be measured to you again. 3. And why beholdest thou the mote that
is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in
thine own eye? 4. Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull
out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own
eye! 5. Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own
eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of
thy brother's eye. 6. Give not that which is holy unto the dogs,
neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them
under their feet, and turn again and rend you. 7. Ask, and it shall
be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be
opened unto you: 8. For every one that asketh receiveth; and he
that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.
9. Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he
give him a stone? 10. Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a
serpent? 11. If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts
unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in
heaven give good things to them that ask Him? 12. Therefore all
things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so
to them: for this is the law and the prophets.'--MATT. vii. 1-12.
I. How can we help 'judging,' and why should we not 'judge'? The power
of seeing into character is to be coveted and cultivated, and the
absence of it makes simpletons, not saints. Quite true: but seeing into
character is not what Jesus is condemning here. The 'judging' of which
He speaks sees motes in a brother's eye. That is to say, it is
one-sided, and fixes on faults, which it magnifies, passing by virtues.
Carrion flies that buzz with a sickening hum of satisfaction over sores,
and prefer corruption to soundness, are as good judges of meat as such
critics are of character. That Mephistophelean spirit of detraction has
wide scope in this day. Literature and politics, as well as social life
with its rivalries, are infested by it, and it finds its way into the
church and threatens us all. The race of fault-finders we have always
with us, blind as moles to beauties and goodness, but lynx-eyed for
failings, and finding meat and drink in proclaiming them in tones of
affected sorrow. How flagrant a breach of the laws of the kingdom this
temper implies, and how grave an evil it is, though thought little of,
or even admired as cleverness and a mark of a very superior person,
Christ shows us by this earnest warning, embedded among His fundamental
moral teachings.
He points out first how certainly that disposition provokes retaliation.
Who is the Judge that judges us as we do others? Perhaps it is best to
say that both the divine and the human estimates are included in the
purposely undefined expression. Certainly both are included in fact. For
a carping spirit of eager fault-finding necessarily tinges people's
feelings towards its possessor, and he cannot complain if the severe
tests which he applied to others are used on his own conduct. A cynical
critic cannot expect his victims to be profoundly attached to him, or
ready to be lenient to his failings. If he chooses to fight with a
tomahawk, he will be scalped some day, and the bystanders will not
lament profusely. But a more righteous tribunal than that of his victims
condemns him. For in God's eyes the man who covers not his neighbour's
faults with the mantle of charity has not his own blotted out by divine
forgiveness.
This spirit is always accompanied by ignorance of one's own faults,
which makes him who indulges in it ludicrous. So our Lord would seem to
intend by the figure of the mote and the beam. It takes a great deal of
close peering to see a mote; but the censorious man sees only the mote,
and sees it out of scale. No matter how bright the eye, though it be
clear as a hawk's, its beauty is of no moment to him. The mote
magnified, and nothing but the mote, is his object; and he calls this
one-sided exaggeration 'criticism,' and prides himself on the accuracy
of his judgment. He makes just the opposite mistake in his estimate of
his own faults, if he sees them at all. We look at our neighbour's
errors with a microscope, and at our own through the wrong end of a
telescope. We see neither in their real magnitude, and the former
mistake is sure to lead to the latter. We have two sets of weights and
measures: one for home use, the other for foreign. Every vice has two
names; and we call it by its flattering and minimising one when we
commit it, and by its ugly one when our neighbour does it. Everybody can
see the hump on his friend's shoulders, but it takes some effort to see
our own. David was angry enough at the man who stole his neighbour's ewe
lamb, but quite unaware that he was guilty of a meaner, crueller theft.
The mote can be seen; but the beam, big though it is, needs to be
'considered.' So it often escapes notice, and will surely do so, if we
are yielding to the temptation of harsh judgment of others. Every one
may be aware of faults of his own very much bigger than any that he can
see in another, for each of us may fathom the depth of our own
sinfulness in motive and unspoken, unacted thought, while we can see
only the surface acts of others.
Our Lord points out, in verse 4, a still more subtle form of this harsh
judgment, when it assumes the appearance of solicitude for the
improvement of others, and He thus teaches us that all honest desire to
help in the moral reformation of our neighbours must be preceded by
earnest efforts at mending our own conduct. If we have grave faults of
our own undetected and unconquered, we are incapable either of judging
or of helping our brethren. Such efforts will be hypocritical, for they
pretend to come from genuine zeal for righteousness and care for
another's good, whereas their real root is simply censorious
exaggeration of a neighbour's faults; they imply that the person
affected with such a tender care for another's eyes has his own in good
condition. A blind guide is bad enough, but a blind oculist is a still
more ridiculous anomaly. Note, too, that the result of clearing our own
vision is beautifully put as being, not ability to see, but ability to
cure, our fellows. It is only the experience of the pain of casting out
a darling evil, and the consciousness of God's pitying mercy as given
to us, that makes the eye keen enough, and the hand steady and gentle
enough, to pull out the mote. It is a delicate operation, and one which
a clumsy operator may make very painful, and useless, after all. A rough
finger or a harsh spirit makes success impossible.
II. Verse 6 comes in singular juxtaposition with the preceding warning
against uncharitable judgments. Christ's calling men dogs and swine does
not sound like obeying His own precept. But the very shock which the
words give at first hearing is part of their value. There are men whom
Jesus, for all His gentleness, has to estimate thus. His pitying eyes
were not blind to truth. It was no breach of infinite charity in Him to
see facts, and to give them their right names; and His previous precept
does not bid us shut our eyes, or give up the use of common sense. This
verse limits the application of the preceding one, and inculcates
prudence, tact, and discernment of character, as no less essential to
His servants than the sweet charity, slow to suspect and sorrowful to
expose a brother's fault. The fact that His gentle lips used such words
may well make us shudder as we think of the deforming of human nature
into pure animalism which some men achieve, and which is possible for
all.
The inculcation of discretion in the presentation of the truth may
easily be exaggerated into a doctrine of reserve which is more
Jesuitical than Christian. Even when guarded and limited, it may seem
scarcely in harmony with the commission to preach the gospel to every
creature, or with the sublime confidence that God's word finds something
to appeal to in every heart, and has power to subdue the animal in every
man. But the divergence is only apparent. The most expansive zeal is to
be guided by prudence, and the most enthusiastic confidence in the
universal power of the gospel does not take leave of common sense. There
are people who will certainly be repelled, and perhaps stirred to
furious antagonism to the gospel and its messengers, if they are not
approached with discretion. It is bad to hide the treasure in a napkin;
it is quite as bad to fling it down before some people without
preparation. Jesus Himself locked His lips before Herod, although the
curious ruler asked many questions; and we have sometimes to remember
that there are people who 'will not hear the word,' and who must first
'be won without the word.' Heavy rains run off hard-baked earth. It must
first be softened by a gentle drizzle. Luther once told this fable: 'The
lion made a great feast, and he invited all the beasts, and among the
rest, a sow. When all manner of costly dishes were set before the
guests, the sow asked, "Have you no bran?" Even so, said he, we
preachers set forth the most dainty dishes,--the forgiveness of sins,
and the grace of God; but they turn up their snouts, and grub for
guilders.'
This precept is one side of the truth. The other is the adaptation of
the gospel to all men, and the obligation on us to preach it to all. We
can only tell most men's disposition towards it by offering it to them,
and we are not to be in a hurry to conclude that men are dogs and swine.
III. It may be a question whether, in verse 8, the emphasis is to be
laid on 'every one' or on 'that asketh,' or, in other words, whether the
saying is an assurance that the universal law will be followed in our
case, or a statement of the universal condition without which no
receiving is possible, and, least of all, the receiving of the gifts of
the kingdom by its subjects. In either case, this verse gives the reason
for the preceding exhortation. Then follows the tender illustration in
which the dim-sighted love of earthly fathers is taken as a parable of
the all-wise tenderness and desire to bestow which move the hand of the
giving God. There is some resemblance between an Eastern loaf and a
stone, and some between a fish and a serpent. However imperfect a
father's love, he will neither be cruel enough to cheat his unsuspecting
child with what looks like an answer to his wish but is useless or
hurtful, nor foolish enough to make a mistake. All human relationships
are in some measure marred by the faults of those who sustain them. What
a solemn attestation of universal sinfulness is in these words of
Christ's, and how calmly He separates Himself by His sinlessness from
us! I do not know that there is anywhere a stronger scriptural proof of
these two truths than this one incidental clause, 'ye, being evil.' I
wonder whether the people who pit the Sermon on the Mount against
evangelical Christianity are ready to take this part of it into their
creeds. It is noteworthy, also, that the emphasis is laid, not on the
earthly father's willingness, but on his knowing how to give good gifts.
Our Lord seems to think that He need not assure us of the plain truth
that of course our Father in heaven is willing, just because He is our
Father, to give us all good; but He heartens us with the assurance that
His love is wisdom, and that He cannot make any mistakes. There are no
stones mingled with our bread, nor any serpents among the fish. He gives
good, and nothing but good.
IV. The great precept which closes the section is not only to be taken
as an inference from the immediately preceding context, but as the
summing up of all the duties to our neighbours, in which Christ has
been laying down the law of the kingdom from Matthew v. 17. This general
reference of the 'therefore' is confirmed by the subsequent clause,
'this is the law and the prophets'; the summing up of the whole past
revelation of the divine will, and therefore in accordance with our
Lord's previous exposition of the relation between His new law and that
former one. As Luther puts it in his vigorous, homely way, 'With these
words He now closes His instructions given in these three chapters, and
ties it all up in a little bundle.'
But a connection may also be traced with the preceding paragraph. There
our desires were treated as securing God's corresponding gifts. Here our
desires, when turned to men, are regarded, not as securing their
corresponding conduct, but as obliging us to action. By taking our
wishes as the rule of our dealings with others, we shall be like God,
who in regard to His best gifts takes our wishes as the rule of His
dealings with us. Our desires sent heavenward procure blessings for us;
sent earthward, they prescribe our blessing of others. That is a
startling turn to give to our claims on our fellows. It rests on the
principle that every man has equal rights, therefore we ought not to
look for anything from others which we are not prepared to extend to
others. A. should give B. whatever A. thinks B. should give him. Our
error is in making ourselves our own centre, and thinking more of our
claims on others than of our obligations to them. Christ teaches us that
these are one. Such a principle applied to our lives would wonderfully
pull down our expectations and lift up our obligations. It is really but
another way of putting the law of loving our neighbours as ourselves. If
observed, it would revolutionise society. Nothing short of it is the law
of the kingdom, and the duty of all who call themselves Christ's
subjects.
This is the inmost meaning, says Jesus, of the law and the prophets. All
former revelations of the divine will in regard to men's relations to
men are summed in this. Of course, this does not mean, as some people
would like to make it mean, that morality is to take the place of
religion, but simply that all the precepts touching conduct to men are
gathered up, for the subjects of the kingdom, in this one. 'Love worketh
no ill to his neighbour: therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.'