I’ve heard this passage preached two ways: (1) The first ways says that it’s all about accepting licentiousness, in a don’t-judge-others kind of way. (2) The second way says not to pronounce judgment on someone else’s sin. However, it’s about neither one of these.

So, which is it?

The first way focuses in on verse 1, “judge not, that you be not judged,” but ignores verse 5, “then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.” If this is Christ’s message, then we ought to ignore the sin of others, hoping that our own sin will be likewise forgotten by God. The second approach does the opposite, thus exegeting the text in such a way that verse 1 is essentially negated. Though I am guilty, as many, of interpreting Scripture in a way that causes it to be in a battle with itself, I hope to shed some light on this text that shows verse 1 and verse 5 as different angles to the same point. I hope that my brothers and sisters will be kind enough to do the same for me when I am doing this elsewhere in Scripture.

In Christ, away with sin!

The problem with the typical dichotomy that is placed on this Scripture is that both extremes leave sin in the equation. One has us allowing sin, and the other has us condemning it. Christ, however, is speaking of iron humbly sharpening iron in such a way that, rather than bondage to sin, there is deliverance and freedom. Christ takes issue not with believers sanctifying one another, but with the odd brand of delight in evil that comes when one sinner points out error in another sinner for no other reason than to show that he is right and the other is wrong. The gospel is not a thing that is content to go about pointing out wickedness simply for the sake of argument. The gospel doesn’t just point out sin, it drives out sin. John says it this way:

“For God did not send His son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through Him.”
John 3:17

It’s about holiness

Therefore, it should not be our desire that people be judged. It should be our desire that people be saved, and by being saved become holy. Just as we do not want ourselves to be judged, we ought not to want others to be judged either.

This is proven by verse 5, when the first man does not simply point out the speck in his brother’s eye, he removes the plank from his own, and then takes the speck out of the other’s. At the end of this story there is no license to sin, and there is no judgment upon others. There is merely holiness—wonderful holiness—brought about by grace and love.

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The older we get, and the more knowledge and experience we accrue, the more need we have to be joyfully humbled. When Paul uses the word “fathers,” he could be (and probably is) referring to a few groups of people:

1. Men who have fathered children
2. Older members of the church
3. Those who are originators (ie: founding fathers)

The first really two fall under the general umbrella of the third, and therefore John’s statement here is quite appropriate. God is from the beginning. Though some may be old by our standards, they shouldn’t boast in their years, because God has more than anyone. A lot more. While some may have given a beginning to something, God himself is the beginning of everything.

Truly, this redirection of thought is an encouragement to all fathers. In this sentence from Paul, fathers are gloriously invited to leave their feeble thrones and reminded that they know the One who is the true originator of all things. Therefore, their joy is both better founded and more greatly enjoyed. Praise be to God!

Now, I am a young man and without children, so what do I make of this? Well, it changes the way I love fathers, and the reason why I value them. I do not value them because they have managed to live for a long time, or because they started something that I value. We ought to be encouraged when we look to our spiritual fathers because they remind us that there is something greater, older, and more original than them. Fathers are signs to me of my heavenly Father, who is from the beginning. The truest of all spiritual fathers teach me not to cherish them for who they are but to actively redirect my eyes upward to God. They do this best by the joy that they have in knowing him.

Other posts in this series:

• Introduction: Why did John write his first epistle?
• I am writing these things that you may not sin.
• I am writing these things that your joy may be complete.
• I am writing these things because your sins are forgiven for his name’s sake.

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I am writing to you, little children, because your sins are forgiven
for his name’s sake.
1 John 2:12

It’s simple, is it not? John says he is writing because their sins are forgiven. What more needs to be said? This alone is reason enough to write volumes upon volumes. Our sins have been forgiven for the sake of God’s name.

We live in a world full of people who are quite caught up in their own good. I know this because I am a person, and I am obsessed with my own good. We are not people who are prone to even considering that something could be good unless it is good for us. Unfortunately, this is not consistent with reality. In this one little sentence John is confronting the problem of grace with the reality of God’s only motivation—His love for His name.

Everything is done for the sake of God’s name. We could rephrase this by saying that everything is done for the sake of God’s reputation. Not that God is concerned with building up a false view of His greatness. The truth is that God is eternally concerned with communicating an accurate view of His glory. If we know this—that God does all things for the sake of His glory being known, and not ultimately for the sake of anything else—we can see with greater joy the truth of the gospel. God is going to exalt His name. Period. The great miracle is how He chose to do this in His children.

The miracle is that John did not say, “I am writing to you, little children, because you have been damned for His name’s sake.” Or, “because there is no hope.” The miracle is that John said, “I am writing to you, little children, because your sins are forgiven for His name’s sake!” When we understand that God’s name will be exalted no matter what and that our forgiveness is not necessitated by justice, we will be more joyful in the gospel. When God glorifies His name, He is simply doing what He is always doing. The children of God are the joyful recipients of the greatest news anyone has ever heard: that God has chosen to do what He absolutely must do by giving us what is immeasurably good for us.

Let us be thankful that, of all the ways that God could have chosen to lift up His name, He chose the most costly for Himself and most joyful for those who would believe.

Other posts in this series:

• Introduction: Why did John write his first epistle?
• I am writing these things that you may not sin.
• I am writing these things that your joy may be complete.

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When I read the Bible, I often ask the question, “Why did God put this in the Bible?” I think that it is very helpful to hunt for the purpose of scripture, as well as it’s meaning. I want to know: How is this useful? What attributes of God’s character does this point out to me? What sin in my life does this convict me of? In what way does this passage tell me I should think? What encouragement can I take from this passage for my everyday life?

John makes this process very easy for us, because He tells his readers over and over again in 1 John why he wrote to them. Therefore, I thought it would be fruitful to write a series on the “I am writing yous” of 1 John, so that we can get to the bottom of his motivations behind this letter. It is my hope that this series is helpful in binding our thoughts about the bible to the way we live, and that our motivation for speaking God’s truth to the world would be better informed, and more in line with God’s own motivation as revealed in scripture.

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My little Children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin.
(1 John 2:1a)

What an amazing blessing our brother (the apostle) John was and is to Christ’s church! These are sweet words, given to us by God. John had a desire that God’s church would not sin. God has that same desire. If this was John’s desire, and if it is God’s desire, we should ask the following: what things does John write to keep us form sinning? We ask this because we want to know what it is that can keep us from sin.

There is a whole chunk from 1John 1:5-10, but I would like to focus on verses 8 and 9 because they really get to the bottom of the issue of why we sin, and they give us an unbelievable solution.

So, what does John write to us, that we may not sin? He says,

If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

He is faithful and just to forgive! This could be a series by itself ( and indeed we have posted a video on this very miracle before), but for now, let’s just take a moment to love that truth.

Unfortunately, this sweet verse is one of the most abused and misused verses in the bible. There is a way of reading this verse which could be paraphrased as follows: God will forgive you only for the sins that you confess. This is a terrifying prospect! I am not even aware of all of my sins, so if I must confess each sin in order to be forgiven, i will most certainly be in hell. Praise God that this is not the case! We see one indication of what John is really saying in the phrase “all unrighteousness.” It does not say that God forgives the unrighteousnesses that we remember to confess; it says all.

What John is saying is that we are only forgiven if we confess that we are sinners. This is not a checklist confession, which brings fear, anxiety, and legalism (all of which are sin)—this is a comprehensive confession: “Lord, forgive me, for I confess that I have sins.”

So, how would writing these things to us make it so we may not sin? It brings us not only to a place of honesty but also to a place of humble dependence on God. We know that we can never do any good thing by our own flesh, but we also know that God can do every good thing. If we say that we have no sin, we are stuck in our own impotence. If we know that we are sinners, we depend on God not only for forgiveness of sin committed in the past but for a continued life of righteousness.

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 And we are writing these things so that our joy may be complete.
(1 John 1:4)

I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God that you may know that you have eternal life.
(1 John 5:13)

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When I was reading Hosea today, I noticed a curious thing. First, there was this verse:

With their flocks and herds they shall go to seek the Lord, but they will not find him; he has withdrawn from them
(Hosea 5:6)

The gist of this verse basically being, they went somewhere expecting to find God, but he was not there! If you spend a significant amount of time in scripture I can promise you two things: 1) You will never see Scripture contradicting itself. 2) You will think you have seen just that.

A paradox

This is a paradox. A paradox is something that seems to be a contradiction, but is actually true. Scripture is riddled with these. Just look at the call of a Christian life, to gain our lives, we must lose them.

Many times when we see a paradox, the clarification is contained within the verse, or follows it closely.
The paradox we see here is this: this verse says that people are seeking God, but he is not there. How does this jive with “Seek and you will find” (Matthew 7:7)? How is it that they are seeking God, yet not finding him? We get the answer in verse 15:

I will return again to my place, until they acknowledge their guilt, and seek my         face, and in their distress earnestly seek me.
(Hosea 5:15)

Judah is seeking God, but it is not earnestly. The do not want him. They are expecting to find him, but not for the purpose of finding him. They want what God gives them, namely, deliverance. They do not want God himself.

Seeking earnestly

God says, “I will return again to my place, until they acknowledge their guilt.” So they first must know that they are guilty. Then he says, “and seek my face.” Next they must want God himself, not just the things he give. And then, the coupling of the two, “and in their distress earnestly seek me.” God wants us to see our desperate need, acknowledge that our problems are our own fault (not his), and finally, see that only he can satisfy our needs.

How often do you find yourself “seeking God,” only so that he will give you a gift, and hopefully send you away? May we be a people who seeks God earnestly.

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Word #5: Distress

After this, Jesus, knowing that all was now finished, said (to fulfill the Scripture), “I thirst.”
(John 19:28)

God Himself experienced thirst. There is no way for a human mind to comprehend this truth. It would be impossible to overestimate how profound the these two words are. In order to shed some light on just how devastatingly beautiful that statement is, let’s look at three things that we learned from the very beginning of the book of John.

1) Christ Was in the Beginning With God

John 1:1 begins by telling us, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with     God.” We know that when John says “the Word,” he is talking about Christ, because he says in verse 14 of the very same chapter, “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.” Christ was in the beginning with God. His life did not begin when Mary conceived–His flesh did. As long as there has been God, there has also been Christ.

2) Christ Was God

It is not only true that He was in the beginning with God, but Jesus Christ was Himself God. This is why verse one of John 1 ends with, “and the Word was God.” The man on the cross was certainly a man (we know this because of “And the Word became flesh), but He was not merely a man. Jesus Christ was and is God, and He has been God since eternity past, and He will be God for eternity.

3) Christ Is the Creator of All Things

The man who died on the cross was not merely a man. Neither was He merely a God. Jesus Christ is the God–the one by whom all things were created, and the one in whom there is life. This is why John 1:3-4 says, “All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.” There is only one who creates, and there is only one in whom there is life. Christ is the one and only creator God.

The eternal Son thirsts

So, the life of Christ did not begin when He took on flesh on earth. In fact, He was, is, and will be God Himself, the creator of all things, and the only giver of life. Christ was, is, and will be very, very big, and very, very powerful. This is the man who was dying on the cross: He was God, He was eternal, and He was the very source of all life and existence. Now, with this in mind, let us revisit what He said:

“I thirst.”

These two words are no small thing. These two words are God Himself submitting Himself to taking on humanity. What’s more, this is God Himself submitting Himself to need and pain. God put Himself in the way of distress, and He did it because of love.

The cross is not a fairy tale, and it is far from cute. The real God, who created the real heavens and the real earth, and breathed real life into your real body, and continues to keep you alive, bore this world. He bore pain. He bore suffering. And He experienced thirst. Why?

It was for His children.

Because He loves them.

God loves His children enough to experience distress on their behalf.

What is your response to this? We should love Him as grateful children. Look upon Him and see that He is mighty, and powerful, and full of love.

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Word #3: Relationship

When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to his mother, “Woman, behold, your son!” Then he said to the disciple, “Behold, your mother!”
(John 19:26-27)

The work of Christ on the Cross absolutely redefines our relationships. It changes how and why we relate to our family, and it changes who we relate to as family.

It Changes How and why We Relate to Our Family

We relate to our biological family first in a biological way. There is a bond that we feel based primarily on the fact that we share DNA. As time passes by, and we develop a family history, we begin to relate to our family based on shared experiences as well. We relate based on what we like, what we don’t like, and what we know about each other. For our biological family, the main things that tie us together are our blood and our shared history. Jesus changes this. Now we relate to our family, not based on our own blood, but based on the fact that we have all been washed by His. Now we relate to our family, not based on the experience that we have had together, but based on the fact that we have all experienced salvation. Because of the cross, my relationships are no longer based on myself, or any other person, but on Christ.

It Changes Who We Relate to As Family

This is the message that blares most loudly from these verses. “Woman, behold, your son!” and “Behold, your mother!” John was not Mary’s son, and Mary was not John’s mother! Our relationships change at the cross, because we change at the cross. We are born again into spiritual life, and we gain spiritual mothers and sons. Christ was not saying that Mary bore John, He was saying that there was to be a mother-son bond between that was spiritually based. When you become a Christian, you have a spiritual family. That family is closer to you than any DNA or any experience could ever make you. The Christian relates to Christians as family.

Christ Is Redeeming His Bride Into One Body

This is a call, directly from Christ, for Christians to care for Christians. The Church is not to leave the Church to die! The Church must care about the Church! It is not an option. Christ did not say, “Woman, behold the man who you could, if it pleases you, consider to be, and provide for as, your son.” He did not say, “Behold, a woman who, if she is not too difficult, could be loved and cared for by you as a son ought to love and care for his mother.” Mary and John were commanded to love and provide for one another as a mother and a son would love and provide for one another.

Every Christian is called to new relationship

Let us remember this call to love and care for the Church. Just as in the book of Acts, we see the Church share with one another as they could, and no one was in need, so we ought to act. Not when it is easy. Not for people who we want to love. But for the whole church, all the time, however we can. Every Christian is called to love every other Christian, and to care for God’s Church, the bride of Christ, in any way possible.

Christ has changed our relationships. He has changed who we relate to, why we relate to them, and how we ought to relate. He is changing me from someone who seeks to use people for selfish gain, to someone who loves His church, and uses his resources to bless her. Let us consider this, and be changed by the implications of what Christ said about our relationships as he hung on the cross.

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And the king answered and said, “Is not this great Babylon, which I have built by my mighty power as a royal residence and for the glory of my majesty?” While the words were still in the king’s mouth, there fell a voice from heaven, “O King Nebuchadnezzar, to you it is spoken: The kingdom has departed from you.”
(Daniel 4:30-31, emphasis added)

I am not writing this because the take-away is not obvious. It is. I am writing this because I read this recently, and it scared me. It scared me because I have seen similar thoughts and words written on my own heart. When I read this, it was like looking at something truly terrible, something ghostly…and then realizing I was looking at myself.  God has worked so graciously in my life to bless me, and to show Himself as glorious by blessing me. However, more often than not, the very things that ought to inspire gratitude drive me to a place of pride instead.

I will be honest: I am very ridiculous. And, just in case you aren’t willing to be, I’ll be honest on your behalf. You’re ridiculous too. The truth is, I am not just prideful about everyday gifts. Sometimes I am even prideful about my salvation!

Do you see the extent of our depravity? I have seen this in more people than myself. We were sinners—enemies of God. But God so graciously did what we could never have done, and saved us through the work of Jesus on the Cross. And yet, this is my response to my salvation: “Is this not faith, which I have built by my mighty power as a royal residence and for the glory of my majesty?” Shame on me.

Let us enhance our joy by enhancing our gratitude. You did not save yourself. Everything you have is a gift, and it was given to you by God’s might, and for His glory. Praise be to God!

But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us,  even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved!
(Ephesians 2:4-5)

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