Vv.1-6
What I notice
here is not so much a prohibition to judge, period, but a definition of how
judgment works and how we should judge others.
In the first verses, we are warned not to judge based on the
predisposition of people to judge harsher than they would want to be judged;
and God will apply your standards to yourself.
Mercy is logical, then, because we want mercy. Lack of mercy is suicidal. But it’s not saying judgment itself is bad.
Then judgment
is given a focus of helping people, likely because we often claim we are
judging people so we can help them. Of
course, secretly we don’t really expect them to want to change nor do we tailor
our criticisms or condemnations with grace to encourage them. We just suggest we didn’t mean the offense
and it’s their fault for “taking it wrong”.
The model is
to clean up our life so that we can help others with their lives. If we’re going to judge, we better have the
right motives as well as the right life.
And just in
case we get overzealous about “helping people”, criticize people
judiciously. You don’t walk into a
strip-joint and start preaching moralism.
Holy living is sacred; preach it to people who want it. Else they may react badly, tearing up both
your words and then you.
Vv. 7-12
Related to
the previous part, when we ask for good gifts, our Heavenly Father gives good
gifts. Because we receive the goodness
of God, we should do to others the way we want others to do to us, keeping in
mind that what we want ultimately is what God brings. Which means, expecting and wanting the good
things of God, we want similar good things from people – we want that level of
goodness. So in keeping with what we
want, we are commanded to do that same good to others.
Which is the
sum of the Old Testament commandments.
It removes the possible exception of someone saying “well I don’t really
expect much from people” implying they won’t give much either, by fixing our
expecting and desire for goodness on God’s level of giving, which exceeds the
goodness that evil people do to those they love.
Vv. 13-14
Speaking of
hard things to do, hard things to obey God in, we have the command to enter the
narrow gate. Maybe Jesus used this
illustration a lot when he preached something hard to do, warning that many
would take an easier way, and reiterating that only the harder way leads to
life. Here we simply know that only a
few find the small gate and narrow road while many enter on the broad road.
Many people
got the message. In Luke 13:23 someone
asked him to confirm that only a few people will be saved. Here, Jesus tells us many will actually try
to enter the narrow way and not be able.
So this is why they get on the easier way, hoping it will take them to
the same place. Now we know many are at
least looking for the narrow way and to a superficial degree find it. Further, the narrow way will close and there
will still be people trying to get on it, who will be turned away. People are looking for it. These aren’t atheists, these are people who
are actively looking for a way to heaven, but they are unwilling to let go of
what prevents them from getting on that narrow way.
In Luke their
claim to admission is their association with Jesus: they ate and drank with him
(they went to the same parties) and Jesus taught in their streets (which says
nothing of their belief in him). But he
doesn’t know them and calls them evil doers.
So the narrow way here is associated with righteousness. Evil is turned away.
Vv.15-23
Maybe linked
to this is that among the same large group of people looking for the narrow way,
of those who settle on the broad road there will be false prophets. You recognize them by their works; what they
do; how they live.
These are
professing Christians, people who will use their supposed similar attachment to
Christ to influence you. They don’t just
call Jesus “Lord”, but “Lord, Lord” which implies a pleading, an insistence,
and a familiarity with Jesus. It’s not
just an honorific term to them. Without
any doubt of who he is, they will not hesitate to use the term often to remove
doubt from Jesus or anyone else. Only
those who do God’s will go to heaven. The
amazing thing is what some of these people do: prophesying, miracles, even
driving out demons? All in Jesus’
name. Yet it has nothing to do with
God. So it’s not the miracles or
prophecies or other extraordinary, amazing deeds that can be taken as evidence,
but simply doing God’s will. Here,
unlike in Luke, they did great, awesome things, but are revealed as people “who
practice lawlessness” or “who work iniquity/sin”. So despite the miracles, their lives are
categorized by consistent practice of sin.
I’m reminded
of Matt 19, where Jesus after asking the one thing the pious, zealous rich man wouldn’t
give up, says that it is easier for the camel to go through the eye of a needle
than for a rich man to be saved, the disciples ask “who, then, can be
saved?” Which, of course implies that
this is not some camel going through the “Needle Gate” by kneeling, but something
that’s impossible. And Jesus admits that
it’s impossible for man to make himself saved, but even such an impossibility
is possible for God.
Vv. 24-28
In keeping
with those who do the will of God going to heaven, Jesus remarks that doing
what he says, practicing it, is like a wise man who builds a house on rock. Here, it’s an issue of foundations. If you hear Jesus’ words, but don’t practice
them, it’s like building on sand. The
weather will tear it down.
It’s
different from 1 Cor 3 where Paul uses a similar comparison, talking about two
people who build their houses on rock, but in building with different
materials, only one house stands. There
the foundation stands, it’s the same Christ, and both people are saved, but
their works stand and fall; one is saved to great reward (in the context of his
life’s ministry) and the other is saved but loses a lot. Taking the two together, you can practice the
things Jesus commands, God’s will, and be saved, but you can give the wrong
message to others by short-selling the Gospel and your entire life’s ministry
will be worthless. As much as we may
want to go out to everyone and preach that God loves them and leave it at that,
if we’re not calling for repentance, and warning of judgment if necessary, they
leave with a wrong view of God and of the immediate necessity of change.
The last thing is that it doesn’t say
that the people actually responded to Jesus by doing those things, just that
they were amazed; his preaching with authority wasn’t like the teachers of the
law. And there’s truth to that. Listen to a lot of liberals, whether secular
or (especially) religious. They like
ambiguities. It makes them seem smart
that they are able to live with all these questions and complexities and not
need to answer them. You know the people
who are comfortable saying “ya, I’m not really sure where I’m going after I
die…” and don’t bother to try to figure it out.
Drives me nuts! But it makes them
seem stronger than all the little people who have to have answers.
Listen to Richard Dawkins preach an a-theistic evolution, how he looks down at
those poor, pitiful creatures who aren't strong enough to live in a world
without a God whose existence solves many of their questions; it's a
stronger thing to live in a world with more questions than answers and not go
crazy.
Liberals feed off of attacking and
breaking down accepted traditions. When conservatives often argue, it's
about which paradigm is right. They both have plans; they both ought to
recognize that plans have real-world consequences and be careful about moving
to rashly and quickly and impulsively.
Liberals
don’t need to have plans that are as well defined Their power is in attacking
the status quo, breaking tradition, and thus seeming above those traditions;
not tied to them. They don't have to be so much about building,
clarifying, simplifying something so it can be useful.
So Jesus
taught with authority. He got no power
from drawing fine, impractical distinctions in his language, or being unclear
at all. And people responded to him, especially
the poor people who probably looked up to the teachers of the law, but because
they could rarely understand exactly what they were saying or meaning, gave up
trying to understand why it was so important.
Jesus’ power
was in saying exactly the truth and what was important. And he could say it with certainties no man
could because he was the eternal Son of God, who long ago made the same laws he
now found himself obeying.
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