Justification

Justified.

I am starting to unpack that word and get an idea of what is underneath it.

The base of the word is just, which is also a word that needs a lot of unpacking before I can understand justified.

What does just mean? A good, but partial definition is fair. But what is fairness?

Fair is when circumstances or people are impartial, when decisions are made that are not influenced in the slightest by selfishness on the part of the one making the decisions. A judge is expected to be just and fair and impartial meaning he cannot be biased in favor of one party over another through their influence or pressure on him. Ideally a just judge would love both parties absolutely equally and want the very best for both of them without any prejudice or bias whatsoever. That would be the exemplary ideal of justice.

So with this in mind let me go back to the word justify. When I am wronged by someone, hurt inside, lied about, wounded in my spirit, violated in any way, I am strongly tempted to believe that I am justified in doing or saying something that will discredit – nullify to some extent – what they have done to me. I feel that justice demands an equalizing of the “balances” somehow. So I may feel justified in hurting them in some way, or at least wanting them to experience to some degree what they have caused me to experience. In my mind that seems like fairness.

We believe that it is fair that when one person hurts another the offender should receive equal treatment to what they have done to others. In our natural thinking that is the essence of fairness. In fact, that is what theoretically the legal system is expected to be all about. We instinctively believe in the principle of “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth”. This concept of fairness lies at the very deepest level of our psyche. We incorporate it into our laws and believe that Divine law also operates somehow in this manner. Otherwise we would have to conclude that God is not fair and many of us do not want to admit to such feelings. Others openly admit that they feel God is unfair and charge Him with injustice in the way He deals with us.

If God is not just He must be biased in some way which would make Him unfit to be an impartial judge of others. Following this line of thinking we have to conclude that God, to be just, must not only be impartial in His judgment but administer justice (think punishment), which in our thinking means arbitrarily inflicting pain on all offenders to the same degree that they have hurt others. After all, that is the basis upon which our judicial system operates, though highly uneven and imperfect at best. We put people into prison or fine them to create social or economic pain because we believe they have caused pain to others through their infractions of our rules.

This is what the Bible calls living under the Law. This system is based on the motivation of fear and deterrence to produce right living. We somehow believe that unless people are afraid of the consequences of wrong behavior they will not stop their evil ways and will only become worse. We think that fear is much stronger than love or grace and so, living under the law, we choose the path of judging to motivate others to live in the right way.

When we choose to indulge in administering justice ourself by trying to evaluate how much another person has injured us or someone else, and then attempting to inflict punishment through pain, shame or some other form of retaliation on them, we have made ourself a judge. In so doing we are inadvertently making some very big claims about ourself.

First of all, we believe that our perceptions and information is enough to discern the heart and the wrong motives of the person we are judging and we base our decisions on what we believe to be true about them. The problem is, it is actually impossible for us to see inside their hearts. We cannot know their background and view of reality from the context of their experience. So in place of that we use the only frame of reference we have available to us – our own perceptions, feelings, background and motives based on what we feel we might have done in a similar situation.

We then project all of this onto the situation and the other person to determine what we decide was their motives and intents. Based on the outcome of this formula we categorize them into one of our familiar labels that we have made for others or have learned from society around us. We then decide how they should be punished by suffering for the damage and pain that they have caused us and others by their violations against us, preferably as much or more than the suffering we have experienced. Using this formula to arrive at our decisions is what we call justification for the way we treat them. We feel justified in our statements about them, our anger toward them, our hatred or hard feelings or attempts to discredit their reputation or hurt them in some way.

When it is spelled out clearly like this it is a little easier to see that there are some serious flaws in this kind of reasoning. But those flaws do not prevent us from daily, if not almost continually, indulging in this kind of activity and thinking. It is so common that we believe it is just a part of normal life and cannot be avoided. We realize sometimes that we make mistakes in judgment about others, but we excuse that by trying to refine our formulas that we use to judge them and get better and more information so that our judgments will be more accurate next time. That is part of what drives the media craze in society today. We want to know as much as possible (mostly about negative information about others, particularly in high positions of power and influence) so that we can arrive at some kind of judgment about them. Even if we are not in a position to administer what we believe is justice, we fill our imaginations and conversation with ideas about what we believe should be done about them or to them to correct the injustice that we believe is being inflicted on us or others. (The more I think about this just writing it down the more frighteningly large this problem emerges in my consciousness.) We feel justified in slandering them, discrediting them, exposing them etc. in our belief that they can somehow be stopped from further injustice or wrongdoing by our intimidation through slander in some way. We are engaging in an evil for evil relationship with them (even if we don't have a relationship with them) in an attempt to somehow force them to reform, repent or at least regret what they are doing and maybe change their ways and start living more righteously. This is living under the Law. This is what Jesus was talking about when He said we should not judge if we do not want to be judged.

But we don't really understand this subject very much at all. I know I have never understood it or really thought about it clearly. It has always seemed more like another rule that I was supposed to keep that really didn't make a lot of sense to me but somehow I was supposed to obey. After listening to Clarissa Worley's sermon on judging about 5 times in the last 2 weeks it is finally starting to sink in what this is really about. And it is very unnerving when I realize how immersed I am along with everyone around me in this kind of thinking and activity. I am just starting to perceive the tip of the iceberg of this problem and to realize how pervasive this is and how much we damage each other because of this one thing. My own recent experience of being accused publicly and the deep pain that it caused my family has heightened my awareness of this issue and is stimulating me to begin to realize how much I may be doing the same thing to others myself without realizing it.

Judging means that I project my context, my background, experience and perceptions onto the actions and words of another and making a decision about their motives based on that. Since only God is really able to read the heart and the motives of anyone, for me or anyone else to engage in this kind of activity is to believe that we have god-like capabilities. We are setting ourselves up as the judge, no matter how small the matter may be, and are really saying we can do as good a job, if not better, than God can do. Since we often subtly believe that God is not taking action soon enough to deal with a situation or person, we are all too eager to step in and take “corrective action” to prevent further pain and damage that we believe the other person may cause. We believe that in judging them that we can motivate them to change and maybe even repent and turn from what we firmly believe is their evil intents. In doing this we are not only replacing God as judge but we are also trying to replace the Holy Spirit as their convictor. This sounds very serious when presented in this light but we don't usually think of it this way when we feel compelled to expose the sins or faults of some person we feel has wounded us or we believe is a threat to others.

The real fact is that when we see something in someone else's life that triggers strong, intense negative feelings in us it is always because there is something in our own soul that painfully resonates with what we are perceiving as a problem and indicates a pain that we have not yet dealt with inside ourself. But because we are often unwilling to face the issue in our own life and admit responsibility to seek for healing in our own soul, or maybe because we harbor feelings of resentment and unforgiveness deep in our heart that we are unwilling to admit, we take those strong reactions and push them outside of ourselves, label them with a slightly different label so that they will not be identified in our own life, and then project them on the person who “caused” us to feel these feelings. We want to gloss over and keep hidden our own unresolved pain or faults and we use judgment of others to draw away any attention that might occur to expose our own issues, even to our own mind.

So is it ever possible for us to be a fair judge? Do we have the qualifications to be a judge? That would require that we be totally selfless and impartial in our spirit as well as able to clearly discern what is in the heart and motives of others. We also have to be able to take into account everything that ever happened to that person and be able to see reality as they perceive it so that we can understand the context of their words and actions. None of us are capable of doing any of these things.

Jesus Christ came to this earth to deliver us from the terrible effects of judgment. He made it absolutely clear that He did not come to condemn the world but to save. He refused to engage in judgment while He lived on earth even though He was the only person who had all the capabilities to do so. For if He had exercised judgment we would have been destroyed by the revelation. Jesus did not come to judge but to bring the atmosphere of grace to this world so that we could heal and be restored into fellowship with the Father. He went even farther than that by taking on all of the pain and suffering of all the judgment brought about by all of our sins and allowed it to crush out His very life on the cross. He did that so that we would not need to live under the Law but in the liberating atmosphere of grace and freedom where we could mature and grow up into the likeness of God for which we were created.

When we judge each other we remove that protective shield of grace and place the Law over others and ourselves. When we do that we bring in death-producing elements into our lives and become the enemy of Christ. Satan's name means “the accuser”, and when we participate in judgment we join him in his diabolical activity of accusing those for whom Jesus gave His life. As Paul says in Romans 2:1 “Therefore you have no excuse, whoever you are, when you judge others; for in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, are doing the very same things.”

The only option we have if we really want to be Christ-followers is to suspend all judgment – period. There is never a time or situation when it is right to judge another person. It matters not how many around us indulge in this practice or badly we are hurting from someone else's words or actions against us. If we indulge in retaliation and judgment we always only end up putting ourself under condemnation. It is unavoidable. And in doing so we remove ourself from the protective covering of grace that Jesus provided to protect us.

(John 5:22-24) The Father judges no one but has given all judgment to the Son, so that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father. Anyone who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him. Very truly, I tell you, anyone who hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life, and does not come under judgment, but has passed from death to life. (NRSV)

I choose to enter into a covenant with God to suspend all judging. I know I cannot do this naturally, but I depend on the Holy Spirit to empower me, convict me and possess me to live this way. I want to stop all judging in my life for I do not want to be judged. I choose to follow the example of Jesus who refused to judge anyone even though He was entrusted with all judgment by God the Father. I want to honor God by not passing judgment on anyone but leaving all judgment to Jesus who alone has been given that responsibility. I choose to believe in His word and in His kindness and perfect character so that I can experience eternal life; so that I do not come under judgment but can pass from death into real life. So help me God.

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