Across the United States, anywhere you go, courtrooms are set up in pretty much the same working fashion. Whether big city or small municipality, inside the courtroom there’s always a special place for the two lawyers, the prosecuting attorney and the defense attorney. And there’s always a special place for the judge, usually on an elevated dais above the rest of the room. And then, of course, there’s always a special place for the accused, right next to his defending attorney.
And let’s imagine for a moment that you have been accused of a crime, and into that typical courtroom you walk. And let’s imagine that instead of turning left at the end of the aisle to take your appointed seat beside your defense attorney, you march straight ahead, right past the big burly bailiff, up onto the raised platform, and sit down in the judge’s seat.
And let’s imagine that you pick up the judge’s gavel, pound it one hard time, and in a loud voice say, “Let’s get this show on the road!”
Can you imagine yourself ever really doing that?
Probably not.
But why not?
Because first of all, if you did, you know you would look like a complete idiot. An absolute, unfettered, moronic buffoon. And you don’t want to look like an idiot. And second, you know that that big burly bailiff you passed on the way up to your bit of elevated folly would show you exactly why he’s so big and burly. He would arrest you. Forcefully. Probably with bad intentions as he proceeded to carry out his sworn duty. And you don’t want to get arrested. Especially not by that guy. And then of course, you also know that when the real judge took his seat, you would be charged with at least two additional crimes: one for contempt of court and another for impersonating an officer of the court. And you don’t want to be charged with any additional crimes.
And on top of looking like a total idiot, being accosted by Big Burly Bob the Bailiff, and charged with more crimes than you came in with, you also know you would immediately become the laughingstock of your whole town.
“I was there and I actually saw that knuckleheaded nincompoop gaveling down the audience from right up there in the judge’s chair,” they would laugh and hoot and yuk it up as they rehearsed your folly at all the local watering holes that evening. And when your wife heard about it, she would cry. If she had always secretly feared you were a fool, this would be the final and irrefutable proof that she was right. And your kids would have to change schools. Because all the other kids would unmercifully mock them with that old refrain of “Here comes the judge!” every time they saw them.
And the local TV station, and maybe even Fox News, would run a feature piece on you. “Idiot Has His Day in Court” the headline would read. The pictures and the grainy phone video would make you look all the more hilarious in your moment of judicial triumph.
And in your jail cell, you would sit alone and wonder why in the world you ever made such a boneheaded life-changing mistake.
And that’s why you would never even imagine doing such a stupid thing.
But the same thing that multiplied millions of self-named Christians would never even imagine doing, even in their local, one-horse municipal court, they do with absolute and brazen impunity every single day in the hallowed Court of God.
And nobody arrests them. And nobody charges them with a crime. And nobody laughs. And Fox News doesn’t even think it’s newsworthy.
Here’s the real contradictory truth on the subject of judgment: God has a Court. And in God’s Court, you’ve already been charged with a crime. And in God’s Court, you really are the defendant. And in God’s Court you’re already guilty.
Everything that the law is saying, what things soever the law saith, it is saying to those who are under the law. That’s you.
And everything the law is saying, it is saying to accomplish one singular purpose: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God. That is, to make you shut up and be guilty.
In the Court of Heaven, everybody is the defendant. That includes you. The arrest warrant has already been issued for you. The Court summons is already on record for you. And in that Court, just like any other court, you have a specially assigned seat.
And no, it’s not the one in which the Judge sits.
But nevertheless, in the Court of Heaven, every day, many keep marching right past their assigned seat beside their Lawyer, right past the Holy-Spirit-Bailiff, up above everyone else in the Courtroom, and taking the Judge’s seat. Day after day after day. And day after day they dispense their judgments, exactly like the real Judge.
But this is what they’re probably not aware of: in the United States legal system, if you impersonate an officer of the court, you get anywhere from two to thirty years in prison, depending on how much damage you’ve done with your impersonation.
So here’s my question:
If you get two to thirty years in prison for impersonating an officer in this world’s courts, what do you think you get for impersonating God?
How much damage do you think you could accomplish in an entire lifetime of sitting the Judge’s seat, judging your fellow defendants?
The apostle Paul actually has an answer to that question. It’s found in his letter to the Romans. Paul ends the first chapter of Romans by giving a long list of all manner of crimes that men are charged with in the Court of God. He runs the gamut from disobedience-to-parents to murder. The list is not exhaustive. It’s just a sampling. Paul says that when men exchanged the truth for the lie, here’s what they got in its place:
Paul ends chapter one on that happy note. A veritable laundry list of charges, all worthy of death. And most self-named Christians say “Amen, brother,” because they think they are not on the list. But astonishingly, Paul says all of that to say this, in the very first verse of chapter two:
The point of the list is to establish Who is the Judge and who is the defendant. God is the Judge. And you are the defendant. And because you, O man, whosoever thou art that judgest, are the defendant, says Paul, you are inexcusable when you sit in the Judge’s seat to judge anyone else for their sins.
The word “inexcusable” is the Greek word anapologetos, meaning “indefensible.”
Listen carefully: in any courtroom, judgment must emanate from the judge’s seat. Judgment cannot be pronounced from anywhere else in the courtroom. If it is, it is simply not valid.
Do you understand the problem with that?
In Heaven’s Courtroom, if you sit in the Judges seat, you cannot also, simultaneously, sit in the defendant’s seat. And if you do not sit in the defendant’s seat, you cannot be defended. And if you cannot be defended, you are automatically condemned.
In Heaven’s courtroom, just like in an earthly courtroom, if you, the defendant, are also acting as judge, you are sitting in an “indefensible” position.
Unlike our courts where you enter under the presumption of innocence until proven guilty, you enter the Court of Heaven already proven guilty.
You’re already guilty. Your guilt was never in question.
We have, says the Apostle John, a defense attorney, an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous (1 John 2:1). And He wins every case He defends. But He can only defend those who by the law have been brought to muted guilt, and who, upon entering the Court, take their appointed place in the defendant’s seat.
Those who would bypass the defendant’s seat and sit in the Judge’s seat have, by doing so, adjudged themselves to be neither muted nor guilty. And therein lies their certain condemnation. They are in contempt of Heaven’s Court. And they are guilty of impersonating God.
And that’s exactly what the Pharisees do. Jesus said, The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat (Matthew 23:2).
Go figure. It would appear that sitting in Moses’ seat of judgment, according to Jesus, is not a good thing to do. According to Jesus, it almost sounds like the only person who should be sitting in Moses’ seat is Moses himself. And it certainly doesn’t sound like Jesus Himself is sitting in the seat of Moses. Nor does it sound like Jesus is encouraging any of His followers to sit in that seat either.
Nevertheless, the Pharisees sit there day after day, dispensing the judgments of God, just as though they had been empowered by the Court to do so.
They defend their judgments of others by insisting that Paul is really only talking to those who would hypocritically judge others. As long as you’re not a hypocrite, they insist, it is not only your right to sit in the Judge’s seat and judge the sins of others, it is your very God-given responsibility.
The only ones not allowed to judge, according to their argument, are those who doest the same things. In other words, they are allowed to judge because, according to them, they are not on Paul’s list of sins at all. We’ll see in a moment if that holds up in close inspection.
But before we actually examine the list to see if you’re on it, think about this: Paul is laying out an argument that begins in chapter one of Romans and culminates in chapter three. His argument concerns the guilt of absolutely everyone in the whole world. No exceptions: the Jew, the Gentile, those who have the law, those who don’t have the law, all, according to Paul’s argument, are equally guilty before God.
He climaxes his argument that the entire world lies under the damning indictment of the law by charging all of humanity with the following:
Everyone, without one single exception, is guilty.
Now think about that for a minute: do you really think that, while Paul is on his way to indicting the entire world as being guilty before God, without one single exception, he actually pauses in chapter two to make sure you know that as long as you’re not a hypocrite, you can go right ahead and judge your fellow sinners guilty of sin and worthy of death? Would that make any sense at all?
Do you really think Paul is saying, “I know you’re not righteous, I know you don’t seek God, I know you don’t understand anything, you’re altogether lost and worthless, you’re no good, your throat is an open grave, every word you speak is deceitful and poisonous, I know your mouth is full of nothing but cursing and bitterness, your feet are swift to shed blood, destruction and misery are your only paths, you have no peace with God nor fear of God, but hey, as long as you’re not hypocritical when you do it, by all means, go right ahead and judge all the real sinners around you!”
Do you really think he’s talking about everyone but you? Do you really think that he is saying that you who are worthy of death have every right to judge others who are also worthy of death? Does one guilty defendant ever get to be the judge of another guilty defendant?
Are you kidding? What kind of Court are you running here?
Listen carefully: unless you sit in the seat of the defendant, and only the seat of the defendant, you cannot be defended. Your position in the Judge’s seat, Paul insists, is indefensible.
And as the defendant, do you think that if your Lawyer secures your pardon, He would suddenly appoint you to the bench to now be the judge? Or would He rather send you out as a sinner-acquitted-by-grace to try to get other guilty sinners to come and sit in the defendant’s seat beside Him?
You have no position in this Court except defendant. Shut up. Be guilty. Get grace. And leave. And next time you come to Court, bring another guilty defendant with you so the process can be repeated. Nobody wants to hear your second-hand judgments in your best voice-of-God impersonation. God does a very good job of judging with absolutely no help from you.
But back to the list. First of all, the list of sins that Paul enumerates is not exhaustive. I don’t see child molestation on the list. I don’t even see lying or adultery on the list.
Read it again:
The confusion of the judgmental Pharisee’s argument lies in the word “same.” They think that God’s condemnation for judgment is only upon those who would judge others while at the same time, hypocritically doing the very same thing. But the word translated same here is the Greek word autos, “the reflexive pronoun for self, used of the third person.” The Greek word autos refers, in this case, to you.
So here’s what Paul is actually saying: “Do you think, O man, that judgest them which practice sin (prasso, ‘to perform something repeatedly or habitually’), while you sin even once (poieo, ‘referring to a single act’), that you will escape the righteous judgment of God?”
And of course, the answer is no. No you can’t and no you won’t. Paul insists that whatever sin is in you will be judged exactly as the sin in anyone else will be judged. There is no double standard, one for the really bad practicing sinners, and one for you who only sin once.
Do you really think that when they brought the woman caught in the very act of adultery to Jesus that He was saying, “Whoever is without adultery among you, let him cast the first stone”? Do you really think that if adultery hadn’t been on their own personal résumés that He would have authorized her stoning? Do you really think He was saying, “Only the non-hypocritical, non-adulterers have the right to stone her”? Listen again:
His words are plain. He that is without sin among you, anamartetos, “having no sin.” There’s a new standard for judgment in town, says Jesus. It’s sinlessness. And if you’re not sinless yourself, shut up about anyone else’s sins.
How do we know for certain that if you’re not hypocritically guilty of the same sin, it’s perfectly alright to go ahead and judge other sinners? Because Jesus Himself was not guilty of adultery and He didn’t judge. Jesus wasn’t guilty of any sin. And He still didn’t judge. If He doesn’t, how is it that you do? If the sinless Christ doesn’t judge sinners, how is it that you who are not sinless still do?
Jesus is saying to the woman, caught in the very act of adultery, Neither do I condemn thee. Are you saying the same thing to the sinners around you? If you’re not, why are you not? Why are you not saying exactly the same thing that the sinless and non-hypocritical Christ is saying? Do you not understand? If you are condemning others for their sins, He will have to condemn you for your sins. Is that what you really want?
Do you not understand? You are the woman caught in adultery. It’s you who are the sinner. The law has brought you before Christ and cast you down at His feet. The law is demanding your death. It’s not just her. It’s you as well. It’s you lying there at His feet, caught in the very act of your sin, awaiting His pronouncement. Do you not understand? Whatever you pronounce on her, He must also pronounce on you!
Do you not understand? With whatever ruler you measure others, God will measure you. If you measure with the law, you will be measured with the law. Is that what you really want? Do you think you can measure people around you with the law and then not be measured with the law yourself? Do you think that if you’re measured by the law, you’ll actually measure up?
Jesus said, Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful.
Measure with mercy. So you’ll be measured with mercy. Equally guilty defendants should extend mercy to other equally guilty defendants in hopes of receiving mercy from the Court themselves.
Judge and you’ll be judged. Condemn and you’ll be condemned. Forgive and you’ll be forgiven. That’s how Jesus tells it. Do you tell it differently?
And again Jesus says, Ye judge after the flesh; I judge no man (John 8:15).
Jesus judges no man. How is it that you still do?
Whose judgment is it anyway? It’s God’s judgment. It’s not Bob’s judgment. It will never be Bob’s judgment. Bob is not God and Bob will never be God.
And who is worthy of death? Bob is. All who do such things, “things like these,” are worthy of death. And who is it that does “things like these”? All have sinned and come short of the glory of God. And all means all. And all includes you.
Do you not understand? You’re on the list. Don’t say you’re not. You sin. Don’t say you don’t. You’re guilty. Don’t say you’re not. By the law, you’re guilty. And by the law, you are worthy of death. You cannot exempt yourself. You are the defendant in this courtroom. It’s not the adulteress. It’s not the homosexual. It’s not the abortion doctor or the Taliban. In your courtroom, where you’re being tried, no one else is on trial but you. Just you. So shut up and be guilty. Stop talking about anyone else’s sins. In this Courtroom you’re not even allowed to speak.
And if we can still hear you talking in this Courtroom, we’ll know you’ve taken the wrong seat.
But, some may protest, did not Jesus Himself tell us to judge? Yes, He did. But not in the way that you think:
The Greek word for appearance is the word opsis. It means “properly, sight (the act), i.e. (by implication) the visage, an external show: appearance, countenance.” It comes from the word optanomai, meaning, “to gaze (i.e. with wide-open eyes, as at something remarkable).” Obviously, according to Jesus, a judgment based on what you “see” cannot be a righteous judgment. And conversely, a righteous judgment cannot be based on what simply “appears.”
The context for His statement is a comparison of what can only be “seen” in the law and what He Himself is doing that “appears” to be contrary to the law:
The same problem Jesus had with His audience that day is the same problem that remains with some of His audience today: they believed then, and they still believe now, that the righteousness of God can be found in the law. Paul however, says that’s impossible:
But now, “just now,” finally, at this present moment, the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, declares Paul. Without is the Greek word choris, “at a space, i.e. separately or apart from (often as preposition): beside, by itself, without,” from the word chora, “through the idea of empty expanse; room, i.e. a space of territory.”
Stop looking for the righteousness of God in the law. It cannot be found there. The righteousness of God is found to be an entire immeasurable universe away from where we would expect it to be. The apostle declares that the righteousness of God is finally revealed, not in the law, but in the gospel:
Therein, alone, in the gospel, is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith. It is not revealed, has never been revealed, and cannot be revealed, from law to law.
Amazingly, the word is, from the phrase therein is the righteousness of God, is the word apokalupto, “to take off the cover, i.e. disclose: reveal.” Paul uses the same word apokalupto again when he says it is “revealed” from faith to faith. In other words, in the gospel alone, without the law, apart from the law, separate by an entire universe of territory from the law, the righteousness of God is finally “unconcealed.” And it is unconcealed only “from” faith, and only “to” faith.
That means any evidence gathered by sight, by appearance, gathered from the law which does not manifest the righteousness of God, can never be the basis for a truly righteous judgment. Stop judging by the law. It’s not a righteous judgment. It can never be a righteous judgment. Do you think your Lord Jesus judged by the law? If He had, not only would the adulterous woman have been stoned to death, but so would you be.
Start judging by faith. If the just shall “live by faith,” and if the just shall “walk by faith,” and if the “word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth and in thy heart, that is, the word of faith which we preach,” as the apostle Paul insists it is, then would it also not make sense that the just shall also “judge by faith” and not by sight?
Whatsoever is not of faith, is sin (Romans 14:23). And the law is not of faith (Galatians 3:12). Is the law sin? Of course not. But the doing of the law for righteousness, and the preaching of the law for righteousness, and the judging of the law for righteousness, is. The word “sin” simply means “to miss the mark.” And all judgments based on the appearance of those things in the law and not on faith miss the mark entirely.
How different is it to judge by appearance rather than to judge a righteous judgment?
The one who judges by appearance opens his ignorant mouth to polly-parrot the law and declare, “See the publicans and the harlots over there? They cannot go into the kingdom of God.”
But astonishingly, the One who judges a righteous judgment says something altogether different. In fact, He speaks an utter contradiction to the one who judges by appearance:
“But,” others will protest, “the same apostle Paul also said:
Do you think that Paul has given here an exhaustive list of all those who will not inherit the kingdom? I don’t see murder, lying, or stealing on this list. Do you think that these special ten categories that he mentions are the only ones who shall not inherit the kingdom?
Actually, quite to the contrary, he begins his statement with the all encompassing, sweeping and grand generalization, that it is the unrighteous that shall not inherit the kingdom. Paul has already informed you elsewhere that all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. There is none righteous, no, not one. Are you actually pointing your finger at someone other than yourself and concluding, “That is the kind of behavior that will keep you out of the kingdom?”
If that’s really what Paul is saying, then when he describes to these same Corinthians one among them who is actually committing adultery with his own father’s wife, then, of course, he would conclude that such an one couldn’t possibly be a Christian. Right? After all, one who would do such a sinful thing, according to your exclusionary interpretation of the words above, could not possibly be one of the heirs to the kingdom. Right?
But that’s not what he says at all:
Discipline such an one to what end? That his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus. That’s not an instruction Paul could ever have given concerning an unbeliever, already excluded from the kingdom because of his behavior. I thought you said this kind couldn’t get through the door. I thought you said He doesn’t let this kind in. Well apparently, in spite of what you think, He did, and He does. And apparently, instead of excluding them like you think He does, God lets them in with their present sins and His ultimate salvation in mind, simultaneously.
Think about it: isn’t that how he let you in? with your present sins? Or are you now sinless?
By the apostle’s own confession, he found this man’s behavior beyond abhorrent. Yet, the man was obviously a Christian, set to inherit the kingdom.
Stop confusing sanctification with justification. Stop telling all the sinners around you that they can’t be Christians and sinners at the same time. That’s a damnable lie. Under that definition, nobody, including you, can inherit the kingdom. That’s the Galatians, having begun in the Spirit, now being made perfect in the flesh. That’s the Judaizers, come to bring you back into bondage to the law of Moses which neither they nor their fathers could keep. We wait, says Paul, by the Spirit, for the hope of righteousness. We wait for it because it is not here yet. Not even in you. Stop telling everyone that the difference between you and the real sinners is what you don’t do and what they do do, or vice versa. The only difference between you and the one who is not a Christian is the imputed, reckoned, ‘counted’ righteousness of Christ. And it’s not your righteousness. It’s His.
Where sin abounds, and only where sin abounds, does grace also abound. Stop telling sinners that God’s grace is only sufficient for the non-sinful life. Supposedly, like your non-sinful life.
Be very careful whom you exclude from the kingdom of God. In truth, you are able to exclude only one person. And that’s the very one you don’t want to exclude. It is a faithful, faith-filled, saying, worthy of all acceptation, that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners. Do you really understand that? It’s sinners He came to save. Real sinners. Not pretend sinners. And He came to save no one else. And it’s not only sinners like them. It’s even worse sinners. Like you.
Heaven is only for sinners. No one else will be allowed in.
Let all the sinners in. God knows what to do with them once they’re inside. He is judging a righteous judgment where even the publicans and harlots come in. Do you understand that the phrase “publicans and harlots” is synonymous for ‘really bad sinners’? And astonishingly, Jesus declares that the ‘really bad sinners’ always come in before the very ones who say “the really bad sinners can’t come in.” That’s the way God does it. Just the contradictory opposite of what seems right to us. He sees sinners by faith. Not by appearance. By the gospel. Not by the law.
You should see sinners the same. He requires it.
It’s the only way you’ll really know that He sees you the same way.
Smite your own breast. Not someone else’s.
And say “God be merciful to me, a sinner.”
Now that is a righteous judgment.
And according to Paul, what will sitting in the Judge’s seat, instead of the defendant’s seat, get you?
If you judge others, Paul says, you’re going to be a very rich man. You will, on judgment day, have treasured up for yourself, wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God. That judgment won’t be the spurious judgment you’ve been issuing, but rather, it will be the righteous judgment of the real Judge. He’s saving that judgment especially for all those who would impersonate Him and judge their fellow defendants and make a mockery of His Gracious and Merciful Court. And that kind of riches, just like earthly riches, will not spend well on judgment day.
You are not the judge. You were never the judge. You will never be the judge. You are the defendant. And you cannot be the judge and be the defendant simultaneously. Do you not understand? That would be an insurmountable conflict of interest.
You must sit in the defendant’s seat. And no where else. And you must be very quiet. And let your Lawyer do His work.
Otherwise, thou art inexcusable. Thou art indefensible.
And you who are judged are instructed to hold your peace and remember that the one who judges you will one day soon be a very rich man.