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Judge Others. Jesus Said To. by Michael H. Warren, Jr. “Do
not judge by appearances, but judge with right judgment.” Jesus
Christ (John 7:24) We often hear from both atheists and Christians that the
Bible says that we are never supposed to judge others. To put it as nicely as possible, that’s
boloney. We all know deep down that it’s
not true. If we catch someone stealing
our neighbor’s TV, we’ll yell at the thief, “Put that back! Stealing is wrong!” It wouldn’t cross our minds that we’re doing
something wrong by saying that. But we all know the atheist’s three favorite verses in the
Bible: “Judge not lest you be judged”
(Matthew 7:1), “He who is without sin cast the first stone” (John 8:7), and
“God is love” (1 John 4:8). Why are
these his favorites? Because they allow
the atheist to escape accountability to God.
He is guilty before God and doesn’t like to hear about it – just like the thief would like people to
stop judging him and saying that stealing is wrong, especially the cops, judges, and lawmakers (until he becomes the victim of theft). But there’s bad news for the atheist. These verses don’t say what they think they
say. The Bible commands us to judge, and
these verses are fully consistent with the rest of the Bible. Let’s take a look at them one at a time. “Judge not lest you be judged”
(Matthew 7:1) Here is the full quote of what Jesus said: Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounce you will
be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you. Why do you see the speck that is in your
brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can
you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' when there is
the log in your own eye? You hypocrite,
first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take
the speck out of your brother’s eye. (Matthew
7:1-5) The problem with interpreting this passage to
support non-judgmentalism is that Jesus says to judge in the last line – “take
the speck out of your brother’s eye.” He
is commenting on how to judge, not
forbidding it. He is condemning
hypocritical judgment, in which the person judging does a poor job making
judgments about his own life, but thinks that he is an expert at solving the
same problems in other people’s lives. It’s
like a person who is constantly in financial trouble confidently telling
another person how to make financial decisions.
Jesus warns that such a person is inviting scrutiny in his own life on
the same issue: “You’re in a financial
mess! Why should I listen to you?” Jesus says that once a person is able to make
judgments about his own life, then he is competent to take the speck out of
someone else’s eye. A person who learns
from his financial mistakes and becomes a success is then in a good position to
give financial advice to others. Or as
in the AA program, alcoholics that kick the habit are able to help others with
the same problem. The Pharisees thought that they were experts in
the law of God, but Jesus pointed out that they were really substituting human
traditions for the law of God. For
example, they would dedicate money to the temple in the name of their parents,
and claimed that by this they had fulfilled the command to honor their father
and their mother (Matt.
15:1-9). Mishandling the application of
God’s law to their own life so badly, they were in no position to give advice
to others on how to be faithful to the law of God. “He who is without sin cast the first
stone” (John 8:7) The popular interpretation of this passage is that only
someone who never sins can declare that someone else has sinned. But the issue before them, adultery, was a
criminal act under the law of Moses.
Given this context, the popular interpretation would require us to
conclude that Jesus was demanding that the State be abolished because it would mean that nothing could be called a
crime. All judges in court systems are
sinners, all legislators who make the laws are sinners, and all executives who
enforce the laws created by the legislators are sinners. So the popular interpretation is absurd. Jesus was not an anarchist. He recognized the authority of Caesar (Matt.
22:21). Here’s an alternative interpretation that makes sense: “without sin” refers to the particular sin under discussion, adultery, not absolute sinlessness.[1] Jesus was expressing the rule that a person who should be prosecuted for committing a particular crime is not a legitimate witness against someone else for that same crime. If these men were guilty of adultery, they should be the "stonees," not the "stoners." How did these men know how to find the woman “in the very act of adultery” (John 8:4)? Probably because they had visited that location to engage in adultery themselves. That’s why they left, leaving no witnesses against the accused. The law of Moses required at least two witnesses, and those witnesses had to be the first ones to cast stones to execute the criminal: On the evidence of two witnesses or of three witnesses the one who is to die shall be put to death; a person shall not be put to death on the evidence of one witness. The hand of the witnesses shall be first against him to put him to death, and afterward the hand of all the people. (Deut. 17:6-7) If the witnesses refused to initiate the execution, no execution could take place. Jesus is not saying anything against the law of Moses; He is upholding it. He is not saying that stones should never be
cast. “He who is without [this] sin cast the first stone” means, “If
you can do it lawfully, go ahead and stone her.” Shocking, isn’t it? But this is the real Jesus, not the Sunday
School Jesus, meek and mild. The Pharisees thought that they had trapped Jesus. As one who claimed to be the Messiah, the
Pharisees knew that Jesus would have to uphold the law of God. Yet the Roman government had taken the
authority to execute criminals away from the Jews. Only a Roman court could execute a criminal
(which is why they had to deliver Jesus to the Roman authorities to have Him
put to death). Jesus avoided the horns
of the dilemma by endorsing the Mosaic law, but showing the Pharisees that the
requirements of the Mosaic law had not been met in order to carry out a
judgment against the woman. Jesus’ last words to the adulteress release her from
liability before the impromptu court, but He still judges her for her sin of adultery: “Go and sin no more.” He’s like a judge who tells an accused when
charges are dropped because of tainted evidence, “The police didn’t get the
goods on you this time, but don’t let me see you back here again. Stay out of trouble.” There’s no support for non-judgmentalism
here. Lastly, there is good reason to believe that this passage
doesn’t belong in the Bible. There is
probably a note to that effect in the margins of your Bible. The passage is not found in the oldest extant
manuscripts. So this is hardly a good
passage for non-judgmentalists to stake their case on. “God is love” (1 John 4:8) God is love. That’s His fundamental nature. So the liberal thinks that he can ignore all
the harsh stuff in the Old Testament.
That was just because humanity was less evolved, but the New Testament expresses
a higher view of God’s nature when it teaches the “new commandment” of love. But once again, the liberal is pouring his
own ideas into the Biblical text. When
Jesus said, “A new commandment I give to you, that
you love one another: just as I have
loved you, you also are to love one another” (John 13:34), He was quoting the
Old Testament. Leviticus 19:18 says,
“you shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
So the Old Testament teaches the same ethic here. Since the Old Testament is no less God’s word
than the New, and God’s fundamental nature is eternal, you would expect the Old
Testament to express God’s nature of love as much as the New. If the Old Testament God does not seem
loving, then you need to change your definition of love to conform to God’s. The newness that Jesus mentioned was 1) in having
the new example of perfect love to follow, Jesus Christ (“just as I have loved
you”), and 2) in a new expansion of the practice of the commandment to love others
with the expansion of the “light” of Christianity. As John says about the commandment to love
one another: Beloved, I am writing you no new commandment, but
an old commandment that you had from the beginning. The old commandment is the
word that you have heard. At the same
time, it is a new commandment that I am writing to you, which is true in him
and in you, because the darkness is passing away and the true light is already
shining. (1 John 2:7-8) Furthermore, harsh punishment to the enemies of God is not
something left behind in the Old Testament era.
Jesus talked more about Hell for those that refused to believe in Him
than He talked about heaven. Eternity in
Hell is a penalty far more severe than the capital punishment meted out against
God’s enemies so many times in the Old Testament. And also, while God is
love, the New Testament also says that “God is a consuming fire” (Hebrews
12:29). God’s just wrath against those
who rebel against Him is also a part of God’s eternal nature. The expressions of God’s mercy outweigh the
expressions of His wrath, but the wrath is still there, as Numbers 14:18 says,
“'The LORD is slow to anger and abounding in
steadfast love, forgiving iniquity and transgression, but he will by no means
clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, to the
third and the fourth generation.” In the immediate context of John’s quote, non-judgmentalism
is indefensible. John defines what he
means by love: “For
this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments” (1 John 5:3). The details of Biblical law are what define
Biblical love. But modern liberalism,
both secular and religious, wants to set law and love in opposition to each
other, especially the law of God in the Bible, with its condemnation of
adultery, homosexuality, and high taxes (1 Sam. 8). 1 John is not on their side. Jesus judged Jesus told
the Pharisees, “You serpents, you brood of vipers,
how are you to escape being sentenced to hell?” (Matt. 23:23)
That’s pretty severe judgment.
Examples of Jesus making severe judgments could be listed for
pages. The whole Sermon on the Mount is
a series of condemnations of the evil teachings and practices of the
Pharisees. Jesus told the Pharisees that they should
judge, but with a different standard than what they had been using: “Has not Moses given you the law? Yet none of
you keeps the law. . . . Do not judge by
appearances, but judge with right judgment.”
(John 7:19, 24) John the Baptist judged The one who
prepared the way of the Lord, John the Baptist, publicly rebuked King Herod
for marrying his brother’s wife contrary to the law of God. (Matt. 14:3-4) He was beheaded for it. Jesus said of him, “Truly, I say to you, among those born of women there has
arisen no one greater than John the Baptist” (Matt. 11:11) The Apostles judged The apostle Paul said, “Or do you
not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually
immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor
thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will
inherit the kingdom of God” (1 Cor. 6:9-10).
Homosexuals are going to hell – not very politically correct, is it? The apostle Peter launched into a denunciation of
false teachers similar to Jesus’ condemnation of the Pharisees. He calls them “waterless springs and mists
driven by a storm. For them the gloom of utter darkness has been reserved. For,
speaking loud boasts of folly, they entice by sensual passions of the flesh
those who are barely escaping from those who live in error. They promise them freedom, but they themselves
are slaves of corruption. For whatever
overcomes a person, to that he is enslaved.” (2 Peter 2:17-19) The apostle John coined the term “antichrist” to describe anyone who “who denies that Jesus is the Christ” (1 John 2:22). Contrary to the doctrine of the antichrists, "No one who denies the Son has the Father" (1 John 2:23). As part of denying the Son, antichrists refuse to confess that “Jesus Christ has come in the flesh” (1 John 4:2). That would include most liberals, both in the church and outside it. They teach that someone can come to God the Father apart from His Son, and they claim that Jesus' physical life, death and resurrection either did not happen or are irrelevant to the "spiritual" message of Christ. James, the brother of Jesus, was a fire and
brimstone preacher, telling his audience to repent, resist the devil, and turn
from their lusts: You adulteresses, do you
not know that friendship with the world is hatred toward God? . . . Resist the devil, and he will flee from
you. Draw near to God, and he will draw
near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your
hearts, you double minded. Be
afflicted, and mourn, and weep: let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your
joy to heaviness. Humble
yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up. (James 4:4-10) We are commanded to judge Not only did Jesus and the Apostles judge, they told us to
judge. We already saw where Jesus said take
the speck out of our brother’s eye after we have learned to examine our own
life by the same standard (Matt. 7:5).
In Luke 17:3 He commanded us to rebuke a trespassing brother: “If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents,
forgive him.” Likewise Paul said to
rebuke sin. In 1 Timothy 5:20 he says,
“Those who continue in sin, rebuke in the presence of all, so that the rest
also may be fearful of sinning.” In Titus
2:15 he tells Titus, “These things speak and exhort and reprove with all
authority. Let no one disregard
you.” In 2 Tim. 4:2 he tells Timothy to
“reprove, rebuke, exhort.” In 1 Thess.
5:14 he says to “admonish the unruly.”
In Rom. 15:14 he tells the Roman church that they are “able to admonish
one another.” In Eph. 5:11 he tells the
church, “Do not participate in the unfruitful deeds of darkness, but rather
expose them.” Paul tells the
Corinthians to establish church courts to judge disputes between believers: Or do you not know that the saints will judge the
world? And if the world is to be judged by you, are you incompetent to try
trivial cases? Do you not know that we are to judge
angels? How much more, then, matters pertaining to this life! So if you have such cases, why do you lay them
before those who have no standing in the church? I say this to your shame. Can it be that there
is no one among you wise enough to settle a dispute between the brothers, but brother goes to law against brother, and that before
unbelievers? (1 Cor. 6:2-6) Jesus and Paul commanded the church to
excommunicate church members who have been rebuked but remain unrepentant for
their sins. Jesus says that if a brother that
has sinned against you will not repent after being confronted privately, and
then will not repent when confronted by two or three witnesses, then “tell
it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to
you as a Gentile and a tax collector. Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on
earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed
in heaven.” (Matt. 18:17-18) If the church’s judgment is accurate in
excommunicating a member, Jesus says that God Himself will remove the person
from the kingdom of heaven. Paul says, It is actually reported that there is sexual
immorality among you, and of a kind that is not tolerated even among pagans,
for a man has his father’s wife. And you are arrogant! Ought you not
rather to mourn? Let him who has done this be removed from among you. For
though absent in body, I am present in spirit; and as if present, I have
already pronounced judgment on the one who did such a thing. When you
are assembled in the name of the Lord Jesus and my spirit is present, with the
power of our Lord Jesus, you are to deliver this man to
Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day
of the Lord. (1 Cor. 5:1-5) Paul
expresses the hope that the one cast from the kingdom of God into the kingdom
of Satan will learn his lesson and eventually be saved. But the idea of excommunication is cruel and
unusual punishment to a lot of American churches because of the influence of
Roger Williams, who rejected the idea of a church body having special divine
authority and claimed that the church was merely an association of people with
no more authority than any other voluntary assembly of people, like the Lions
Club or the Red Hat Society.[2] But for anyone who calls himself a Christian,
the teaching of Scripture should trump the teaching of the Roger Williams tradition. The Bible teaches that to give a godly rebuke is an
act of kindness and to be considered a blessing to the one who receives it. A person who wants to live a life pleasing to God should be grateful that someone shows him where he has veered off the path. In Psalm
141:4-5 David says, Do not incline my heart to any evil thing, to
practice deeds of wickedness with men who do iniquity; and do not let me eat of
their delicacies. Let the righteous
smite me in kindness and reprove me; it is oil upon the head; do not let my
head refuse it. In Prov. 25:12 Solomon says that a godly rebuke
should be valued like fine jewelry:
“Like an earring of gold and an ornament of fine gold is a wise reproof
to a listening ear.” A godly rebuke
should be gladly excepted, as Prov.
10:17 says, “He is on the path of life who heeds instruction, but he who
forsakes reproof goes astray.” Prov.
12:1 says, “He who loves discipline loves knowledge, but he who hates reproof
is stupid.” Prov. 15:5 says, “A fool
rejects his father’s discipline, but he who regards reproof is prudent.” Prov. 29:1 says, “A man who hardens his neck
after much reproof will suddenly be broken beyond remedy.” Eccl. 7:5 says, “It is better to listen to
the rebuke of a wise man than for one to listen to the song of fools.” Finally, Heb. 12:5 says, “My son, do not
regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor faint when you are reproved by
Him”.[3] “Don’t judge”—in certain ways All judging
is not godly reproof however. The Bible
condemns certain ways of judging. 1. The Bible says not to judge hypocritically, which means to fail to
accurately judge your own life by the same terms that you judge others’ lives,
as we saw in Matt. 7. The Pharisees
claimed to follow Moses and the law of God, but they nullified the law of God
by their human traditions. The
Protestant church broke with the Roman Catholic Church because of this very
issue. But Protestant churches have
developed their own traditions that have no Biblical basis, and yet are seen as
Biblical standards. As long as
Christians fail to diligently study the Bible from Genesis to Revelation, they
will continue to make inaccurate judgments about what the Christian way to live
and think really is. Jesus said that if
you can’t follow the law of God better than the Pharisees, then that is a sign
that you are not saved: Whoever
then annuls one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do
the same, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever keeps and
teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I say to you that unless your
righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter
the kingdom of heaven. (Matt. 5:19-20) 2. The Bible says not to judge hastily, that is without sufficient evidence.
We shouldn’t judge without having diligently investigated the facts. Proverbs 29:20 says, “Do you see a man hasty
in his words? There is more hope for a
fool than for him.” In Deut. 13:14 God says that when someone is
accused of committing a crime, the court is supposed to “enquire,
and make search, and ask diligently” about the matter (also see Deut.
17:4). Furthermore, the Bible requires at least two or
three witnesses to corroborate the facts in order for a public accusation to be
made: “One witness
shall not rise up against a man for any iniquity, or for any sin, in any sin
that he sinneth: at the mouth of two witnesses, or at the mouth of three
witnesses, shall the matter be established” (Deut. 19:15). The Apostle Paul upholds
the same standard in the church in 1 Timothy 5:19: “Against an elder receive not an accusation,
but before two or three witnesses.” We saw in the case of the woman
caught in adultery that this standard could not be met because all the alleged
witnesses walked away. 3. The Bible says not to judge humanistically, that is by human
standards rather than by God’s law. Then the scribes and
Pharisees who were from Jerusalem came to Jesus, saying, “Why do your disciples
transgress the tradition of the elders?
For they do not wash their hands when they eat bread.” But He answered and said to them, “Why do you
also transgress the commandment of God by your tradition? For God commanded, saying, ‘Honor your father
and your mother”; and ‘He who speaks evil of father or mother, let him die the
death.’ But you say, ‘Whoever says to
his father or mother, “Whatever you would gain from me, it is a gift to God”’;
and in no way he honors his father or his mother. And you voided the commandment of God by your
tradition. Hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophecy of you, saying, ‘This
people draws near to Me with their mouth, and honors Me with their lips, but
their heart is far from Me. But in vain
do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.’” Matt. 15:1-9. Some Christians are under the impression that the Pharisees strictly
followed the law of Moses, but we see here that it was the oral traditions of
the elders that they followed rather than the written word of God. At another time Jesus told them, “Has not
Moses given you the law? Yet none of you keeps the law. . . . Do not judge by appearances, but judge with
right judgment.” (John 7:19, 24) As we have seen, Biblical love is
defined by God’s law. John says, “For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments”
(1 John 5:3). 4. The Bible says not to
judge falsely. The ninth commandment is, “Do not bear false
witness against your neighbor.” That
should be enough said. 5. The Bible says not to
judge unlovingly. “But speaking the truth in
love, may [we] grow up into Him in all things, which is the head, even
Christ” (Eph.
4:15). We can speak the truth without
love, for selfish, boastful, or vengeful purposes and tear down the body of
Christ. This is what gossip often
is. You aren’t exposing a sin in order
to correct it, in order to help the one who committed the sin to overcome it, but
simply to feel superior to the other person. Usually when we tell a third party about
someone else’s sin, it’s not doing anything to fix the situation. Paul warns against young women in the church being
“idle, wandering about from house to house; and not only
idle, but tattlers also and busybodies, speaking things which they ought not.”
(1 Tim. 5:13). “Tattlers” create
bitterness and infighting, which is the work of Satan. It tears down the body of Christ rather than
builds it up. Paul adds about these
“tattlers,” “For some are already turned aside after Satan” (1 Tim. 5:15). An issue should usually be directed to the
person with the sin, or a supervisor who’s responsible for that person. But even when we do confront someone directly
over a sin, we should do it respectfully. Paul advises the young pastor Timothy, “Do not
sharply rebuke an elder, but exhort as a father, and the younger ones as
brothers, older women as mothers, the younger women as sisters in all purity”
(1 Tim. 5:1-2). Four
problems with non-judgmentalism: 1. It’s inconsistent with Scripture, as the discussion above has shown. 2. It’s irrational (self-refuting) – A person who says that “it’s wrong to
judge” is making a judgment against those who judge. This is akin to the statement often made by
atheists that “there are not absolutes.”
The statement itself is an absolute statement. It makes a universal negative claim that
there are no universal negative claims.
These types of self-refuting statements are endemic to atheistic
thinking.[4]
3. It entails amoralism – To forbid judging is equivalent to never making
ethical distinctions. Nevertheless,
non-judgmentalists make ethical judgments all the time: Save the environment, make love not war, tax
the rich and give to the poor, etc. They don't want all laws abolished. They want their laws to replace other laws - humanistic laws to replace laws from the Christian past. Even
though it’s self-refuting, atheists like to claim that there are no absolute
standards of morality. They try to have
their cake and eat it too by using utilitarianism as their guide to right
action. They claim ethics is just a
matter of efficiency to achieve greater pleasure than pain. This way they think that ethics can be removed from the realm of "dogmatism" and reduced to a scientific investigation of empirical facts. But “efficiency” has no meaning apart from a
goal, which leads us back to an absolute.[5] It should be noted that the self-refuting amoralism of non-judgmentalism has found its way into interpretations of American Constitutional law through the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment. This clause is often said to prohibit "discrimination." But there is no ethics without discriminating between right and wrong. The distinction between right and wrong can be incorrectly defined in particular cases, but that makes the issue one of bad ethical discrimination versus good ethical discrimination, not an issue of discrimination versus non-discrimination. Whether a particular ethical distinction is valid or not depends on which ethical system one appeals to. It's not worldview-neutral. Most people at the present point in history would agree that a person's skin color has no ethical significance, therefore discrimination based on skin color is illegitimate. But some want to say that homosexuality is a class of people that are discriminated against by sodomy laws and laws that define a family. They often talk as if merely defining homosexuals as a class and pointing out that the class is being treated differently is enough to prove that anti-homosexuality laws violate the equal protection clause. But thieves would like to do the same thing - have the State stop discriminating against them by making laws against their behavior. To treat everybody "equally" without regard to an ethical system would mean making all behavior equally blameless in the eyes of the law; in other words, all laws would have to be abolished. Laws against homosexual behavior are illegitimate discrimination only if it can be proven that homosexuality is like skin color and genetically determined. But even here the issue of worldviews comes up. All facts are interpreted facts, and from the Christian perspective, no matter how many facts the scientists have studied and not matter how smart they are, they do not know more than God and are not smarter than God. The Bible teaches that homosexuality is a sin, and engaging in homosexual relations is punishable by the state. Therefore it is not genetically determined and laws against it are not illegitimately discriminatory.[6] 4. It disarms Christians of their weapon to defeat evil. I’ve spoken of non-judgmentalism mainly as an
atheist view, but the language has been adopted by probably most Christians in
our day. Without Christians able to
identify the fallacies of anti-judgmentalism, atheists are allowed to advance their moral
agenda and stop Christians from asserting theirs. The atheist shouts, "The Bible says do not judge," and the Christian is supposed to stop asserting the moral authority of God's word. Ephesians 6 lists the armor of God that
Christians are commanded to put on.
Every part is defensive except one offensive part, “the sword of the
Spirit, which is the word of God” (Eph. 6).
It’s the sword of God’s word that “judges the thoughts and attitudes of
the heart” (Heb. 4:12). When
Christians are deceived into non-judgmentalism, they have laid aside their only
weapon to defeat the enemy. When Christians
lay aside the authority of God’s word, in which we are given God’s standards for
living and God’s solution to sin through Jesus Christ, the atheists avoid the
power of the word of God to convict the heart of sin and to provide the
blueprint to build God’s kingdom.
Satan’s kingdom, by default, triumphs.
When confronted by the devil, even Jesus Christ Himself, God in the
flesh, used God’s word to defeat the evil one.
“It is written” Jesus declared, and the devil was forced to flee. Martin Luther summed it up well in his hymn,
“A Mighty Fortress is Our God”: And though this world
with devils filled should threaten to undo us, We will not fear, for God
has willed His truth to triumph through us, The prince of darkness
grim, we tremble not for him; His rage we can endure,
for lo, his doom is sure; One little word shall
fell him. Who are you to judge? You know you will be asked that, and you may
have already asked it to yourself. You
are an ambassador for Christ (Eph. 6:20), that’s who! Revelation 1:5 says that Jesus Christ is
“Ruler of the kings of the earth.” You
are an ambassador of the King of the universe, the King of kings. It’s not your word that you bring. It’s God’s word. And no one can escape the judgment of
God. And there is no other way of salvation
than that which is given in God’s word.
Those who say you shouldn’t judge will judge nonetheless. They ask “who are you to judge?” only to
substitute the word of man for the word of God as the ultimate authority. But whether they like it or not, you have a duty to proclaim God’s word. As Paul says, it will be the savor of death
to those who are perishing, but the savor of life to those who are being saved
(2 Cor. 2:16-17). [1] Greg Bahnsen, Theonomy in Christian Ethics (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co., 1977) p.230-32. [2] He says that no person or group of people have the authority to form a church unless they were personally commissioned by Christ: “I desired to have been dilligent and Constant Observer, and have been my selfe many ways engaged in City, in Countrey, in Court, in Schools, in Universities, in Churches, in Old and New-England, and yet cannot in the holy presence of God bring in the Result of a satisfying discovery, that either the Begetting Ministry of the Apostles or Messengers to the Nations, or Feeding and Nourishing Ministry of Pastors and Teachers, according to the first Institution of the Lord Jesus, are yet restored and extant” (The Complete Writing of Roger Williams, vol. III, 160). [3] Greg Bahnsen, Theonomy in Christian Ethics, p.478. [4] See “Christian Civilization is the Only Civilization – In a Sense of Course,” Part I, at http://www.christianciv.com/ChristCivEssay.htm#Dialectic_Tension. [5] See the section “Ethics” in “Christian Civilization is the Only Civilization – In a Sense of Course,” Part II, at http://www.christianciv.com/ChristCivEssay_Pt2.htm#Ethics. [6] See "Homosexuality: Rhetoric and Reality" at http://www.christianciv.com/Homosexuality___Rhetoric_and_Reality.html.
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