Romans 2:1–4

            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. You say, “We know that God’s judgment on those who do such things is in accordance with truth.” Do you imagine, whoever you are, that when you judge those who do such things and yet do them yourself, you will escape the judgment of God? Or do you despise the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience? Do you not realize that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?  Romans 2:1–4

            The central point of Romans 1–2 is that humans all have enough revelation of God to live right with God, but none of us do. Hence, when any of us set ourselves up as judge of others, we bring judgment upon ourselves, for we ourselves are guilty. Whoever says he or she is not guilty of sin is a liar (1 John 1:10). No one measures up favorably against the standard of God’s perfection revealed in creation (Matt. 5:48). No one has had every one of his or her actions flow out of faith in God. Yet Paul said that “whatever does not proceed from faith is sin” (Rom. 14:24). No one has altogether avoided careless thoughts and words. Yet Jesus says each of us will give an account of these on the day of judgment (Matt. 12:36). Everyone has at some point said, or at least thought, of someone in slanderous terms. Yet Jesus says our doing so makes us “liable to the hell of fire” (Matt. 5:22). Few have completely avoided having lust in their hearts, even if they’ve refrained from actual fornication or adultery. But Jesus teaches that the former is as much a violation of God’s ideal as the latter (Matt. 5:27–28). All of us have done these kinds of things, and much more.

            Paul summed up the dire state of humans before God apart from Christ by saying, “There is no one who is righteous, not even one; there is no one who has understanding, there is no one who seeks God. All have turned aside, together they have become worthless. . . . All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:10–12, 23). Though we rarely evaluate ourselves this harshly, for we measure ourselves by self-serving standards according to a forbidden knowledge we were never meant to have, the fact of the matter is that on our own, apart from Christ, we are all condemned.

            We are thus in no position to judge others. It is so easy for believers to justify their judgment of others with the reassurance, “We know that God’s judgment on those who do such things is in accordance with truth” (Rom. 2:2). But this slogan, according to Paul, offers no assurance because it cuts both ways. Precisely because God’s judgment is “in accordance with truth,” it stands over us as much as them. In point of fact, our judgment is never really “in accordance with truth,” for we don’t know the whole truth of any person’s story, and we are self-serving sinners who are trying to scrape up a morsel of worth by placing ourselves above others. God’s judgment is true, but for just this reason we can never identify our judgment with God’s. Indeed, as finite and fallen human beings, we have no business entertaining judgment over others in the first place.

            When we place ourselves in the center instead of confessing our own sin and receiving mercy and life from the One who is the center, we bring condemnation on ourselves. In the act of judging, we are despising the riches of God’s “kindness and forbearance and patience” (Rom. 2:4), for we are acting as though we don’t need it. This, Paul warns, is disastrous. “In passing judgment on another you condemn yourself ” (Rom. 2:1). As Jesus said, the measure of judgment we give is the measure of judgment we will receive. The strong words of Paul, like the strong words of Jesus, are spoken in love to keep us respecting the “No Trespassing” sign that signifies the boundary between us and God. God is God; we are not. God is all holy; we are not. God is judge; we are not.

            Against all this, Paul wanted us to “realize that God’s kindness is meant to lead [us] to repentance” (Rom. 2:4). Rather than being concerned with playing God over others, we must be concerned only with repenting before God for our own sins. Our sins should be to us tree trunks we confess and seek to get rid of, while other people’s sins should be to us dust particles we seek to hide with love.

            Bonhoeffer expressed the perspective of the true penitent when he wrote:

            Wherever there is still a weighing up and calculation of guilt, there the sterile morality of self-justification usurps the place of confession of guilt. . . . What does it matter to you whether others are guilty too? I can excuse any sin of another, but my own sin alone remains guilt which I can never excuse. It is not a morbidly egotistical distortion of reality, but it is the essential character of a genuine confession of guilt that it is incapable of apportioning blame and pleading a case, but is rather the acknowledgement of one’s own sin of Adam.⁹

            To live with an accurate, Christ-centered assessment of oneself is to live with the awareness that each of us is in desperate need of God’s mercy and is thus obligated to extend mercy to all others. It is thus to live with the awareness that none of us is in a position to weigh the sin and calculate the guilt of others. The biblical warnings about judgment are God’s gracious and stern way of keeping us mindful of our true situation and thus mindful of what is and is not our proper duty. We are called to walk in merciful love, not judgment.

- Repenting of Religion,  Greg Boyd