Have you ever called a particular action or behavior "sinful," only to be greeted with one of the following Bible verses?

• "Judge not that ye be not judged" (Matthew 7:1 KJV); or
• "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone" (John 8:7)?

These are arguably the most abused verses in the entire Bible. In my experience, those who cite these verses are not really familiar with what they say in context, and often they aren't terribly concerned about what the Bible says in general—they just want to shut down the conversation and shift the focus from the sin to the one who's shining the light on it (thus committing an ad hominem attack).

Are these retorts valid? What should be our response? Let's look at both passages in turn and see what we can see.

Retort #1: "Judge not, lest ye be judged" (Matthew 7:1)

The problem with the way this verse is typically used is that it is being used as a prooftext, which is the "practice of using isolated, out-of-context quotations from a document to establish a proposition in eisegesis" (Wikipedia). Let's look at Matthew 7:1 in the context of the verses that follow it:

1 "Do not judge so that you will not be judged.

2 "For in the way you judge, you will be judged; and by your standard of measure, it will be measured to you.

3 "Why do you look at the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?

4 "Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ and behold, the log is in your own eye?

5 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)

In looking at verse 2, it should be manifest that when Jesus says "Do not judge," this is not a prohibition but rather a stern warning. He's saying, in essence, "Hey, don't go around judging people because what goes around comes around—the way you judge others is going to come right back on you...so be careful." Jesus is warning against hypocrisy (verse 5).

But the way this passage is used, one might get the impression that we can never, ever point out someone's sin because we've all sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23). But if that's the case, what do we do with verse 5? Jesus doesn't say "leave the spec in you brother's eye"—no, He says to first deal with your own issues and then deal with your brother's. We'll get a little more insight into this when we look at the next verse.

Retort #2: "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone" (John 8:7)

Note: The astute among you will note that John 7:53 - 8:11 is not found in the earliest manuscripts and is thus a latter addition to the text. But I would not make this part of your response—we don't need to go there. We're just going to let sleeping dogs lie and deal with the text head-on

Since the passage is a bit longer, I'll comment inline:

3 The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman caught in adultery, and having set her in the center of the court,

4 they said to Him, “Teacher, this woman has been caught in adultery, in the very act.

How many people does it take to commit adultery? Two (at least).

How many people were brought to Jesus? One—the woman.

5 Now in the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women; what then do You say?”

The scribes and Pharisees are only telling half of the truth—that's not all that the Law says:

If there is a man who commits adultery with another man’s wife, one who commits adultery with his friend’s wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death. (Leviticus 20:10)

If a man is found lying with a married woman, then both of them shall die, the man who lay with the woman, and the woman; thus you shall purge the evil from Israel. (Deuteronomy 22:22)

"It takes two to tango," so where's the other half of this adulterous act? If the woman was caught "in the very act" then you know they know who the guy is.

6 They were saying this, testing Him, so that they might have grounds for accusing Him. But Jesus stooped down and with His finger wrote on the ground.

The test was this: If Jesus were to say, "throw a rock concert," then they would have been able to nail Him for letting the man go free. But if Jesus were to say, "let her go," they'd have accused Him of not following the Law of Moses which called for the death penalty. They thought that they had Jesus caught on the horns of a dilemma, but one of the cool things about being omniscient is that it makes you a good matador--He went between the horns.

7 But when they persisted in asking Him, He straightened up, and said to them, "He who is without sin among you, let him be the first to throw a stone at her."

8 Again He stooped down and wrote on the ground.

9 When they heard it, they began to go out one by one, beginning with the older ones, and He was left alone, and the woman, where she was, in the center of the court.

Do you see what happened here? We can only speculate what Jesus wrote on the ground, but I can just imagine that he's writing down the names of each one of them and what sin they committed to bring this woman before Him: entrapment, lying, murder, failing to love neighbor, taking God's name in vain, hypocrisy...

The fact is that every one of those men who'd gathered around were complicit in the conspiracy to both kill a woman and to entrap Jesus—none of them were without a hand in this travesty of justice, and they knew it...which is why they all left, one by one.

10 Straightening up, Jesus said to her, “Woman, where are they? Did no one condemn you?”

11 She said, “No one, Lord.” And Jesus said, “I do not condemn you, either. Go. From now on sin no more.”

Here's what often gets overlooked—Jesus didn't say, "Go on, and don't get caught again." No—He said "go and sin no more." He did not excuse her sin. He did not wink at it or trivialize it. He did not accept her sin or help her feel good about getting away with it. He called her to repentance.

Now, remember the previous verse—the one about taking the spec out of your brother's eye? Do you see how this account of the woman caught in adultery dovetails into that passage? Before we can call out someone else's sin, we need to make sure we're not guilty of the same sin, or in helping the other person into sin.

Should We Judge, or Not?

On one side of the road, we have the ditch of self-righteousness (Luke 7:39; 18:11-12), which always elicited a rebuke from Christ (Luke 7:44-47; 18:14).

But on the other side of the road, we have the ditch of lawlessness and licentiousness (1 Corinthians 5), which is also condemned. See also 1 Corinthians 6:9-11.

God does not accept (condone, bless) anyone’s sin—He hates it—this is manifest in Scripture from the Old Testament to the New. If God didn’t hate sin, He wouldn’t have gone through such drastic measures to provide redemption, namely the brutal death of His only Son on the cross. Sin is an offense to God because it is contrary to his very nature.

Conclusion

The Bible does not forbid judgment—it forbids judging by our own standards as the Pharisees did. Indeed, it actually tells us to judge--using a righteous (in God's eyes) judgment:

“Do not judge according to appearance, but judge with righteous judgment.” (John 7:24)

It also condemns judging the heart of another--because we cannot see the heart:

But the LORD said to Samuel, "Do not look at his appearance or at the height of his stature, because I have rejected him; for God sees not as man sees, for man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart." (1 Samuel 16:7)

But what we are called to do is to hold those who name the name of Jesus accountable (i.e. judge their actions): 1 Corinthians 5, esp. vv. 3, 12. If they're not living according to the Word, it is our duty to alert them to that fact (Ezekiel 33:7-9).

In a nutshell, we are to judge actions, not intentions.

Sin is repugnant to God, but He’s made a way out from it. We are not to condone it or accept it or wink at it in the church or out. Those who name the name of Christ, we are to hold accountable to the Word of God—we are to judge their actions, not their hearts (e.g., we can say, "You are not living in accordance with the Scriptures." But we cannot say, "You are not saved").

Those who have not yet come to faith in Christ, we pray for, share our faith with, and provide hope by the way we live before them—their behavior is not the problem, but rather that they are dead in their trespasses and sins (Ephesians 2:1), and they are heading for a Christless eternity in Hell. When they stand before God, He is not going to question them about their bedroom behaviors—He’s going to say “What did you do with my Son Jesus?”

Copyright © 2019 Daniel L. Kreft. All rights reserved.