Thursday

Christian Judgment

I confess that I’m haunted by Psalm 122. You know, the one that begins with,

“I was glad when they said to me,
‘Let us go into the house of the LORD.’“

I get it when the Psalmist gets excited about going to hang out with God! What a delight! But a couple of verses later, in the middle of his rejoicing, he explains,

“For thrones are set there for judgment,
The thrones of the house of David.”

One of the reasons he’s excited about going to hang out with God is because he looks forward to the judgment there.

What?

That tells me that among other things, I don’t have a good handle on what judgment is supposed to be. I can tell when it is used wrong, and that appears to be a lot, but we already knew that. Let’s be honest: Christians have earned the judgmental, condemning reputation we’ve picked up. (Sure, hell has reinforced the reputation, but as a community, we earned it.)

Today, I’m struck by this: if judgment is part of the work of the saints, then it’s subject to the same restrictions as the rest of the work of the saints. Judgment is to be an act of love. It’s to be for people, not against them. It’s to be something that builds people up, not tears them down, something that draws them in, not what pushes them away.

I don’t see much of that sort of judgment yet. Not among saints, not anywhere.

But it’s coming.


 

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