In Luke 6:37-38, the Lord tells His disciples what He requires if they want to follow Him. He tells them they are not to “judge,” not to “condemn,” but to “forgive.”
In thinking about this passage, I realize that we may have misunderstood it. Most believers think the Lord is saying that we should be quick to forgive people who sin against us. We should not judge them after they confess their sins. We should be quick to forget the wrong done to us.
The Lord had just said that we should be merciful (v 36). We usually think that being merciful means forgiving others when they sin.
But I don’t think that is the Lord’s point in these verses. The NT tells us that we should judge sin, and there are plenty of examples of the apostles’ doing so. I think the reference to judging in these verses refers to having a critical attitude towards others. That was the attitude of the Pharisees in Luke 5–6. They looked down on others who did not fast, pray, wash their hands, or keep the Sabbath the way they did. Jesus is telling the disciples not to be like them.
The Pharisees separated themselves from those who did not measure up to their man-made standards. They treated such “sinners” as second-class citizens. The word for condemn is a legal term meaning “to pass a sentence on” a guilty person. The Pharisees condemned those whom they saw as beneath them. They arrogantly thought they were better.
The word for forgive is not the word used in the NT when a person forgives someone of a sin. It is another legal term and means releasing a guilty person from their sentence. It is used in Matt 27:17 to describe how Pilate wanted to “release” Christ from His sentence after declaring Him guilty.
To forgive somebody, in verse 37, means to release them from your feelings of superiority. If you are withholding fellowship from them because you see yourself as superior, you should stop.
To judge, then, would mean to be critical of others because of our feelings of superiority. To be merciful means to love them and desire what is best for them. It is the opposite of looking down on others and deeming them unworthy of our time or service.
James discusses these same themes in Jas 2:1-13. Some of his readers disparaged the poor. They were showing partiality towards the rich. They were acting in an unloving manner. They were being unmerciful.
The Lord says that if we give mercy, we will receive it (v 38). He says that we should pour it on. From what I understand, He alludes to a common practice in the marketplace. A woman filling a container with food, such as grain, would pour the grain in. Then, she would shake the container so the grain would settle. This would provide room for more. She would pour more in. Then, she would pack it down so she could pour even more in. As she did so, the abundance would spill over into her outer garment. She wanted to make sure she got as much grain as possible. The grain in her clothes indicated that she had a full load of grain.
The Lord says that is the way we should be merciful to other believers. We should pour it on. It should overflow. We should not focus on our legalistic, self-righteous rules and condemn those who don’t measure up. We should serve and love them.
If we do, mercy will be given back to us. At the Judgment Seat of Christ, the King will deal with us as we have dealt with fellow believers. Did we sentence them to a position of inferiority in our eyes because we saw ourselves as holier than they were? Maybe we didn’t allow them to serve in certain capacities in the church or other ministries because of our critical, arrogant, judgmental attitude towards them.
At the Judgment Seat, I am going to want all the mercy I can get. I hope the Lord really pours it on. If He allows, I will ask Him to do so.
He will—if I poured it out on others.
