JUDGMENT
Ron Plant
Isaiah 42: 1-4; 1 Corinthians 6: 1-5; Judges 4: 1-7; 5: 6-9; 1 Kings 3: 16-27
I wanted to speak a little about judgment. It is a huge subject in the scriptures and I could not attempt to cover its scope. Clearly there is more than one usage of the word, one being judgment in the sense of what is executive in relation to God, another is the thought of discrimination, and it is this latter which I wanted to speak about. God in His executive judgment is a wonderful thing to contemplate. Paul is moved in Romans to say, “how unsearchable his judgments”, Rom 11: 33. We may think of judgment as involving execution, and of course it may involve that, but I think judgment according to God, even His executive judgment, for want of a better word, brings out His glory. Even when the dead are judged at the great white throne it will not just be a matter of things being finalised. The infinite judgment of God, the justice of God, will come out at the great white throne. It says that, “books were opened; and another book was opened” (Rev 20: 12); and there seems to be a most intense scrutiny, you may say, even in the matter of that awful final judgment that comes in before the lake of fire, “another book was opened, which is that of life”. But I just wanted to illustrate from that that even the executive judgment of God is not just condemnation, but it has something of His glory about it. The Psalms speak of it quite extensively. In one place it says, “thy judgments are a great deep”, Ps 36: 6. You think of things that happen in the world, and we have to leave them. I think we all find it difficult to know how to speak of this disaster of the tsunami in Asia, but we do know as Abraham says, “will not the Judge of all the earth do right?”, Gen 18: 25.
I wanted to speak about discriminative judgment. I think you can see that judgment in men is flawed. The whole subject in the world is flawed. There is witness of it on every hand where things are overturned in man’s judicial system, and of course that is but the tip of the iceberg really, because man made a decision long ago to abandon the great principle of judgment in that he chose to exclude God from his thoughts, and as a result of that every judgment of man has become flawed. It culminated in the death of Christ. The travesty at the trial of Jesus stands recorded even to the present day, that even despite the witnesses to what He was, the sentence was carried out so unjustly in relation to the Lord Jesus. What a travesty it was, the judgment of men. I suppose Rome prided itself upon its justice and yet think of the travesty of that day when they smote Him on the face. Men smote the Lord of glory on the face. Even at the great white throne men will never be smitten in the face, but they did that to Christ. I have thought that part of the sufferings of Christ was expressed so fully in the scripture that was expounded by Philip to the eunuch when it says, “In his humiliation his judgment has been taken away”, Acts 8: 33. It is slightly different from Isaiah 53 from which it is taken where it says, “He was taken from oppression and from judgment” (v 8). But in that very affecting part of the scriptures in the Acts speaking of Christ, it says, “In his humiliation his judgment has been taken away”. Have you thought of that, beloved. There is one thing, you may say, above all others that the Lord Jesus merited if man would refuse all else – a judgment in relation to the perfection of that life that had been here before men; His judgment was denied Him. I think it is part of the sufferings of Christ. Elsewhere it says He “gave himself over into the hands of him who judges righteously; who himself bore our sins in his body on the tree”, 1 Pet 2: 23,24. But think of the sorrow and the humiliation that was heaped upon the head of the Lord Jesus amidst the physical abuse He suffered, that the Man who had filled out upon the earth God’s will and demonstrated manhood in perfection before a holy God was denied a right judgment. I think a poet says something like that, ‘Alone in the hall of decision where judgment was taken away’. I hope you are affected by these things. He went to His death, that cruel death, without even the truth spoken publicly as to that life of infinite perfection known to God and kindness to men, and only a thief and a centurion accord a right judgment in relation to the life of Christ. A man who had lived a wicked life says, “this man has done nothing amiss” (Luke 23: 41), and the centurion says, “In very deed this man was just”, Luke 23: 47. Those were the only words really that were spoken to reflect a right judgment as to the life of the Lord Jesus. What a time it was. That tribunal will yet have to appear before God’s judgment of course. But these are things which have entered into the judgment of man.
I believe that one of the fruits of the Spirit coming is that there should be amongst the people of God the spirit of judgment in a right sense. I think we would all acknowledge that we are very tested by this matter of judgment. We know and I am sure we are humbled by the fact that as far as discrimination in judgment is concerned we very often find that this one thinks this and this one thinks that, and so on, and yet we have the presence here of the Spirit of God. It says in John’s gospel, “having come, he will bring demonstration to the world, of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment”, John 16: 8. One of the things the Holy Spirit has brought is judgment. I am sure there would be more extensive interpretations of that scripture, but one of the things that has been brought by the Holy Spirit is judgment. Now I know the scripture goes on to give an explanation for it, because the world is judged, and so on, but I think that one of the benefits of the Holy Spirit is the capacity of right judgment, and I believe that it is quite a testing matter for us, as to our part in it.
I thought I would read first of all in Isaiah 42 because it prophetically refers to Christ, it refers to Him in his character. It says, “He shall not cry, nor lift up, nor cause his voice to be heard in the street. A bruised reed shall he not break, and smoking flax shall he not quench: he shall bring forth judgment according to truth”. Is that not affecting, beloved? I believe we should be exercised every one of us, including myself, as to our judgment in the way of discrimination and seek God’s help and the help which there is in the Holy Spirit to that end. Judgment was denied to Christ. What was true of Him, the true assessment of the worth of that Man was denied to the Saviour here. It was part of His sufferings, and I believe that we should, as persons who have the Spirit, seek to be marked in an increasing way by right judgment, discrimination in judgment; I just put my exercise before the brethren as to that. I believe if we are to be helped in it, the first thing we must look to is Christ. You should always start with Christ. I hope the young ones remember that. If you do not know where to start, start with Jesus, because God has started with Him and He will finish with Him, “he shall bring forth judgment to the nations”. Now I cannot explain the detail and the full extent to which it reaches out to, perhaps beyond the day in which the Lord Jesus was here and probably beyond the day in which we are, but it expresses the perfectness of Christ, the Servant. What impresses me from this scripture is the perfect judgment of Christ. It says, “He shall not cry, nor lift up, nor cause his voice to be heard in the street”. You get the sense of quietness about the Person of the Lord Jesus. Think of what He was when He was there. You may say that there were situations that were presented to Him where it seemed manifest, and obvious, what was needed. Well, I think we should be careful of what seems obvious.
You may say there were times in the life of Jesus where it appeared clear what should have been done. Think of the woman in John 8 who they brought to Him, taken in adultery. They put her in the midst before Jesus and they say, “this woman has been taken in the very act, committing adultery. Now in the law Moses has commanded us to stone such”, (vv 4,5). You say, what can you say? What would we have said? Perhaps we would have given a fairly quick response in a situation like that. What does the Lord Jesus do? It says, “having stooped down, wrote with his finger on the ground”. I do not know that anybody yet can explain to me what the perfection of those movements was. Think of that stoop. You may say, there was a situation that seemed so easy to resolve, that everyone could resolve there. But His judgments are perfect, are they not? He stoops down and writes with His finger on the ground and then He says, “Let him that is without sin among you first cast the stone at her”. I only mention these things because there is a calmness about Christ. There is not always a calmness about the way that we move to judgment, to discriminate. It says, “He shall not cry, nor lift up, nor cause his voice to be heard in the street”. I think we should learn from the Lord Jesus, we should study Him. We can study Him in every part of His pathway and His life and His manhood and His service. God says here, typically of Him, “Behold my servant … mine elect in whom my soul delighteth”. Think of what the Lord Jesus was here for thirty years, thirty years in obscurity with just brief glimpses of what was there. It says, “I will put my Spirit upon him”. We have been reading about the ark and the tabernacle system. The ark of the covenant of the Lord of all the earth was at the centre of it. But if you could have seen underneath the gold you would have found it was made of wood. I believe the wood represented the distinctive manhood of the Lord Jesus as seen by God. He says, “Behold my servant whom I uphold, mine elect in whom my soul delighteth! I will put my Spirit upon him”. These are wonderful things. You can feast your heart upon Christ. You can allow the beauty of that Man to come into your heart. Think of your own imperfections, and of the way that you fall so short, and then you turn to Christ and you find in Him perfection, perfection in a Man.
I love what is said of Him, “He shall not cry, nor lift up, nor cause his voice to be heard in the street”, and I would like to suggest that as we learn from Christ we will learn perhaps in judgment not to be quite so precipitate as we sometimes seem to be. “A bruised reed shall he not break”. Think of the woman of Sychar’s well, a woman of the city with a long shameful history of broken marriages behind her and her dubious history, and you might say, there is nothing there really for God, it is the story of a ruined life. I like to think of the Lord Jesus there, “A bruised reed shall he not break”. I wonder if we have ever broken a bruised reed. The Lord Jesus would not break that woman. He could have condemned her, He could have done so before He said anything to her, but He draws out from her all her hopes and all the disappointments of life, all hopes for the future, all that she had that surrounded that lonely life of hers. He drew it all out from her and then He puts in that statement, “Go, call thy husband, and come here”, John 4: 16. That was the touchstone of her life. What a wonderful thing that the Lord could discern that. I wonder if we could do that amongst the brethren. If we are to take up what is levitical we need to learn to value the work of God, however feeble it may be, even if it is almost extinguished. He will not break the bruised reed. I would love to be something like the Saviour in relation to that as I move among the saints of God. What a thing if we could learn from Christ how not to break the reeds, but find something that is of God, recognise that it is precious, hold it and nurture it; “and smoking flax shall he not quench: until he bring forth judgment”. It was always truth with the Lord Jesus. May there always be truth with us too. But I just commend this scripture to us all because it seems to suggest to me the calmness and the measured way that the Lord Jesus served in His service here.
The scripture in Corinthians is striking because it is God’s will that the saints are to be involved in judgment. It says towards the end of Revelation as to Babylon, “for God has judged your judgment upon her”, Rev 18: 20. It is a remarkable thing that. When you think of man generally who is so awry in his judgments of the world, but of the saints as having the Spirit, it says of them, “God has judged your judgment upon her”. So in Corinthians it says, “Do ye not then know that the saints shall judge the world?”, and then goes on, “Do ye not know that we shall judge angels?”. Do you not find these things daunting, beloved brethren, and feel tested by it? I think we need to be before the Lord Jesus and the Holy Spirit as to knowing more about discriminating judgment. I do really for myself. But what a state of things was present at Corinth. They had plenty of knowledge, they had all doctrine, they came short in no gift, they had tremendous ability in the place. It was a place of substantial numbers and yet the apostle has to say to them, as speaking about this particular issue of prosecuting a matter before the unjust and not before the saints, “are ye unworthy of the smallest judgments?” What a rebuke this was to this assembly in Corinth, “Do ye not know that we shall judge angels? and not then matters of this life?” He speaks to the Corinthians of their qualifications. They had received the Spirit and yet here they were unable to judge even the smallest matters. It is a testing thing this scripture, not only for them but also for ourselves. Why was it they were so awry? The previous chapter records the evil that was allowed there, the public evil of 1 Corinthians 5 which the apostle had addressed so faithfully. You wonder what it was that had happened at Corinth. What are the principles that we need for judgment? The Lord Jesus says somewhere, responding to a questioner, as to what was the great commandment in the law, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul”, and then He says, “the second is like it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments the whole law and the prophets hang”, Matt 22: 37-40. I believe every matter of judgment should be judged on the basis of those two things, loving God with all your heart and loving you neighbour as yourself. The Lord says the whole law hangs upon it. But I just read this scripture in Corinthians to show what a state they were in. He then says, “set those to judge who are little esteemed in the assembly”. I believe there is something in that for us. Not the little esteemed generally, but the “little esteemed in the assembly”. The company at Corinth had become so impressed with its own greatness and the persons in it and it seems that some there were little esteemed in the assembly. Perhaps that is something we should think about. Corinth was a place which had almost gone to the brink, it had almost got to a point where it was a question of what would happen there but there was still something there in the place, still some capable of right judgment.
I read of Deborah in Judges because I think she sets out right judgment. Judges is an interesting book, even the very name of it seems to tie in with our subject. Why do you have the book of Judges and the book of Joshua? Joshua more or less describes similar events to the book of Judges. One difference I think is that the book of Joshua is written from the standpoint of the land entered and conquered under the spiritual leadership of Joshua. But in Judges spiritual leadership is gone, and I think it is a book that is written to show that in such circumstance we need help as to discrimination in judgment. Judges is not written historically. For instance, you get the death of Joshua in the first chapter, and then you find Joshua is still alive in chapter 2, but I believe it is to develop the spirit of right judgment among the saints, and it seems to that end that it is essential that we “know war by learning it” (Judg 3: 2), the conflict is on. It is a question of how things will be maintained in a time when spiritual and prominent leadership has gone, and how we will be maintained. And one of the things is by right discrimination of judgment. As you read the history of all these persons, you can mark the decline that comes in, but Deborah stands out in this dark day in which the people were under twenty years of oppression. It says, “she dwelt under the palm-tree of Deborah between Ramah and Bethel in mount Ephraim; and the children of Israel came up to her for judgment”, a remarkable scripture. It seems that there was something in this woman that was respected in relation to judgment, and I wonder how that came about. She was one who seemed to remain calm amidst all the hubbub of the day and during the oppression of Jabin king of Canaan. Although she lived in that time it says she dwelt under her own palm-tree which is suggestive in scripture of victory. She was not, you may say, tossed about by the events of the day but lived where she was superior to it. I wonder whether we are able to do that. What is the first thing you do when some matter comes up? Let us be honest with ourselves, what do you feel like doing? You feel like ringing up Mr. So-and-so to see what he thinks about it. What about nurturing our own palm-tree? It does not even say it was her husband’s, Lapidoth, it says it was her palm-tree. I trust that as the exercises of the truth develop with us we grow in spiritual stature so that there is that there which is capable of judgment. It is her own, she had a judgment of the state of things that existed. It was a day of great exploits. In the previous chapter you find Shamgar and Ehud, men who did remarkable exploits, and perhaps we are attracted by that. Perhaps you may say that is something that dazzles us in the present day, but Deborah was a woman of discernment, and she discerned according to her song in chapter 5 that the real problem in Israel was that “the roads were unused, and the travellers on highways went by crooked paths. The villages ceased in Israel” (vv 6,7). She discerns not what was in the headlines of the time, the oppression of Israel by Hazor, and so on, but she discerns the fact that the very infrastructure of Israel was breaking down. You get that in her song. I would like to have a calm judgment as to the real issues of the day and then to act appropriately as to it. She rises up and she speaks to Barak, “Hath not Jehovah the God of Israel commanded”, she reverts to the commandment of God. I do not want to go into the detail of this interesting section, but just to draw attention to this one fact that she had become a woman of substance, and she was one who had a judgment, and she had calmness in that judgment, and she was not distracted by things that were all around, and she was influential. I just commend her to all of us, that Deborah the prophetess is I think someone who had discriminative judgment in the things of God, and she was used for salvation and blessing. I wonder if we were asked to give a judgment of things amongst God’s people at the present time what we would say. Would we only be able to give an account of the headlines or could we see where the solution to matters lay? She was concerned and she acts and acts in relation to a judgment that had been developed with God under what is called her own palm-tree.
I just finish with that scripture in 1 Kings 3. Solomon asked for “discernment to understand judgment”. The Lord was pleased with him that he had asked for this and granted it to him. He had asked God for it. I suppose that is one thing we could do simply is ask God to help us as to our judgments. And Solomon is immediately tested by this well known situation which brings out Solomon’s wisdom in this difficult matter. I read it all because of the great detail given which sets out that things are repeated over and over again, and this claim and that claim. How familiar I suppose we can be in our assemblies with this claim and this counter-claim, and this statement and that statement. And the sad thing is it involved a living child here. Solomon’s wisdom brings out the true mother, and the child is saved, but what a way he takes. His judgment and discrimination was there, and I think you may say he operated on the basis that he knew that the true mother would come to light. What he used was the sword, which has often been linked with the word of God. It is a very powerful weapon, the word of God, and he uses it; but his discernment and his calculation was this, that the true mother in this sorrow, the true mother, would put the life of the child before her own claims, and I believe that is something we might think about because true motherhood would be ready to die before the child died. That feature identified the true mother and brings the resolution. “Give this one the living child … she is its mother”. What a difficult question this was, what wisdom was in Solomon, he got it from God. May we each one of us know this.
This is feebly spoken, I recognise this, let us be exercised as to this matter of discrimination and judgment that what is of God may be preserved among his people. May it be so, for His Name’s sake.
EAST FINCHLEY
1 January 2005