On Judging

What exactly is judging? and what is not?  What is sinful judging?  Archbishop Averky's answer might be a surprise.  Every question I had about judging is answered here, and even some questions I did not know I had..  Original Russian version cites Scripture references.

True Orthodoxy and the Modern World

Abp. Averky of Syracuse

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Chapter 22: 

The remission of sins and imaginary Christian love and forgiveness 

"Take the Holy Spirit: unto them that remit sins, they shall be remitted; and unto them that hold fast, they shall be held fast."

"Let no one weep for trespasses, for forgiveness from the grave shall be exalted..." we hear on the sacred and all-holy night of the Resurrection of Christ so joyful for us words of the great universal teacher and saint, renowned church visionary St. John Chrysostom. 

And indeed! One of the most important and most important consequences of the great work of redemption of mankind, accomplished by Christ the Life-Giver who rose three days from the grave, was precisely forgiveness, or remission of sins. 

That is why, appearing on the first day after His Resurrection to His disciples gathered together, the Risen Lord, after teaching them peace, blew and said: "Receive the Holy Spirit: unto them that put away sins, they shall be absolved; and unto them that hold fast, they shall be held fast."

And further, from the book of Acts we see that the holy apostles, after preaching about Christ crucified and risen from the dead, immediately called upon their hearers to repent and receive holy baptism "for the remission of sins."

"Repent, and let each one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and receive the gift of the Holy Spirit" — thus St. Peter cried out to the crowd of many thousands, listening to him on the day of Pentecost. 

"Repent therefore, and be converted, that ye may be cleansed from your sins," he also cried to the people who had gathered around him and Saint John the Apostle after their miraculous healing of the lame man from birth. 

"God commands all men everywhere to repent— Saint Apostle Paul said to the Athenians in his famous sermon before the Areopagus, — because he fixed a day (for he fixed a day), in which he wants to judge the universe with truth (in which he will judge the universe with justice)."  

From this it is clear that this "forgiveness," about which St. Chrysostom speaks, or "remission of sins" is given to us not unconditionally, but conditionally, just under the condition of repentance (of course, sincere). This is also why the Lord, having given His disciples the power to "absolve sins" by the Holy Spirit, at the same time, as we see, gave them the power not to forgive sins — obviously to those who do not truly repent: "...and by them ye shall hold fast," i.e., "on whom ye shall leave sins, on him they shall remain" - hence, they shall not be forgiven. 

How understandable this is, how logical it is, and how completely at odds with this clear and definite, pure Gospel teaching is the now so fashionable propaganda of some imaginary Christian love and unconditional forgiveness, too all-encompassing, which supposedly extends even to the enemies of Christ's faith, up to and including the doubtless servants of the coming Antichrist, actively fighting against the Holy Church and the very faith in God! 

Such false preachers of fashionable imaginary "Christianity" in order to support their shaky positions like to abuse the well-known saying of the Lord: "Judge not, lest ye be judged" — a particularly favorite saying of theirs, which, however, does not prevent them from judging and condemning most cruelly all those who do not agree with their false teaching, which is only a very cunning distortion of the Gospel teaching — a forgery, with which they confuse and confuse many. 

In order to understand correctly this saying of the Lord, we must remember that the same Our Lord Jesus Christ, who said: "Judge not, lest ye be judged," immediately afterwards taught: "Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast your beads before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and ye be wrung after them." 

Who are these "dogs" and these "swine"? 

By these dogs and pigs the Lord meant morally corrupt people, incapable of accepting the Truth of the Gospel, to whom everything sacred and spiritual is alien and even repugnant, because they cannot understand its price. These are morally fallen, impious and wicked people, who often only sneer at the Truth of the Gospel, trample on it, and can turn violently on its preachers themselves, causing them various troubles and even death (see the interpretations of St. John Chrysostom, Ephesius Michael, etc.). 

Is it not clear from this that by the words "Judge not, lest ye be judged" the Lord does not forbid at all to give moral estimation to people — to differentiate between good and evil people? Not only does He not forbid it, but, as we shall see below, He even commands it. 

For example, the Lord explicitly commands us to rebuke our brother who has sinned: "If your brother sins against you, go and rebuke him between you and that one man: if he listens to you, you have gained your brother..."

Moreover, to such reasonable and Christian judgment on the sinned brother, it is not only permitted, but even commanded to attract also other brethren: "If he will not listen to you, take with you one or two more, that with the mouth of two or three witnesses every verb may become."

But that is not all! If the brother continues to persist in the evil he is doing, then we must "tell" the Church, that is, the church authority, which received from the Lord Himself the gracious right to "bind and decide": "And if he will not obey them, let the Church be warned: but if the Church also disobeys, let him be to you as a heathen and a tax collector."

These last words are the most frightening and completely unacceptable to the twisted imaginary — Christian ideology of modern propagandists of liberal fashionable neo-Christianity, for they run completely counter to their basic tenets. 

But whether one likes or dislikes them, they cannot be thrown out of the Gospel: they are the words of our Lord Jesus Christ Himself. 

How can they not be taken into account? 

But today's neo-Christians, which now include scholars of theology and many high hierarchs, do not want to reckon with the real, authentic gospel of Christ, but arbitrarily fabricate their own "gospel," just as their ideological predecessor of grim memory Leo Tolstoy did in his time. 

Alas! For many of today's very unstable, unshakable in the true Christian faith, this is a great temptation, a temptation that completely throws them off the right path. 

"Judge not, lest ye be judged!" 

How attractive this seems to be in the neo-Christian crookedness: "I will not hinder you from sinning, and you will not hinder me from sinning for it!" 

This is the horrifying, perverted, criminal interpretation of this sacred text in our day! In fact, we should know and remember that condemnation is not the same as condemnation: there are different kinds of condemnation. 

One condemnation is sinful, and the other, as we have seen, is not only not sinful, but is prescribed by the Gospel itself. 

And this is quite understandable: for if we never, on any occasion, condemn anyone, we will soon lose all ability to distinguish between good and evil, and we can easily be led down the path of evil ourselves. 

The greatest of those born of women, whose holiness and blameless moral highness is witnessed by Christ the Savior Himself, the holy Forerunner of the Lord John, seeing the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to him, said to them, "Ye of Eden, who told you to flee from the wrath to come?"

What is this? Sinful condemnation? 

Our Lord Jesus Christ Himself, who invited His followers to take His example and said, "Learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart," but not once did He use the same expression about those sinners hardened by evil, who would not listen to His divine teaching: "vipers' spawn," and often addressed the people around Him, especially the scribes and Pharisees, with very sharp words of condemnation: "wicked and adulterous generation! "O unfaithful and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you, how long shall I suffer you?" He constantly called the scribes and Pharisees "hypocrites", "foolish and blind", "serpents," He once called King Herod "fox"; "reviled," as the Gospel itself expresses it, the whole cities of Chorazin, Bethsaida and Capernaum, because they "did not repent." 

Not only that! We know from the Gospel, that the meek and humble Lord, who later prayed for His crucifiers: "Father, absolve them: for they do not know what they do," not only used harsh words of condemnation, but sometimes He resorted to very strong and drastic measures of physical influence: thus, twice — at the very beginning of His public ministry — and again at its very end, shortly before His suffering on the cross, He expelled the traders from the temple. These events are vividly and figuratively recounted to us by the evangelists. Not being able to tolerate the ugly peddling, which was started, under the protection of the priests themselves and even with the participation of the high priests, who had a large profit from selling pigeons, by the Jews in the Temple of Jerusalem, the Lord Jesus Christ, "making a whip of cords, drove all out of the temple, both sheep and oxen, and scattered the money of the changers, and overturned their tables", saying to the sellers: "You shall not make my Father's house a house of trade." And after His solemn entry into Jerusalem before His suffering, He again entered the temple and "drove out all those who sold and bought, overturned the tables of the changers and the pews of the peddlers, and said to them, 'It is written, My house shall be called a house of prayer, but you have made it a den of thieves."

What is this? 

And how far is it from the supposedly Christian "love" and all-encompassing "forgiveness" preached by today's liberal "neo-Christians"! And won't they, more "loving" than the Lord Himself, find such words and actions of the sinless Lord sinful and unacceptable, contrary to His teaching: won't they brand them with their favorite expressions of "obscurantism," "Black- hundreds," "dark Middle Ages," "retrogression," "inquisition," etc.? 

But can we think that our Lord, the Incarnate Only-Begotten Son of God, who came to earth to save us humans, to teach us the Divine Truth and to live in harmony with it, would contradict Himself in any way — act contrary to His own teaching? 

Of course it is out of the question: to think so would be the greatest blasphemy! But there He was! 

Following the example of the Lord Himself, His holy disciples and apostles were not afraid, when necessary, to "condemn" those who stubbornly opposed the Gospel Truth which they preached, and sometimes to resort to the most drastic measures to restrain and suppress evil. 

Thus, St. Peter severely condemned Ananias and Sapphira for the deception they had committed, who were punished with instant death only because they had "withheld a certain part from the price of the land" they had sold, instead of offering the whole price as an offering to the Church. 

he holy archimandrite Stephen openly condemned his fellow Jews in front of all, in the council, calling them "cruel" and "men with uncircumcised hearts and ears", and accusing them of "always opposing the Holy Spirit", that they "killed the prophets" and finally "became traitors and murderers" of the very Lord Jesus Christ, whose coming had been announced by those prophets. 

St. Peter condemned Simon the Volhov for his attempt to buy the grace of the Holy Spirit with money, saying to him, "Your silver shall be with you in destruction... I see you filled with bitter gall and in bonds of unrighteousness." 

The Apostle St. Paul, during his first missionary journey, severely condemned the false prophet Bar-Jesus, or Elymas, who tried to reject from the faith in Christ proconsul Sergius Paul, saying to him: "Oh, one filled with all guile and all wickedness, son of the devil, enemy of all righteousness" and punished him with blindness. 

What is this? A sinful condemnation? The apostles' lack of Christian love? 

The same St. Apostle Paul, when the Corinthians, newly converted by him to the faith in Christ, informed him that a disgusting and vile sin of incest had come into their midst — that "some men, instead of a wife, have a wife of their father," did not tell them about it: "Judge not, lest ye be judged! — Or," What do you look at the speck in your brother's eye, but don't feel the plank in your own eye?" No! Nothing of the sort! The apostle immediately condemned this sinner, and commanded the Corinthians to condemn him with the strictest sentence and punishment, "deliver him to Satan for the weariness of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ." 

Not only that! St. Paul then instructed the Corinthians not to "associate with fornicators," and not only with fornicators, but also with "covetous persons," or "extortioners," or "idolaters," and with all those "who, being called "brother" (i.e. "Christian") "fornicators, or covetous persons, or idolaters, or swine, or extortioners; with such even not to eat together... You shall cast him out of your midst, who is corrupt."

The above Scripture seems to be more than enough to see how we should properly understand God's words, "Judge not, lest ye be judged."  That is, to make sure that these words do not exclude any kind of condemnation of one's neighbor, which is not only permissible but even necessary, prescribed by the very law of God and conscience, since a true Christian cannot treat obvious evil and sin indifferently, ignore it and put up with it under the evil pretext of "non-judgment," "Christian love" and "all-forgiveness. 

We must know well and remember that Tolstoy's malignant doctrine of "non-resistance to evil" (which, incidentally, ruined our wretched homeland of Russia and plunged it into the terrible bloody horrors of Bolshevism!) is completely alien to true Christianity: every true Christian is implacable to evil, no matter where or in whom he encounters it. 

The example of the Lord Jesus Christ Himself and of His holy apostles was then followed throughout the history of the Church by all true Christians, who always condemned evil and fought against it, even if it cost them all kinds of severe hardships and even their very lives. 

Thus struggled against the evil of dark paganism and idolatry the holy martyrs, not only passively dying for the Name of Christ, but also very strongly condemning, sometimes in very harsh words and expressions and even actions, the delusion and impiety of the idolaters. 

Decisively and uncompromisingly the holy Fathers of the Church struggled with the false teachers of heretics, not at all considering heretics as "dissenters" (as it has become fashionable in our days!), to whom one must show "tolerance", to whom one must "approach with understanding", but considering them as "fierce wolves, not sparing the flock", as the Word of God expresses it, severely condemning them at Ecumenical and Local Councils, warning the orthodox against communion with them in every possible way and making them anathema. 

What is this? Sinful condemnation or lack of love? 

No! It is nothing more than the legitimate application to life of the words of St. Apostle: "What fellowship of light with darkness? What harmony between Christ and Belial? Or what fellowship of the faithful with the unfaithful?"

And our Reverend Fathers and Mothers, Christian ascetics and ascetics, "condemned" this world, lying in evil, by the very fact of their departure from it. They followed the call of the Word of God: "Depart from their midst and depart, says the Lord, and touch no uncleanness, and I will receive you: and I will be to you in the Father, and you shall be to me sons and daughters."

And now, in the terrible time of cynical and blatantly wicked godlessness that we are experiencing, we, as Christians faithful to Christ the Savior and His True Church, cannot but condemn with all our determination the godless and blasphemers, the wicked God-fighters who seek to eradicate the faith of Christ throughout the world and to destroy the Holy Church, who desecrate our Motherland and desecrate our Holy Places. 

Nor can we fail to condemn all those who collaborate with them, who support them and contribute to their power, thereby assisting them in their infernal designs. 

We condemn the servants of the coming antichrist and the antichrist himself ... 

Is all this a sinful condemnation, forbidden by the Gospel, as modern clever neo-Christians, filled with some extraordinary "super love" and all-encompassing "forgiveness," are trying to convince us? 

Let them not lie about the Lord and His Holy Gospel! 

Let them not ascribe to themselves, in their Pharisaic pride and self-belief, a greater love than that which our Lord and Savior Incarnate Love Himself had! 

And as we should correctly understand the saying of the Lord: "Judge not, lest ye be judged," this is beautifully explained by the great Father of the Church, St. John Chrysostom: "Here the Savior commands not to judge all sins and forbids not all without exception, but only those, who, being themselves filled with innumerable sins, reproach others for some insignificant faults. Christ also points here to the Jews, who, being wicked accusers of their neighbors of some insignificant and insignificant deeds, themselves unconscionably committed great sins."

Hence it is not judgment of the deeds of a neighbor that is forbidden, nor condemnation of his evil deeds in themselves, but an evil feeling in the soul toward a neighbor, by a person who himself sins as much, or even more, without thinking of his own rectification. 

What is forbidden is not an objective "judgment" of one's neighbor, not an impartial condemnation of his bad behavior, but evil gossip and backbiting that comes, as it often does, from any selfish and impure motives, from pride and vanity, from envy or resentment. 

In other words, it is forbidden to be angry and gloating over one's own sinful neighbor, on personal grounds, but not at all a fair, purely ideological, principled, impassioned evaluation of his deeds and behavior, which is not only not against the Gospel and not reprehensible, but on the contrary — even necessary, so that we do not eventually become indifferent to good and evil, and evil would not prevail in the world as a result. 

The great crime, therefore, is committed by those modern pastors, whom it would be better to call false pastors, who, under the plausible pretext of supposed Christian "love" and "forgiveness," consciously or unconsciously, teach their flock the Tolstian "non-resistance to evil. 

What terrible, hopeless slyness this is! What genuine Pharisaic hypocrisy this is! 

"Do not condemn anyone for anything at all" — this is the attitude that the servants of the coming antichrist want to achieve in contemporary Christian society, so that they can easily and spaciously act, preparing in the world an environment favorable to the speedy enthronement of their ruler. 

Could it not be clear to every honest and conscientious Christian in our time that unconditional "forgiveness" is needed only for the enemy of Christ — the Antichrist, so that people completely lose the sense of distinguishing between good and evil, would make peace with evil, willingly accept it, and then — the Antichrist himself, without thinking about combating him? 

This is nothing more than a hypocritical Pharisaic deceit of the enemy, who longs for our destruction! 

If the Christian forgiveness, granted to us by the risen Christ the Savior, extended, so to speak, automatically to those who are not willing to repent and reform their lives, then the Lord would not have given His apostles, and in their person all their successors, the pastors of the Church, along with the power to "forgive sins" the power to "bind" them and not say, having appeared to them after the Resurrection: "unto them that remit sins, they shall be remitted; and unto them that hold, they shall be held" (i.e.: they shall not be remitted). 

What an utter and reckless impudence, indeed, to think ourselves more loving than God Himself, and to "correct" the gospel of Christ by making up our own "gospel"! 

Let us take every precaution, brethren, against this wicked leaven of modern Pharisaism! 

Resolutely fighting against every slightest manifestation of evil and sin in our own souls, let us not be afraid to uncover and expose evil wherever it reveals itself in modern life — not because of pride and self-love, but only out of love for the truth. Our main task in this wicked time of deceitful shamelessness is to remain completely faithful and committed to the true Gospel Truth and to the Author of our salvation, Christ the Life-Giver, who rose on three days from the tomb, the Victor of hell and death.