John 12:47-48
If anyone hears my words and does not keep them, I do not judge him; for I did not come to judge the world but to save the world. The one who rejects me and does not receive my words has a judge; the word that I have spoken will judge him on the last day.
“There is no way that person is a Christian!”
“How can you be a real Christian and (fill in the blank)?”
“There’s a special place in hell for people like that!”
I don’t know about you, but I can be a pretty harsh judge from time to time…and feel pretty justified in doing so. Jesus handled it differently. He knew that everyone’s day in court would come when they would be judged based solely on one of two things: His imputed righteousness if they had been born again, or their lifelong wrap-sheet of sin. His first visit to earth was about salvation. His second visit will bring judgment. What role do you and I play in that scenario?
Very little.
The end of this chapter contains the last words in John’s gospel from Jesus to the public. They were not words of condemnation, but rather, words of a “tender appeal” (Morris). If Jesus’ first coming was only to judge, he did not need to take on human flesh. Yet, he was born in the humblest of circumstances, lived the simple life of the working poor, and died a horrific and very public death. Jesus was on a rescue mission, not to preach condemnation, but to make a way for the lost sheep to find their way home. He did not preach out of rage, but out of a broken heart. He did not speak dispassionately, but with words of tenderness and deep concern. He did not look at lost people from afar but wept over them because they were like sheep without a shepherd (Mt. 9:36).
Do you judge like Jesus’ second coming?
The great bible commentator, William Barclay, noted that “Always in the Fourth Gospel there is this essential paradox; Jesus came in love, yet his coming is a judgment.” In other words, he came because of our sin, and the words he spoke act on their own accord as mankind’s judge. His words are the measuring stick—not ours. His complete knowledge of each and every individual is what they are held accountable for—not our limited knowledge. Every person you have ever known is accountable to Jesus—they are not accountable to you. At his ascension into heaven, Jesus passed the baton to His followers that we might share the good news of his birth, death, and resurrection along with the command to live in such a way as to replicate his care and concern for society. When it comes to judgment, that role is his and his alone. We have no right to it, nor any standing to apply it. Only Jesus and Jesus alone plays that role, and play it he will, “…on the last day.”
