Seeing Clearly (Matthew 7:1–6)

Whenever Christians exercise discernment—saying that something is right or wrong, sin or not sin—the world quickly throws it back in our face with, “Jesus said, ‘Don’t judge,’” and they leave it there. It seems simple enough. Matthew 7:1, taken on its own, seems pretty simple to interpret.

Don’t judge. Don’t be overly critical. Don’t have a harsh, judgemental, condemnatory spirit. Leave it to God to judge the living and the dead. And that’s certainly part of the truth conveyed in this text.

But this passage doesn’t just teach us what we mustn’t do. Rather, it teaches us how to see clearly: how to see ourselves clearly, how to see other Christians clearly, and how to see the world clearly. And Jesus teaches this by providing us a warning (vv. 1–2), a challenge (vv. 3–4), a lesson on seeing clearly (v. 5), and then an application of all of this to clearly discern (v. 6).

The text begins, in the first two verses, with a warning: “Judge not, that you be not judged.  For with the judgement you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you” (Matthew 7:1–2).

Where do we see the warning here? As I said, it’s easy to take v. 1 simplistically as a sort of blanket command: Never make any kinds of judgement, never criticise, never admonish, never correct. But we would run into quite a few interpretive issues if we wanted to be consistent with that. As we continue reading in the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus says, if your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault” (Matthew 18:15). So if we are to apply this simplistically in an absolutist sense, Jesus would be contradicting himself.

How can we call something sin? How can we determine who is our brother or sister in Christ to such an extent that we can go and then tell them, “This is your sin”? Whatever Jesus says here about not judging, there’s a nuance we must apply to it. And obviously, in v. 6, there’s further nuance, because, Jesus says, “Do not give dogs what is holy, and do not throw your pearls before pigs.” That implies some sort of judgement, some sort of discernment—knowing what is holy, what is precious as a pearl, and knowing who not to give these things to.

So whatever we say about v. 1, we must say that there’s a little bit more nuance and subtlety to what Jesus is saying. He isn’t giving a simplistic blanket command. He’s not being like the Pharisees, who liked to see things black and white like that. He’s providing a warning for when we judge. When you discern, when you evaluate, take care.

There might be a social dynamic to Jesus’ warning. Some interpreters have said that what Jesus is highlighting here is that, within one’s community, within one’s social circle, if you are known as the person who is overly critical, harsh, and condemnatory, as soon as you slip up, everyone will take that same standard that you have been applying and apply to you. I think there’s truth in that.

But more likely, at least in the present text, where the verbs are passive, Jesus is warning that God will judge those who judge wrongly. “Judge not, that you be not judged, for with the judgement you pronounce, God will judge you, and with the measure you use, God will measure to you.” So are you the kind of person who comes down on others like a ton of bricks when they are five minutes late? I’ve done that before. Are you the kind of person who asks to speak to a cashier’s manager when the cashier doesn’t smile when they greet you, or when they put your bread in the bag and then put all the baked beans on top of the bread? Are you the kind of person who assumes someone is lazy when they only reply to your message in two hours rather than five minutes? Do you berate someone for making an impulse purchase of a piece of sports equipment, and then doesn’t use it in the next two months?

To me—to us—Jesus says, be careful. There’s a warning here. You will receive the same kind of judgement. The level of exactitude that you apply in your judgements, God will apply to you. That’s a very sobering thought. Be wary of an overly harsh or critical spirit towards others.

But, of course, the text doesn’t end there. This isn’t just a simple don’t do this. Jesus wants to expose the heart of what lies behind our discernment, and so he gives us a challenge in vv. 3–4, or, rather, two challenges wrapped up in two verses: “Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye?” (vv. 3–4).

Verse 3 is about someone seeing someone else’s problem while failing to see their own, even bigger, problem. Then, in v. 4, Jesus says something similar about trying to help someone with their problem while you have an even bigger problem yourself to deal with.

To give some other examples, this is like trying to protect someone else from the school bully that beat you up at first break. It’s a nice thought, but it’s not very wise. This is perhaps like offering parenting advice about how to deal with a disobedient child while yours is screaming in the road just behind you, or offering to cut your neighbour’s grass while yours is knee high.

In all of these examples, the person making the judgement that someone else needs to be helped is not seeing clearly. They’re not seeing the full picture. They’re not seeing themselves.

So Jesus is asking us, who are overly critical, which I think we’re all guilty of from time to time, how can you be so blind to your own need for help? How is it that we find it easier to see other people’s need and struggle to see our own need? That’s what Jesus is challenging us to see, and the answer is quite convicting. It’s easier to see, to look outside of ourselves at others, and critique what they are doing. That is simply easier to do.

It’s easier, as I think one American president said, to see two men fighting in the ring and to comment on and critique their fighting style, than it is to get in the ring yourself. It’s difficult to critique ourselves. There’s something in us, like some kind of self-protection or self-defence mechanism, that stops us from running an honest diagnostic on our own hearts. So instead, we turn our eyes to others who we think we can see more clearly. We make judgements. We even offer help when we have a far bigger problem ourselves to deal with, and this is hypocritical. This is blindness.

We need to learn to see clearly, which is what Jesus gets into in v. 5: “You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.”

Jesus calls this hypocrisy, summarising his evaluation of the rhetorical questions in vv. 3–4. Jesus is saying, first deal with yourself, then you will see clearly so you can help others to see. So here we get a more full-orbed understanding of the passage. If we just stopped at v. 1, we’d only have a command of something not to do. But this passage ends in v. 5 by saying that you want to get to the point where you’re actually able to help someone. You’re able to discern. You’re able to see.

This is about first learning the difficulty of taking care of your own garden before telling your neighbour how to take care of theirs. Put your own finances in order before offering advice. Set your house in order before you criticise the world. First learn to love your own wife or husband before offering marital advice. But all of these presuppose something fundamental and underlying this whole passage. First allow God to transform your heart by the gospel before you allow God to use you as a vehicle of transformation in others.

That’s what Jesus is getting across. I’m sure we all want to be used by God? We want to be instruments of change and transformation in other people’s lives: in our family, in our church, in our group of friends. But we first need to learn to see ourselves clearly so that we can help others to see themselves clearly.

So much of the Sermon on the Mount communicates this. It deals with the heart attitude that ought to drive our actions and behaviours externally. This text is no different from the rest of the Sermon on the Mount.

So just some points of reflection or application, especially from v. 5.

First, seeing clearly requires first seeing the evil in our own heart before seeing the evil out there. Seeing clearly requires first seeing the evil that is in here in my own heart before seeing the evil out there. Do business with your own heart.

Ask God to reveal to you as uncomfortable as it is your own capacity for sin. Do not make repentance a mere one-time event for the confines of your devotions. Live a life humbled by repentance.

One commentator put it very helpfully. He said, we quite literally cannot see clearly unless we have been trained to see the log that is in our own eye. But it is not possible for us to see what is in our eye because the eye cannot see itself. That is why we are able to see ourselves only through the vision made possible by Jesus, a vision made possible by our participation in a community of forgiveness that allows us to name our sins. This is not just about making confession the only mode of existence for the Christian. This is about seeing the opportunity that Jesus is providing us to step into the forgiveness of God, to step into the light of his gospel and say, “God, expose my sin. Let me see it more clearly.”

Second, I should not only realise the sin in my own life, but I should realise that the person I am tempted to judge and criticise is just like me. He is, after all, my brother. She is, after all, my sister. This is what Jesus says. Usually, when he refers to hypocrites, he’s speaking of the Gentiles or the Pharisees, but here he is calling hypocritical the behaviour of Christian to Christian.

In v. 3, he says, “Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye?” Or v. 4: “How can you say to your brother?” And v. 5: “You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye and then you’ll see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.” We already have an intimate relationship with this kind of person that Jesus is describing. This is a fellow believer, who has received the grace of God just as I have. This is a person who agrees with God that they are a wretched sinner in need of grace. I am just like them.

As opposed to this, on the other hand, criticism and judgmentalism is about separation and aloofness. It’s about taking your seat on your high horse. It’s about saying, “How could they do such a thing? I would never do such a thing! I don’t have the same capacity as they do for sin. I’m nothing like them.” But you are. You are just like any other sinner out there. And if we are Christians and we believe the Scriptures, we believe that the cross levels the playing field before God.

No one has a step up before God. The brother or sister in Christ I am tempted to judge is just like me, not only in my weakness in resisting the flesh, but also in my reception of God’s grace. This is someone else who has received the exact same grace on the same basis I have: the shed blood of Jesus.

When Jesus died on the cross and shed his blood for the forgiveness of sins, he died for my sin as well as the sin of my brother and sister in Christ. When he rose from the grave, securing my standing before the Father as a son of the King, I received the same Holy Spirit that has been given to each and every man, woman, boy, or girl who professes Jesus as Lord. So we need sight of the gospel if we are to see ourselves clearly and then see our brothers and sisters clearly.

They are like me, and why would I not do to others as God has done to me? So this I believe is the heart of the passage. Jesus isn’t just giving a patch-up plaster to judgmentalism. He is saying your harsh, overly critical spirit is revealing an inability to see your own heart, to see your own capacity for sin.

But how does v. 6 fit into verses 1 to 5? Listen: “Do not give dogs what is holy, and do not throw your pearls before pigs, lest they trample them underfoot and turn to attack you.”

It seems like Jesus is addressing this judgemental spirit in a person, but now, in v. 6, begins calling certain people dogs and pigs and saying not to give what is precious or what is holy to them. How does it fit into vv. 1–5? It actually fits into the context actually in a way that really makes sense.

Jesus has been teaching about making hasty judgements of others before learning to see yourself clearly, and the person who has learned to see clearly is then able to make the proper judgement necessary to obey v. 6. We can’t be going around calling things holy, unholy, precious, not valuable if we have not done business with our own heart and learned to see clearly first.

So we can only obey v. 6 and in a Christlike manner if we are obeying vv. 1–5. So v. 6 requires us to know what is holy and precious and to discern when giving it to others would be a waste or even dangerous. I say waste because giving what is holy to dogs is a waste. In the Old Testament, in the tabernacle, usually it was the offcuts—the waste—that was given to the dogs.

Similarly, think of giving a pearl, which is so valuable that someone would sell their entire estate to purchase this one precious pearl, to a pig, who has no concept of value and no concept of what is good and what is right. It would be a waste. And not only a waste, but it would be a danger. The pigs might turn on you, trample what you have given them, and attack you.

So these people are those who are far from having clear sight. They’re not able to judge the valuable from the worthless, the holy from the unholy, the good from the evil. So the one who has learned to see clearly must discern when is the proper time to approach someone steeped in their sin.

And if we consider ourselves Christians, but regularly fail to see our own sin, we also need to read the warning that is here in v. 6. If we call ourselves Christians but don’t see our own sin, we may end up like those who cannot accept the holy things of God, who cannot receive the precious pearl of great Christ. And so this text ends with a sobering challenge as we learn to apply vv. 1–5.

So let’s heed the warning of Christ in this passage. Let’s hear the challenge that he gives us. Let’s learn to see clearly. And as a result, let us clearly discern the things of the Lord.

AMEN