Editorial: Judgement

Jim Coggins

For the last several years, my wife and I have been blessed by being in a Sunday school class whose regular teacher was a good Bible expositor. A year or two ago, he asked us to read Luke 17-19 in preparation for a series of lessons he was teaching. He wanted to draw out certain themes which flow through these chapters. In my reading, I discovered a theme in addition to the ones he had discovered. Consider what is in these chapters:
* Jesus praised childlike faith but condemned those who cause the faithful to stumble.
* Jesus healed 10 lepers, but only one returned thanks.
Jesus said that at the end of the world there would be judgement. As Noah was saved from the flood that destroyed the rest of humanity, and Lot and his daughters were saved from the fire that destroyed Sodom, so only one of two people in a bed and one of two people grinding grain will be saved.
A widow obtained help from a judge due to her persistence, a parable that encourages people to pray persistently.
God justified the humble tax collector who prayed for mercy, but did not justify the proud Pharisee who prayed to himself.
Jesus called the children to Himself, but condemned those who refused to enter the Kingdom with childlike faith.
A rich ruler left Jesus rather than give his great wealth to the poor, but Jesus promised rewards to His disciples and others who would give up everything for the sake of the gospel.
Jesus healed a blind beggar who insisted on crying out to Jesus when others told him to be quiet.
* Zacchaeus sought and found a creative way to see Jesus in spite of his limitations and later repented of his sins, repaying those he had cheated and giving half of his money to the poor.
In another parable, Jesus praised two servants who had used their master's gifts wisely, but condemned a servant who had hidden his gift.
Jesus entered Jerusalem on Palm Sunday to the acclaim of His followers, but the Pharisees criticized Him.
Jesus wept over Jerusalem because He knew that the city as a whole would reject Him, sealing its own doom.
Jesus drove the dishonest merchants from the temple.
When Jesus taught in the temple, the people hung on His words, but the chief priests, teachers and leaders sought a way to kill Him.

The theme that runs through these chapters is one of division and judgement. By deciding to follow or reject Jesus, the characters in these chapters decided their own future, whether it would be salvation or damnation.

This exercise came back to me later as I was reading an article about a Mennonite church conference which was voting on whether to expell two congregations which accepted practising homosexuals as members.

What struck me were comments by two of the supporters of the pro-homosexual congregations:

"We found we disagreed on many things, but on two things we did agree: (1) we should not be judges; (2) this issue would not be a basis of membership."

"One thing my church is very clear on is that we do not kick out people that interpret the Bible differently than we do."

This summer, another Mennonite conference dealt with a very similar issue. A member of a congregation which accepts practising homosexuals as members commented that he absolutely accepted the conference position that homosexual activity is sin; he just didn't think it should be a bar to church membership.

This sentiment was echoed in a comment in a recent Mennonite World Conference publication: "The European Mennonites have, for the greater part, rejected church discipline after the disastrous effects it had on the church in former centuries."

It seems that some Mennonites have reduced "Anabaptist distinctives" to the "peace position", and then further reduced the "peace position" to tolerance of anything.

Where did we ever get the idea that God just accepts everybody and that Jesus is too loving to ever judge anyone? Certainly not from Scripture. Jesus didn't go around looking for people to condemn. He offered His salvation freely to everyone, but those who refused brought judgement on themselves.

And where did we get the idea that the church has no right to make judgements? The church has a responsibility to make judgements, or church membership and church doctrine would become meaningless. Jesus gave the keys of the kingdom of heaven to the church, adding, "Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven" (Matthew 16:19). In I Corinthians 5, Paul sharply criticized the Corinthian church for failing to expel a brother who was guilty of sexual immorality; instead, the church was patting itself on the back for its tolerance. Paul demanded, "When you are assembled in the name of our Lord Jesus . . . and the power of our Lord Jesus is present, hand this man over to Satan, so that the sinful nature may be destroyed and his spirit saved" (verses 4-5).

Later, Paul went on to address the question in general: "Are you not to judge those inside (the church)? . . . Do you not know that the saints will judge the world? . . . Do you not know that we will judge angels?" (5:12, 6:2-3)

To be sure, we humans are fallible, and we can err in our judgements. There is always a danger that we will condemn the innocent or acquit the guilty. Our fallibility means that we should judge humbly, but it does not free us of the responsibility to make judgements. One of those condemned by Jesus was the man who took his gift and buried it, refusing to exercise his responsibility.

I should make clear that this attitude of absolute tolerance is not the norm in Mennonite churches. Some of the churches mentioned above have been suspended by their conferences. One Mennonite church leader summed up the issue well: "If there are no boundaries of belief and behaviour, there is no community. The very definition of church, whether local or worldwide, implies certain limits."

At another recent Mennonite convention, guest speaker Tom Sine argued for "whole life discipleship, in which God wants to transform every part of our lives". He went on to say to his Mennonite audience, "You guys invented lifestyle change, and now you don't talk about it, so I'm going to give it back to you."

Harold S. Bender, who defined "the Anabaptist vision" for the 20th century, did not say that the peace position was the centre of Anabaptist belief. Rather, the centre for him was discipleship, the radical commitment to follow Jesus absolutely. Only those deeply committed to Jesus can hope to understand the biblical peace position--or practise it.

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