In similar strain St. Paul writes (Ro 14''), 'Who art thou that judgest another man's servant? To his own master he standeth or falleth.' The words are suggested by the relationship between the 'strong' and the 'weak.' The 'strong,' conscious of their freedom in Chi'ist, may despise the 'weak,' who still feel it their duty to continue an ascetic habit, even though they have accepted Christ ; on the other hand, the 'weak,' condemning what seems to them the laxity of the 'strong,' may be led into the habit of censorious judgment (see an admirable discourse by A. Souter in ExpT xxiv. [1912-13] 5 if.). The same Apostle, however, while thus discountenancing the habit of judging one another, expressly advocates the duty of acting according to a moral standard in dealing with moral offences. In 1 Co 5, e.g., he condemns the Corinthians for allowing a case of immorality to go unchallenged and unjudged. _ At the same time the Christian Church is to hmit its judgments to those that are within ; those that are without are to be left to the judgment of God (1 Co 5^^). It would appear, then, that the Apostle, while not absolving the Christian from the duty of judgment in offences against morality, advocates the widest tolerance in minor matters of ever3'day hfe, e.g. in Ro 14^'i° — a passage which closes with the state- ment : 'we shall all stand before the judgement- seat of God.'
In the same way the apostolic writers press upon their readers the duty of discrimination according to certain standards of right and wrong. They are to ' test all things and hold fast that which is right' (1 Th 5-^), and to 'test the spirits whether they be of God' (1 Jn 4^, the word doKL/xd^eiv being used, which more definitely suggests the approval which results from a test or touchstone than the simpler and more familiar Kplveiv). They are to pronounce anathema on the proclaimer of 'another' gospel (Gal 1^), and to refuse hospitality to a false teacher, on the ground that a welcome or salu- tation involves participation in his evil works (2 Jn 1"'). Thus doctrine, hke hfe and conduct, is to be brought to the test of a moral standard, and what is subversive of the person and teaching of the Lord is to be rejected. 'Happj',' says the Apostle Paul (Ro 14--), 'is he that judgeth not himself in that which he approveth' (So/ct/uafet). This passage appears to combine the two ideas which enter into the NT treatment of the subject : the Christian must avoid censorious judgment and
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yet courageously exercise his Judgment in the realm of ethics and doctrine ; he is happy in the strength of his faith, which enables him bo to act as to escape self-condemnation or misgiAing. In another passage (Ro 14^^) St. Paul plaj's on the double use of Kpivio, %'iz. as indicating a hasty and uncharitable judgment, and as implying the determining of a com-se of conduct for oneself. 'Let us not judge one another any more, but judge ye this rather, that no man put a stumbUngblock in his brother's way' — the latter sense being paralleled by 2 Co 2^, 'I formed this judgment or determination for myself,' and 1 Co 2^ 5^, Tit 3^'. A similar usage occtirs in the famous statement in 2 Co 5^*, ' because we thus judge that if one died for all,' etc. — the word signifying a con^^ction that has been formed out of spiritual experience (cf. also 1 Co 11^', where there is an appeal to a judg- ment based on common sense).
For the judgments of others on the Christian there are two passages worth oiu- notice, viz. Col 2^^ where the false teaching which infected the Colossian Church is made the subject of warning, eating and drinking being, according to the Apostle, mere shadows of the reality, and therefore not matters on which a judgment should be based — 'let no man take you to task in eating and in drinking' : scrupulous ritual and asceticism are a return to an order of hfe which the gospel has rendered obsolete. The other passage is Ja 2^', 'So speak ye and so do as men that are to be judged by a law of Uberty' (cf. 1-^). This is St. James's variation on St. Paul's 'law of the spirit of hfe in Chi-ist Jesus' — not a system of codified regulations enforced from without, but a law freely accepted and obeyed as the result of a new relationship to God. 'It wUl,' says J. B. Mavor {The Epistle of St. James^, 1910, p. 94), 'be a deeper-going judgment than that of man, for it wiU not stop short at particular precepts or at the outward act, whatever it may be, but will pene- trate to the temper and motive.' And it destroys aU morbid anxiety and questioning 'as to the exact
Eerformance of each separate precept ' if there has een true love to God and man. ' The same love which actuates the true Christian here actuates the Judge both here and hereafter.'
The reader is referred to a concordance for the ntunerous passages in which God or Christ is spoken of as Judge of humanity ; we have here limited oiu* survey to the non-forensic side of judg- ment. There is a passage, however, which calls for comment, viz. 1 Co 6^, 'Do ye not know that the saints shall judge the world?' This is to be taken along with a previous warning in 4^, 'Judge nothing before the time, until the Lord come,' etc. The meaning is that the saints wiU be associated with their Lord in the act of judging the world at the Last Day, and their judgment will be exercised not only on the world, but on 'angels' (6^), mean- ing the hierarchy of evil or fallen spirits. This doctrine of the future is stated in Rev 20* and be- came a rooted con\'iction of the post-Apostolic Church, as we see from Euseb. HE vi. 42, where the saints are called fi^roxoi rijs Kpiaeo^s avrov, 'as- sociates in His judgment.' The Divine Judgeship is a truth essential to human thought. Experi- ence deepens the sense of the ignorance and fallibility attaching to man's judgments. The epigram tout connattre dest tout pardonner is in effect an expression of human helplessness ; and the aspiration of David, ' Let me fall now into the hand of the Lord . . . and let me not fall into the hand of man' (1 Ch 21^^), is really the cry of humanity for ever conscious of the Limitations of its own judgments.