A SAFE FATHER WHO DOESN'T JUDGE US - by Brent Lokker

Language is a funny thing. How do we convey deep realities in the spirit and of the heart using sounds (phonetics) that we’ve created over the centuries to be able to communicate with one another? And then, how do we adequately translate the depth of these specific words across languages and cultures when often there just aren’t ways to adequately express the same nuances?   Take, for example, the verb to judge (judging, judgmental, etc). There are dozens of Greek words with hundreds of variations in the New Testament (woah!), but the word most often used is krisis. Though simply translated as judgement in English, it doesn’t carry the meaning of damnation or condemnation even though most of us who grew up in the church were instructed otherwise. Rather, the Greek word krisis usually conveys something much richer: “setting affairs right between different parties, deciding an issue, coming to a conclusion.”   In this way, we can see how God used his perfect and loving krisis/judgement/decision to come to a conclusion about us. What is that conclusion? Before the foundation of the world, the Father made the decision that we would be holy and innocent before him in love. (Ephesians 1:4; Colossians 1:22) He decided that through Christ, our intimate connection with Him would be fully restored. (Romans 5:1-2) He decided to set things right again by dealing a death blow to the devastating problem of our wayward independence that gave us a distorted view of God, and therefore of ourselves. (2 Corinthians 5:14; Colossians 2:13-15) And by his choice, He created us in his image and shared with us his divine nature to live in eternal union with the Trinity. (Genesis 1:27; 2 Peter 1:4; Romans 6:5)   Jesus told us in no uncertain terms that the Father judges no one but has entrusted all judgement to himself. (John 5:22) Then Jesus says though we judge by human standards, he (Jesus) passes judgement on no one. (John 8:15) Here he’s clearly talking about the ways in which we look down on another and judge others as less than in some way. He is letting us know, “My Father and I don’t do that to anyone…ever!”   Yet another time, Jesus says there is no judgement against anyone who believes in him, but if we don’t believe in him, we have already been judged. (John 3:18) Here’s an intriguing question to ask yourself: who is doing the judging? Jesus never says that it’s him nor does he say it’s the Father, but that’s an assumption most of us have made, mostly because it’s what we were taught, thus it’s the lens through which we see. If we look back to the deception in the Garden of Eden, some kind of distortion gripped God’s first children to suddenly hide from him in shame, somehow anticipating his punishment though previously all they had ever known was deep intimacy with a safe and loving Father. What was their Creator’s response? “My child, why are you hiding from me?” and later, “Who told you that you were naked?” Their loving Father was letting Adam and Eve know, “It wasn’t me!”   So again, who is doing the judging? I propose that the most telling answer is, WE are! And this is often the case when the word judgement is used in the New Testament. We end up judging ourselves when we look through distorted lenses and make up our own stories about who God is and who we are. We have a tendency to come into agreement with some pretty awful, condemning judgements—accusing ourselves, accusing others and even accusing God of being something other than who he is as the purest Lover of our souls.   This truly is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the complexities of the nuances of this one word, judgement. So the big question is, how do we gain more clarity? In a Word…Jesus. We gaze at Jesus who perfectly displays the heart and nature of our heavenly Father. Another way of saying this is, if you don’t see it in Jesus, it can’t be true of the Father. Remember, Jesus was the one to whom all judgement was given and what did he do with that? The only one who was given the authority to accuse and condemn—should he have chosen to do so—relinquished his right to be right in that epoch moment on the cross when he cried out, “Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they’re doing.”   If you have questions regarding what judgement is all about, gaze at Jesus and see how he loved people—like the woman with a poor reputation who anointed his feet with expensive oil and tears of deep gratitude because she encountered a Savior who was safe and who did not judge her in any way (you can read this story in Luke 7). When you wonder what the Father is really like, look no further than the person and life of Jesus and remember how faithfully he has loved you no matter what you have done in your life or where you have found yourself. That’s never going to change! Then, with those lenses in place, the Holy Spirit will lead you on a never-ending adventure of discovering how wide and how long and how high and how deep is the love of Christ!   And this is why you can run full on into the loving arms of your safe Father who will never condemn you but who has already chosen you to be his forever!