NOTES for Luk 6:37-45
The Savior's words, “Do not judge, and you will not be judged,” could, of course, be understood primarily or exclusively as referring to relationships between people. Then they might seem a certain concession, or even an indulgence of human weakness: an invitation to overlook other people's sins so that others will overlook your own.
Indeed, “civilized society” and “proper behavior” imply something of the sort. In such a society, if people who behave “properly” speak of others' sins at all, they do not do so openly, and certainly not to the face of the person they consider a sinner. Apparently, the instinct for psychological, if not spiritual, self-preservation tells everyone that people who live in glass houses should not throw stones.
But is this what the Savior means? There is another possibility: refraining from judgment as the utmost objectivity in approaching human actions. One of the great teachers of the Torah, Hillel, who lived approximately two centuries before Christ's coming, advised people not to judge their neighbor until they had been in that neighbor's position. At first glance, Jesus too might seem to be calling for something similar.
Yet there is a difference. Everything He says is spoken in the context of the Kingdom's life, to which He calls His followers. No one is ready for that life: there are no sinless people in the world apart from the Savior Himself. So no one is in a position to judge anyone else, for all are in the same situation. Each person must think first of their own salvation, their own path into the Kingdom.
That leaves no room for condemning other people's sins. But there is another side to the refusal to condemn that Jesus asks of His followers. The Kingdom comes to each person as an undeserved gift, but only on condition that everyone willing to accept it receives it in the same way, as an undeserved gift. Every attempt to single out the worthy will end in just one way: the evaluator will be counted among the unworthy. Jesus does not want those seeking the Kingdom to lose it through spiritual self-righteousness. He therefore advises them not to be spiritually self-righteous—for the sake of their own salvation.