NOTES for Mat 7:1
When the Lord Jesus Christ heals the paralytic whom four people brought to Him after taking apart the roof of the house, He says: "Your sins are forgiven you." At this the Pharisees and scribes are indignant, because, they think, no one can forgive sins except God. Today, reading a passage from the Sermon on the Mount, we hear a similar thought from Jesus Himself. And after the resurrection He says to the disciples: "Whose sins you forgive, they are forgiven..." It is important to try to look at these Gospel episodes together, in order to understand what the Lord says about forgiveness.
Then, in the house of Peter's mother-in-law, the Lord does not refute the scribes' initial premise, but emphasizes that, unlike people, the God-man can forgive sins by virtue of His divinity and by right of the sacrifice of the Cross. In the Sermon on the Mount He says that only the one who is righteous himself and whose sight is not damaged by sin can judge. And finally, the Lord gives the Church the command to forgive sins because He Himself is her head, and the Church is called by Him to transmit His forgiveness.
But in practice it is important for us that His words "Do not judge, that you may not be judged" are, if one may put it this way, a "technical" principle by which you can pass from the world of condemnation into the world of forgiveness. This requires acknowledging one's own inability to judge and one's own sinfulness, that is, repentance. Most importantly, it requires desiring precisely forgiveness, not "just recompense."