On Judging Others

              Currently, I am unpacking my thoughts on ecclesial personhood; a personhood which is fulfilled in the eschaton.  In other words, to be human…i.e. the image of God…and the essence of humanness is not to be found in our created state, nor our fallen state, nor our current state, but it is to be found in our future and deified state.  This distinction has massive, massive implications if you think through it and it is one of the larger factors that distinguishes Eastern from Western Christianity.  In the West, we tend to define our humanness by our fallenness and human ontology is worked out from there whereas in the East, ontology is worked out of what we will become.  Currently, I wish to focus on one of the fore-mentioned implications: an implication for judgment.

                We are told by our Lord not to judge others.  For, in the measure that we judge others we to will be judged.  Judgment is a problem because it does not operate out of love.  It does not see what the person might become but it decides for itself what it assumes the person might become…which is inhuman.  It measures someone’s personhood according to their fallen and current state, not the eschatological state.  Judgment makes the decision in advance who is “in” and who is “out,” according not to what will be, but to what seems evident for time being.  It assumes that the person will never overcome his natural inclinations to sin and the passions.  It assumes that the person will never realize his ecclesial being within the Church and within participation in the divine Trinity. 

                Christ did not come to condemn the world bit to save it if we remember correctly.  He has made it possible for humankind to escape condemnation.  Whenever we pass judgment we are saying that this person will never fulfill his/her personhood, that he/she will continue to be a slave to his/her sinful passions. 

                Judgment divides.  It separates.  Division and separation is the exact opposite of God’s saving action because it leads to death while God leads us into life and, thus, communion.  Life is communion with God.  We will be judged according to the measure we judge because, the more we judge, the more we break up communion and individualize ourselves.  In other words, the more we judge, the more we will set ourselves up outside the walls of God’s city…a city where His people will eventually dwell in unity.