If you find yourself saying to others that only “God can judge you” then you probably are well aware that your life is kind of fucked up or that the things you are doing are a little bit questionable.
Whenever I hear someone say this phrase I kind of have a face-palm reaction.
First off, most of the people using this phrase aren’t religious, don’t go to church, or don’t believe in God.
Why do you think God is going to view you more favorable than the people of Earth?
To add some philosophical thought into this, if we are all the children of God, created in (his) image, then whenever we judge someone, we do so in part on behalf of God. In essence, your fellow human beings are nothing less than the equivalent of God’s hand picked jury.
And this is exactly how I would answer the question in James 4:12 — “There is only one Lawgiver and Judge, the one who is able to save and destroy. But you–who are you to judge your neighbor?”
We may not decide the final fate of our neighbors in the afterlife, but we judge them here and now as the children of God, made in (his) image.
Put the bible aside for a minute and let’s have an honest conversation here.
People go astray, they do stupid things, they end up going to jail, prison, on drugs, or endangering others.
Sometimes life is spared through interventions, or judging others, sometimes telling someone they’re an asshole enough will get through to them and they’ll finally come out of their ego shell and admit they have a problem and finally do something about it.
Maybe they’ll get a job, maybe they’ll stop whoring around, maybe they’ll go to rehab, or maybe they’ll clean up their life in some other way.
It was Martin Luther King Jr that said, “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about the things that matter.”
Speak up!
You shouldn’t be so quick to discard the judgement of others, maybe there are a few extremists that get a bit fanatical but if the majority of your peers are saying the same thing, it might be time to pause and reflect.
Any rational person would sure as hell like to have a warning that their behavior and actions are kind of fucked up before they go before the supreme holy being for judgement.
Wouldn’t you?
You’re about to be judged by God after all, and (his) decision will send you to heaven or hell. Don’t you think a little bit of a heads up or verbal warning would be much appreciated before you get there?
More than likely you use this phrase because you have a severe ego problem and nothing you are doing can ever be wrong.
The ego problem is further demonstrated by the fact that you don’t think anyone on Earth should be able to judge you except the entity at the top of the food chain which means you place yourself one level below (him) and one level above everyone else.
More than likely you’re probably one of the most judgemental people on Earth. So what you’re really saying is it’s okay for you to judge someone but no one has the right to judge you.
Yet here we are, as humans, with the ability to judge and form opinions of things. Surely God wanted us to be able to judge things, in fact, it’s a natural instinct humans were born with or “developed” depending on whether you believe in evolution or not, that has accounted for our rise to the top of the food chain.
We judge things by the second, everyday, and always have since the dawning age of humans.
We continuously judge our environment, if we didn’t our species would be extinct.
It wasn’t a good idea for a caveman to try to fight a saber tooth tiger with his bare hands and if he tried his tribe probably thought he was either crazy or stupid, just like the people judging you probably think you’re crazy or stupid.
At best case scenario they knew he didn’t have very good judgement to be taking unnecessary risks.
This poor caveman has been judged!
Someone decided that people that drive like assholes should pay higher insurance or lose their license.
When that happens, they’ve been judged as a bad driver.
Today we have people trained in specialized judgement for all sorts of things in the court system, civil cases, criminal cases, and so on.
Lots of people are trained in other specialized judgement dealing with stock market and speculation. Almost every job or activity in life requires you to make judgement calls.
“Should I throw this hot coffee at the person waiting in the drive-thru or hand it to them and warn them it’s hot?”
“Should I run this pedestrian over in the crosswalk or wait till he gets through?”
“Should I rob this bank right now?”
“Should I go for a run even though I have a broken leg?”
Judgement is a fact of our existence, it’s what we do to stay alive, and it’s what we do to benefit ourselves and others.
If you’re driving on a highway and you cut someone off causing an accident, you’ll probably tell the officer, “sorry I thought I could make it” and that is called having bad judgement.
You get caught drinking and driving, bad judgement call.
You strike out at baseball, “sorry I misjudged that pitch.”
You make a good investment, good judgement call.
You put in 20 years at a company with a good retirement package, good judgement call.
People are continuously judging, some are more qualified than others to give judgement in certain areas, but make no mistake, you are and will always be continuously judged whether you or know it or not, people are always assessing their environment and making judgement calls and judgements based on information they receive.
Not listening to how others judge you is a bad judgement call.
The reality is you should be thanking people for judging you so that you can take corrective action if necessary and get yourself straight before you go before God.
Thank you for writing something I have always thought. Also, most of the people that say this, know they are doing stupid sh*t and know everyone is going to judge them, so they allow a person, who can’t physically judge them in this world, to judge them… Stupidity and ignorance.
I like the misogynistic meme you threw in at the end (sarcasm). You could have made your point without that, lol.
There is one thing I’d like to add. Sometimes, it could be argued that a large group or community of people could be morally wrong about something. It may be an empirical fact that they all share the same judgement about something, but this does not serve as a basis for them being correct in their judgement. This affects what you should do with their judgement.
What I’m saying is, if you go around too concerned with the judgements of others you won’t be able to “be yourself” or live a very fulfilling life.
All that being said, you are right to draw attention to the nature of judgement and encourage people not to be dismissive of it, thinking only gome deity can judge them.
One more thing: I agree many people have a childish interpretation of this quote which is what you’re attempting to correct. But it is worth pointing out that there is a more sophisticated interpretation of this notion. That being:
Only God can ultimately judge me, given that He is the ultimate source of morality. As long as I stay true to Him, then I need not be overly concerned with the judgement of others (given that their judgements could be wrong even in the overwhelming majority). So I think it is self evident that that is totally coherent and valid.
But again, you’re right to steer people away from the childish “I KHEN DO NETING F UR UHPINION ONLI G0D CAN JUDGE ME.” I just think the rest is worth mentioning.
Also, I don’t believe in God and therefore think all of this is nonsense anyway haha.
For the ones who does not beleew in “god”, does not and also beleew in the way you talk about it, the image of “God” is used to allow people to understand that you’er speaking about an superior and sinnless non humaine référance, for simplified the picture and thier way of understanding.
Wich is, sometimes, very difficult to directly understand, for people, especialy in christians ocxydantals society and culture, without this kind of imagering. Yep it’s an abusiv langage, but it helps.
For me “only God can truly juge me”, it’s true. But it doesn’t deserve you to take your responsabilities in what you do and have donne, and thinking correctly about what the better acts to do in every situation you face on. It’s only mean, that only him will know all and exactly the sens of what you do and for what! And than, then, when will die, God for him-self, will know exactly why you have donne that, and can juge of it in concequance. And you truly have to assum his gujement on you.
Breacking laws doesn’t Always mean do bad things, the Justes ones also have to sometimes.
Just think about what will have been the world today without the resistant peoples during WWII, they do the good, but they were under the law! And some wanted and have ordonned them to be killed for it in the name of the laws they edicted. That because at this moment of time, they have sush bad idea and andocrined way to concept their law and of what are good or nighter, that they do horrible thing covered by their wicked sort of laws.
In concequance, humain laws on themself mean nothing, the only thing that compte is the sens and the fondamental justice that they bring and hang into themself, and occure. Bad law have to be brock down, and good ones have to be supported.
The things is, in every situation, you have to do what it seems you the best way to, and after assume it all. (And evens, it was desalowed or not, you have to assume for it.)