Judgment, the first of the weightier matters of the law, is the Greek krisis, a decision for or against that implies justice: the impartial adjustment of conflicting claims, administering what is factual, reasonable, fair, righteous, impartial, and legally correct. The Pharisees kept only the legally correct element and dropped fairness, impartiality, and reasonableness. They abandoned God's standard for their own traditions, leaned on carnal reasoning that always decided in their favor, and grew partial toward those who made the additions, so that their leadership was void of justice. James likewise rebuked favoritism toward the wealthy. Matthew 7:1 does not forbid all judging, since John 7:24 commands judging with righteous judgment rather than by appearance. Christ requires evaluating the conduct of others, but only after overcoming one's own faults, because as we do to others, so it will be done to us. Judging character is unavoidable in choosing mates, friends, ministers, and teachers, and snap judgments or those driven by lust, vanity, jealousy, or greed bring grief. People must look past the physical to the fruits of the Spirit. God Himself weighs the heart carefully over a lifetime, not on isolated incidents. Our judgments lack His purity and objectivity, so they must be rendered impartially by the whole Bible, not in self-interest. The law's very purpose is justice, and life trains us to judge rightly as future rulers in God's Family. Since all have sinned, strict justice would bring eternal death, so God adds mercy.

Impartial judgment is nearly impossible for humans, so Christians must judge with care while leaving final judgment to God. Judging itself cannot be avoided, since weighing conduct against God's standards is necessary for choosing rightly, and Jesus commands righteous judgment (John 7:24). The prohibition in Matthew 7:1 is not a call for moral neutrality but a warning against self-righteous severity, harsh criticism, and condemnation. Human judgment is distorted for several reasons. We never know all the facts, a person's intentions, or his hidden strengths and weaknesses, and we judge like spectators who pronounce on a play from far away. Only God has the oversight, insight, wisdom, and love to judge completely fairly. We also carry built-in biases from our experiences and carnality. The Pharisees judged Jesus "according to the flesh," by outward and material standards, and so called Him demonic. We tend to be lenient with our own flaws and to focus on another's speck to avoid examining the plank in our own eye. The measure we use will be measured back to us, so self-examination must come first (I Corinthians 11:28-31). We may appraise conduct and restore a brother gently (Galatians 6:1-2), but we may not usurp the Master's place by passing sentence on a fellow servant (Romans 14:4). Even Jesus, fully qualified, did not condemn. Four factors govern right judgment: stay within our rights as fellow servants, correct from love and respect, keep a humble attitude, and correct with kindness and gentleness.

True justice renders what is due, whether reward or punishment, impartially, yet it must be joined with mercy and compassion. God commands, "Execute true justice, show mercy and compassion everyone to his brother" (Zechariah 7:8-11), while human nature is partial and harsh toward those it dislikes. Injustice appears when equal effort receives unequal reward through favoritism, as when a parent favors one child, and also when unequal effort receives equal reward. Deuteronomy 25:4 teaches that laborers deserve their due. A fair judge, whether parent or employer, must take four steps: make sure the offender understood what was expected, learn all the facts despite biased accounts, free himself from partiality and prejudice, and be sure he has not expected more than was reasonable. Punishment should then fit the offense, be administered without uncontrolled anger, and be followed by love. Permissive softness that always sees one's own child as innocent is also injustice, and mercy must not rob justice when the offender is unrepentant. James 2 forbids partiality in the life of faith, such as honoring the rich man and dishonoring the poor man in the assembly. Partiality is judging by bias, it springs from evil thoughts and selfish motives, it belittles people made in God's image, it lacks love and mercy, and it is hypocritical sin that makes one a transgressor of the royal law. Judgment is without mercy to the one who has shown no mercy, but mercy triumphs over judgment. God Himself is kind to the unthankful and evil, so His people are to judge not, condemn not, and forgive.