The limitations of human judgment are evident when judging according to the flesh. A person's field of perception is too narrow and subjective, conditioned by personal characteristics and experiences, to judge another's character adequately. Events crucial to righteous judgment often occur outside the viewer's direct experience, leading to a powerful tendency to jump to negative conclusions. God forbids the passing of judgment against another, which involves handing down a sentence. While it is acceptable to identify an act as evil, condemning a person as incorrigible steps into forbidden territory. Such judgment is futile and vain, offering no spiritual value, and is often motivated by a desire to elevate or justify oneself. Even Paul refrained from judging himself, recognizing that salvation comes by grace through faith, not by personal assessment of conduct. Human judgment is too influenced by past experiences and perversions of fairness to match the impartiality of God. Many things judged in others are trivial or merely differences in approach, insignificant in the long term. Focusing on these to the point of condemnation is unnecessary and risky, as it usurps the prerogative of the Father and Christ as Judges. Instead, humility, longsuffering, and love should guide interactions, bearing with one another and forgiving as Christ forgave, allowing the peace of God to rule in hearts.

The Pharisees misjudged Jesus because they had many of the same limitations people do. They judged according to the flesh, that is, as others have translated this phrase, by material standards, by the outside, after your earthly fashion. But even Jesus, though He was qualified to do so, says that He was not judging anyone. He imposed the same limitation on Himself that He imposes on His followers in Matthew 7:1. The people of the time were greatly confused about Christ because their judgment of Him was so prejudiced by their carnality. This is part of the equation in making sound judgments.

Jesus' teaching on the eighth day of the Feast, recorded in John 8 through 10, provides the doctrinal foundation for understanding this holy day, and the theme of judging according to the flesh emerges as a central point within it. After healing on the Sabbath and being confronted by the Pharisees, who accused Him of bearing false witness about Himself since no second witness verified His claims, Jesus responded by declaring that they judged according to the flesh, while He judged no one. This statement reveals a critical distinction: the Pharisees, lacking any relationship with God the Father, could only evaluate Jesus and spiritual matters through natural, human, worldly perception, since they did not know where He came from or where He was going. Their judgment was necessarily flawed and superficial because it operated entirely within the limits of physical understanding, cut off from divine revelation. This fleshly judgment stands in contrast to the true judgment that comes from God. Jesus explained that even if He did judge, His judgment would be true, because He was not alone but worked in unity with the Father who sent Him, providing the very testimony of two witnesses that the law required. The Pharisees, however, remained blind to this reality; when Jesus told them that if they had known Him, they would have known His Father also, they could not comprehend the connection because their perception was confined to the flesh. This blindness explains why they misunderstood nearly everything Jesus said throughout the chapter, from His statements about going away, to His warning that they would die in their sins, to His declaration that the truth would make them free, and ultimately to His claim, "before Abraham was, I AM," which they answered not with recognition but with stones. This pattern of fleshly judgment connects directly to the broader message of the eighth day, illustrated practically in John 9 through the healing of the man born blind. Just as the Pharisees judged by natural sight and worldly reasoning, remaining blind to spiritual truth, so all humanity outside of God's calling is described as blind from birth, unable to perceive divine reality because it has not been given the capacity to do so. The disciples themselves initially framed the blind man's condition in fleshly terms, asking whose sin caused it, revealing the same limited mode of judgment. Jesus corrected this by explaining that the man's blindness existed so that the works of God might be revealed, shifting the frame entirely away from fleshly assumptions toward God's larger redemptive plan. Ultimately, this contrast between judging according to the flesh and true spiritual judgment underscores why the vast majority of humanity has never been called or converted, and why a future Great White Throne Judgment is necessary. Those blinded by fleshly perception, unable to know the Father or recognize the Son, will receive new bodies and new spirits, symbolized by the creation imagery of clay and living water in the healing account, so that they may finally see, believe, and worship, as the once-blind man did when he declared, "Lord, I believe."