Do not judge, so that you won’t be judged.
Matthew 7:1 (CSB)
This is one of the most quoted verses in the Bible. It’s also one of the most misunderstood.
Jesus isn’t saying we can never call anything wrong. A few verses later He tells us to watch out for false teachers and to know them by their fruit (Matthew 7:15-16). That takes judgment.
What Jesus forbids is the verdict, the sentence we pass on a person. “She’ll never change.” “He’s just lazy.” “I know why he did it.” That’s not noticing a wrong. That’s deciding who someone is, and why, when we can’t see inside them. That decision belongs to God, not us.
Then comes the warning: “so that you won’t be judged.” Judged by whom? The verse doesn’t say, and in Matthew that usually means God. So this isn’t “judge people and they’ll judge you back.” It’s “judge people and God will judge you.” When we pass the verdict on someone, we take God’s seat, and it was never ours. We’re playing God.
So we should stop at the facts and leave the verdict alone. We can say what happened, if it needs saying. We should not say who they are. “Who are you to judge another’s household servant? Before his own Lord he stands or falls” (Romans 14:4 CSB).
And God gave the verdict on us to Jesus (John 5:22). And Jesus came to save, not to condemn: “God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him” (John 3:17 CSB). The one person with the right to condemn us died for us instead. When we leave the verdict to God, we’re following Him.