Commentary - Matthew 7:1-5

Bird's-eye view

In this famous opening to the seventh chapter of Matthew, Jesus addresses the perennial human temptation to engage in hypocritical judgment. This is not a prohibition against all forms of judgment or discernment, as the immediate context and the rest of Scripture make abundantly plain. Rather, it is a stern warning against setting oneself up as the standard of righteousness, judging another man's servant while blind to one's own glaring faults. The principle is one of reciprocity: the standard you apply to others will be the standard God applies to you. The central illustration of the speck and the log is a piece of divine hyperbole, designed to show us the absurdity of censorious criticism that flows from an unexamined heart. The goal is not to cease making judgments, but to begin the process of judgment where it must always begin, which is with ourselves. Only then, with clear vision, are we fit to help our brother.

Outline

Context In Matthew

This passage is a crucial part of the Sermon on the Mount, which is the foundational discourse of Jesus' public ministry in Matthew's gospel. Having laid out the character of kingdom citizens (the Beatitudes), their role in the world (salt and light), and the relationship of His teaching to the Old Testament law (fulfilling, not abolishing), Jesus now turns to practical applications of this kingdom righteousness. The immediate context deals with how we are to relate to our brothers within the covenant community. This section on judging follows naturally from the previous chapters' emphasis on a righteousness that exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, a righteousness that is internal and heart-deep, not merely external and for show. The Pharisees were notorious for their harsh, external judgments of others while harboring deep-seated pride and hypocrisy. Jesus is training His disciples to be a different kind of community altogether, one marked by humility, self-awareness, and genuine, restorative love.

Clause-by-Clause Commentary

v. 1 “Do not judge, so that you will not be judged.”

Now, this is one of the most ripped-from-its-context verses in the entire Bible. Our relativistic age has seized upon this verse and made it their motto, interpreting it to mean that all moral assessments are forbidden. "Only God can judge me," they say, usually right after doing something eminently worthy of judgment. But Jesus is not prohibiting discernment or the exercise of judgment altogether. A few verses later, He tells us to identify false prophets by their fruits, which requires judgment (Matt. 7:15-20). He tells us not to give what is holy to dogs, which requires us to identify the dogs (Matt. 7:6). The key is the kind of judging He is forbidding. He is forbidding hypocritical, self-righteous, censorious judgment. The kind of judgment that sets up its own standards, that is quick to find fault in others and slow to find it at home. The motivation offered is a pragmatic one, grounded in the reality of God's government of the world: "so that you will not be judged." God opposes the proud, and there is little that is more proud than appointing yourself as the prosecuting attorney for the universe.

v. 2 “For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with what measure you measure, it will be measured to you.”

Here Jesus explains the principle behind the prohibition. It is the law of reciprocity. God will use your own yardstick on you. If you are merciless in your judgments of others, you are asking God to be merciless with you. If you are gracious and quick to make allowances, you are positioning yourself to receive grace. This is not to say we earn grace by being gracious, but rather that a gracious spirit is evidence that we have received grace. A man who has truly understood the scandalous grace of God shown to him in the gospel cannot maintain a carping, critical, and unforgiving spirit toward his brother. He knows he has been forgiven a debt of ten thousand talents, and so he is able to forgive a debt of one hundred denarii (Matt. 18:21-35). The standard you insist on for others becomes the standard God applies to you. This should put the fear of God into every one of us. When you are tempted to lay down the law for someone else, you should first ask if you are prepared to live under that same exacting standard before a holy God.

v. 3 “And why do you look at the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?”

Jesus now moves from principle to a vivid, almost comical, illustration. The contrast is between a speck, a tiny splinter of wood, and a log, a massive beam used in construction. The picture is of a man with a four-by-eight sticking out of his own eye, trying to perform delicate surgery on his brother's eye to remove a tiny speck. The absurdity is the point. The hypocrite is a man who has a massive blind spot concerning his own sin. He is a spiritual klutz. His own sin is so large, so obvious to everyone but himself, that his attempts to correct the minor faults of others are both ridiculous and dangerous. He has no perspective. He majors in minors. He is meticulous about the gnat of his brother's sin and cheerfully swallows the camel of his own (Matt. 23:24). The question "why do you look" is a heart-searching one. The reason, of course, is pride. It is always easier and more gratifying to our flesh to focus on the sins of others than to do the hard work of repentance for our own.

v. 4 “Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ and behold, the log is in your own eye?”

The absurdity continues. The man with the log doesn't just notice the speck; he offers to help. "Let me get that for you." This is the picture of sanctimonious, meddlesome hypocrisy. He presents himself as a helpful oculist, a spiritual expert, when he can't even see straight himself. His offer of help is an insult because it comes from a place of blindness and self-deceit. He is utterly unqualified for the task. How can you perform surgery when you are stumbling around with a log in your eye? You can't. You will only do more damage. This is why so much "fraternal correction" in the church is destructive. It is log-eyed people trying to perform speck-removal, and they end up poking the brother in the eye, causing more pain and injury. The desire to correct a brother is not, in itself, a bad thing. But when it is divorced from humble self-examination, it is a dangerous and prideful thing.

v. 5 “You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.”

Jesus concludes with a direct address and a clear command. First, He names the man for what he is: a hypocrite. A hypocrite is an actor, someone playing a part. He is pretending to be a righteous judge or a helpful brother, but it is all a sham. The command is sequential. "First... then." The first order of business is always your own sin. Deal with the log. This means repentance. It means seeing your sin for what it is, a massive, ugly beam, and confessing it to God and getting it out. This is painful work. It requires humility and the grace of God. But notice what Jesus says next. He does not say, "and then you will stop seeing specks in your brother's eye." No, He says, "and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye." The goal is not to create a church of people who never correct one another. The goal is to create a church of people who are qualified to correct one another. After you have dealt with your own grievous sin, your vision will be cleared. You will be able to see your brother's sin for what it is, a speck, and you will be able to approach him with the humility, gentleness, and wisdom necessary to actually help him. The man who has wept over the log in his own eye is the only man qualified to talk to another about the speck in his.

Application

The application here is straightforward, but cuts to the bone. We are a people who love to judge. We do it constantly. We judge the preaching, we judge the parenting of others, we judge the political opinions of our brethren. And in all this, we are often blind to the massive beams protruding from our own skulls. This passage calls us to a radical reordering of our relational priorities. Judgment must begin at home. Before you offer your critique of your brother, your pastor, or your president, you must first bring yourself before the bar of God's Word.

This means a constant habit of self-examination and repentance. When you see a fault in another, your first instinct should not be to correct them, but to ask the Lord, "Is there any of that in me?" More often than not, the answer will be yes. The very sins that irritate us the most in others are often the ones we are most blind to in ourselves. So, we must ask God for the grace to see our own logs, and the courage to deal with them.

Only then, once we have done that hard work, are we in any position to help our brother. And when we do go to him, it will not be with the air of a superior, but with the humility of a fellow sinner who has been shown much grace. The goal is restoration, not condemnation. The goal is to help him see, not to poke him in the eye. A church that practices this kind of log-removal first will be a place of profound grace, deep humility, and true holiness.