Commentary - Luke 6:37-45

Bird's-eye view

In this section of the Sermon on the Plain, the Lord Jesus lays out the radical ethics of His kingdom. Having just commanded us to love our enemies, He now turns to the internal heart attitude that must govern all our relationships, especially those within the covenant community. This is not a collection of disconnected proverbs, but a tightly woven argument. The theme is the principle of spiritual reciprocity, grounded in the nature of the heart. What you are on the inside determines what you project to the outside, and what you project is what the Lord, in His governmental wisdom, returns to you. The central issue is hypocrisy, the failure to see that the standard you apply to others will be the very standard God applies to you. The passage moves from commands against hypocritical judgment to the source of all our words and deeds, which is the heart.

Outline

Context In Luke

This passage is a central part of what is commonly called the Sermon on the Plain (Luke 6:20-49), which is Luke's parallel to Matthew's Sermon on the Mount. Jesus is addressing His disciples in the hearing of a great multitude. He is defining what life looks like for a citizen of the kingdom of God. This is not a list of requirements to get into the kingdom, but rather a description of the character of those who are already in it by grace. These commands follow the difficult teaching on loving one's enemies, and they serve to explain the kind of heart that is capable of such a radical love. The focus is intensely practical, dealing with judgment, forgiveness, giving, and speaking, all of which are external indicators of an internal reality.

Key Issues

Clause by Clause Commentary

Luke 6:37

"And do not judge, and you will not be judged; and do not condemn, and you will not be condemned; pardon, and you will be pardoned."

We must begin by clearing away the debris of modern misinterpretation. This is not a command to suspend your critical faculties, to turn off your brain, or to affirm that every man's truth is as good as the next. The Bible elsewhere commands us to judge righteous judgment (John 7:24) and to test the spirits (1 John 4:1). The kind of judgment being forbidden here is hypocritical, self-righteous, and condemnatory judgment. It is the judgment of a man who sets himself up in the place of God, who refuses to extend the mercy he himself has received. The verbs are paired: do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. This is the law of the harvest. God treats you the way you treat others. If you are a harsh and unforgiving critic of your brother, you are inviting the searching and holy criticism of God. The positive side of this is the command to pardon, or more literally, to release. Release others from the debts you feel they owe you. Let it go. When you do this, you demonstrate that you understand the gospel. You have been released from an insurmountable debt, and so you joyfully release others.

Luke 6:38

"Give, and it will be given to you. They will pour into your lap a good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over. For by your standard of measure it will be measured to you in return."

The principle continues, moving from the judicial to the economic. The command is simple: "Give." This certainly includes money and material possessions, but in the context of pardoning, it primarily refers to giving grace, mercy, and forgiveness. The promise attached is one of extravagant return. The image is of a grain merchant filling a container. He doesn't just level it off. He presses it down to make room for more, shakes it to fill in all the gaps, and then heaps it up until it is running over. This is how God gives to the generous. He is no man's debtor. The universe is not a closed system of scarcity; it is an open system of divine abundance for those who live by faith. The final clause summarizes the entire principle of verses 37 and 38: the standard of measure you use on others is the very same one God will use on you. If your measuring cup for others is small, critical, and stingy, then that is what you will receive. If it is large, generous, and gracious, then prepare for an overflowing lap.

Luke 6:39-40

"And He also spoke a parable to them: 'Can a blind man guide a blind man? Will they not both fall into a pit? A student is not above his teacher; but everyone, after he has been fully trained, will be like his teacher.'"

Jesus now illustrates the folly of the hypocritical judge with two quick parables. The first is self-evident. A blind man is utterly unqualified to be a guide. If he tries, disaster for both guide and guided is the only possible outcome. The hypocrite, the man with the log in his own eye, is spiritually blind. He has no business trying to lead his brother anywhere. He is a hazard. The second parable builds on this. The goal of a student, a disciple, is to become like his teacher. Our teacher is Christ. He is the standard. A fully trained disciple will be like Him, full of grace and truth, not full of petty, hypocritical judgments. This verse sets the goal of our sanctification. We are not just to learn what Jesus taught; we are to become like Jesus was. This is the only qualification for helping a brother. Are you becoming like the Master?

Luke 6:41-42

"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? How can you say to your brother, ‘Brother, let me take out the speck that is in your eye,’ when you yourself do not see the log that is in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take out the speck that is in your brother’s eye."

Here is the heart of the matter, presented in a graphic and almost comical hyperbole. A man has a massive beam, a telephone pole, sticking out of his own eye. His vision is completely obstructed. Yet he is obsessed with a tiny splinter in his brother's eye. The problem is not that specks in the eye are unimportant. They hurt, and they need to be removed. The problem is the utter disqualification of the would-be surgeon. His offer to help is an absurdity. Jesus calls him what he is: a "hypocrite." The command is not "never help your brother with his speck." The command has a crucial sequence: "first." First, deal with your own catastrophic, vision-destroying sin. Go to God, repent of the log of pride, bitterness, or lust that is making you blind. When, by God's grace, that log is removed, something wonderful happens. You will "see clearly." You will have the humility, the wisdom, and the steady hand needed to actually help your brother with his speck. True fraternal correction is always born out of prior, radical self-confrontation.

Luke 6:43-45

"For there is no good tree which produces bad fruit, nor, on the other hand, a bad tree which produces good fruit. For each tree is known by its own fruit. For men do not gather figs from thorns, nor do they pick grapes from a bramble bush. The good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth what is good; and the evil man out of the evil treasure brings forth what is evil. For his mouth speaks from the abundance of his heart."

Jesus concludes by going to the root of the issue. The problem of hypocritical judgment is not ultimately a behavioral problem. It is a heart problem. He uses the agricultural metaphor of a tree and its fruit. A tree's nature determines its product. An apple tree produces apples. A thornbush produces thorns. You cannot get good fruit (righteous correction, gracious speech) from a bad tree (a hypocritical heart). Conversely, a good tree, one made good by the grace of God, will naturally produce good fruit. This is a law of the created order, and it is a law of the spiritual order. He then makes the application explicit. A man's life, and particularly his speech, is an overflow of his heart. The heart is a treasury, either good or evil. What you have been storing up in your heart will inevitably come out of your mouth. If your heart is a treasury of grace, forgiveness, and humility, your words will reflect that. If it is a treasury of bitterness, pride, and judgment, your speech will betray you. The mouth simply reveals the heart's true contents. Therefore, the solution to our sin is not mere behavior modification, but heart transformation, which is the sole work of the Holy Spirit.

Application

The message for us is profoundly simple and profoundly challenging. Our outward life is a direct reflection of our inward heart. If we find ourselves to be critical, harsh, and judgmental people, we cannot fix the problem by simply trying to be nicer. We must recognize that we are a bad tree producing bad fruit. The only solution is to go to the root. We must repent of the evil treasure in our hearts and ask God to replace it with the good treasure of His gospel.

This passage commands a radical self-awareness. Before we rush to correct the church, the culture, or our spouse, we must first deal with the log in our own eye. Our first duty is repentance. Only a man who sees clearly, a man who has been humbled by his own sin and amazed by God's grace, is fit to help his brother. Our goal is not to become expert speck-removers, but to become like our teacher, Jesus Christ. And He is the one who, having no log of His own, went to the cross to deal with ours.