Liberating Jesus by Roberta Grimes

Author:Roberta Grimes [Grimes, Roberta]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sage Wisdom Publishing
Published: 2015-09-28T07:00:00+00:00

Jesus Confirms That We Judge Ourselves

When I compared the afterlife evidence with the Gospels and found Jesus talking about God’s judgment, I worried at first that on this point He might have been mistaken. But then I considered this series of quotations. Remember that Jesus had to be careful to avoid speaking against the prevailing religion, in which Jehovah God was our afterlife judge. So on four different days, and probably with four different sets of Temple guards on hand, He made statements that He relied upon His followers to put together:

“For if you forgive others for their transgressions, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others, then your Father will not forgive your transgressions” (MT 6:14–15).

Oh. So God judges us, but God will forgive us so long as we forgive others. Fair enough.

“For not even the Father judges anyone, but He has given all judgment to the Son, so that all will honor the Son even as they honor the Father” (JN 5:22–23).

Jesus is now our judge? Great! He’ll likely be easier on us.

“If anyone hears My sayings and does not keep them, I do not judge him; for I did not come to judge the world, but to save the world” (JN 12:47).

Jesus isn’t our judge either? So, now who will judge us?

“Do not judge so that you will not be judged. For in the way you judge, you will be judged; and by your standard of measure, it will be measured to you” (MT 7:1–2).

Jesus has had to wean his first-century followers from their old belief that God is their judge, and he has had to do it over days of time for fear of the ever-present Temple guards, but at last he is able to tell us flat-out what modern afterlife evidence demonstrates is true: each of us will be our own post-death judge. And unless we learn to be lenient with others, we are going to be too hard on ourselves.

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