Jesus judged [Trinity 4]

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READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Genesis 50:15-21

• Romans 8:18-23

• St. Luke 6:36-42

 

Grace, mercy, and peace [are yours] from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord. (1 Tim 1)
 
Who speaks to you today, from His Gospel heard in His Church, saying: 
“Judge not, and you will not be judged; condemn not, and you will not be condemned; forgive, and you will be forgiven;”
 
No two words have ever been able to make a Christian so self-conscious and so angry at the same time as “judge not”. And there should be shame for the Christian in that, though not as the world wants it. There should be shame, because before embarrassment and anger at your neighbor for using those words, should be repentance. Repentance for forgetting what judgement is all about.
 
Let’s take a little trip through memory lane. In St. Luke 22, we are reminded of the conclusion of Maundy Thursday where Jesus was arrested to, what? Face judgement. Yes, the Christ, the Messiah of humanity, the Creator of all things is to be judged. 
 
Is He judged fairly? Well now that’s the tricky part. You see, back in Deuteronomy 17, the Lord God Almighty said, “If any case arises requiring decision … [in] any case within your towns that is too difficult for you, then you shall arise and go up to the place that the Lord your God will choose. ⁹ And you shall come to the Levitical priests and to the judge who is in office in those days, and you shall consult them, and they shall declare to you the decision. ¹⁰ Then you shall do according to what they declare to you from that place that the Lord will choose. And you shall be careful to do according to all that they direct you. ¹¹ According to the instructions that they give you, and according to the decision which they pronounce to you, you shall do. You shall not turn aside from the verdict that they declare to you, either to the right hand or to the left. ¹² The man who acts presumptuously by not obeying the priest who stands to minister there before the Lord your God, or the judge, that man shall die. So you shall purge the evil from Israel” (v. 8-12).
 
What are the take-aways here? The priest is God’s man. If you do not obey the priest, you do not obey God and shall be put to death. One of Jesus’s “crimes” was blasphemy, as in He had been doing acts of God without the permission of God, or rather God’s man, the High Priest. 
 
In so doing Jesus judges the High Priest and his cronies, as unworthy. In that judgement, Jesus is judged, as the High Priest Caiaphas rightly did. This on top of Jesus’s other crimes of desecrating God’s Law such as eating on the Sabbath, unwashed hands, eating with sinners, touching the dead and the diseased, and baptizing without authority.
 
Blasphemy! 
Also, Jesus was misleading the people (allegedly), condemning taxation, and allowing everyone to call Him king. God’s Man, the high priest, rightly then goes in front of God’s temporal authority, Pontius Pilate, and reveals this civil rebellion. Jesus is an Insurrectionist! A double condemnation.
 
Repent! This is exactly how the devil uses the law and God’s word against you. He takes you to court and backs you into a legal corner with no way out. You must either declare yourself guilty and worthy of temporal and eternal punishment or you must declare God guilty of insurrection, consigning Him to eternal punishment, with the devil as next in line to rule.
 
This is not the judgement you have chosen, though you must chose. Neither is this the judgement that the devil has chosen. This is the judgement Jesus has chosen in order to seek and save the lost. “He came to his own and His own received Him not” (St. John 1:11).
 
So we ask the question of the Reformation: can Church Councils be wrong? We faced this same question in our civil lives, the last couple years, when Romans 13 was constantly thrown in our faces: “obey your rulers”. Yes, God gives earthly power and is its only source, but does that make elected officials God, worthy of your unwavering devotion and obedience no matter what?
 
Likewise, can God’s man, in the form of the high priest, be wrong? 
 
The Pharisee Gamaliel, brought up this very question in Acts 5. He pleads the case of the Apostles in front of the priests and says, “So in the present case I tell you, keep away from these men and let them alone, for if this plan or this undertaking is of man, it will fail; but if it is of God, you will not be able to overthrow them. You might even be found opposing God!” (5:38-39).
 
How right he was, and the priests left the Apostles alone that time, but they did not leave Jesus alone. God’s man, the high priest, needed no witnesses, though the law says he needs 2 or 3 and they can not be false. Jesus says, “Then the high priest tore his robes and said, ‘He has blasphemed! What further need do we have of witnesses? See, you have now heard the blasphemy’” (St. Matt 26:65). 
 
What was it that pushed God’s man over the edge? Jesus’s claims to be the Son of God. In this confession, we find out what true judgement is and it has to do with confessing properly Who Jesus is.
 
In St. John 3, Jesus says, “Whoever believes in [the only begotten Son] is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil” (v. 18-19).
 
What this tells us is that judgment in front of God is directly linked to Who Jesus is and Who you believe Jesus is. The High Priest found himself opposing God and His only Son, Jesus Christ. He did not believe and is condemned already. Belief fulfills judgement, for by grace you have been saved, through faith.
 
Rejection of Christ leaves the judgment unfulfilled, for you to pay for, and in this case, the High Priest to pay for. Jesus says, “The one who rejects Me and does not accept My teachings has one who judges him: the word which I spoke. That will judge him on the last day” (Jn 12:48).
 
And as He said in His Law, “And the judges shall investigate thoroughly, and if the witness is a false witness and he has testified against his brother falsely, then you shall do to him just as he had planned to do to his brother. So you shall eliminate the evil from among you” (Deut 19:18-19).
 
And the high priest gets his. But no he doesn’t. Instead from our Old Testament reading today, “As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive” (Gen 50:20). Instead, the high priest gets to prophesy. He gets to point to the Lamb of God Who is judged in place of the world.
 
He says, “You know nothing at all. Nor do you understand that it is better for you that one man should die for the people” (Jn 11:49-50). The high priest judges Jesus worthy of death, in God’s stead, for it is already God’s perfect will to crush the Christ that He would pay for the sins of the whole world.
 
The priests even go one step further. Jesus’s condemnation and death is not enough. There must be a sacramental holiness attached to doing this work of God. They confess quite plainly, “His blood be upon us and our children” (Mt 27:25). It comes to pass exactly as God’s man judges and Christ’s Blood is now found in Baptism which now saves you.
 
Jesus, true God begotten of the Father from all eternity, and true man, born of the virgin Mary, is sent as a lamb to the slaughter in order to be judged in the priests’ place, in your place. Jesus is judged guilty of insurrection and blasphemy, claiming to be the King of kings, as the plate above His cross states.
 
Instead of judgement for bearing false witness, the high priest receives the Vicarious Atonement, meaning while he was yet a sinner, Christ died for him (Romans 5:8). Jesus is judged guilty, that the priests would be judged innocent. Christ goes to the cross, so you don’t have to.
 
Jesus’s Blood also enters in, as the priests prayed for on Good Friday. For now His Blood covers sins, in Baptism. We are clothed in the Blood of the Lamb which washes away our sins, a crimson flood that leaves us as white as snow. In the Judgment of Jesus, there is acquittal for us in front of God.
 
Jesus says in St. John 16:11, “[The Holy Ghost] will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment: …concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged.”
 
Indeed, satan is one way to read the “ruler of this world”. 2 Corinthians 4:4 says, “the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.”
 
However, we also know that Jesus reigns. He is King of kings and Lord of lords. He has set the heavens in motion and created all of it. Satan is the usurper. This means that Jesus is also the ruler of this world. Jesus is judged even before satan is.
 
Jesus judges and therefore He is judged. Jesus condemns and is condemned. The measure Jesus uses is used against Him. He subjects Himself to His own Law and His own creation in order to “judge not”. Though He is judge, He wants all to turn from their wicked ways and live (Eze 33:11).
 
Judgement is not about you. Judgment is reserved for Christ in two ways. It is reserved for Him to judge on the Last Day and it was reserved for Him to be judged on Good Friday. And in that judgment of the only begotten Son of God, God and man are reconciled. There is peace between you and God. In Christ, we can confess with St. Paul, “if we judged ourselves truly, we would not be judged” (1 Cor 11:31).
 
The Christian therefore rejoices in judgment, not because God gives him super-judgmental powers on earth with which to do as he pleases as “God’s Man”, but because his God allowed Himself to be judged by sinners, in order that the sinners be made into saints, in Christ Crucified. And Christ Crucified is the light of the gospel.
 
The Gospel that says there is no more judgement for you to worry yourself about and no more judgment for you to mete out and no more worry that, if you don’t, you will have missed your opportunity to bring God’s Will on earth as it is in heaven.
 
Dear Christians, “judge not” means you are done judging and being judged by sin, death, and the power of the devil. You may rest in peace, knowing that you have already been judged innocent according to Word and Sacrament and that anything else left over will be properly taken care of on the Last Day.
 
Do carry on, testing the spirits and judging doctrine that you may remain in the one true faith, but rest in the full assurance of God’s Promise. That though you, in your sin, mean your judgments for evil and the world and the devil also, Jesus Christ means it for Good. The ultimate Good. The substitutionary Good that Christ is judged guilty and innocent and, because of that, not have our sins counted against us (2 Cor 5:19) and in faith being judged righteous.