The Good Thing About God and Judgment

Today, I was continuing my trek through the extensive Paul and the Faithfulness of God by N.T. Wright. There is so much content in this extensive two-volume work, I can only soak in a small percentage of it. Working through Wright is always a work in progress. He is just one of those astute theologians who leaves no stone unturned in developing a point.

Wright makes this observation about the way the larger story of the New Testament conveyed in Paul’s works concerns God’s judgment in the world, which is part of the way he has come to setup his rule over the world. On p. 481 Write notes, 

The word “judgment” has of course been allowed to slip into negative mode in the contemporary western world, with “judgmentalism” one of the classic postmodern villains. But even a postmodernist whose car has been damaged by a drunk driver wants a court to pass “judgment” against the offender. “Judgment” is in fact a positive thing. It is what restores health to a society, a balance to the world. It replaces chaos with order. The fact that it can be abused—that humans, whether or not in positions of authority, can take it upon themselves to “pass judgment” on the one another in negative and destructive ways—indicates, not that it is a bad thing in itself, but that like all good and important things it can generate unpleasant parodies.

It can be so easy for Christian, like myself, to start becoming so identical to the world, that I even begin to cringe every time I hear an evaluative statement that goes against what the thought police deem as “politically correct.” There are abuses without a doubt, but judgments using righteous scales is a good thing. “A just balance and scales belong to the Lord; All the weights of the bag are His concern” (Prov. 16:11, NASB).

Christians are to pay close attention to all things being communicated, use prayerful discernment and test all teachings according to the absolute standard of God’s infallible Word (Acts 17:11; 1 Thess. 5:21).

The problem is never about making an evaluative statement about this or that being right or wroth, true or false, good or evil. The real problem is using the wrong scale to measure things out. Checking one’s weight on a broken scale is good for nothing; however, a well-calibrated unit is gold. God has spoken to us, and He has revealed to us the way to go in the Scriptures. This way there is an objective reference point to navigate through the torrents of life.

—WGN