It is quite possible to make a very bad use of the first verse. For instance, if it was made an excuse for not exercising discipline. There are spheres in which we are bound to judge, as Scripture clearly enjoins elsewhere.
First of all, we should judge ourselves; and self-judgment is not comparing ourselves with even the most godly brother we know, but comparing ourselves with Christ; and if that is duly exercised there will be no disposition to judge where we should not. The Corinthians were told, “If we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged. But when we are judged we are chastened of the Lord that we should not be condemned with the world.” Further, the assembly is called to judge, “Do not ye judge them that are within? But them that are without God judgeth” (1. Cor. 5:12, 13). The world is outside our province now. “Them that are without God judgeth.” But we have to think of the Lord's claims in His assembly, and according to the light of the New Testament, we have to judge in His assembly. The toleration of evil, doctrinal or moral, cannot be allowed therein. “Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump? Purge out therefore the old leaven.”
It may be that the evil cannot be purged out, but the believer's obligation to depart from evil is not thereby relieved. For, as in a great house there are vessels of gold and also of earthenware, and some to honor, and some to dishonor, so, if a man purge himself from the vessels to dishonor, he shall be a vessel to honor, sanctified, and meet for the Master's use, prepared to every good work. But we cannot judge motives. God only can do that. There are cases as to Christians which we could not judge. We have this seal amid all the confusion, “The Lord knoweth them that are His.” But there is also the reverse side of the seal which speaks of our responsibility, “Let everyone that nameth the name of the Lord depart from iniquity.”
Yet we have to be specially on our guard against judging motives. And I am sure it becomes us always to put the best possible construction on our brethren's actions; so we may well pray to be delivered from a censorious spirit; and this scripture shows that those who indulge in it come in for a large share of it from others. They are constantly spoken evil of by others. “For with what judgment ye judge ye shall be judged; and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.” Then it goes on to show us that if there is not self-judgment there is the danger of minimizing our own faults and magnifying the faults of others. Whereas it is self that needs to be judged constantly. How continually the blessed apostle exercised it! “Herein do I exercise myself, to have always a conscience void of offense toward God, and toward men.”
I hardly know which is worse—to be content to go along with sin on the conscience, or, on the other hand, not to be conscious of sin. Both are terrible. We are delivered from the guilt of sin, and we are delivered from the power of sin, but we are not delivered from its presence. Yet we shall be in a little while, when at home with the Lord, and that absolutely. So it is most deplorable not to be conscious of sin.
John 1:88He was not that Light, but was sent to bear witness of that Light. (John 1:8) says, “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.” But then it is terrible too to go along with sin on the conscience, because that shuts us off from communion; and what is our life worth, if we do not enjoy communion with the Father and the Son?
“Herein do I exercise myself.” It will indeed cost us something in a world like this to have always a conscience void of offense. Conscience alone is not a sure guide. Paul shows us this when he says, “I verily thought with myself that I ought to do many things contrary to the name? of Jesus of Nazareth.” But in another place he says, “My conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost.” If you get the word and the spirit and the conscience all in harmony, it is all right.
Verse 3 supposes a case where there is a very serious evil overlooked by a person in himself, and a much smaller thing taken notice of in a brother—a defect, a splinter, as one may say. Here it is some defect which one thinks he has detected in another. And the one who has not judged himself is altogether unfit to deal with another. “He that is spiritual” is the one to restore, if another is overtaken in a fault. The one self-judged before God is conscious that whatever another has done he is capable of doing the same or worse. “I know that in me, that is, in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing.” Hezekiah was left of God that he might know all that was in his heart, and what awful failure ensued. Nothing worse could happen to us than to be left to ourselves. Get the large thing removed first, the thing which hinders you from seeing clearly; and most likely you will find the mote in the brother's eye is gone too. Very often these motes are discovered by those who are in a bad, sour, state of soul. And if we really do see failure in another what is the best use we can I make of that discovery? To correct it in ourselves. Then may we help our brother.
“Thou hypocrite” (verse 5), to be said to a disciple, is a strong word, but it is here uttered by the One who is the Truth, and knows the hearts of all. There is the possibility of even a true saint acting hypocritically. If we cover up our sins we are acting hypocritically. So appearing to others to be what we really are not, is hypocritical. Just in that sense you can understand a disciple being called so. Peter dissembled, and that was in the same lines. Well, then, first deal with yourself. You will see much more clearly when self has been judged before God. If that is neglected, we shall find it easy enough to see faults in others rather than in ourselves. To prove a thing you want a standard, and the standard God has given us is His written word. We have to prove everything by that word. In listening to the best teacher that ever lived, I am bound to prove all he says, “Take heed what ye hear,” but in listening to the word itself the instruction is, “Take heed how ye hear.” But it is a necessity for us to test everything by the word of God. The two standards of truth are the person of Christ, and the word of God. “The doctrine of Christ,” in 2 John, is the teaching of the Holy Spirit about the divinity and humanity of the Lord Jesus.
“Give not that which is holy unto the dogs,” etc. (ver. 6). This has nothing to do with the gospel. The gospel has to do with every creature, no matter how bad they are. God's grace goes out to the most unlikely and the most unworthy. But we must be careful of putting that which specially belongs to the believer before the unsaved. Dogs and swine describe what we all were before grace met us. Turn to 2 Peter 2:2222But it is happened unto them according to the true proverb, The dog is turned to his own vomit again; and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire. (2 Peter 2:22), “It hath happened to them according to the true proverb, the dog is turned to his own vomit, again; and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire.” The countries that have been outwardly affected by Christian doctrine will go back to greater filth than that from which they have been delivered.
The apostasy has to come, if not already at the door, the apostasy of Christendom. Men have taken the place of being Christians, but they are not sheep. Everything must act according to its nature, and it is not according to the nature of a sheep to go rolling in the mud. These, of whom the apostle speaks, had never been born again. The Gentiles, in contrast to the Jews, were dogs. The Syro-phoenician woman addressed the Lord as “Son of David,” and the Lord said, “It is not meet to take the children's bread and to cast it to dogs.” She had taken the place of covenant relationship, but she understood what the Lord said, and cast herself on His mercy, and no soul ever cast himself on His mercy in vain. She bowed to the truth. But grace as well as truth came by Jesus Christ. She took the place of a little dog, and the Lord told her she had great faith. But there is a very blessed connection between her and what follows in the same chapter. The Lord never gives a “crumb.” The woman counted on a crumb, but the Lord always gives above our highest expectations. So we find there was a crowd of four thousand besides women and children, and to feed them there were seven loaves and a few small fishes, so that if literally broken up there would have been but a crumb each. But they were all filled, and more was taken up than they had to start with.
But to go back to our verse. Let us be careful what we talk of to the unsaved. Let us be sure they have laid hold of the gospel before we tell them the deep things of God. The scripture shows it will do them no good, and they will do us harm. But do not let us be deterred from preaching the gospel. It goes out to the vilest and the worst, the most unworthy and the most unlikely. Simon Magus was never a sheep. He believed and was baptized; yet what he believed in was that there was a superior power to anything he had ever exercised; but he was exposed when Peter and John came down. He thought what could be bought could be sold. He was not a child of God. To believe because of miracles does not necessitate a work of grace in the soul; the question of sin must be raised. The Lord did not believe in, or trust Himself to, those who believed because they saw His miracles, for He knew what was in man (John 2:23-2523Now when he was in Jerusalem at the passover, in the feast day, many believed in his name, when they saw the miracles which he did. 24But Jesus did not commit himself unto them, because he knew all men, 25And needed not that any should testify of man: for he knew what was in man. (John 2:23‑25)). There is a play on the word man of this last verse of chap. 2, and the first verse of chap. 3. Nicodemus was one of those who believed in Jesus because of the miracles, but such belief was not sufficient for seeing or entering the kingdom of God. “Verily, verily,” says the Lord to him, “except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” And so I do not think much of those who lecture about Christian evidences. The understanding may be convinced and yet the conscience and heart untouched. There must be repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ. A person may have the Bible at his fingers' end, and be able to put everyone who argues with him into a corner, and yet not have a spark of divine life in his soul.
The Lord had previously given His disciples instructions as to prayer, but in the verses we now come to they are very blessedly encouraged to pray. “Ask, and it shall be given you” (verse 7). Oh, if we always acted on it! The apostle James says, “Ye have not because ye ask not,” and he also adds, “Ye ask and receive not because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts” (4:2, 3). Now the way to ask rightly is the secret shown in John 15:77If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you. (John 15:7). “If ye abide in me” —a life of dependence— “and my words abide in you” —they are formative and produce right desires— “ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.” And this corresponds with Psa. 37:44Delight thyself also in the Lord; and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart. (Psalm 37:4), because if I am delighting in the Lord, right desires will be created. Neglect of the word of God would be neglect of the true safeguard. “Ask” implies something I desire to have; “seek” something I have missed, and “knock” wanting an entrance. It means increased importunity. There is more intensity in “seeking” than in “asking;” and again, in “knocking” than in seeking.