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Judging Christians - Then and Now
By David W. T. Brattston
Jury duty is like kidnapping and theft. Some Christians refuse to serve on a jury because Jesus said, “Do not judge” in Matthew 7:1 and Luke 6:37, a command restated in James 4:11f, by Paul in Romans 14:13 and 1 Corinthians 4:5, and twice by the third-century church father Origen in his Commentary on Romans. However, a survey of the New Testament and other Christian writings before A.D. 250 shows that the earliest Christians did not share this interpretation but participated in courts and trials. To them and to us, “Do not judge” has a very restricted and limited message. People who first received the gospel, who could ask New Testament authors for clarification of Christ’s written and unwritten teachings, and fortunate Christians a few generations afterwards, regarded these words of Jesus’ to be like a parable or figure of speech in which He frequently expressed wider and less literal truths. Nevertheless, “Do not judge” does have an important meaning for Christians today.
Early Christians Were
Judges and Jurors
The earliest heirs of the apostles recorded that Christians in their day often served as judges (which would include jurors). This would have been an unbelievably abrupt and almost impossible departure from the Faith of only a few years earlier if the apostles and their companions had interpreted “Do not judge” literally and of blanket application. Usually these records are exhortations to “judge justly and righteously” (five ancient Christian authors, including ones in the late first or early second century), “judge well and rightly” (Origen) and, in particular, “judge widows and orphans justly” (three authors, including one in the second half of the first century). For example, in describing Christians and their traits around A.D. 125, Aristides noted, “whenever they are judges, they judge uprightly.”
Church Courts Began in
New Testament Times
Not only was judging in secular courts part of early Christian experience, but the church itself had its own system of courts and trials. Matthew 18:15-17, 1 Corinthians 6:1-5, and 2 Corinthians 13:1f in the first century presume them to be well established for disputes between Christians and against backsliders. By the first half of the third century, Origen considered church courts routine, and had a code of procedure similar to modern secular courts in the church manual called the Didascalia. Judging is the whole purpose of such courts.
The influence of such courts is still with us. When the Emperor Constantine legalized Christianity and made it an official religion of the Roman Empire in the fourth century, he incorporated church courts as part of the government justice system, applying Christian teachings and principles to part of Roman law. They continued through the Reformation and were secularized and absorbed into the English judicial system, and exported to the U.S.A. and British Commonwealth. Their approach (but not their theology) survive today for such matters as divorce and family relations.
Christianity Later Imported
into Other Courts
Another influx of Christian principles originated in medieval England. It is not specialized in subject matter but governs all aspects of Anglo-American legal systems. Because the general law descended from Anglo-Saxon tribes was rigorous, overly technical, and frequently unjust, leading churchmen sought to make it more just and equitable by introducing a parallel system of courts with authority to overrule the harsher judgments of the original court system. The new courts were not purely church institutions but part of the secular legal system. This double system of laws, one originating with pagans and the other with the Christian church, was later instituted in the United States and most other former British colonies, where the two systems were merged but with the proviso that where they conflict, the principles of the courts of equity are to prevail.
Thus a judge or juror in most of the Commonwealth and United States today performs a function in one court or another ultimately of Christian foundation, quite unlike the courts of Jesus’ day. A judge or juror is asked to apply the principles of equity, fair play, and impartiality that are the hallmarks of a legal system developed from a long Christian heritage.
Private Judgment Forbidden
Outside a Court
Matthew 7:1 and Luke 6:37, Romans 14:13, 1 Corinthians 4:5, James 4:11f, and Origen’s Commentary on Romans 9.40 and 9.41.2 are not to be completely disregarded today. What they forbid is a Christian taking judging into his or her own hands, judging privately the actions of another without the safeguards built into courts for a full and fair hearing: the right of the person judged to know in full the accusations against him/her and to ask questions of the complainant, an opportunity to defend him/herself, the right to call witnesses to support his/her side of the story, the opportunity to explain his/her actions, and the right to be fully heard and judged by a neutral arbitrator, be it a church or secular court, by a judge alone or by a judge assisted by jurors. Private judgment outside a duly-constituted court, the kind of judgment Christ forbade, is like an individual taking the law into her/his own hands, which is prohibited to private citizens although allowed or even a duty of a branch of a government judicial system. After all, most believers accept that a duly constituted court has authority to lock up offenders and keep them in distant jails, but for a private person to do so is universally regarded as abduction and kidnapping. Nobody doubts that a court can fine and seize property but for an individual citizen to do so is theft.
Conclusion
What Christ meant by “Do not judge” was judging in private situations, without authority and safeguards; this command does not apply to jurors in Anglo-American courts. The New Testament and other Christian literature before A.D. 250 and centuries or millennia of judicial history indicate that “Do not judge” was not understood so widely or comprehensively by the well informed as to exclude jury duty. i
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