Judgement of God
Matthew 7:1 Do not condemn, in order that you would not be condemned. 2 For with the judgment by which you condemn, you shall be judged, and with the measure by which you measure, it shall be measured with you.
This is a condemnation of hypocritical judgement.
Job 27: “1 Moreover Job continued his parable, and said, 2 As God liveth, who hath taken away my judgment [Job ruled over a magnificent household, and was an outstanding member of the community, but now he was humbled]; and the Almighty, who hath vexed my soul; 3 All the while my breath is in me, and the spirit of God is in my nostrils; 4 My lips shall not speak wickedness, nor my tongue utter deceit. 5 God forbid that I should justify you: till I die I will not remove mine integrity from me. [Job was rejecting the unjust words of Bildad the Shuhite, found in chapter 25. If Job had agreed with these words, he would have been justifying Bildad. Many pastors foolishly take the words of Job's friends as Scripture, not realizing that in the dialogue they were all found wanting.] 6 My righteousness I hold fast, and will not let it go: my heart shall not reproach me so long as I live. 7 Let mine enemy be as the wicked, and he that riseth up against me as the unrighteous. 8 For what is the hope of the hypocrite, though he hath gained, when God taketh away his soul [meaning his life]? 9 Will God hear his cry when trouble cometh upon him?”
Our hope of personal gain may lead us to judge hypocritically. For instance, we are told to separate ourselves from other peoples. That is easy, when those other peoples are of low estate, and we are doing well. But what happens when an alien offers us a great business deal, or the jew a low-interest loan, in our time of need and weakness? That is a form of hypocritical judgement.
Another form of hypocritical judgement is the condemnation of our brother or sister for wrongs that we ourselves may have once committed, or thought of committing. Or perhaps we would condemn our brother or sister today, but another day we may accept someone else who had done such a thing, because we like that person or that person is close to us. Because only Yahweh is perfect, only Yahweh can be our judge.
Job chapter 34 discusses the righteous judgement of God, and verse 30 expresses the hope: “That the hypocrite reign not, lest the people be ensnared.” In the old kingdom, the role of the king was as the ultimate judge of the people, and we see as much in the prayer of Solomon upon his becoming king, at 1 Kings 3:9 where he said: “Give therefore thy servant an understanding heart to judge thy people, that I may discern between good and bad: for who is able to judge this thy so great a people?” It says at 1 Kings 7:7: “Then he made a porch for the throne where he might judge, even the porch of judgment: and it was covered with cedar from one side of the floor to the other.”
When our people rejected Yahweh as King, we invited hypocritical human judgement upon ourselves, and have been naturally punished by it ever since. One of the promises of Christianity is that Christ be our judge, and then we shall all be judged fairly, before God who knows all, and not before man whose judgement is clouded and partial and whose knowledge is incomplete.