Is Jesus a Judge? -- Part 3: Withholding Judgement

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What did the word “judge” mean in Jesus’s time? The people of his era associated judging with legal trials, not the afterlife. There were both Roman and Judean courts, and according to Jesus’s words, they were an active part of society. Courts come up twice in the Sermon on the Mount. Primarily, these courts dealt with financial issues. There were no public prosecutors as such. People brought other people to court in law suits. Jesus advised everyone against going to court to settle their differences (Matthew 5:25, Matthew 5:26). But, generally, Jesus had a lot more to say about earthly trials than heavenly ones.

Let me avoid the eschatological questions about applying Jesus’s words to judgment after death. Many people of Jesus’s time didn’t believe in life after death, including important religious teachers such as the Sadducees. Jesus used his words so that most people of his era would understand him, even if they didn’t share his beliefs about the afterlife. When he said (Matthew 7:1), “You don’t want to judge because you don’t want to be judged,” people wouldn’t have heard it as a reference to the afterlife. They would have heard it as practical advice, “Don’t criticize unless you want to be criticized.”

While Jesus says many contradictory things about his judging, one of the most interesting is John 8:26 (KJV), “I have many things to say and to judge of you: but he that sent me is true, and I speak to the world those things which I have heard of him.” Of course, this is funnier in Greek, as most of Jesus’s sayings are. Following the Greek more closely, a literal translation is, “Many things I hold to pass on and to judge about you. Except the one sending me is true. And I myself? What I hear from him, these I pass on into this world order.”

What Is Held In?

John 8:26 starts with the word that means “many things,” so his listeners must first wonder what things he is talking about. The first verb, the one translated as “have,” also means “to hold,” “to hold in,” and “to withhold.” Jesus says these are things he is “holding” or “holding in.” This makes those “many things” more interesting. What is he holding in?

He then describes the “many things.” In Biblical translations, they are things “to say, but the “to say” isn’t the common Greek word for “say,” but a funny one that Jesus uses to mean “pass on.” The verb describes the relaying of information. It is the word that means “gossip.” Jesus uses it in a self-effacing way, often when crediting his Father for his ideas. Then he describes those “many things” further as those “to judge” his listeners, his criticisms about his challengers. But remember his earlier rule? “Don’t judge if you don’t want to be judged." Jesus is withholding his criticism. But why is he withholding it?

Why?

The answer is in the following word, blandly and uselessly translated as “but.” Its more specific meaning is “instead” or “except.” Jesus consistently used it to separate something that is not done from what is done or from the reason for not doing it. Here, he gives the reasons for not judging. He does this in a self-effacing way: by comparing himself to the one sending him, “Except the one sending me is true. And I myself?” Jesus humorously contrasts this “true one” with himself without finishing his thought. Or perhaps finishing it with a self-deprecating gesture, like a shrug or shaking his head. The Greek comes across as an unfinished question and a logical place to pause for the sake of humor.

Jesus finishes this thought indirectly by saying what he chooses to do, “What I hear from him, these things I pass on.” Note the change from discussing “many things” to “these things.” Jesus says directly that he isn’t passing on the “many things” of his own, but that his job is to pass on the specific things that he hears from the one who sent him. He is an honest messenger, passing on what he is told and keeping his opinions out of it.

Conclusions

For any of us who have ever chosen to hold our tongue, this makes Jesus more appealing than ever. He had opinions. He wanted to express them. But no. He decided to do his duty rather than blow off steam, vent his spleen, or, in his own words, “seek his own glory" (John 7:18).

This may explain many of Jesus’s conflicting statements about being a judge. He didn’t like the role. However, he certainly had a role to play. If not as the judge, certainly as the standard for judging. But he deflects even that much glory. In John 12:48, he says that what judges is his message not him.

As always, I do not maintain that this is the only way that Jesus’s words in this verse can be understood. I invite you all to study the Greek for yourselves, given the grammatical detail I provide.

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