Can Believers Judge?
As believers, if we have God's word built up in our inner man (are thus spiritually minded), we can judge righteously.
1 Corinthians 2:15
15 But he that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no man.
Unbelievers and carnal Christians love to say, "you can't judge me!" Or they might refer to us as judgemental. Yet, they judge people all of the time and they actually have NO RIGHT to judge based upon what God's word is saying here. When it comes to spiritual matters, the unbeliever and carnally minded believers are IGNORANT.
1 Cor 2:14 says
But the natural man (unbeliever and carnally minded believers) receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.
But believers who read and study God's word rightly divided, have the mind of Christ.
1 Cor 2:16
For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him? but we have the mind of Christ.
Of course we need to use proper discernment. Spiritual believers don't just know everything. Only God knows everything. But we can discern and judge spiritual matters. It isn't our flesh that judges righteously, but Gods Spirit and His word living in us that judges righteously. You can be saved and understand some very basic things, but unless you are edified in sound grace doctrine, you won't be able to judge very many spiritual matters correctly yet. This is why we must be built up in sound grace doctrine.
Believers will also one day judge angels! This is quite something. We will not judge them to heaven or hell, it's referring to our eternal life in the heavenly places where we will judge what is the most edifying things. We will also rule over them with Christ once we are given our positions in the heavenly places.
1 Cor 6:3a
Know ye not that we shall judge angels?
And in 1 Cor 6:2 it says,
Do ye not know that the saints shall judge the world? and if the world shall be judged by you, are ye unworthy to judge the smallest matters?
How will we be able to judge the world? Through the mind of Christ! Wow! Paul actually wants us to exercise this muscle, so to say. To keep reading, studying, meditating upon and believing God's word rightly divided and then using the mind of Christ to judge matters, even small matters, correctly. But, you cannot do that if you are being carnally minded all of the time like many of the Corinthian believers were! They were more concerned over worldly issues and starting new denominations (1 Cor 1:12-13) than they were over being stablished and edified in sound grace doctrine.
Let's put our minds to good use and study God's word rightly divided and then we can make proper judgment, and no natural man can judge us.
Col 3:16
Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.
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