The word ‘judgement’ in the Bible is a translation of the Greek word krisis. This word has a sense of ‘separating’ and is about making just decisions. The judge decides what is right or wrong, what the truth is and what the punishment should be for those who break the law. The Bible says repeatedly that God is the judge of the whole world (Deuteronomy 1:17, John 5:22, 2 Corinthians 5:10) and that all people will stand before Him to be judged after death (Hebrews 9:27). At this point, there will be a separating between those who know Christ and those who have rejected Him (Matthew 25:31-33). God alone is the eternal judge, so we must not get involved in petty criticism or hypocritical judging (Matthew 7:1-5). However, we are to judge those who claim to be Christians but dishonour the name of Christ by their ungodly behaviour. We must make sure in these cases that we do not judge each other for things that God Himself has not condemned (Romans 14), but only for what God has declared wicked for His people. This judging of those inside the church is not to condemn them eternally but to show them that their behaviour is wrong so they might turn to Christ in repentance (1 Corinthians 5:1-13).
