God Judges According to the Heart

God declared He judges according to the heart; righteous judgment.

Mankind judges according to appearance; unrighteous judgment.

There are implications in this that mankind, with the evil hearts of unbelief, the deceitful and desperately wicked hearts of stone, are unaware of.

Mankind creates God in their own image. Man-made gods are a reflection of the men who create them. Instead of men doing the bidding of God, their gods do the bidding of man.

God gave the Hebrews a blood covenant law knowing full well what they would do with it: they would use and abuse it in order to later judge and condemn the God who gave them that law; elevating it to the status of another god besides God. The law became their god, a god they controlled and used to their own advantage, all the while appealing to the law as the “law of God” where to disobey them and the law was to disobey God.

Jesus the Christ came in the flesh and did what God does - works commensurate with the Spirit. He did these works even on the Sabbath, that demanded no ‘man’ do ‘any’ work on the Sabbath.

Predictably, the men who administered controlled the law accused Him of sin against the law for having worked good works on the Sabbath, judging with unrighteous judgment according to the evil heart of men, according to appearance. This is the type of judgment that they imbued their false god of law with, where they equivocated that law with God and the operations of God, so they mistakenly perceived that God thought like they thought and believed as they believed.

(Isaiah 55:8) For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD.

Jesus commanded the people to judge with righteous judgment and not according to appearance… two contrasting ways of judgment where judging according to appearance is contrasted with righteous judgment. This makes judging according to appearance an unrighteous judgment, practiced by those with evil hearts who, according to Christ Jesus, can only do or perform evil works… producing evil fruits.

Even when trying to keep the law, they did evil in the sight of God, and this is in keeping with what Jesus said and taught; that a “bad tree” can ONLY produce bad/evil fruits/works.

The abuse of law resulted in evil people with the deceitful heart being deceived by their own hearts into thinking they were good and acceptable to God due to being deceived into believing they actually kept the law. In this regard, Psalms 44 is quite revealing. They could not understand why they were being punished with those things God said would happen upon disobedience when they were thoroughly convinced they were in compliance with the law; the same law Paul wrote to be the ministration of condemnation and death, engraved in stone; the letter of the law that kills.

Their perspective, seen through eyes controlled by desperately wicked hearts, could only see the law in the letter, and judge the self accordingly, with unrighteous judgment, according to appearance. “We are keeping the law, so why are we being punished as though we are not?”

To embrace the old covenant law is the ‘natural’ thing for a carnal mind to do in order to judge the self and others according to unrighteous judgment (GAL. 6:12-13), for an evil minded person seeks to accomplish two things:

1) Give the appearance of righteousness; being ‘obedient’ to the law of God. And,

2) Have the means to sate the evil desire to condemn others who do not agree with them and follow after them.

For the evil hearted, the law is a “win-win”. Any and all Scripture are simply dismissed out of hand if they contradict what their “deceitful” and “desperately wicked" hearts desire to believe as true (and there are many scriptures which do contradict them).

Righteousness comes through faith, not the law. None of the things in the following list comes from the law:

Justification (GAL. 2: 16)

Righteousness (GAL. 2: 21)

The Spirit (GAL. 3: 2)

Perfection (GAL. 3: 3; HEB. 7: 19)

Miracles (GAL. 3: 5)

Inheritance (GAL. 3: 18)

Life (GAL. 3: 21)

Grace (GAL. 5: 4)

Faith (GAL. 3: 12)

And if righteousness does not come through law, something else does: unrighteousness. Self-righteousness which is odious and obnoxious to God.

The law that produces wrath - the law that kills - produces this function against those who choose the law. They want the law; they use the law, believing that, ultimately, it will produce good things for them and “righteous” judgment against others who disagree with them; that very law stands against them, condemning them for ‘flaunting’ the law; the same law Paul stated was made for the unrighteous and not the righteous; for righteousness is derived through faith; an attribute of the Spirit, associated with righteous judgment, looking to the heart and not appearance, built into the letter of the law.

************

It is important that you understand; Everything on this blog is based on the current understanding of each author. Never take anyone's word for it, always prove it for yourself, it is your responsibility. You cannot ride someone else's coattail into the Kingdom. ; )

Acts 17:11

************