mine own self. For I know nothing by myself; yet am I not hereby jus tified: but he that judgeth me is the Lord. Therefore judge nothing before the time, until the Lord come, who both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts: and then shall every man have praise of God." On the basis of the context in which these verses are found, I have suggested that these verses deal with Paul's standing—or posi tion—before the Lord as a faithful servant. And as such, the Corinthi ans are wasting their time making judgments. What other reasons are there. We could say that Paul is an Apostle and as such no man can judge him, but verse 5 is so broad it seems to include all men who would be liable to such judgment. A significant reason is found in the very word judge. In verses 3 and 4 where the tone is set and where Paul reveals that only Christ's judgment is valid, a very strong Creek word is used. Krivo is the basic word for judging in Scrip ture. It contains two dominant ideas; evaluating and passing sen tence. From the context, one must determine the sense that most like ly captures the thought of the author. But Krivo can be strength ened with a prefix.The prefix used with Krivo in verses 3 and 4 makes the word suggest completeness or finality. Whether in evaluating or in passing sentence, nothing ap proaching completeness or finality can be found on the human level. That is why Paul says "you cannot judge me — in fact, even I am incapable of doing this job with finality."
Only the Lord knows just where a person stands in Christ—whether or not his heart is really right be fore the Lord, Man can look at the conditions that he sees, and he can make certain judgments or evaluations, and he can ask for certain patterns of conformity. But he never really knows, never really understands where a man stands before the Lord. So Paul is simply saying, "You people at Corinth cannot possibly put an apostle or any teacher or minister or pastor on a pedestal and say this man is doing what God wants him to do and this other man is failing. Your judgment is always little more than human speculation. In fact, the inadequacy of man's judgment so grips Paul that he says, "I judge not my own self" (vs. 3). Paul does not know of any flaw in his message that would in dict him as he says in verse 4, "For I know nothing against myself." He was confident that he was faith fully ministering for Christ. This whole matter is so much in Christ's hands that Paul goes on to say that it is not his (that is, Paul's) personal evaluation of his own message and the clean bill of health he gives himself that secures a favorable decision. Only Christ's judgment counts. Personal confi dence and sincerity in one's min istry is great; nevertheless, only Christ's judgment has final merit. Thus far we have seen that the people at Corinth were off-base in judging Paul or Apollos in rela tionship to their standing in Christ, even in relationship to whether or not they were preaching what Cod wanted them to preach, because they were men and had limited understanding. But the main rea-
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