We will all appear before the judgment seat

 This week's verses are Romans 14:10-13:

But as for you, why do you judge your brother or sister? Or you as well, why do you regard your brother or sister with contempt? For we will all appear before the judgment seat of God. For it is written:

“As I live, says the Lord, to Me every knee will bow,
And every tongue will give praise to God.”

So then each one of us will give an account of himself to God.

Therefore let’s not judge one another anymore, but rather determine this: not to put an obstacle or a stumbling block in a brother’s or sister’s way. 

These verses are a continuation of the conversation we started last week. Paul is talking about how we handle disagreement in the church and how we can be sensitive to others' differing world views. It's also a conversation about how we manage things in the church that are unhealthy or less than ideal, but which aren't necessarily clear-cut sin.

When we see someone who is doing something we think is wrong, we often react with judgment and condemnation. We want them to follow the rules. We ask ourselves how they could be so brazen or so stupid as to go the wrong way on that one way street.

And if we see someone who follows rules we think are unnecessary, we often react with contempt. We cancel them by calling them superstitious clowns, pharisees, legalists, baby Christians, and so on. So Paul raises the interesting question: What gives us the right to judge or to have contempt for someone else?

Judging our fellow Christian means we see ourselves as being in a superior position to them, while at the same time being the final arbiter of their righteousness. We see them as being rebellious or deceived.

Having contempt for our fellow Christian also requires us to adopt an attitude of superiority, only instead of deciding that they are lawbreakers, we roll our eyes at them and see them as being ignorant and weak.

God, to these puffed-up Christians, is simply a two-dimensional rubber stamp to justify their existing feelings of superiority to others. If they were not Christians, these people would be just as contemptuous of someone asking them to recycle their aluminum cans, or just as judgmental of someone who forgets to signal before changing lanes.

But Paul reminds us that righteousness is measured by God, and that we are not superior to one another at all. We are actually all in the same position when we place God at the center of our universe. All of us will need to give an account of our own actions and our own inner thoughts, not those of our fellow Christians.

No feedback survey is going around to ask us to rate each other for salvation points. God is the 100% final decider of all things related to our position in the universe, now and forever.

That's not to say that some of us aren't better or more experienced in things than others. We can still help each other out. We can still give advice. We can help, but we are not responsible for our brother or sister's sin in the same way that they are, or in the same way that we are responsible for our own.

Making someone follow a rule they don't need to follow is putting an obstacle in their path to God. And making them ignore a rule they *do* need to follow is putting a stumbling block in their way.

If you loved someone, and you wanted them to come to you for safety before it was too late, and someone built a wall that kept them from getting there in time, what would you think of the person who put up that barrier? Or if they dug a trap and the person you loved fell into it and wasn't able to get free in time, how would you feel about the person who dug that trap?

If we go too far in trying to make someone share our values and lifestyle, we risk putting them and us both in danger. Making someone violate their convictions or belittling them for violating yours causes harm. Do you think causing someone harm is OK in God's eyes?

So that's Paul's advice for the Romans on political and doctrinal differences. People are in different places in their Christian walk, but we're all going to end up in the same place. We will all appear before the judgment seat at the end of days, and we will see how God feels about the well-meaning wall-builders and trap-diggers who made it so hard to follow the path that leads to salvation.