You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge the other, you are condemning yourself, because you who pas judgment do the same thing. Now we know that God’s judgment against those who do such things,” list in chapter 1, “is based on truth. So when you, a mere human being, pass judgment on them and yet do the same things, do you think you will escape God’s judgment? Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, tolerance and patience, not realizing that God’s kindness leads you towards repentance?
How easy it is for me, for any of us, to pass judgments on others. The fact is we all judge, and we must continue to make judgments on all manner of the things. I don’t think Paul was instructing us to stop making judgments, but to stop being hypocrites in our judgment of others. Who knows the heart of man, but God.
As years pass, I am much more willing to leave the judging to God. When I was young, zealous, and far more self-righteous, it was far easier to pass judgment on others and never realized that I was thinking, “thank God I am not like THAT person! See how much better I am than…” Over the years my own stupidity, my own hypocrisy, my own self-righteous pride have come home to me more than I want to admit. It is in our make-up to behave in such ways, but if we allow God to have His way with us then we are transformed and made new daily.
We, too, are more often than not blind to our own pride or need to pass judgments on others in order to boost our own sense of worth or worthiness. I think this is what Paul is getting at as he writes to the Roman Jewish Christians.