I have observed many good people who seem to feel a positive obligation to condemn others, and in some cases they do it without anger or contempt, even with some degree of sorrow and compassion. Yet the effects of condemnation remain the same. It remains a stinging attack, a shocking assault upon the one condemned.

And often it grows into shame. Shame seems most widespread and deepest among the very people who take rightness and goodness most seriously. It is a dimension of condemnation that reaches into the deepest levels of our souls. In shame we are self-condemned for rejection. We feel ourselves to be a failure just for being the person we are. We wish to be someone else. But of course we cannot. We are trapped, and our life is made hopeless.

Condemnation Brings a Counterattack

The result of condemning and blaming is sure to be a counterattack in the very same terms. The parents who have reproached a child for using drugs, for example, soon find themselves condemned for coffee, tobacco, or alcohol use. This is a well-known case of exactly what Jesus said: “Don’t condemn or you will be condemned. As you have meted out condemnation to others, so they will mete out condemnation to you” (Matt. 7:1-2).

If our counterattack is unacceptable to ourselves, as it is very likely to be in a family setting, it may be shoved beneath the surface and will then come out in the many forms of behavior that look like something else, for example, perfectionism, procrastination, rejection of authority, or passive/aggressive tendencies such as chronic tardiness or the constant aborting of success — or even in physical symptoms. For condemnation brings anger in return, and anger will attack. And that will very likely move on to contempt, to “You fool!” to shame, or even to physical injury and abuse. And this attack can be and often is turned against oneself by the amazing chemistry of the mind.

Condemnation Will Almost Always Fail

This reciprocity explains why condemnation as a strategy for correcting or “helping” those near and dear to us will almost always fail. It is extremely rare that anyone who is condemned will respond by changing in the desired way. And those who can so respond are most likely to be spiritual giants already. “Rebuke a wise man,” the proverb says, “and he will love you for it” (Prov. 9:8). Yes, but in most cases where we condemn we are not dealing with wise people. We are dealing with people who will simply be deeply injured, become angry, and repay us in kind.

Eliminate Condemnation and Then Help

Jesus shows us how to proceed in another way, a better way, to help the ones we care about. He says, “Why do you concentrate on the little speck in your brother’s eye, but do not take into consideration the board in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me get that little speck out of your eye,’ when you are standing there with a board covering your own eye?” (Matt. 7:3-4). How, we might ask, does Jesus know there is a board in your eye, that you have a serious character problem that needs to be removed? In the next verse he even goes on to say, “You hypocrite! First take the board from over your eye and then you will have clear vision to extract the little speck from your brother’s eye.”

How does he know that those who “judge,” in the sense of condemning others, are hypocrites? Is it merely that there must be something wrong with us, because there is something wrong with everyone, and that we should not condemn others until we are perfect? Is it just the let-him-who-is-without-sin-cast-the-first-stone routine? No, that’s not it. Rather, it is because he understands what condemnation is and involves.

Condemnation is the board in our eye. He knows that the mere fact that we are condemning someone shows our heart does not have the kingdom rightness he has been talking about.

Condemnation, especially with its usual accompaniments of anger and contempt and self-righteousness, blinds us to the reality of the other person. We cannot “see clearly” how to assist our brother, because we cannot see our brother. And we will never know how to truly help him until we have grown into the kind of person who does not condemn. Period.

Dr. Dallas Willard was hailed as an icon of Christian scholarship. He was Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at USC Dornsife, having taught at the School of Philosophy from 1965 to 2012. Willard was also an award-winning writer. 

Used with permission. The Divine Conspiracy by Dallas Willard, HarperOne, 1997.