You may say to this: “Am I not to speak out when an injustice is being done? Am I to call it justice and condone it? Am I to find it pleasing when the properties of the monasteries are seized or when there is coarse behavior and no praying or fasting?” No, I am not telling you to do that. He acknowledges here that there is a speck and that it should be removed; but here He is giving you instructions about doing it properly. I have to admit that it is not very nice, this speck in the eye. But above all I must determine whether I have a log in my own eye, and take that out first. Make the villain in your own breast pious, and then go on to see to it that the little villain becomes pious, too. It is wrong when the big thieves hang the little ones, as the saying goes, and the big villains condemn the little ones….” (Luther’s Works, v. 21, pages 221).

Now, anyone who is a Christian must certainly know and feel in himself that such immaculate purity is impossible and that daily the article “the forgiveness of sins” has to rule in us. Therefore it is easy to pardon other people’s faults and to put them all together by saying in the Lord’s Prayer: “Forgive us as we forgive.” This is especially so when it is evident that the other person honors the Word and does not despise or persecute it. Where the Word is, there Christ’s kingdom is, and full forgiveness, which consumes the speck. Therefore, where we notice this, we should not despise or condemn anyone. Otherwise we shall make our own speck a log and fail to obtain forgiveness, because we refuse to forgive other people.” (Luther’s Works, v. 21, pages 220-221).

“Now, it is true that we are not free of transgressions; in fact, no Christian will advance so far that he will be without a speck. St. Paul himself could not advance that far, as he complains in Romans 7:15. And daily all Christendom must pray: “Forgive us our debts,” and must confess the article of the Creed that reads: “the forgiveness of sins.” But these log-bearers and speck-judges refuse to stand for this article. They insist on having everything so pure that there is no inadequacy or fault in it. As soon as they see something wrong, they move right into their judging and condemning, as if they were so holy that they did not need forgiveness of sins or prayer. They want to reform the Lord’s Prayer and extinguish the principal article of the Creed. They are all full of demons and of blindness, while they mourn over other people’s specks. The same thing happens among us when we lose our senses. Those who are full of vices and wickedness cannot stop watching and condemning the tiny vices of other people. Thus the log is the master and the judge of the speck.”  (Luther’s Works, v. 21, pages 220).

“Mt 7:3. Why do you see the speck that is in your brothers eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? 4. Or how can you say to your brother, “Let me take the speck out of your eye,” when there is the log in your own eye? 5. You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brothers eye.

As a way of giving us an earnest warning to guard against this vice, He uses an extreme example to describe it. He pronounces this sentence: Everyone who judges his neighbor has a big log in his eye, while the one who is being judged only has a little speck; by the very fact that he is condemning others he himself is ten times as liable to judgment and condemnation. This is really a grim and terrible sentence. Where are the schismatic spirits now, the Master Smart Alecks, who know so much about lording it over the Gospel and criticizing it? All they can do is to judge us and other people, even when there is nothing wrong or when they discover a speck in us and gleefully blow it up…. That is the way of the world everywhere; the log judges the speck, and the big villain condemns the little one.”  (Luther’s Works, v. 21, pages 219-220).

Thus you see why Christ is speaking out so harshly against this vice and pronouncing such a severe sentence: “Whoever judges will be judged.” This is as it should be. By meddling into God’s judgment and condemning one whom God has not condemned, you are giving Him just cause to do the same to you in turn. He will condemn you and all your works to hell, in spite of all your piety. He will elevate to a position of honor the neighbor whom you have judged and condemned, even making him a judge over you and having him find ten times as much in you that is damnable as you have found in him. So you have done very well indeed. You have angered and alienated both God and your neighbor. Thus you lose both the grace of God and the Christian life simultaneously, and you become worse than a heathen who knows nothing about God.  (Luther’s Works, v. 21, pages 219).

“Secondly, though you see something bad in your neighbor, you should not despise and condemn him on account of it. Instead you should look at his good qualities and use your own good qualities to help him, by covering up for him, by making him look good, and by giving him your advice, knowing that even if you were the holiest and most pious man on earth, you would become the worst man by judging someone else. God did not give you your gifts for you to tickle yourself with them, but for you to help your neighbor with them when he needs it, and thus by your strength to bear his weakness, by your piety and honor to cover up his sin and to conceal his shame, as God through Christ has done for you and still does every day.  If you refuse to do that, if you insist upon flattering yourself and despising others, you should know that while someone else may have a speck in his eye as far as you are concerned, by comparison you have a log in your eye as far as God is concerned (Matt. 7:3). (Luther’s Works, v. 21, pages 218-219).

You do not imagine, do you, that God is unable to spread out an account book before your very nose and to cite not only your transgressions and the sins of your youth (Ps. 25:7), but also your whole life, which you thought was very precious, as the monks think about their cloister life? How will you stand before Him then and answer for blaspheming and crucifying His Son daily with your Masses and other idolatry? This is what happens when we forget what we used to be like. Then it is easy to judge other people. But the command is: “Hans, take hold of your own nose, and reach into your own bosom. If you are looking for a villain on whom to pass judgment, you will find there the biggest villain on earth. You will just as soon forget about other people and gladly let them alone. You will never find as much sin in another person as you will in yourself. If you see a great deal of another person, you see one year or two. But when you look at yourself, you see your whole life, especially the serious blemishes that nobody else knows about. And then you must be ashamed of yourself.   That, you see, would be a good cure for this shameful vice. You would stop pleasing yourself and pray God to forgive you and others.” (Luther’s Works, v. 21, pages 218).

You must understand this in such a way that it does not take away the right of the man in the public ministry of preaching to judge matters of doctrine as well as of life. Indeed, it is incumbent on him in his office to rebuke publicly whatever does not square with true doctrine, for the very purpose of preventing sects from coming in and taking hold. When he sees that life is wrong, he must likewise denounce it and resist it. He is put there to oversee this, and he will have to give account of it (Heb. 13:17). In fact, whenever any Christian sees his neighbor doing wrong, he has the duty of admonishing him and restraining him, which is impossible without judging and passing judgment. But this is all done on the basis of an office or a commission, which Christ, is not discussing here, as we have said often enough. What is forbidden is that everyone may go ahead on the basis of his own ideas and make a doctrine and spirit of his own, imagining that he is to be Master Smart Aleck, who is supposed to correct everybody and to criticize him, though he has no commission to do anything of the sort. These are the people that the Lord is denouncing here. He does not want anyone to undertake or to do anything on the basis of his own ideas and without a commission, especially not the task of judging other people.

(Luther’s Works, v. 21, pages 212-213).

Christ worried about this, and not only worried, but also predicted that it would happen. The world refuses to be changed, even if we preached ourselves to death. Wherever the Gospel arises, therefore, the factions and sects must follow, to spoil it and put it down. The reason is that the devil must sow his seed among the good seed (Matt. 13:25); and wherever God builds a church, he builds his chapel or tabernacle next to it.² Satan always wants to be in the midst of the children of God, as Scripture says (Job 1:6). Christ intends this as a warning to His apostles and loyal preachers. They must maintain a diligent watch against this vice and be careful not to let it intrude itself and cause schisms and dissension, especially in doctrine. It is as if He were to say: “If you want to be My disciples, let your understanding and your ideas in doctrine all be the same. Let no one claim to be the master who knows something new or better, judging or condemning the others. Concentrate on what I command you to preach, not on who is to do the preaching. And preserve harmony among yourselves, so that one does not despise the other or start something new.”  (Luther’s Works, v. 21, pages 212).

…But real trouble and woe arise when this invades spiritual affairs and when the devil plants his seed in Christ’s kingdom, so that it takes root both in doctrine and in life. The result in the area of doctrine is this: Although a man may have the assignment and commission from God to preach the Gospel, others arise, even among his pupils, who claim to know it ten times as well as he does. Thus it is the plague and misfortune of the Gospel to have everyone judging it, becoming a doctor of it on his own, and presuming to be a master in doctrine. This is what happened to Moses, when Korah and his mob rebelled against him and said (Num. 16:3): “Why do you exalt yourselves above the people of God? Are they not all holy? Shall God speak only through Moses and Aaron?” And nowadays they say: “Do we not have as much right to have the Spirit and to understand Scripture as others do?” Right away a different doctrine is served up, and sects are started. Then the judging and the criticizing begin, and particularly the shameful slandering, one party venomously accusing and misrepresenting the other, as we are experiencing right now. This brings on the deadly damage of dividing Christendom and undermining pure doctrine everywhere.  (Luther’s Works, v. 21, pages 211-212).