Lesson 11
JUDGMENT AND JUSTICE
Charles Fillmore
Christian Healing
1. Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye
judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured
unto you.--Mt. 7:1,2.
2. And thou shalt put in the breastplate of judgment the Urim and the
Thummim; and they shall be upon Aaron's heart, when he goeth in before Jehovah:
and Aaron shall bear the judgment of the children of Israel upon his heart
before Jehovah continually--Ex. 28:30.
3. The Urim and Thummim
(Lights and Perfections). These were the sacred symbols (worn upon the
breastplate of the high priest, upon his heart) by which God gave oracular
responses for the guidance of His People in temporal matters. What they were is
unknown; they are introduced in Exodus without explanation, as if familiar to
the Israelites of that day. Modern Egyptology supplies us with a clue; it tells
us that Egyptian high priests in every town, who were also its magistrates, wore
round their necks a jeweled gem bearing on one side the image of Truth, and on
the other sometimes that of Justice, sometimes that of Light. When the accused
was acquitted, the judge held out the image of him to kiss. In the final
judgment Osiris wears around his neck the jeweled Justice and Truth. The
Septuagint translates Urim and Thummim by "Light and Truth." Some scholars
suppose that they were the twelve stones of the breastplate; others that they
were two additional stones concealed in its fold. Josephus adds to these the two
sardonyx buttons, worn on the shoulders, which he says emitted luminous rays
when the response was favorable; but the precise mode in which the oracles were
given is lost in obscurity.--Bible Glossary of Antiquities.
4. The law as given by Moses is for the guidance of man in the evolution of
his faculties. The figures, personalities, and symbols represent potentialities
developed and undeveloped on various planes of consciousness. The high priest
stands for spiritual man, officiating between God and sense man. The breastplate
in an armor protects the most vital part, the heart. The heart is love, the
affectional consciousness in man; it may be subject to the force of weak
sympathy, unless balanced by another power in which is discrimination, or
judgment.
5. The breastplate had on it twelve precious stones, representing the twelve
tribes of Israel. This clearly means that the twelve faculties of the mind must
be massed at the great brain center called the solar plexus. It means that all
the intelligence of man's faculties must be brought into play in the final
judgments of the mind. The Urim and Thummim (Lights and Perfections; under the
Egyptian symbology, "Truth and Justice") are the oracular edicts of Divine Mind
that are intuitively expressed as a logical sequence of the divine principles,
truth and justice.
6. A modern metaphysician would interpret all this as signifying the
omnipresence of Divine Mind in its perfect idea, Christ. Truth is ready at all
times to give judgment and justice. As God is love, so God is justice. These
qualities are in Divine Mind in unity, but are made manifest in man's
consciousness too often in diversity. It is through the Christ Mind in the heart
that they are unified. When justice and love meet at the heart center, there are
balance, poise, and righteousness. When judgment is divorced from love, and
works from the head alone, there goes forth the human cry for justice. In his
mere human judgment, man is hard and heartless; he deals out punishment without
consideration of motive or cause, and justice goes awry.
7. Good judgment, like all other faculties of the mind, is developed from
Principle. In its perfection it is expressed through man's mind, with all its
absolute relations uncurtailed. Man has the right concept of judgment, and
ideally the judges of our courts have that unbiased and unprejudiced
discrimination which ever exists in the Absolute. A prejudiced judge is
abhorred, and a judge who allows himself to be moved by his sympathies is not
considered safe.
8. The metaphysician finds it necessary to place his judgment in the Absolute
in order to demonstrate its supreme power. This is accomplished by one's first
declaring that one's judgment is spiritual and not material; that its origin is
in God; that all its conclusions are based on Truth and that they are absolutely
free from prejudice, false sympathy, or personal ignorance. This gives a working
center from which the ego, or I AM, begins to set in order its own thought
world. The habit of judging others, even in the most insignificant matters of
daily life, must be discontinued. "Judge not, that ye be not judged," said
Jesus. The law of judgment works out in a multitude of directions, and if we do
not observe it in small things, we shall find ourselves failing in large.
9. Judging from the plane of the personal leads into condemnation, and
condemnation is always followed by the fixing of a penalty. We see faults in
others, and pass judgment upon them without considering motives or
circumstances. Our judgment is often biased and prejudiced; yet we do not
hesitate to think of some form of punishment to be meted out to the guilty one.
He may be guilty or not guilty; decision as to his guilt or innocence rests in
the divine law, and we have no right to pass judgment. In our ignorance we are
creating thought forces that will react upon us. "With what judgment ye judge,
ye shall be judged." "With what measure ye mete, it shall be measured unto you."
Whatever thought you send out will come back to you. This is an unchangeable law
of thought action. A man may be just in all his dealings, yet if he condemns
others for their injustice, that thought action will bring him into unjust
conditions; so it is not safe to judge except in the Absolute. Jesus said that
He judged no man on His own account, but in the Father; that is, He judged in
the Principle. This is the stand which everyone must take--resting judgment of
others in the Absolute. When this is done the tendency to condemn will grow less
and less, until man, seeing his fellow man as God sees him, will leave him to
the Absolute in all cases where he seems unjust.
10. The great judgment day of Scripture indicates a time of separation
between the true and the false. There is no warrant for the belief that God
sends man to everlasting punishment. Modern interpreters of the Scripture say
that the "hell of fire" referred to by Jesus means simply a state in which
purification is taking place.
11. The word hell is not translated with clearness sufficient to represent
the various meanings of the word in the original language. There are three words
from which "hell" is derived: Sheol, "the unseen state"; Hades, "the unseen
world"; and Gehenna, "Valley of Hinnom." These are used in various relations,
nearly all of them allegorical. In a sermon Archdeacon Farrar said: "There would
be the proper teaching about hell if we calmly and deliberately erased from our
English Bibles the three words, 'damnation,' 'hell,' and 'everlasting.' I
say--unhesitatingly I say, claiming the fullest right to speak with the
authority of knowledge--that not one of those words ought to stand any longer in
our English Bible, for, in our present acceptation of them, they are simply
mistranslations." This corroborates the metaphysical interpretation of
Scripture, and sustains the truth that hell is a figure of speech that
represents a corrective state of mind. When error has reached its limit, the
retroactive law asserts itself, and judgment, being part of that law, brings the
penalty upon the transgressor. This penalty is not punishment, but discipline,
and if the transgressor is truly repentant and obedient, he is forgiven in
Truth.
12. Under our civil law, criminals are confined in penitentiaries where it is
intended that order, regular habits, and industry be inculcated, and that what
seems punishment may prove to be educational. Men are everywhere calling for
broader educational methods in our prisons, and this demand is an acknowledgment
of the necessity of purification through discipline and training in morals. This
purifying process is the penalty taught by Jesus--the judgment passed on
sinners--the "hell of fire." When it is received in the right spirit, this fire
burns up the dross in character and purifies mind and body.
13. Metaphysicians have discovered that there is a certain relation between
the functions and organs of the body and the ideas in the mind. The liver seems
to be connected with mental discrimination, and whenever man gets very active
along the line of judgment, especially where condemnation enters in, there is
disturbance of some kind in that part of the organism. A habit of judging others
with severity and fixing in one's mind what the punishment should be causes the
liver to become torpid and to cease its natural action; the complexion becomes
muddy as a result. "There is therefore now no condemnation to them that are in
Christ Jesus . . . who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit." This
statement held in mind, and carried out in thought and act, will heal liver
complaint of that kind. Another form of thought related to judgment is the
vacillating of the mind that never seems to know definitely what is the proper
thing to do: "A double-minded man, unstable in all his ways." There must be
singleness of mind and loyalty to true ideas. Everyone should have definite
ideas of what is just and right, and stand by them. This stimulates the action
of the liver, and often gives so-called bad people good health, because they are
not under self-condemnation. Condemnation in any of its forms retards freedom of
action in the discriminative faculty. When we hold ourselves in guilt and
condemnation, the natural energies of the mind are weakened and the whole body
becomes inert.
14. The remedy for all that appears unjust is denial of condemnation of
others, or of self, and affirmation of the great universal Spirit of justice,
through which all unequal and unrighteous conditions are finally adjusted.
15. Observing the conditions that exist in the world, the just man would have
them righted according to what he perceives to be the equitable law. Unless such
a one has spiritual understanding, he is very likely to bring upon himself
physical disabilities in his efforts to reform men. If his feelings come to a
point of "righteous indignation," and he "boils" with anger over the evils of
the world, he will cook the corpuscles of his blood. Jesus gave this treatment
for such a mental condition: "For neither doth the Father judge any man, but he
hath given all judgment unto the Son." This Son is the Christ, the Universal
cosmos; to its equity, man should commit the justice that he wishes to see
brought into human affairs. Put all the burdens of the world upon the one
supreme Judge and hold every man, and all the conditions in which men are
involved, amenable to the law of God. By so doing, you will set into action mind
forces powerful and far-reaching.
16. If you think that you are unjustly treated by your friends, your
employers, your government, or those with whom you do business, simply declare
the activity of the almighty Mind, and you will set into action mental forces
that will find expression in the executors of the law. This is the most lasting
reform to which man can apply himself. It is much more effective than
legislation or any attempt to control unjust men by human ways.
17. Jealousy is a form of mental bias that blinds the judgment and causes one
to act without weighing the consequences. This state of mind causes the liver to
act violently one day and to be torpid the next, finally resulting in a
"jaundiced eye" and yellow skin. We speak of one "blinded by jealousy," or
"blinded by prejudice." We do not mean by this that the physical eyes have been
put out, but that the understanding has been darkened. Whatever darkens the
understanding interferes in some way with the purifying processes of the
organism, and the fluids and pigments are congested and the skin becomes
darkened in consequence.
18. The remedy for all this is a dismissal of that poor judgment which causes
one to be jealous, and a fuller trust in the great all-adjusting justice of God.
In this there should be active trust, which is a form of prayer. The disturbing
elements that come into life should be definitely placed in the hands of God.
This is much more than mere doubtful trust, or negative expectancy that things
will be made right. The Spirit of justice should be appealed to and prayed to
with the persistency of an Elijah, or of the Gentile woman whose importunity was
rewarded. When the metaphysician sits by his patient with closed eyes he is not
asleep, but very much awake to the reality and mental visibility of forces that
enter into and make the conditions of the body. This spiritual activity is
necessary to the demonstration of the law.
19. Success in the world is largely dependent on good judgment. A prominent
businessman was once asked what he considered the most valuable trait of mind in
an employee, and he replied: "Good judgment." Everywhere businessmen are looking
for people who have judgment equal to the making of quick decisions, on the spur
of the moment. Years ago a passenger train was wrecked near a little town in
Texas. The station agent in the little town showed his good judgment by
settling, right on the spot, with the injured. He did this without authority
from headquarters, but he showed such excellent judgment that his ability was
recognized and he was rapidly advanced until he became president of one of the
largest railroad systems in the United States.
20. By clearing your understanding and acknowledging the one supreme Mind in
which is all discrimination, you can cultivate the ability of your mind to
arrive quickly at right conclusions. Take the stand that it is your inheritance
from God to judge wisely and quickly, and do not depart therefrom by statements
of inefficiency in matters of judgment. When you are in doubt as to the right
thing to do in attaining justice in worldly affairs, ask that the eternal Spirit
of justice shall go forth in your behalf and bring about and restore to you that
which is your very own. Do not ask for anything but your very own under the
righteous law. Some people unconsciously overreach in their desire for
possessions. When they put the matter into the care of Spirit, and things do not
turn out just as they had expected in their self-seeking way, they are
disappointed and rebellious. This will not do under the spiritual law, which
requires that man shall be satisfied with justice and accept the results,
whatever they may be. "There is a divinity that shapes our ends"; it can be
co-operated with by one who believes in things spiritual, and he will thereby be
made prosperous and happy.
Lesson Eleven
Judgment And Justice Statements
(To be used in connection with Lesson Eleven)
1. "Teach me thy way, O Jehovah; and lead me in a plain path."
2. The righteousness of the divine law is active in all my affairs, and I am
protected.
3. "Stand therefore, having girded your loins with truth, and having put on
the breastplate of righteousness."
4. "The meek will he guide in justice."
5. "I will sing of loving kindness and justice."
6. My judgment is just, because I seek not my own will, but the will of the
Father.
7. "Judge not, that ye be not judged."
8. "Behold now, I have set my cause in order; I know that I am righteous."
9. I believe in the divine law of justice, and I trust it to set right every
transaction in my life.
10. "There is . . . now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus."
11. I no longer condemn, criticize, censure, or find fault with my
associates; neither do I belittle or condemn myself.
