When God created the universe in Genesis 1, the first thing He created was the light. Before the light there was nothing, as “The earth was without form and void.” The light existed, but the darkness didn’t, it was simply the lack of light.
Evil, similarly, is the lack of goodness, or the light. Evil doesn’t exist on it’s own, but is a corruption or disordering of what God originally created as good.
The closer we are to the heart of God, the more His light shines through our lives and into a dark world. The closer our lives represent His love, the more our own hearts are filled with His joy and fulfillment.
When God created, He said it was “Good.” Sin came in Genesis chapter 2 and corrupted the good by causing a rift between mankind and God.
Can People be Evil?
We like to simplify complexity to a point where our minds can understand it, which often is a good thing, but it can also mean we miss the nuance of a situation. People can do and be evil in the sense of they can lack goodness. However, being Created by God and having existence at all means some level of goodness.
So therefore, nobody can be purely evil. And also, nobody but God can be purely good.
There is a great danger in attempting to determine if a person’s motives are “evil” or not as well, because it goes to judging the heart. The Bible continually warns about judging another person’s heart, because only God truly knows the heart (1 Samuel 16:7, Jeremiah 17:9–10, 1 Corinthians 4:5).
The danger of judging a person’s heart becomes clear when you think about the consequences. When you judge a person’s heart instead of their actions, their actions cease to matter. They could do the most generous act in the world, but you could judge them as being self-serving.
It goes both ways as well. If you believe a person is purely good, you would not question their actions, even if they were in contradiction to the Bible.
Judge Actions, not the Heart
The Bible allows for, and even commands, believers to judge the actions of brothers and sisters in Christ. There is a clear differentiation, however, between judging what someone does (actions), versus why they do it or their spiritual worth (heart).
We are called to judge actions for things like church discipline, and so that “iron sharpens iron” (Proverbs 27:17)
It follows our earlier logic, then, that every action that someone does has some amount of goodness in it, but it also lacks the pure goodness of Christ. This is because we are not perfectly good, so we cannot do any perfectly pure action. Our actions lie upon a spectrum of “goodness,” upon which at some point they cross over into “evil.”
The human mind doesn’t like spectrums of data, it seeks simplicity. This is why it so often lumps things into black and white categories, regardless of the actual complexity. God is good, and sin (the absence of God) is bad. But because we are not God, our hearts, and our actions, lie somewhere in the middle.
This isn’t to say that we can’t know Truth, or have any objectivity. It merely demonstrates that much of what we call “judgment” is in fact arbitrary, since we don’t have all the facts. God does, so His judgements are righteous.
When we do need to judge, we would be wise to start with recognizing the goodness, or the good thing that was being sought, by the person we are judging. We all seek wealth, power, fame, pleasure or nobility in some fashion, because God gives us those things. By themselves, since they are created by God, they are good.
However, it is through seeking happiness in these gifts over and above God that we fall short of His glory. When we worship the Gift rather than the Giver, it leads to a disordered illusion of happiness, and when the gift eventually is taken away, leads to unhappiness and discontentment.
All around us we see our tendencies to seek the gift rather than the giver put on display. The lovers who find pleasure in their physical union before seeking the blessing of marriage. The thief who seeks wealth without trading value to receive it. Those in leadership who sit in judgement condemning others without mercy and justice.
Jesus says in Matthew 7:1-2, “Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.”
How would you like to be judged? Would you prefer someone first try to understand the good in your decisions, or would you rather they only see the lack of goodness of the outcome? Jesus says that whichever method you choose, that is how you also will be judged.
Paul says in Romans 3:10-12, “There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands; there is no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one.”
This means that when we come before the throne of God, none of our actions, even (or especially) the judgements we make of others, are done with pure motives and actions. We need the redemptive blood of Christ to cover our sins.
Guidelines for Righteously Judging Actions
- Judge actions, not motives – Only God knows the heart.
- Be humble and self-aware – Examine yourself first.
- Use Scripture as the standard – Not personal preferences.
- Aim to restore, not condemn – Judgment should lead to repentance and healing, not shame.
- Do it within relationship – Especially in the church, correction should come in love and accountability.
So shine your light brightly, and illuminate the darkness. Shine your light into situations that lack His presence. Shine your light on others to reveal the areas they need light to spread. Shine your light on the actions of others to reveal how they can grow more like Christ.
Seek to see God’s goodness in every situation. Seek to see how He is moving and working and breathing life from death. Seek to understand the false happiness others may be seeking so you can offer correction and point to the source of true, unending happiness.
Above all, seek His face.
