Rom 2:1 Therefore you have no excuse, O man, every one of you who judges. For in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, practice the very same things.
Rom 2:21-23 you then who teach others, do you not teach yourself? While you preach against stealing, do you steal? (22) You who say that one must not commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples? (23) You who boast in the law dishonor God by breaking the law.
The Apostle Paul here, having convicted the Gentile world of willful sin against the revelation God had given all of them in the creation, now turns his attention to the Jews. They were in possession of God’s special revelation. They had been give God’s Law. The Scriptures. But while they were condemning the Gentiles of sin, the Jews were also breaking God’s commandments. They were judging, yet they weren’t judging themselves. They thought that they were given some get-out-of-hell-free cared because they were descended from Abraham.
Nope, Not going to work.
We see here then in these Scriptures from Romans 2 that the Jews were guilty of what we might call a kind of “projection.” What they were doing themselves, they were condemning others for. And this projection business is a very common tactic of those we call RASN’s (revilers, abusers, sociopaths, narcissists). You have to be wise to evil in order to catch it, else you will find yourself feeling “guilty as charged.”
Korah (Numbers 16) went “too far,” the very sin he accused Moses of. The Pharisees accused Jesus of violating the Sabbath, yet they were the ones who broke it every week. If you want to know what sins these evil types are walking in, just listen to what they are accusing others of.
Projection is quite effective if we aren’t wise to it. It very quickly draws attention off the RASN’s actual guilt and makes YOU the guilty one. Never mind all the evil the RASN has done – now everyone’s thoughts are turned to you and your crimes. The murderer, having been caught, quickly points his finger – “she made me do it.”
Just imagine a courtroom where this kind of thing would be allowed. Here is this criminal, charged with some horrific crime, and yet when he gets on the stand he points to the victim and goes off on her “crimes.” What chaos that would be! The thing may not be permitted in a courtroom, but in everyday life that projecting chaos happens all the time, and we fall for it.
God is never fooled by this business. Korah and his company went down into the pit. The Pharisees are now in hell having begun their eternal sentence.
Let’s beware of this finger-pointing accusing and intercept it when it is directed at us.