John's Answer

The first rule concerning "law" is this - There is only one lawgiver, only one.  Paul's admonition to refrain from judging is directed toward unrighteous judgment.  The Romans were judging each other outside the constraints of the law, on issues that were outside the boundaries of God's moral law. 

When we judge each other on issues upon which God has not given a standard, we are setting ourselves up as lawgivers.  We are either determining in our arrogance that God's law is too strict (when we excuse sin that God condemns, like sodomy), or that His law is too lax (when we condemn what God has not condemned, like vegetarianism).  In either case our judgment is unrighteous because we first have to judge God's law as faulty.  The arrogance of such a position is obvious. 

To judge according to how God has judged already can not be called a sin, because in so doing we again set ourselves as judges over God Himself.  To condemn a judgment that God has made is again arrogance of the highest order.  We are insufficient to declare anything which God has done or instructed to be done as wrong. 

Consider the case of Phinehas.  He was zealous for God's judgment and killed the Israelite and the Midianitish woman.  This was a judgment God had already declared.  Phinehas agreed with God and executed the judgment.  In so doing he earned God's praise, ended a plague, and obtained an eternal priesthood.  As I said before, only Jesus in all the scriptures has an eternal priesthood. 

The other side of the coin is king Saul.  God commanded him to kill everything of the Amalekites, but Saul thought he knew better and saved the king alive and the best of the flocks to be used as sacrifices.  The result was this:  "And Samuel said, Hath the LORD as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the LORD? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams.  For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. Because thou hast rejected the word of the LORD, he hath also rejected thee from being king." - 1 Sam 15:22-23  Saul judged God's commandment and it cost him his kingdom. 

On one hand an eternal priesthood, on the other a kingdom lost. 

Righteous judgment is quite simply agreeing with God.  Only the arrogance of man's heart stands in the way.  If God has declared something is an abomination and we agree, how can God be offended?  He would have to condemn His own judgment and divide His own Kingdom asunder. 

When the preachers declare God's judgments as good, since God loves judgment, ought we not to be commended by God?  Why then are we condemned by the world?  We are condemned because the world has rejected God's judgment as unrighteous.  They view God's law as evil, which as far as I am concerned, is just the universal effect of the fall.  Since that moment, man has continually believed God to be evil, with evil motives, even as Satan described Him.  The hatred of God's law coupled with the love of sin fuels the worlds indignation over the declaration of the righteousness of God's  judgments.  Every angry voice raised against the preaching of God's judgments is an echo coming out of the garden. 

Concerning judging those outside the church in 1 Cor 5:13, Paul was addressing the arrogant tendency of man to just plain take a good thing and go overboard with it.  Paul was reining in those who had taken what he had previously written (to not company with fornicators) and applied it to such an extent as to force the Christians to completely remove themselves from society.  These had in their arrogance expanded Paul's instruction to a ridiculous level.  In so doing they placed Paul in the position of having to judge unbelievers in the same way that he judged the fornicator.  Paul's point was that he could not do that judgment.  He was only authorized to judge and execute judgment within the church. 

Paul was not, in verse 13, contradicting what he said in 1 Cor 6:2 - 2  "Do ye not know that the saints shall judge the world?".  What he didn't think appropriate was bringing unbelievers into the church to decide on whether or not they should be excommunicated. 

Turning to your third point - the claim of moral perfection - let me ask this:  what is humility?  Is it thinking more of yourself than is true?  Obviously not, that is pride.  But neither is humility thinking less than is true.  That is also a falsehood, false humility.  To think less of oneself is a lie, and does not ingratiate you to God.  Humility is simply seeing yourself truthfully.  In most instances this is a difficult proposition because of the deeply ingrained pride and arrogance of man's heart.  But the truly humble man will neither embrace a moral perfection he knows he does not have, nor deny a moral perfection he knows he does have. 

To be precise, the attitude of perfection is defined by Paul in Phillipians 3:11-16  "If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead.  Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect: but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus.  Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before,  I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.  Let us therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded: and if in any thing ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you.  Nevertheless, whereto we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule, let us mind the same thing." 

What attitude did Paul instruct the perfect to have?  To count themselves as not having obtained and to continue to press into the kingdom.  Paul did not say he had not attained perfection.  He said he counted himself not to have obtained.  In my English language this is an admission that he had already attained perfection, but considered himself as not having attained it.  Otherwise it would be foolishness for him to include himself among those he describes as perfect - "let us therefore, as many as be perfect". 

When preaching, we fill the shoes of a prophet (John the Baptist type).  The prophet Jeremiah was given a modus operandi in Jer 1:10  "See, I have this day set thee over the nations and over the kingdoms, to root out, and to pull down, and to destroy, and to throw down, to build, and to plant."  The prophet destroys what is false before building and planting the truth.  The preacher has the same kind of charge.  In 2 Cor 2:4  "(For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;)  Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ" 

In common parlance what are those strongholds?  Any philosophy, any false doctrine, any sin, any lie that stands between a man and obedience towards God - those excuses that man hides behind to hold onto his selfishness and refuse God His due obedience.  The main one, the numero uno stronghold is the lie that we can't stop sinning.  The reasoning is that if we can't stop sinning, God would be unjust to judge sin, therefore we have nothing to fear from our sin.  If everybody is trapped irrevocably, everyone can rest easy.  The admittance to moral perfection is not done as a matter of pride, but is the weapon used to destroy that stronghold. 

Think about it.  Nearly everyone will give lip service to the proposition that stopping sinning would be a good thing.  But when someone claims to have done it, a firestorm of anger and indignation is ignited.  Why is this the universal reaction?  The reason is simple:  If one person can do it, then all must.  It strips everyone of their excuse, and all come under the obligation to stop.  This realization flamed the indignation against Jesus and empowered the disciples.  If one can do it, then all can do it,. and no one has any excuse. 

Watch the ignition of indignation when a preacher informs the crowd that he no longer sins!  Such outrage, such fury, such indignation - especially among the nominal Christians.  They are the worst, the most outraged, as if by stopping sinning against God we deny the Lord of Glory, as if Jesus depends on us sinning in order to have purpose.  I actually had one supposed believer tell me that you had to sin every day - that was the gospel - you had to sin every day. 

Wouldn't a true Christian rejoice with unspeakable joy at the prospect that someone had broken free from the control of the enemy of our Lord?  But they are as incensed as the God-hating pagans.  The reason is that, if true,  they no longer have any way to justify their sin before God.  Our declaration of moral perfection is not a measure of our pride, but a measure of our love for the students.  No other statement a preacher can make engenders as much strife and persecution as to profess moral perfection.  But in order to destroy the strongholds of Satan, we smite with that stronghold with the sword of moral perfection. 

Concerning James 3:2, "For in many things we offend all. If any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man, and able also to bridle the whole body.", it is my opinion that we still are looking through a glass dimly, morally perfect or not.  It is entirely possible to offend and still be morally perfect.   Over the years, I have offended many without ever knowing it, or intending it.  If I have no evil motive in what I say, and someone is offended, my moral perfection is not affected.  Keep in mind that moral perfection does not imply an absolute perfection.  We are still subject to death and disease.  Our bodies still need to be redeemed.  But concerning sin, we have the power to stop.  If we don't have that power, then Jesus can not claim to be God, because God is omnipotent.  Jesus is the God of righteousness.  Satan is the god of sin.  If a Christian says he or she can't stop sinning, just exactly which god are they confessing?  Not Jesus.