He Will Come to Judge the Quick and Dead
The Unique Fitness of the Judge
“Tue Father,” said our Lord, “judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son.” Surely it is right that He, who has conducted the whole course of the Mediatorial Kingdom, should preside on the august occasion when it will necessarily come to an end. It was through Him that the promise of hope was spoken to Adam; throughout the ages He has been counterworking the power of evil; His death laid the foundations of eternal victory; and surely to no hand but His could be confided the final scene. “Then He shall deliver up the Kingdom to God, even the Father, that God may be All in all.” And who so qualified for this supreme position as Jesus Christ? Suppose that the judge of all were to be some archangel, finite indeed, but invested with the highest attributes of wisdom 156 and power, might we not tremble for the issue? Could any finite being grasp the details of every human life so thoroughly, that there should be no mistake, no overlooking of inconspicuous goodness, no failure to comprehend the complexity of motive, no condoning of specious crime.
What then! Shall the throne be occupied by the Deity Himself? Shall men appear before their Maker, and receive the final sentence from the Omniscient? Certainly, such an arrangement would not be liable to the objections which lie against the appointment of a creature, however lofty, to the position of judge. Nothing could escape His eye, nothing warp His judgment, none could impugn the impartial righteousness of His decisions. As the vast multitudes climbed up from their graves, to learn that they were to be judged by their Creator, they would be assured that none of them would have reason to complain that absolute justice had not been done to him.
Yet who would not tremble at the thought ° No doubt the decisions would be incontestably just, but would the Great God be able to understand us, to allow for us, to take into consideration our weakness, our frailty, our mortal nature, with all its strange admixture of motive Ah, terror of terrors! “Enter not into judgment with us,
O God, for in Thy sight shall no man living be justified.”
This mortal fear seems to cry out for a human Judge! Only man can possess perfect fellow-feeling with man; only man can so enter into the circumstances of our mortal life, as to make due allowances for weakness, heredity, and environment. Yet how could we be satisfied with a merely human judge? Just now, we would not have an angel, because he was not omniscient, but a man would be even more liable to err than one of the first-born sons of light.
What then shall meet our case? We require the Omniscience of God, that is indispensable; but we also need the sympathy of man. What shail we do? We are perplexed, and in despair, until we open the page of Scripture, and learn that “God hath appointed a day in which He will judge the world, by that Man whom He hath ordained,” and that “the Father hath given Him authority to execute judgment also, because He is a Son of Man.” (See also Acts xvi. 31; John v. 27, R.V., marg.)
This will suffice us! As man, He wept, suffered, was tempted, died, passed through all conceivable ‘circumstances of this mortal life; but as God, the universe rose out of nothing at His Word,
His eyes are as a flame of fire, He has a perfect understanding of all things from the first. There is no fear of miscarriage of justice. He will not flinch before high-handed rebellion, but He will not quench the smoking flax.