^ The real significance of the scene lies in the vivid pictur- ing of that great and solemn truth that we must all stand before
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the judgment-seat of Christ, and that before Him there is nothing hidden which shall not be revealed. Then shall every human life appear in its true light, stripped of all the deceptive adornments which have given a fictitious respectability to ingenious fraud, and a fatal popularity to adroit wickedness and splendid vice. Then shall men be judged, not by rank, or success, or achievement, but according to their works, as it is twice stated here, and according to whether they have any life towards God. The works and the life towards God must be combined. A man may have, from the activities of his Christian works, a name to live and yet be dead : the life-book and the work-book combine to mark the real servant of Christ. If he labours more abundantly than all, it is Christ who works in him, for his life is a life by the faith of the Son of God.^
2. Why are only the dead mentioned ? Why not the living ? Swete thinks it is because they form so insignificant a minority ; but he suggests also that the omission may be due to the fact that the keen interest which the first generation had felt in the bearing of the Parousia upon the living (1 Thess. iv. 13, 14) had abated before the end of the century.
H In that great judgment-day the difference of sizes among human lives, of which we make so much, passes away, and all human beings, in simple virtue of their human quality, are called to face the everlasting righteousness. The child and the greybeard, the scholar and the boor, however their lives may have been separated here, come together there. It is upon the moral ground that the most separated souls must always meet. All may be good: all may be bad : therefore before Him whose nature is the decisive touchstone of goodness and badness in every nature which is laid before it, all souls of all the generations of mankind may be assembled. The only place where all can meet, and every soul claim its relationship with every other soul, is before the throne of God. The Father's presence alone furnishes the meeting-place for all the children, regardless of differences of age or wisdom.^
3. What is meant by standing before God ? We are apt to picture to ourselves a great dramatic scene, host beyond host, rank behind rank, the millions who have lived upon the earth, all standing crowded together in the indescribable presence of One who looks not merely at the mass but at the individual, and sees through the whole life and character of every single soul. The
^ W. B. Carpenter, The Book of Revelation, 237. * Phillips Brooks, Twenty Sermons, 60.
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picture is sublime, and it is what the words of St. John are intended to suggest. But we must get behind the picture to its meaning. The picture must describe not one scene only, but the whole nature and condition of the everlasting life. The souls of men in the eternal world are always " standing before God." And what does that mean ? We understand at once if we consider that that before which a man stands is the standard, or test, or source of judgment for his life. Every soul that counts itself capable of judgment and responsibility stands in some presence by which the nature of its judgment is decreed. The higher the presence, the loftier and greater, though often the more oppressed and anxious, is the life. A weak man who wants to shirk the seriousness and anxiety of life goes down into some lower chamber and stands before some baser judge, whose standard will be less exacting. A strong, ambitious man presses up from judgment-room to judgment-room, and is not satisfied with meeting any standard perfectly so long as there is any higher standard which he has not faced.
^ The Judge is God, the Father in the Son, the Son in the Father ; and thus the judgment is searching and complete and is answered by the consciences of those upon whom it is executed. They see that the Judge's eye penetrates into the most secret recesses of their hearts, and that He is One who has been in the same position, has fought the same battle, and has endured the same trials as themselves. Thus His sentence finds an echo in their hearts, and they are speechless. Thus also judgment becomes really judgment, and not merely the infliction of punishment by resistless power.^
^ " Stand before God " — past kneeling, past praying : not to be converted, but sentenced. Now, not then, is the day of salvation : not then except for the already saved.^
II.
The Ground of the Judgment.
1. " The dead were judged . . . according to their works." It is therefore a judgment according to works, according to the things
1 W. Milligan, The Book of Revelation, 353.
2 Christina G. Rossetti, The Face of the Deep, 473.
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done in the body, which no doubt includes the things spoken and thought. And a judgment according to works is clearly taught in all the Scriptures — in the Gospels (Matt. xvi. 17 and parallels), by St. Paul (Eom. xiv. 10, 12 ; 1 Cor. iv. 5 ; 2 Cor. v. 10 ; Gal. vi. 7) and by St. John (v. 29 ; Eev. xx. 12, 13). But there is also another doctrine taught — that salvation is granted to faith, and to faith only. How are these two doctrines to be reconciled ?