While Jesus opposed the mercantile conception of rewards and punishment, the Day of Judgment occupied a central position in His teaching. With Him as' with all men of the prophetic type, the Judgment stretched across the horizon of liumiin destiny. No action in life wns iiH.iMlly neutral. A man would ui\r :h-.(hiiiI .iI Mi.' .Indgment for the very words whirl, lir s|.ok,.,\li i^"}. It was
through the oulco s ,.i liic ihal .1. mis estimated
conduct, and these uuU:uiiies luinci-cd into what the Gospels designate the consummation of the
DAY OF JUDGMENT
DAY OF JUDGMENT
precisely I be ifrnors
age ; that is, the great catastrophe in whicli the present e\'il age comes to a close and the new Messianic age begins.
2. The terms which the Gospels represent Jesus as using to indicate tlie Day of Judgment are various.
(a) Sometimes the great event which would determine the final destinies of men is cilled expressly ' the day of judgment ■ (Mt 1015 1122. 24 1236), or more simply ' the judgment ' (Mt 621- 2^ 1241-44), These two terras are essentially the same.
(6) In one instance (Mt 11=2- 23) the ' judgment of Gehenna ' is mentioned, but this refers not so much to the Judgment-day itself as to the punishment inflicted upon hj-pocrites and sinners (cf. 522).
(c) ParaUel with these terms is 'that day' (Mt 722, Ml; 1332, cf. Mt 24^2 2629, Lk 1012). it is in this term that the day is described in the apocal.\-pse of Mark (cf. Mk 12M), for the Second Gospel does not use the term *the day of judgment." Possibly the same reference is to be found in the sayings of Jesus recorded in Jn 1623^26. See Day (Tuat).
(d) ' The day of the Son of Man ' as a precise expression is found only in Lk 1721-30, where the thought of Judgment is immediately related to the eschatological reappearance of Jesus as Christ. A similar, although not a precise, reference is to be found in other passages speaking of the Parousia, notably Mk 1326 1462 and their parallels.
(e) • The last day * is a favourite expression of the Fourth Gospel, to denote the day on which men were to be raised from the dead (Jn 639- 44. M 1124). That this day of resurrection is to be identified with the Day of Judgment appears not only from the entire drift of the Messianic expectation current in the time of Jesus, but also expressly in Jn 1243.
3. The time of the Day of Judgment ivas not _--r_.i_ gxed by Jesus, and in fact He is said to
ignorant concerning it (Mk 13'-) ; but the Gospels represent Him as announcing its coming before His contemporaries die (Mk IS** 9'||, Mt ICP, cf. Jn 212<'-23), and this was the expectation of the Apostolic Church in general. Not\vithstanding the indefiniteness of its coming, tlie day is one for which all should be watching (ilk IS^s^s-s? 14SS Lk 12'' 21^*), and its nearness can be argued from tlie signs of the times (Mt 16') as well as from various portents described in the phraseology of prophecy and apocalyptic.
WTiether Jesus Himself regarded the Judgment-day as in- vohing the fall of Jerusalem, or whether He regarded the inevitable destruction of the Jewish State as one of the fore- runners of the Judgnient, will remain a matter of dispute until the critical composition of Mk 13 is more precisely fixed. On the whole, however, in view of Jesus' forecast of the punish- ment to come upon the Jewish people both in Galilee and in Jerusalem, it seems probable that He did in some precise way correlate the fall of Jerusalem with the eschatological Judg- ment. But it would be a serious mistake to regard that destruction of Jerusalem as exhausting the content; of His expectation of His Parousia. Tlic- piiiii>hmtnt inflicted was to be universal, not Jewish. Ilclii" I ; : - ; . .i.l- .1 the fall of Jerusalem as in any trnr ^. ^ .1 [■ , r.:.usia, it
is inconceivable that thtl ^1 >. - 1 p rtionsof
the NT written suhseq'i. til • _ ,, _ , . n no hint
of such interpretation. I;, - "■.'I'l'.. ^ tlie Judg-
ment is not a pr • > Milt, futurt-. eschatological.
At the same i tic in mind that the Fourtli
Gospel apprt ' : : - which attention must be
presently C.1II. :, . .,:- the Judgment is eschato-
logical (Jn 5" ■ 1' ' CI tloes not need to wait until
that event to fix his iic-tiii>. That is .liready determined by the acceptance or rejection of Jesus (.In oi^ 19 ]2i'). Such passages as contain the teaching are. however, not to he inter- preted as indicating a loss of lielief in the coming of the Judg- ment-day as a pomt in time, but rather as tlie Johannihe equivalent and supplement of the Apostohc doctrine of justifi- cation by faith.
i. The Judge is apparently to be Jesus Himself in His Me.ssianic capacitj' (Mt 13"' 24" 25I" "'•'•'■). At the same time, in tlie Synoptics God is also referred to as Judge (Mt 18== 20« 22", Lk 18'). This double conception is to be found eJso in the apocalyptic literature, and is easily understood by reference to the representative character of the Messiah. In Lk 22'° the Apostles are also re- garded as judges in the case of the twelve tribes of Israel. This is a form of the belief in the judicial prerogatives of tin- saiiit-^ which seems to have been current in the eaily I'liurch (cf. 1 Co 6=-'), and may be inferred alsD fruui the request of the sons of llebedee to occupy seats on the right and left of Jesus when He came in His kingdom