(6) Jesus, however, has other ways of conveying His absolute significance. One of the simplest is that in which He represents Himself as judge of men, arbiter of their eternal destinies. It may be argued, no doubt, that the form in which this is expressed in Mt 7^^^- 2.5^^'''- is, in part at least, due to the Evanffelist ; ' prophesying in the name of Jesus' Avas a piienomenpn which came into the world only after His death, and such an allusion
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to it as Mt 7^^, where it is treated as an obvious tiling, -would hardlj' have been intelligible in His lifetime. But there is no reason whatever to doubt that both this jjassage and the other convey the mind of Jesus about His own significance for men. Whatever be the rule of the judgment — douig the will of His Father- (Mt 7-'). or humanity exhibited in practice in relation to those whom He call* His brrthrcn (Mt 25*')— it is a rule which has been Hnally embodied in Him. It is in Him that we see what doing the will of the P'ather means ; it is in Him also that we see the law of humanity fulfilled. It is what we are when measured by His standard, judged by His judgment, that discloses the very trutli about us. It has been urged that this pre- rogative of judgment is merely an element in the Jewish conception of the Messiah, and as such has been formally transferred to Jesus in the Gospels ; but nothing is less formal in the NT than the con- ception of Jesus as judge. It does not rest on any borrowings from a pre-Christian Messianic dog- matic, but on the most real experiences of men in the presence of Jesus : ' Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord ' (Lk 5^) ; ' Come, see a man who told me all things that ever I did ' ( Jn 4"^^). The experiences by which words like these were inspired give reality and solemnity to all the repre- sentations of Jesus as judge. Here again we may say that the spectacular representations of the judgment are a form which we may recognize to have only a relative value, while yet we do not dispute in the least the absolute truth tli<at the standard of reality and of worth in the spiritual world is Jesus, and that no life can be finally estimated except by its relation to Him. The Gospel according to John is distinguished from the others by emphasizing the function of Christ as judge, and the continuous exercise of it in what might almost be called an automatic fashion. The Father has committed all judgment to the Son (Jn 5-^) ; and the process of judging goes on in the Gospel under our eyes. The very presence of Jesus sifts men ; they gather round Him or are repelled from Him according to what they are. Something of absolute and final significance, it may be said, is transacted before our faces, as men show that they will or will not have anything to do with Jesus. It is eternal judgment revealed in the field of time, and Jesus is the judge. No one else could fill His place in this character, and we do not preach Christ as He was and is except by making this plain. Probably, however, in this case more than in any other it is rash to discount too cheaply what we think, rightly enough in principle, are but forms of conveying this truth, and forms unequal to the reality. The picture of the Last Judgment in Mt 25^^"*^ may not be true as a picture, the moral reality of the judgment may not be depen- dent at all on the scenic details here presented, but whether or not it is true as a picture, it is true in the moral impression it leaves on the mind, and this is the truth that is important. There is such <a thing, if there is any truth in Christ at all, as final judgment ; there is a right 'hand of the judge and a left, an inside of the door and an out- side, a character that abide-t for ever and a char- acter that collapses in irreparable ruin ; and to realize of what kind character is, or where it must stand at last, we have only to confront it with Him. The man Avho cannot withstand the attrac- tion of Jesus does not come into judgment, he has passed from death into life (Jn S^) ; the man who will not yield to the attraction of Jesus is judged already (3^*), and the judgment will be revealed at last. To recognize and proclaim the absolute significance of Jesus here is an essential part of preaching Christ.
(c) The supreme illustration of this incomparable