But from this excursion into the sacred Unseen we must return. St Paul is intent now upon the believer's walk of loving large-heartedness in this life, not the next. [Sidenote: Ver. 10.] =But you--why do you judge your brother?= (he takes up the verb, κρίνειν, used in his former appeal to the "weak," ver. 3). =Or you too= (he turns to the "strong"; see again ver. 3)--=why do you despise your brother? For we shall stand, all= of us, on one level, whatever were our mutual sentiments on earth, whatever claim we made here to sit as judges on our brethren, =before the tribunal (βῆμα) of our (τοῦ) God.[239]= [Sidenote: Ver. 11.] =For it stands written= (Isai. xlv. 23), ="As I live, saith the Lord,= sure it is as My eternal Being, =that to Me,= not to another, =shall bend every knee; and every tongue shall confess,= shall ascribe all sovereignty, =to God,"= not to the creature. [Sidenote: Ver. 12.] =So then each of us, about himself,= not about the faults or errors of his brother, =shall give account to God.= We have here, as in 2 Cor. v. 10, and again, under other imagery, in 1 Cor. iii. 11-15, a glimpse of that heart-searching prospect for the Christian, his summons hereafter, _as a Christian_, to the tribunal of his Lord. In all the three passages, and now particularly in this, the language, though it lends itself freely to the universal Assize, is limited by context, as to its direct purport, to the Master's _scrutiny of His own servants as such_. The question to be tried and decided (speaking after the manner of men) at His "tribunal," in this reference, is not that of glory or perdition; the persons of the examined are accepted; the enquiry is in the _domestic_ court of the Palace, so to speak; it regards the award of the King as to the issues and value of His accepted servants' labour and conduct, as His representatives, in their mortal life. "The _Lord of the servants_ cometh, and reckoneth _with them_" (Matt. xxv. 19). They have been justified by faith. They have been united to their glorious Head. They "shall be saved" (1 Cor. iii. 15), whatever be the fate of their "work." But what will their Lord say of their work? What have they done for Him, in labour, in witness, and above all _in character_? He will tell them what He thinks. He will be infinitely kind; but He will not flatter. And somehow, surely,--"it doth not yet appear" how, but somehow--eternity, even the eternity of salvation, will bear the impress of that award, the impress of _the past of service_, estimated by the King. "What shall the harvest be?"