speak of "alpacas" in the moral world. To perfect knowledge they will
prove to be, as Mr. Selby says, either slightly-disguised sheep or
slightly-disguised goats.
There is a further fact also to be taken into account in considering
Christ's two-fold classification. Since it is the work of infinite
knowledge and justice it will have regard to all the facts of our life.
God looks not only at the narrow present, but back into the past, and
forward into the future. He marks the trend of the life, the bent and
bias of the soul. He chalks down no line saying, "Reach this or you are
undone for ever." He sets up no absolute standard to which if a man
attain he is a saint, or falling short of which he is a sinner. And when
He calls one man righteous and another wicked, He means very much more
than that one has done so many good deeds, and another so many evil
deeds; "righteous" and "wicked" describe what each is in himself, what
each will decisively reveal himself to be, when present tendencies have
fully worked themselves out. There are two twilights, the twilight of
evening and the twilight of morning; and therefore God's question to us
is not, how much light have we? but, which way do we face? to the night
or to the day? Not "What art thou?" but "What wilt thou?" is the supreme
question; it is the answer to this which sets some on the right hand and
some on the left.
* * * * *
Let us close as we began, remembering that it is Christ who is to be our
Judge. Therefore will the judgment be according to perfect truth. We
know how He judged men when He was here on earth--without respect of
persons, undeceived by appearances, seeing things always as they are,
calling them always by their true names. And such will His judgment be
hereafter. On the walls of the famous Rock Tombs of Thebes, there is a
group of figures representing the judging of the departed spirit before
Osiris, the presiding deity of the dead. In one hand he holds a
shepherd's crook, in the other a scourge; before him are the scales of
justice; that which is weighed is the heart of the dead king upon whose
lot the deity is called to decide. The pictured symbol is a dim
foreshadowing of that perfect judgment which He who looketh not at the
outward appearance but at the heart will one day pass on all the lives
of men. And yet an apostle has dared to write of "boldness in the day of
Judgment"! Surely St. John is very bold; yet was his boldness
well-based. He remembered the saying of his own Gospel: "The Father hath
given all judgment unto the Son ... because He is the Son of Man." Yes;
He who will come to be our Judge is He who once for us men, and for our
salvation, came down from heaven, and was made man, and upon the Cross
did suffer death for our redemption. Herein is the secret of the
"boldness" of the redeemed.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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