Essays on Some Biblical Questions of the Day (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1909 edition. Excerpt: ...Christ; and in St Paul we find, though not very prominently, the belief that "we shall all stand before the judgement-seat of Christ." St John accepts this traditional belief, but gives it a characteristic turn. It is not taken out of the future, but it is thrown back into the earthly life of Christ. While He lived on earth, He was already endowed with the prerogatives of God; and one of these was to judge men. But we find a double thread running through the Gospel, and it is by no means easy to reconcile all the statements. (Cf. ch. iii. 17; v. 45; xii. 47 with v. 22, 27; ix. 39; xii. 31.) We are intended, it would seem, to interpret them all in the light of ch. iii. 19, "This is the judgement, that the light is come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the light, for their deeds were evil." Christ does not pass judgement on men. He has revealed Himself, and thereby obliged them to choose light or darkness. The judgement is on His part involuntary, for the object of His coming was to save, not to judge. But it is a real judgement, inasmuch as the choice offered and rejected creates a state of sin which would not have existed if there had been no Incarnation. This idea of icpio-K is very prominent in St John: indeed the whole book might be divided into three chapters, called paprvpia--Kpicn?--Boa. We can understand how a Jew, writing at the end of the first century or soon after, must have looked back on the momentous choice offered to his own nation, and its results. To say that this /e/n'crt? is not an ethical judgement, but connected with a "semi-Gnostic distinction of two great classes in the human race," is a mere distortion of St John's teaching. There is no warrant for quoting...