Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 1601
Delivered on Lord’s-Day Morning, May 29, 1881
“But why do you judge your brother? Or why do you set at nothing your brother? For we shall all stand before the Judgment Seat of Christ. For it is written, As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to Me, and every tongue shall confess to God. So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God.” Romans 14:10-12.
NO doubt there is an error in our version, for where in the 10th verse we read, “The Judgment Seat of Christ,” it should be, “The Judgment Seat of God.” I suppose the word, “Christ,” slipped into certain manuscripts because Paul had been speaking of Christ and it was thought to be natural that he should continue to use the same name. Paul did not say “Christ,” but, “God”—but by that word he meant the same Person. Paul knew that Christ is God and when he was speaking of Christ it was no deviation from the subject for him to speak concerning Him under the title of “God.” It was necessary, here, for him to use the word, “God,” though, because he was about to quote from the Old Testament Scriptures a passage which speaks concerning the Sovereignty of God which is to be acknowledged and confessed by all mankind.
The passage runs, “We shall all stand before the Judgment Seat of God, for it is written, As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to Me, and every tongue shall confess to God. So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God.” I beg you to notice how strongly this passage goes to prove the Divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ because the whole run of the passage is concerning Christ. “To this end Christ both died, and rose, and revived, that He might be Lord both of the dead and living.” And then the Apostle immediately, without any break in the sense whatever, speaks of God, because He was speaking of the same Person and he quotes a passage which relates to God, Himself, and uses it as relating to Christ! It does, indeed, relate to our Lord Jesus Christ, for He is “very God of very God,” and God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ.
In another place Paul most distinctly declares that it is Christ who is to judge the world. Look at the 5th chapter of the Second Epistle to the Corinthians, at the 10th verse, “We labor, that, whether present or absent, we may be accepted of Him; for we must all appear before the Judgment Seat of Christ; that everyone may receive the things done in his body according to that he has done, whether it is good or bad.” Therefore, though the reading should be God, the sense is “Christ.” It would have been a most important point with Paul to draw a distinction between Christ and God if there had been any doubt as to His Divinity. It would have been a most necessary thing to prevent us from idolizing a mere man.
But here, so far from taking any pains to make such distinction between Christ Jesus and God, as would have been necessary if He were not God, Paul interchanges the two words. He speaks of them in the same breath, for they are one! “The Lord shall judge His people,” and it is “the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at His appearing and His kingdom” (2 Tim. 4:1). “Behold, He comes with clouds; and every eye shall see Him, and they also which pierced Him” (Rev. 1:7). This judgment by Christ is, by our Apostle, proved from an Old Testament prophecy which certainly refers to Jehovah, Himself. Read Isaiah 45:23 and learn from it that our Lord Jesus is Jehovah and let us joyfully adore Him as our Savior and God to whom be Glory forever and ever.
The doctrine of eternal Judgment, upon which I shall speak this morning, is introduced to us for a certain reason. Paul saw among Christians a much too common habit of judging one another. I suppose if Paul were to come among us, now, he would not see any remarkable difference upon that point. Back then the bulk of the converts were Jews and, as such, they brought into the Christian Church their former religious habits—those men who had devoutly kept the Ceremonial Law felt as if they would violate their consciences if they did not continue to keep its more prominent precepts.
And though they gave up certain of its observances which were evidently abolished by the Gospel, they kept up others, such as special days for religious fasts and feasts.
Many true but weak Believers were very scrupulous about what they ate, thinking to keep up the legal distinction between clean meats and unclean. At the same time, the Church had in her midst men who said, and said correctly, “The coming of Christ has done away with the old dispensation; these holy days are all types and shadows whose substance is in Christ. Has not the Lord shown to Peter, who is the minister of the circumcision, that from now on nothing is common or unclean?” The men of strong faith blamed their weaker brethren for being superstitious and, by their superstition, bringing a yoke of bondage upon themselves. “No,” replied the weaker sort, “we are not superstitious! We are conscientious, while you go much too far in your liberty and cause us to stumble.”