We turn to St. Matthew's Gospel (xxv. 31ff.) for a fuller
4. THE PROCESSES OF JUDGMENT We turn to St. Matthew's Gospel (xxv. 31ff.) for a fuller description of the process of the last judgment in the great day.
There is a judgment to come in which every man shall be determined to a state of everlasting happiness or misery in the world of recompense and retribution, according to what he did in this world of trial and probation. This will be judged in the light of the rule of the everlasting Gospel.
The administration of the judgment of the great day is committed to 'the Son of man"', for by Him God will judge the world (Acts xvii. 31); and to Him all judgment is committed; and therefore the judgment of that day, which is the centre of all. Here, as elsewhere, when the last judgment is spoken of, Christ is called the Son of man, because He is to judge the sons of men. Moreover, being Himself of the same nature, He is the more unexceptionable.
Christ will then "'sit upon the throne of his glory"'. He is now set down with the Father upon His throne. It is now a throne of grace, to which we may come boldly; it is a throne of government —the throne of His father David. He is a priest upon that throne. But then He will sit upon the throne of glory, the throne of judgment. Solomon's throne, though there was not its like in any kingdom, was but a dunghill to it. Christ in the days of His flesh was arraigned, as a prisoner at the bar; but at His second coming He will sit as a judge upon the bench.
The judgment of the great day will be a general judgment. All must be summoned before Christ's tribunal—all of every age of the world, from the beginning to the end of time; all of every place on earth, even from the remotest corners of the world, most obscure and distant from each other. All those nations of men that are made of one blood to dwell on all the face of the earth must come.
Then He will "separate them one from another"', as the tares and wheat are separated at the harvest; the good fish and the bad at the shore; the corn and the chaff in the floor. Wicked and godly dwell together here in the same kingdoms, cities, churches, and families, and are not certainly distinguishable one from another. Such are the infirmities of saints, such the hypocrisies of sinners, and one event to both. But in that day