True it is that the leading and essential character of their present state is rest, as that of their resurrection state will be action. But the two states overflow into each other. In one glorious passage the Apostle describes the resurrection bliss as also "rest" (2 Thess. i. 7). And here we have it indicated that the heavenly intermediate rest is also service. What the precise nature of that service is we cannot tell. "Our knowledge of that life is small." Most certainly, "in vain our fancy strives to paint" its blessedness, both of repose and of occupation. This is part of our normal and God-chosen lot here, which is to "walk by faith, not by sight" (2 Cor. v. 7), οὐ διὰ εἴδους, "not by Object seen," not by objects seen. But blessed is the spiritual assistance in such a walk as we recollect, step by step, as we draw nearer to that happy assembly above, that, whatever be the manner and exercise of their holy life, it is life indeed; power, not weakness; service, not inaction. He who died and revived is Lord, not of us only, but of them.
Ver. 10.
to
Ver. 12.
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. 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] 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. 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?"
And all this shall take place (this is the special emphasis of the prospect here) with a solemn individuality of enquiry. "Every one of us—for himself—shall give account." We reflected, a little above, on the true place of"individualism" in the life of grace. We see here that there will indeed be a place for it in the experiences of eternity. The scrutiny of "the tribunal" will concern not the Society, the Organism, the total, but the member, the man. Each will stand in a solemn solitude there, before his divine Examiner. What he was, as the Lord's member, that will be the question. What he shall be, as such, in the functions of the endless state, that will be the result.
Let us not be troubled over that prospect with the trouble of the worldling, as if we did not know Him who will scrutinize us, and did not love Him. Around the thought of His "tribunal," in that aspect, there are cast no exterminating terrors. But it is a prospect fit to make grave and full of purpose the life which yet "is hid with Christ in God," and which is life indeed through grace. It is a deep reminder that the beloved Saviour is also, and in no figure of speech, but in an eternal earnest, the Master too. We would not have Him not to be this. He would not be all He is to us as Saviour, were He not this also, and for ever.
St Paul hastens to further appeals, after this solemn forecast. And now all his stress is laid on the duty of the "strong" to use their "strength" not for self-assertion, not for even spiritual selfishness, but all for Christ, all for others, all in love.
Ver. 13.
Ver. 14.
No more therefore let us judge one another; but judge, decide, this rather—not to set stumblingblock for our (τῷ) brother, or trap. I know—he instances his own experience and principle—and am sure, in the Lord Jesus, as one who is in union and communion with Him, seeing truth and life from that view-point, that nothing, nothing of the sort in question, no food, no time, is "unclean" of itself; literally, "by means of itself," by any inherent mischief; only, to the man who counts anything "unclean," to him it is unclean. And therefore you, because you are not his conscience, must not tamper with his conscience. It is, in this case, mistaken; mistaken to his own loss, and to the loss of the Church. Yes, but what it wants is not your compulsion, but the Lord's light. If you can do so, bring that light to bear, in a testimony made impressive by holy love and unselfish considerateness. But dare not, for Christ's sake, compel a conscience. For conscience means the man's best actual sight of the law of right and wrong. It may be a dim and distorted sight; but it is his best at this moment. He cannot violate it without sin, nor can you bid him do so without yourself sinning. Conscience may not always see aright. But to transgress conscience is always wrong.
Ver. 15.