That Jesus did really claim to be the Judge of all men, it is, I believe, impossible to doubt.  The passage just quoted is by no means our only evidence.  In the Sermon on the Mount, which foolish persons who love to depreciate theology sometimes speak of as though it were the pith and marrow of the Christian gospel, Christ says, “Many will say to Me in that day, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy by Thy name, and by Thy name cast out devils, and by Thy name do many mighty works?  And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you:  depart from Me, ye that work iniquity.”  Again, He says, “Whosoever shall be ashamed of Me and of My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man also shall be ashamed of Him when He cometh in the glory of His Father with the holy angels;” and again, “The Son of Man shall come in the glory of His Father with His angels; and then shall He render unto every man according to His deeds.”  The fourth Gospel also represents Him as saying, “Neither doth the Father judge any man, but He hath given all judgment to the Son ... and He gave Him authority to execute judgment because He is the Son of Man.”  And if still further evidence be necessary it would be easy to show both from the Acts and the Epistles that from the very beginning all the disciples of Jesus believed and taught that He would come again to be their Judge.

Consider what this means.  Reference has already been made in an earlier chapter to Christ’s witness concerning Himself, to His deep and unwavering consciousness of separateness from all others.  But more striking, perhaps, than any illustration mentioned there is that furnished by the fact before us now.  What must His thoughts about Himself have been who could speak of Himself in relation to all others as Christ does here?  When men write about Jesus as though He were merely a gentle, trustful, religious genius, preaching a sweet gospel of the love of God to the multitudes of Galilee, they are but shutting their eyes to one half of the facts which it is their duty to explain.  Speaking generally, we do well to distrust the dilemma as a form of argument; but in this case there need be no hesitation in putting the alternative with all possible bluntness:  either Christ was God, or He was not good.  That Jesus, if He were merely a good man, with a good man’s consciousness of and sensitiveness to His own weakness and limitations, could yet have arrogated to Himself the right to be the supreme judge and final arbiter of the destinies of mankind, is simply not thinkable.  And the more we ponder the stupendous claim which Christ makes, the more must we feel that it is either superhuman authority which speaks to us here or superhuman arrogance.  Either Christ spoke out of the depths of His own Divine consciousness, knowing that the Father had committed all judgment unto the Son; or He made use of words and put forth claims which were, and which He must have known to have been, empty, false, and blasphemous.