Let us close as we began, remembering that it is Christ who is to be our Judge.  Therefore will the judgment be according to perfect truth.  We know how He judged men when He was here on earth—­without respect of persons, undeceived by appearances, seeing things always as they are, calling them always by their true names.  And such will His judgment be hereafter.  On the walls of the famous Rock Tombs of Thebes, there is a group of figures representing the judging of the departed spirit before Osiris, the presiding deity of the dead.  In one hand he holds a shepherd’s crook, in the other a scourge; before him are the scales of justice; that which is weighed is the heart of the dead king upon whose lot the deity is called to decide.  The pictured symbol is a dim foreshadowing of that perfect judgment which He who looketh not at the outward appearance but at the heart will one day pass on all the lives of men.  And yet an apostle has dared to write of “boldness in the day of Judgment”!  Surely St. John is very bold; yet was his boldness well-based.  He remembered the saying of his own Gospel:  “The Father hath given all judgment unto the Son ... because He is the Son of Man.”  Yes; He who will come to be our Judge is He who once for us men, and for our salvation, came down from heaven, and was made man, and upon the Cross did suffer death for our redemption.  Herein is the secret of the “boldness” of the redeemed.

    “Jesus, Thy blood and righteousness
    My beauty are, my glorious dress;
    ’Midst flaming worlds in these arrayed,
    With joy shall I lift up my head.

    Bold shall I stand in that great day,
    For who aught to my charge shall lay? 
    Fully absolved through these I am,
    From sin and fear, from guilt and shame.”

* * * * *

CONCERNING THE FUTURE LIFE

“My knowledge of that life is small,
The eye of faith is dim;
But ’tis enough that Christ knows all,
And I shall be with Him.” 
RICHARD BAXTER.

* * * * *

XVI

CONCERNING THE FUTURE LIFE

    “Where neither moth nor rust doth consume, and where thieves
    do not break through nor steal.”—­MATT. vi. 20.

    “Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.”—­MARK ix.
    48.

These are both sayings of Christ, and each has reference to the life beyond death; together they illustrate the two-fold thought of the future which finds a place in all the records of our Lord’s teaching.