Jesus Christ here comes before the whole race, and claims an absolute submission.  His word is to control, with authoritative and all-comprehensive scrutiny and power, every aim of our lives, and every action.  In His name we may be strong, in His name we may cast out devils, in His name we may do many wonderful works.  If we build upon Him we build upon a rock; if we build anywhere else we build upon the sand.

Strange, outrageous claims for a man to make!  ’Give me the Sermon on the Mount, and keep your doctrinal theology,’ say people.  But I want to know what kind of morality it is that is all traceable up to this—­’Do as I bid you, My will is your law; My smile is your reward; to obey Me is perfection.’  I think that takes you a good long way into ‘theology.’  I think that the Man who said that—­and you all know that He said it—­must he either a good deal more or a good deal less than a perfect man.  If He is only that He is not that; for if He is only that, He has no business to tell me to obey Him.  He has no business to substitute His will for every other law; and you have no business—­and it will be at the peril of your manhood if you do—­to take any man, the Man Christ or any other, as an absolute example and pattern and master.

My brethren, Christ’s claim to absolute obedience rests upon His divine nature and on His redeeming work.  He has delivered us from our enemies, and therefore He commands us.  He has given Himself for us, and therefore He has a right to say, ‘Give yourselves to Me.’  He is God manifest in the flesh, and therefore absolute power becomes His lips, and utter submission is our dignity.  To say to Him ‘Lord, Lord,’ carries us whole universes beyond saying to Him, ‘Rabbi, Rabbi.’

IV.  And now, lastly, we have in this great discourse the authority of our Lord set forth as being the authority of Him who is to be the Judge of the world.

’Then will I profess unto you I never knew you; depart from Me, ye that work iniquity.’  He, the meek, the humble, who never claimed for Himself anything except what His consciousness compelled Him to assert, who desired only that men should know Him for what He was, because it was their life so to know Him, here declares that the whole world is to be judged by Him, that He has such knowledge of men as will pierce beneath the surface of professions and will be undazzled by the most stupendous miracles, and beneath the eloquent words of many a preacher and the wonderful works of many a so-called Christian philanthropist, will see the hidden rottenness that they never saw, and, tearing down the veil, will reveal men at the last to themselves.

That is no human function, that is no work that belongs to a mere teacher, pattern, martyr, sage, philosopher, or saint.  That is a divine work; and the authority of Him whose final word to each of us will settle beyond appeal our fate, and reveal beyond cavil our character, is a divine authority.  He has a right to command because He is going to judge; and the lips that declare the law are the lips that will read the sentence.