THE JUDGMENT TEST

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jan 28, 1897

THE JUDGMENT TEST.

The test of the judgment will be love. Christ will search every man for proofs of loyalty. The proof is to be found in his constant endeavor to obey the laws of God. All divine law centers in love, and whoever shows himself under the control of love by seeking to benefit his fellow-man is reconciled to God and acceptable to Christ. Whoever is actuated by a spirit of love is moved no less by the influence of faith, for he does his good deeds because he believes in God and desires to please him. We are to “be judged for the deeds done in the body,” but these deeds are done either from motives of love or selfishness. Here is not the ground of salvation, but the test by which salvation is determined. If we have accepted Christ in recognized faith, the act will show itself in love. If we have never known the historic Christ, and have lived and died under heathen conditions, we may yet be saved, provided a life of love shows that we are joined in spirit to our God, and have a faith faculty which would have blossomed out in unmistakable faith in Christ had the Sun of Righteousness risen and shone upon it.

The result of the judgment will be irrevocable. The language of our Saviour on this point is explicit: “These shall go away into eternal punishment; but the righteous into eternal life.” The word is the same in both clauses, and whatever its force in one, it has the same force in the other. Whatever the word translated “eternal” may be thought to mean, the whole sentence plainly means that Christ is the Supreme Judge, that there is no appeal from his decisions, and that the lot of those who have appeared before his judgment seat is fixed and a finality. From Christ’s decree there is no escape. Each goes to his own place according to his merit or demerit, and there he stays.—Christian Work.