ere, theory must wait upon fact. One thing
is plain: that faith is the link between the Divine life and human
weakness. Had the impotent man not believed, he would not have risen.
Christ quickens "whom He will;" that is to say, there is no limit to His
life-giving power; but He cannot quicken those who will not have life or
who do not believe He can give it. Hence necessarily "the Father hath
committed all judgement unto the Son." To the impotent man Jesus put the
question, "Wilt thou be made whole?" and by that question the man was
judged. By the answer he gave to it he determined whether he would
remain dead or receive life. Had he not on the moment believed, he would
have doomed himself to permanent and hopeless imbecility. Christ's
question judged him.

Precisely so, says Jesus, are all men judged by My presence among them,
and My offer of life to them. For the Father has not only given to the
Son to have life in Himself, that He may thus communicate it (ver. 26),
but "He hath given Him authority to execute judgement also, because He
is a Son of man." For these words do not mean that Jesus will be Judge
because men should be judged by one who shares their nature,[17] or
because they must be judged by the holiest and most loving of
men[18]--as if God Himself were not sufficiently loving--but, as the
object-lesson shows us, Jesus is necessarily Judge by appearing as God's
messenger, and by offering to men life everlasting. By becoming a son of
man, by living in human form as the embodied love and life of God, and
by making intelligible God's good-will and His invitation to life,
Christ necessarily sifts men and separates them into two classes. Every
one who hears the word of Jesus is judged. He either accepts quickening
and passes into life, or he rejects it and abides in death. This human
appearance, Jesus seems to say, which stumbles you, and makes you think
that My pretensions of judging all men are absurd, is the very
qualification which makes judgment one of My necessary functions.

And this explains why we find Christ uttering apparent contradictions:
at one time saying, "For judgment came I into this world," and at
another time saying, "I came not to judge the world." The object of His
coming into the world was to give life, not to condemn men, not to cut
them off finally from life and from God, but to open a way to the
Father, and to be their life. But this very coming of Christ and the
offers He makes to men