HALL, JUDGMENT

See JUDGMENT HALL; PRAETORIUM.

JUDGING JUDGMENT

juj'-ing, juj'-ment: Often in the Old Testament for "to act as a magistrate" (Exodus 18:13 Deuteronomy 1:16; Deuteronomy 16:18, etc.), justice being administered generally by "elders" (Exodus 18:13-27), or "kings" (1 Samuel 8:20) or "priests" (Deuteronomy 18:15); applied to God as the Supreme Judge (Psalm 9:7, 8; Psalm 10:18; Psalm 96:13 Micah 4:3, etc.; Psalm 7:8 "Yahweh ministereth judgment," vividly describes a court scene, with Yahweh as Judge).

Often in the New Testament, ethically, for

(1) "to decide," "give a verdict," "declare an opinion" (Greek krino);

(2) "to investigate," "scrutinize" (Greek anakrino);

(3) "to discriminate," "distinguish" (Greek diakrino).

For (1), see Luke 7:43 Acts 15:19;

for (2) see 1 Corinthians 2:15; 1 Corinthians 4:3;

for (3)see 1 Corinthians 11:31; 1 Corinthians 14:29 m.

Used also forensically in Luke 22:30 Acts 25:10; and applied to God in John 5:22 Hebrews 10:30. The judgments of God are the expression of His justice, the formal declarations of His judgments, whether embodied in words (Deuteronomy 5:1 the King James Version, the Revised Version (British and American) "statutes"), or deeds (Exodus 6:6 Revelation 16:7), or in decisions that are yet to be published (Psalm 36:6). Man's consciousness of guilt inevitably associates God's judgments as declarations of the Divine justice, with his own condemnation, i.e. he knows that a strict exercise of justice means his condemnation, and thus "judgment" and "condemnation" become in his mind synonymous (Romans 5:16); hence, the prayer of Psalm 143:2, "Enter not into judgment"; also, John 6:29, "the resurrection of judgment" (the King James Version "damnation"); 1 Corinthians 11:29, "eateth and drinketh judgment" (the King James Version "damnation").

H. E. Jacobs

JUDGMENT HALL

juj'-ment hol (to praitorion, "Then led they Jesus.... unto the hall of judgment.... and they themselves went not into the judgment hall" (John 18:28 the King James Version); "Then Pilate entered into the judgment hall again" (John 18:33 the King James Version); "(Pilate) went again into the judgment hall" (John 19:9); "He commanded him to be kept in Herod's judgment hall" (Acts 23:35)):

"Judgment hall" is one of the ways in which the King James Version translates praitorion, which it elsewhere renders "Praetorium" (Mark 15:16); "the common hall" (Matthew 27:27). In this passage the English Revised Version renders it "palace"; in John 18:33; John 19:9 Acts 23:35, "palace" is also given by the English Revised Version; in Philippians 1:13, the King James Version renders, "palace," while the Revised Version (British and American) gives "the praetorian guard." Praitorion accordingly is translated in all these ways, "Praetorium," "the common hall," "the judgment hall," "the palace," "the praetorian guard." In the passages In the Gospels, the American Standard Revised Version renders uniformly "Praetorium."

The word originally meant the headquarters in the Roman camp, the space where the general's tent stood, with the camp altar; the tent of the commander-in-chief. It next came to mean the military council, meeting in the general's tent. Then it came to be applied to the palace in which the Roman governor or procurator of a province resided. In Jerusalem it was the magnificent palace which Herod the Great had built for himself, and which the Roman procurators seem to have occupied when they came from Caesarea to Jerusalem to transact public business.

Praitorion in Philippians 1:13 has been variously rendered, "the camp of the praetorian soldiers," "the praetorian guard," etc. For what is now believed to be its true meaning, see PRAETORIUM.

John Rutherfurd

JUDGMENT SEAT

(bema, "a raised place," "platform," "tribune," Matthew 27:19 John 19:13; see GABBATHA; Acts 12:21 margin (text "throne"); 18:12, 16;; 25:6, 17): In Greek law courts, one bema was provided for the accuser, another for the accused; but in the New Testament the word designates the official scat of a judge, usually of the Roman governor; also of the emperor (Acts 25:10); then of God (Romans 14:10), of Christ (2 Corinthians 5:10). The word kriterion, "a tribunal," "bench of judges" (James 2:6) occurs also in 1 Corinthians 6:2-4, and is there translated in the Revised Version margin by "tribunals."

See also JUDGE.

JUDGMENT, LAST

1. A Transcendental Doctrine:

In Christian theology the Last Judgment is an act in which God interposes directly into human history, brings the course of this world to a final close, determines the eternal fate of human beings, and places them in surroundings spiritually adapted to their final condition. The concept is purely transcendental, and is to be distinguished from the hope that God will interfere in the history of this world to determine it undeviatingly toward good. The transcendental doctrine is possible only when an exalted idea of God has been attained, although it may afterward be united with crasser theories, as in certain naive conceptions of Christianity at the present day.

2. The Doctrine in the Religion of Israel:

In the religion of Israel, the doctrine of the Last Judgment arose from "transcendentalizing" the concept of the "Day of the Lord." Just as hope of immortality replaced desire for length of days on earth, just the as for "the rejuvenation of Palestine" was substituted "an eternal abode in a new earth," so the ideal of a military victory over Israel's enemies expanded into God's solemn condemnation of evil. The concept thus strictly defined is hardly to be sought in the Old Testament, but Daniel 12:1-3 may contain it. The first unequivocal assertion would appear to be in Enoch 91:17, where the final state is contrasted with a preceding reign of earthly happiness. (If there has been no redaction in the latter part of this section, its date is prior to 165 B.C.) Hereafter the idea is so prevalent in the Jewish writings that detailed reference is needless. But it is by no means universal. Writings touched with Greek thought (En 108; 4 Macc; Philo) are content with an individual judgment at death. A unique theory is that of the Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs (Levi 18:8-14, e.g.), where the world grows into final blessedness without catastrophe. But much more common is the persistence of the non-transcendental ideas, ingrained as they were in the thought of the people (even in Philo; compare his prophecy of national earthly glory in Excr 9). This type of thought was so tenacious that it held its own alongside of the transcendental, and both points of view were accepted by more than one writer. Then the earthly happiness precedes the heavenly (as in Enoch 91), and there are two judgments, one by the Messiah and the other by God (2 Esdras 7; Syriac Baruch 30). So in Revelation 19 where Christ overcomes the enemies in battle-symbolism and establishes the Millennium, while the Last Judgment is held by God (20:11;). Otherwise the Messiah is never the judge except in the Parables of Enoch, where He appears as God's vicar uniformly (in 47:3 God fixes the time of judgment only). Possibly in The Wisdom of Solomon 4:16; 5:1 men share in the judgment-act but otherwise they (and angels) appear only as "assessors" or as executors of the sentence. In The Wisdom of Solomon 3:8, "judging" is used in the Old Testament sense of "rule" (Judges 3:10, etc.), as is the case in Matthew 19:28 parallel Luke 22:30 1 Corinthians 6:2, 3 (in the last case with the word in two senses). Further studies in the variation of the (rather conventionally fixed) details of the judgment will interest the special student only.

For discussions of the relevant Biblical passages, see DAY OF THE LORD; ESCHATOLOGY; PAROUSIA. The doctrine has real religious value, for it insists on a culmination in the evolution (or degeneration!) of the race as well as of the individual. So it is contrasted with the pessimism of natural science, which points only toward the gradual extinction of humanity through the cooling of the sun.

LITERATURE.

The variations of the concept are treated, fully only in Volz, Judische Eschatologie. For general literature see ESCHATOLOGY; PAROUSIA.

Burton Scott Easton

DAY OF JUDGMENT

See JUDGMENT, LAST.

JUDGMENT, DAY OF

See JUDGMENT, LAST.