He that rejects me, and receives not my words, has one that judges him: the word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day.
All Commentaries on John 12:48 Go To John 12
Cornelius a Lapide
AD 1637
He that rejecteth Me, and receiveth not My words, hath one that judgeth him. He that believeth not My words will have God as his Judges , who will judge him by Me at the judgment day. For, as S. Augustine says (de Trinit. i28), Christ will not judge by His human power, but by the power of the Word of God.
The word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him at the last day. S. Augustine (in loc.) understands by the "Word" Christ Himself, for He will be the judge. "He has sufficiently set forth that He will be the judge at the last day, for He spake of Himself. He announced Himself, He placed Himself as the Door by which He as Shepherd came in to the sheep." Others more clearly, and with greater force, say, My word heard and not believed in by the Jews will accuse them at the day of judgment, and with mute voice will proclaim them worthy of hell. "That word," says Rupertus, "which they heard, which they could not but know to be true, as approved by the wondrous testimony of His miracles, that word will Judges , will reprove, will convict. But where will that judge be seated? What sentences of judgment will He give from His throne? He will be close at hand. He will hold His court within. He will proclaim full terribly in the conscience of each one His just sentence. There is a prosopopœia. The word of Christ is here introduced as a person, and as a witness against unbelievers before Christ as Judge in the day of judgment.
