What is the true meaning of this phrase from the Bible and how could it be edifyingly interpreted in consonance with the Scriptures?
Matt 12:20
20 A bruised reed shall he not break, and smoking flax shall he not quench, till he send forth judgment unto victory.
John 8:15 & 16
15 Ye judge after the flesh; I judge no man.
16 And yet if I judge, my judgment is true: for I am not alone, but I and the Father that sent me.
Judgement is determination of the superiority of a claim over another, a position over another, the intrinsic value over another, a right over another right, a person over another, or for that matter any situation over another. A judgement is by a Peer. Jesus by having served the Will of the Father in the flesh and having succeeded in the Flesh as Jesus, had become the only one to be called a Peer to human beings yet the Son of God from the beginning.
God the Father, when He judged man, He had gone by the compliance of the Commandments and judgement was bound to follow, unless a Righteous man were to intercede on behalf of the delinquent or the people themselves repented upon self-contrition or upon being preached to.
In the Old Testament, there were instances where God sent his angels to intimate Abraham before the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah; had there been those number of righteous souls as Abraham thought, probably the cities would have been spared. The people of Nineveh were spared when they repented. When Hezekiah was intimated of his imminent death, his prayers for extension of his life was granted even before Isaiah could leave the palace gates of the King Hezekiah. When King Solomon sacrificed to elicit the attention of God, God appears and grants Solomon his request and more. When Gideon was threshing clandestinely keeping his activity from the eyes of the Midianites, an angel is sent to call him a mighty man of valour. Therefore God the Father was attracted by DEVOTION TO HIM; IMPORTUNATE PLAINTS TO HIM; REPENTANCE & CONTRITION OF HEART. Essentially Man had to connect to God.
This changes with the advent of Jesus. God connects to man.
But God cannot connect from the heavens, He has to subject Himself to the liabilities and the constraints of human living. The curse that entered into the world had to be gone through, yet without being tainted by the evil. A person of perfection was required to both measure up and intercede with God the Father, who had been through the plight of man in those cursed circumstances and yet had remained untainted and DONE THE WILL OF THE FATHER. Only such a person would be worthy to break that curse through His intercession.
Jesus’ Life and teachings are an example on his perfection. A doubting Thomas would not have stayed with a person of dubious dealings; a greedy Judas would not have committed suicide had Jesus not been up to the reputation he was ascribed with. Thomas and Judas were there representing our scepticism and our suicidal provocations. The former was told: Blessed are those who have not seen yet believed and thereby we are all Blessed. Jesus who had said that one has to be pure in heart to see God, carves out a large exception to those who believe in Him (Matt 5:8). Belief takes the place of the Purity in Heart.
Jesus by having intimated Himself with the curse of man and yer having overcome Life successfully, was made the Judge of mankind.
So Jesus judges and it does not remain as a record in the books of the Father, but sends human beings to the Victory podium.
The verse according to me means that though we as human beings might have reached the end of all our capabilities, and become broken and therefore useless, or have lost our fire and enveloped with ashes which are bound to smother the embers of our lives, Jesus resuscitates us and send us to the Podium of Victory, just because we put our complete FAITH in Him.
That I think is sending Judgement to Victory.