Romans 14:11

For having been killed, the future Judge rose from the dead, and therefore he rightly said: "As I live." … For not only do I live, but I will come to judge, and my enemies will confess my name and kneel before me, acknowledging that …

Now every creature will bend the knee to God in the name of Jesus, through whom it has been reconciled to him, according to what the same Apostle says, that in the name of Jesus every knee shall bow, of things heavenly, things earthly, and things under the earth. The bending of the knee, indeed, and every tongue confessing to God, the Apostle has taken over from the words of the prophet Isaiah. This, however, is not to be understood in a fleshly way, as though we should suppose that even the heavenly beings, which he says bend the knee, are believed to do this with fleshly limbs — for instance, that the sun, or the moon, or the stars, or even the angels, and whatever things there are that are named heavenly, should be thought to adore with bodily knees bent, or even to be thought to confess God with a fleshly tongue and with such a member as we men speak with — beings of whom it is said that they are spirit and fire, according to what the Prophet says: Who makes his angels spirits, and his ministers a burning fire. And what knees shall be believed to exist in spirits? Or what tongue shall be looked for in the form of fire? Rather, "to bend the knee" declares that all things are made subject and obey the worship of God.

"For it is written, As I live, saith the Lord, every knee shall bow to Me, and every tongue shall confess to God. So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God." See how he again puts his mind into confusion, while he seems to be rebuking the other. For he intimates some such thing, as if he had said, How does it affect you? Are you to be punished for him? But this he does not say, but hints at it by putting it in a milder form, and saying, "For we shall all stand before the judgment-seat of Christ:" and, "So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God." And he introduces the prophet in witness of the subjection of all to Him, yea a subjection extended even to those in the Old Testament, and of all absolutely. For he does not barely say every one shall worship, but "shall confess," that is, shall give an account of what he has done. Be in anxiety then as seeing the Master of all sitting on his judgment-seat, and do not make schisms and divisions in the Church, by breaking away from grace, and running over to the Law. For the Law also is His. And why say I so of the Law? Even those in the Law and those before the Law are His. And it is not the Law that will demand an account of thee, but Christ, of thee and of all the human race. See how he has released us from the fear of the Law. Then that he may not seem to be saying this to frighten them for the occasion, but to have come to it in the course he had proposed himself, ...

But if these things are so: Why, he says, do you judge your brother? Or why do you despise your brother, since, whether there is in you a mortification of the flesh and of the vices, it did not arise from you but was bestowed by the death of Christ; or whether you have newness of life and, walking on earth, have your conversation in heaven, you have merited this by Christ's resurrection?

That we will be judged, as slaves by a master, the prophet testifies to this, he says. And with the words "before Me every knee shall bow, and every tongue shall confess God" he showed the highest degree of submission. "Shall confess," that is, shall …