Parish Papers

by Norman Macleod

RESULTS OF JUDGMENT.

What shall the results be of such a searching, impartial, and conclusive investigation into the history of mankind? Some of these we may, perhaps, be permitted to anticipate.

The proceedings of the day of judgment will answer all the accusations of Christ's enemies.

The government of Jesus Christ is hated and opposed here. This fact, alas! in human history, cannot be denied. We do not speak of Satan and his angels, who war against the Lord, nor even of His unconscious foes among the heathen; but only of those men who possess the Bible, and all the means of knowing the will of their Divine King. Yet how many among them are His open and avowed enemies. There is not one feature of His character which men do not blaspheme,—not one act of His government at which they do not cavil. He is alleged to be unrighteous in His commands; unfair in His treatment of mankind; unwise in His arrangements; unfaithful in His words; and even vindictive, unmerciful, implacable in His judgments, and in no respect worthy of man's love and obedience. Jesus of Nazareth—believed in by the Church, known and loved by all its living members—is still "despised and rejected of men." Nor are His enemies ashamed to speak out their thoughts, and openly to scorn and ridicule Him; asserting that He has no right to govern them or the world,—and thus "denying the Lord that bought them." Now, as on the day of His crucifixion, a rabble of all ranks, talents, and professions, cry, "Away with this fellow;" while they demand in His stead some Barabbas "hero" of their own to worship. There is often manifested an opposition to Christianity which assumes the aspect of personal hatred. We do not at all allude in these pages to the sincere, reverential man, who doubts, questions, argues, opposes, sifts, denies, rejects, while endeavouring, with an honest mind, to discover and believe the truth, whatever that may be; nor to the sadness of spirit of one who wishes "the glad tidings" to be true, but cannot arrive at a conclusion so desirable for his own good and peace, as well as for that of society; nor to the effects of a peculiar constitutional temperament which has a tendency first to doubt and invest everything with darkness, and then endeavours in vain to dispel what itself creates. But when we speak of infidels and unbelievers, we speak of ungodly men who dislike the truth of God, and who manifest this dislike in their triumph when any supposed error in the life or the doctrines of Jesus Christ is detected, or any evil (for which He is held responsible) is exposed in His followers, and who keep an ample mantle of charity for those who disbelieve, but none for those who believe in Jesus Christ as their only Saviour.

This opposition to the government of God through Jesus Christ has not been a temporary outburst by a few only. The kingdom of Satan has existed here since the fall of man, side by side with Christ's kingdom, and opposed it in every age and clime. The kingdom of holiness and peace has never entered the soul of any living man, without first meeting, and then overcoming, enmity and ill-will by the power of truth and love. It has never entered a single country on the surface of the globe without terrible combats being fought again and again, in which the best soldiers and noblest subjects of the Great King have "had trial of cruel mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover, of bonds and imprisonments." "We will not have the Lord to reign over us!" has been everywhere the awful battle-cry; and the conflict rages now as fiercely as it did in any age of the world! Nor, moreover, has this opposition been given by uncivilised savages; but men of knowledge and of genius have dedicated all the powers of their mind to the dread task of ridding the world of the Redeemer's sceptre. What they have thought, they have spoken; what they have spoken, they have written and recorded in books, that their influence might extend beyond their own immediate circle and their own time, and that other nations and other generations might know what they thought of the Saviour,—how sincerely they themselves despised and rejected Him, and desired all others to do the same. What is every infidel publication but an accusation against Jesus Christ, a protest against His government, and an attempt to rouse the world to join in the rebellion? "They take counsel together against the Lord and his Anointed, saying, Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us!"

And this hatred to Christ will continue till the end of the world: for we read, that "in the last days will come scoffers." Nay, it is quite possible that accusations against Him are, and shall be, maintained by the wicked up till the very hour of judgment. For, even as the criminal before his trial will feed his pride, and soothe his conscience, by denying every charge alleged against him, or by blaming every one but himself; so it may be that the wicked, after death, will continue to cast the blame upon the Saviour, for all they are and have been, even when they can no longer doubt the reality of His existence or government.

And will Jesus ever answer those accusations? Why should He? you perhaps exclaim. His character, you say, cannot be affected in the estimation of the good by anything which the enemies of all righteousness can urge against it. His throne can no more be shaken by the puny attacks of men or devils than the everlasting mountains can be disturbed by the storm-blasts which howl around them. What more, then, is needed, than to shut up the wicked in a prison-house, through whose adamantine walls the accusing cry can never pierce, and whose doors are for ever barred by the holy decree of the Almighty? Ah! were it so, even this thought might possibly gratify pride and enmity, could a condemned, though not judged spirit for ever carry with it a conviction of having waged a war in which power alone had conquered weakness, and might trampled upon right; and that all its charges remained unanswered and unanswerable! But let no one presume upon this. It is true that Jesus Christ now, as when on earth He stood before His enemies, "answers nothing." Do not misunderstand this awful silence! You "marvel greatly" that He works no miracle to satisfy your doubts, or you deny His power of doing so, and therefore you imagine, that because He replies not to your accusations, He either hears them not, cares not for them, or cannot meet them. But be assured, a day is appointed when the question between you and Him will be fairly tried. Unbelievers of all ranks, and whatever be their ability, will have an opportunity of re-stating their case, and of proving the truth of their accusations—if they can. Let none suppose that Jesus will shrink from such an investigation. Every utterance is reported for review at judgment; every book is kept for that day. It is not the method of the divine government to put down its enemies by mere physical power, as if the question between God and man was indeed one of strength and weakness, and not rather of right and wrong. The Lord will indeed answer his enemies; but He will do so by the irresistible power of truth, and the omnipotent force of righteousness. He will crush and overwhelm them; but it will be in their own conscience, and in their own estimation. He will expel them from whatever refuge of lies they may vainly attempt to seek for shelter, and expose them to the full blaze of principle, until their inmost souls echo the dread sentence of "GUILTY," which must be pronounced upon them, while they stand "speechless" amidst the assembled universe, and before the omniscient and holy Judge of all the earth. "He is coming with ten thousand of His saints, to execute judgment upon all, and to CONVINCE all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all their HARD SPEECHES which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him!"

Do we address one who is a professed unbeliever in the truth, or rather, who "believes a lie,"—that there is no Saviour? We ask such a one to consider what the certain, or even probable consequences will be to him, if all we have said is nevertheless true? What if you shall see Jesus Christ face to face, and have your whole outer and inner history, as it is known to God, minutely revealed to your own mind, and to the assembled jury of the universe? Will your thinking, or saying, that the whole is a fiction, make it so? Will your scoff at God's revelation of the future prevent the dead from rising, or the Judge from appearing? Will a foolish jest, or a proud callousness, or a subtle argument, or a brave indifference to what others fear, enable you, on the resurrection morning, to shut your ears against the sound of the last trump, or to disobey the summons of the Son of God to rise from the tomb, and to appear before Him? And if no unbelief can change the will of God, or make that false which He proclaims to be true, nor alter His prescribed order in things to come, no more than it can do His present order in the starry heavens,—what can you say to Jesus Christ in your own defence? How can you, in consistency with His Word, so justify your own opinions and conduct, as to make it possible for Him to say to you, "Well done, good and faithful servant, enter into the joy of thy Lord?" But, blessed be God! the same Word of truth which condemns the sinner, and shuts out all hope of safety to him, while in his state of unbelief and ungodliness, invites him, and commands him, to come out of that state, and to share the life which is in Christ for every man. We cannot repeat it too often that Jesus offers immediate pardon and life through faith in His blood, to the chief of sinners—to the oldest and most bitter enemy which He has upon earth! Jesus offers His Spirit to every man, to enlighten his understanding, renew his will, and spiritualise his taste and affections, and shed abroad the love of God in his heart; so that even thou, whoever thou art, mayest yet love, and be loved by, Jesus Christ and His saints for ever and ever! "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and THOU shalt be saved!" But should His long-suffering patience, and abundant mercy, and rich love, fail to gain your heart,—should you "prefer darkness to light," and "remain in unbelief," and live and die without Him,—how can you escape? Is it not righteous that you should walk in the darkness which you love, and be separated from your Saviour and His people, whom you dislike, and be permitted "to eat of the fruit of your own way, and be filled with your own devices?" On "the great and terrible day of the Lord," you will, alas! be "convinced" that the sentence pronounced upon you by the Saviour, of "Depart from me!" is but an echo of what your own heart is now saying to Him! Hear, I beseech you, the words of warning which God now addresses to you, in order that you may, in time, "flee from the wrath to come!" "For if we sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries. He that despised Moses' law died without mercy under two or three witnesses: of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing, and hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace? For we know him that hath said, Vengeance belongeth unto me, I will recompense, saith the Lord. And again, The Lord shall judge his people. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God," (Heb. x. 26-31.)

But let us further inquire, What shall be its results with reference to the righteous?

1. The righteous will then fully understand the excellence of Christ's government over themselves.

How profoundly mysterious, as yet, to ourselves, is our own individual history! If we attempt to gather up the past, and to trace the whole way along which we have journeyed, with the innumerable windings of the path, and all the dark valleys through which it has led, the rugged places it has passed over, or the many lofty hills up which it has ascended,—how endless, how perplexing does it appear! If, again, we try to measure the various powers which have helped to make us what we are, or to weigh the number and relative importance of all the things which have combined to produce the present result of character within, and of circumstances without us,—how soon are we lost amidst the mass of the infinite items which make up the sum of even our little history. How inadequate are all our attempts to solve the problems without number which every year suggests. Why, for example, has this or that happened? Wherefore this sorrow or that joy?—why such changes of place or of fortune?—why the loss of old friends or the gift of new ones?—why—But the questions are endless, and never can be answered till judgment. It is true, that we are often privileged to see very clearly the reason of many of Christ's dealings with us here. He shews us His ways as well as His acts—treating us as "friends" who "know what their Lord doeth." The wheel of Providence often makes its revolutions in so short a period that we see the whole movement. It was thus in the case of Abraham. The mystery of God's command was resolved after three days on Mount Moriah. Thus, too, the darkness of family grief and of a distant Saviour, which brooded over the household of Bethany, was dispelled, and vanished before bright sunshine, at the cry, "Lazarus, come forth!" But it is not always thus; and though it would be so more frequently if we waited more patiently upon God and considered His ways, yet, at best, but a small fraction of our life is understood here. Moreover, our own history is so interlaced with the history of others, that what is more properly theirs, in some degree is ours also. Can Moses, for instance, yet fully comprehend his own life in its relation to the Jewish nation, whose fate is still involved in darkness? Can any one of the saints of old, whose deeds and words are recorded in God's Book, and are telling every day and hour upon the history of mankind, and must continue to do so till time shall be no more, comprehend what they really have done on earth? Must not the end of all things come before they understand the place and the work their Lord assigned to them? And so is it with the humblest believer. He is a part of a great whole; and to understand how Jesus has governed Himself as a part, he must be able to see his own life in relation to the great whole. But each Christian who has walked by faith, and held fast his confidence in Christ, will then also have revealed how the Lord has governed him, and all that He has done to him and for him, and what He has enabled him to be and to do on earth. The sackcloth and ashes of every patient Job will be turned into garments of praise; and the lamentations of every mourning Jeremiah into songs of gladness: and in adoring wonder and unutterable joy, every head will be bowed down, every crown cast at Christ's feet, and every heart will feel, and mouth confess, "He hath done all things well!" What an amazing disclosure will this be of the wisdom and love with which our gracious Lord has assigned to each servant his lot,—given to each "his work," and so prepared all things for him in the world, and so made all things work together for his good, that "the fruit has been holiness, and the end everlasting life!"

2. But the Christian will also behold at judgment the excellence of Christ's government over others, and over the whole world.

If we are such mysteries to ourselves, and if we cannot as yet truly write our own biographies, how much more perplexing to us is the personal history of any other in his relation to the Redeemer! How impossible to discover the reasons of all, or of any, of Christ's providential dealings with him, or to read aright any one day in his life! Was it possible for Job's friends to interpret, at the time, Job's sufferings? God alone could have corrected Jacob when, in the dark night of his sorrow, yet just before the daybreak of his joy in Egypt, he cried, "Joseph is not, Simeon is not, and will ye take Benjamin away?—all these things are against me!" Daniel in the lions' den, or the three young men in the furnace, with a wicked king in peace upon the throne; John the Baptist in the dungeon, with Herod in the banquet hall; Stephen falling asleep beneath the shower of cruel stones, and Saul gazing complacently at the murderers' clothes laid at his feet:—these, and a thousand other such incidents in human history, are, to beholders, involved in a portion of that darkness which hung over the cross of Christ itself, at the time, a mystery of mysteries to all who witnessed its agonies! But when, from the history of persons, we rise to the contemplation of the history of cities, countries, and nations; or ascend to a still higher region in order to take in, if possible, the history of the human race from age to age; and to comprehend what Jesus Christ has done for it, and how He has governed it,—how much more profound is the darkness! If, for instance, we endeavour to form any estimate of the effect which has been produced upon the character and destiny of mankind by the present structure of the physical earth, with its mountains, seas, rivers, winds, and climate—the house which Jesus Christ has built and furnished for His creatures; by the famines and pestilences, wars and conquests, migrations and settlements, arising out of circumstances more or less controlling man, and beyond his will; as well as by all that has come, as it were, directly from Jesus, through His Church, from Eden till this present hour;—how infinite to us is the field of observation! "O the depth of the riches both of the knowledge and wisdom of God! How unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!" We gaze upon those majestic wheels of His providence, some of which take whole cycles to revolve, and "their wings are so high, that they are dreadful!" It is so, for example, with the history of Israel, which, commencing with Abraham, when earth was young, four thousand years ago, is still moving on as a distinct stream flowing amidst the waters of the great ocean, yet never mingling with them, though nearing the unfathomable gulf where all is still.

But "what we know not now, we shall know hereafter," upon the great "day of the revelation of Jesus Christ," when, in the light of unerring truth, the history of each man, and of the whole race, will be seen, and for the first time understood. "Now we know in part, but then we shall know even as we are known." Every question which here perplexes or pains the thoughtful and conscientious inquirer, will be fully answered. The secret and hitherto hidden springs of actions will be laid bare, and their remotest results disclosed. We shall apprehend the real life—the true philosophy—of history. Then will the government of Jesus Christ over the whole family of man, and every individual member of it, be seen—what it has always by His Church believed—to have been one of righteousness, wisdom, and love.

3. Need I add, as the last grand result of judgment, that the Triune God will be glorified?

God the Father will be glorified! The prayer of Christ shall then be fulfilled: "Father, glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee!" The doxology of the apostle will be realised: "To him be glory by the Church through Christ Jesus throughout all ages!" That glory will be seen in His having committed the government of the world to Jesus Christ. Then will be understood, as it never was before, how "God so loved the world in giving His only-begotten Son" to be its Creator and Governor, and the Prophet, Priest, and King of His Church.

God the Son will be glorified! Every event and act in His great mediatorial kingdom will shew the grandeur of His character. The whole world's history will be as a mirror, full of the light of this Sun of Righteousness,—reflecting the greatness of His power, the depths of His wisdom, the beauty of His holiness, and the riches of His grace. He will "be glorified, too, in His saints." Each believer will not only be a living monument of what Christ has done, but, as a child of God, will also be in his character an image of what Christ the first-born is!

God the Spirit will be glorified when the results are made manifest of all He has done for and in the Church, and of all which men have received from this Teacher, Sanctifier, and Comforter! If many will have cause to mourn upon that day because they have resisted and grieved Him by their wilful impenitency and wickedness, what a multitude, greater than any man can number, will adore Him for the spiritual ignorance in the ways of God which He dispelled,—the all-sufficient strength for duty and trial, for life and death, which He imparted,—the holy love which He shed abroad upon their hearts,—the good fruit which by His aid they produced in their lives,—the calm peace which He gave to their consciences,—the prayers heard and answered by God which He prompted,—and the joy unspeakable to which He often raised their souls!

Thus will the proceedings of the great day of judgment, without one single exception, reveal to the intelligent universe the glory of God,—Father, Son, and Spirit,—as displayed in the government of the world through Jesus Christ.

Oh, how can we form an adequate conception of the overpowering effect which the revelations of this eventful period in the history of the universe must necessarily produce upon the saints and just men made perfect, and upon the innumerable company of angels, who, with intense interest and profound intelligence, watch the proceedings before the immaculate throne of the Son of man! As age after age passes in solemn review, and as each succeeding era, beneath the light of investigation, emerges out of the darkness in which it had hitherto been wrapped,—as city after city, and kingdom after kingdom, from their early beginnings, onwards through centuries of advancement in power and influence, till their final silence in the dust, are all reproduced in their living reality,—we may conceive how the awful interest in the world's trial must deepen itself in every bosom, and intelligent eyes must gleam with a brighter intelligence, and admiring souls burn with a profounder and holier admiration, as they are enabled to perceive how, over all this earth, to them hitherto so dark and cloudy, Jesus had ever reigned with unclouded splendour, as the sun reigns in the calm heavens, and pours down his beams of light from a region far above the tempestuous sky. And we can, in some degree, conceive how their lips should ever and anon give birth to accents of heartfelt praise, as a deep moral order and beauty are seen growing up, evolving out of the chaos of history, even as a holy temple might rear itself from what seemed to the eye of sense to be the very "lines of confusion, and stones of emptiness." We can imagine, too, when this long day of wondrous disclosures is about to terminate, and its sun to set for ever over the old order of things, how the joy of this great assemblage should reach at last its climax, and have a fulness of glory in it never before experienced; until, as judgment ended, and the whole government of their blessed Lord was disclosed, their sense of the grandeur and infinite majesty of His character and ways should be such as to call forth from ten thousand times ten thousand ecstatic souls, as the grand verdict of the universe, those bursts of praise: "Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and blessing." "Great and marvellous are thy works, Lord God Almighty; just and true are thy ways, thou King of saints. Who shall not fear thee, O Lord, and glorify thy name? for thou only art holy: for all nations shall come and worship before thee; for thy judgments are made manifest."

Such are a few of the more obvious results of a day of judgment. But who will dare to deny that these may possibly be extended to other worlds and other orders of beings, and be made influential for the good and happiness of the universe throughout limitless ages, and be the means of impressing unfallen yet peaceable creatures, with a more profound sense of the glory of God and the unchangeableness of His government? We ourselves possess an experience somewhat analogous to this, in the fact of God's righteous dealings with another order of beings—the fallen angels—having been revealed to us for our instruction and warning; and thus, for aught we know, the transactions of the coming day of judgment may, in whole or in part, form such a living record of God's government by Jesus Christ, as may be revealed to millions, of whose existence and circumstances we are as yet ignorant, and be to them for ever as a great Bible, for their warning, comfort, and instruction in righteousness.

We have now brought our thoughts upon "judgment" to a conclusion. May they suggest others more worthy of the theme to all who may peruse them! We have tried to view it in the light of Scripture statement; yet feeling deeply conscious of how dimly and inadequately we perceive and judge of the awful future; of God's relationship to the human family; and of the manner in which the only wise and merciful God will apply the eternal principles of justice (which is but love dealing with sin) to the infinite varieties of human character, or to the circumstances of each human being. Questions innumerable suggest themselves, which we cannot answer now, but which will be answered then, regarding the heathen, and regarding millions who have lived and died without knowing or loving Jesus Christ; doubtless we shall all then be amazed at our own ignorance and sin, and overwhelmed by the majestic glory and excellence of God in Christ. But whatever the results of that day may be, one thing is certain, that they will afford satisfaction and joy unutterable to just and good men, yea, to every human being who has any real sympathy with Him whose "name is Love!"

But let us never forget that every day of our lives is a day of judgment, in which Christ is searching our hearts and judging our lives, condemning the evil and blessing the good, and seeking to separate the one from the other. If we are able to welcome Him as our judge and deliverer in our present day, we shall be able to do so also on "the last day."

I conclude with these words:—

"For we must all appear before the judgment-seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad. Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men."

"And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world. Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he in God. And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him. Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as he is, so are we in this world. There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love. We love him because he first loved us."

"But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief. Ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day: we are not of the night, nor of darkness. Therefore let us not sleep, as do others; but let us watch and be sober. For they that sleep sleep in the night; and they that be drunken are drunken in the night. But let us, who are of the day, be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love; and for an helmet, the hope of salvation. For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, that, whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with him. Wherefore comfort yourselves together, and edify one another, even as also ye do."

"Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man. For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil."