Elijah the Tishbite. Miscellaneous Writings of C. H. Mackintosh, vol. V

by Charles Henry Mackintosh

Here, then, we are taught that salvation is ready to be revealed at this moment; for we are, as John tells us, in "the last times." And be it noted that salvation as here used is not to be confined to the mere matter of the soul's deliverance from hell and perdition: it refers, rather, to the deliverance of the body of the believer from the power of death and corruption. In short, it takes in all that stands in anywise connected with the glorious appearing of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. We already possess the salvation of our souls, as we are told in the very context from which our text is taken. "Receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls.... Wherefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ."

Thus we learn in the clearest way that the "salvation ready to be revealed" is linked on to "the revelation of Jesus Christ." This is confirmed, were confirmation needful, by Hebrews ix. 28, where we read, "So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for Him shall He appear the second time, apart from sin, unto salvation."

From all this the reader may learn that the salvation which is ready to be revealed is at the second coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. For this we are taught, as Christians, to look at any moment. There is literally nothing so far as God is concerned, nothing so far as the work of Christ is concerned, nothing so far as the testimony of the Holy Ghost is concerned, to hinder our hearing "the shout of the archangel and the trump of God" this very night, this very hour. All is done that needed to be done. Atonement is made, redemption is accomplished, God has been glorified by the work of Christ, as is proved by the fact of Christ's present place on the throne of the Majesty in the heavens. From the moment that our Lord Christ took His seat upon that throne, it could always be said that "salvation is ready to be revealed."

But it could not have been said before. Salvation could not be said to be ready until the divine groundwork thereof was laid in the death and resurrection of the Saviour. But when once that most glorious work of all works was accomplished, it could at any moment be said that "salvation is ready to be revealed." "The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit Thou at My right hand, until I make Thine enemies Thy footstool" (Ps. cx. 1).

2. But the apostle Peter gives us another instance and application of our word in chap. iv. 5, where he refers to some "who shall give account to Him that is ready to judge the quick and the dead."

Here the word stands before us in a form of awful solemnity. If on the one hand it be true that salvation is ready to be revealed for the everlasting joy of God's redeemed, it is equally true on the other hand that judgment is ready to take its course, for the everlasting misery of those who neglect God's proffered salvation.[3] The one is as true, and as pointed, and as forcible, as the other. There is nothing to wait for in respect to the judgment, any more than there is in respect to the salvation. The one is as "ready" as the other. God has gone to the utmost in demonstrating His grace; and man has gone to the utmost in demonstrating his guilt. Both have reached their climax in the death of Christ; and when we see Him crowned with glory and seated on the throne, we have the most powerful evidence that could possibly be afforded that nothing remains but for salvation to be revealed on the one hand, and for judgment to take its course on the other.

Hence it follows that man is no longer under probation. It is a grand mistake for any one to think so. It falsifies man's entire position and state. If I am under probation; if God is still testing me; if He is even now occupied in testing whether I am good for aught; if I am capable of producing any fruit for Him—if this be indeed the case, then it is not and cannot be true that "He is ready to judge." Nature is not ripe for judgment so long as a probationary process is pending, if there is yet something to wait for ere judgment can take its course.

But no, reader; we feel bound to press upon you the fact that the period of your probation is over forever, and the period of God's long-suffering is nearly run out. It is of the utmost importance to seize this truth. It lies at the very foundation of the sinner's position. Judgment is actually impending. It is "ready" at this moment to fall upon the head of the unrepentant—the reader of these lines, should he be one of them. The entire history of human nature—of man, of the world—has been wound up and closed forever. The cross of Christ has made perfectly manifest the guilt and ruin of the human race. It has put an end to man's probationary season; and from that solemn hour until now the true position of the world as a whole, and of each individual sinner—man, woman, and child—has been that of a culprit tried, found guilty, and condemned, but the sentence not executed. This is the present awful position of the unconverted, unbelieving reader.

Dear friend, wilt thou not think of this? Fellow immortal soul, wilt thou not, even this very moment, bend the undivided attention of thy soul to this eternal question? We must speak plainly and pointedly. We feel in some small degree the awfulness of the sinner's state and prospect, in view of these weighty words, "ready to judge." We are convinced that the present is a moment which calls for serious and faithful dealing with the souls of our readers. We do not, as God is our witness, want to write essays or sermons; we want to reach souls. We want the reader to be assured of this; that he is not now reading an article on a religious subject prepared for some literary purpose, but a solemn appeal made to his heart and conscience in the immediate presence of "Him who is ready to judge the quick and the dead."

3. But this leads us to the third passage of holy Scripture in which our weighty motto occurs. The reader will find it in Luke xii. 40: "Be ye therefore ready also; for the Son of man cometh at an hour when ye think not."