I. Let us, in the first place, consider the chief circumstances which will precede our standing before the judgment seat of Christ.
And 1st, God will shew signs in the earth beneath:[29] particularly he will arise to shake terribly the earth. The earth shall reel to and fro like a drunkard, and shall be removed like a cottage.There shall be earthquakes[30] κατὰ τόπους not in divers only, but in all places: not in one only, or a few, but in every part of the habitable world: even such as were not, since men were upon the earth, so mighty earthquakes and so great.In one of these every island shall flee away, and the mountains will not be found.[31] Meantime all the waters of the terraqueous globe will feel the violence of those concussions:the sea and waves roaring,[32] with such an agitation as had never been known before, since the hour that the fountains of the great deep were broken up, to destroy the earth which then stood out of the water and in the water.The air will be all storm and tempest, full of dark vapours and pillars of smoak;[33] resounding with thunder from pole to pole, and torn with ten thousand lightnings. But the commotion will not stop in the region of the air: thepowers of heaven also shall be shaken.[34] There shall be signs in the sun and in the moon and in the stars; those fixt, as well as those that move round them.The sun shall be turned into darkness and the moon into blood, before the great and the terrible day of the Lord come.[35]The stars shall withdraw their shining,[36] yea and fall from heaven, being thrown out of their orbits.And then shall be heard the universal shout[37] from all the companies of heaven, followed by the voice of the arch-angel, proclaiming the approach of the Son of God and man, and the trumpet of God, sounding an alarm to all that sleep in the dust of the earth. In consequence of this all the graves shall open, and the bodies of men arise.The sea also shall give up the dead which are therein,[38] and every one shall rise with his own body: his own in substance, although so changed in its properties, as we cannot now conceive.For this corruptible will then put on incorruption, and this mortal put on immortality.[39] Yea, death and hades, the invisible world shall deliver up the dead that are in them. So that all who ever lived and died since God created man, shall be raised incorruptible and immortal.
2. At the same time the Son of man shall send forth his angels over all the earth,and they shall gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.[40] And the Lord himselfshall come with clouds, in his own glory, and the glory of his Father, with ten thousand of his saints, even myriads of angels,and shall sit upon the throne of his glory. And before him shall be gathered all nations, and he shall separate them one from another, and shall set the sheep, the good, on his right hand, and the goats, the wicked, upon the left.[41] Concerning this general assembly it is, that the beloved disciple speaks thus:I saw the dead, all that had been dead, small and great, stand before God. And the books were opened (a figurative expression, plainly referring to the manner of proceeding among men) and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books according to their works.[42]
II. These are the chief circumstances which are recorded in the oracles of God, as preceding the general judgment. We are secondly, to consider the judgment itself, so far as it hath pleased God to reveal it.
1. The person by whom God will judge the world is his only begotten Son whose goings forth are from everlasting, who is God over all, blessed for ever.Unto him, being the out-beaming of his Father’s glory, the express image of his person,[43] the Fatherhath committed all judgment, because he is the Son of man:[44] because tho’ he wasin the form of God, and thought it not robbery to be equal with God, yet he emptied himself, taking upon himthe form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men.[45] Yea, because being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself yet farther, becoming obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Wherefore God hath highly exalted him, even in his human nature, and ordained him as man to try the children of men, to be the judge both of the quick and dead; both of those who shall be found alive at his coming, and of those who were before gathered to their fathers.
2. The time, termed by the prophet, the great and the terrible day, is usually in scripture stiled the day of the Lord. The space from the creation of man upon the earth to the end of all things, is the day of the sons of men: the time that is now passing over us, is properly our day. When this is ended, the day of the Lord will begin. But who can say, how long it will continue?With the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.[46] And from this very expression some of the ancient fathers drew that inference, that, what is commonly called, the day of judgment, would be indeed a thousand years. And it seems they did not go beyond the truth: nay, probably they did not come up to it. For if we consider the number of persons who are to be judged, and of actions which are to be enquired into, it does not appear, that a thousand years will suffice for the transactions of that day. So that it may notimprobably comprise several thousand years. But God shall reveal this also in its season.
3. With regard to the place where mankind will be judged, we have no explicit account in scripture. An eminent writer (but not he alone; many have been of the same opinion) supposes it will be on earth, where the works were done, according to which they shall be judged, and that God will in order thereto employ the angels of his strength,
“To smooth and lengthen out the boundless space,
And spread an area for all human race.”
But perhaps it is more agreeable to our Lord’s own account, of his coming in the clouds, to suppose it will be above the earth, if not “twice a planetary height.” And this supposition is not a little favoured, by what St. Paul writes to the Thessalonians.The dead in Christ shall rise first. Then we who remain alive, shall be caught up together with them, in the clouds,[47] to meet the Lord in the air. So that it seems most probable, the great white throne, will be high exalted above the earth.