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!