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."