xxxiii. 22. The Lord is our Judge.
An immense step has been taken in the moral development of any one who has been led to say this with the understanding, with a vivid perception of the truth of this declaration.
I. It is a fact that God is our Judge. The Bible teaches us—1. That God is continually present with us, intimately acquainted with our real characters, the witness of all our actions, words, and thoughts (Prov. v. 21, xv. 3; Job xxxi. 4; Ps. xi. 4, cxxi. 1–7). Thus He is qualified for being in an eminent sense our judge. 2. That the God who is perfectly acquainted with all our dispositions and actions cannot behold any one of them with indifference. He observes them on purpose to estimate their real nature; He necessarily approves or disapproves of them. It is this that renders His knowledge of them important. He not only is pure from all moral evil, but He holds it in abomination; He not only is perfect in all moral goodness, but He loves goodness (Hab. i. 12, 13; Jer. ix. 24; Ps. v. 4–6, xi. 7, xxxvii. 23). 3. That this omniscient and holy God is our proper and righteous Governor. This brings His approbation and disapprobation home to us; it implies that they will be attended with the weightiest consequences. All that men can do often is merely to esteem or to blame us. If they have authority over us, or are able to promote or obstruct our interest, their opinion of our character assumes a new importance (Prov. xix. 12). Honour or dishonour in the eye of the All-perfect Being is for its own sake deeply affecting to every ingenuous mind; but to the soul of every man not dead to thought it must, on account of its inevitable and infinite consequence, appear of infinite importance. God is the Sovereign and the moral Governor of mankind, and His approbation will be followed by a great reward, His disapprobation by a dreadful punishment (Ps. xlvii. 2, 8; Jer. xvii. 10; Eccl. iii. 17, xii. 14). Our conscience testifies that this should be the case. And our redemption by Jesus Christ, which displays the marvellous grace and compassion of God, displays at the same time, in the most striking manner, the inevitable sanctity of His government of mankind. While it provides for the pardon of sin, the blood of Christ, shed for the expiation of sin, testifies how odious, how deserving of punishment it is in the sight of God. While it secures mercy to the penitent, it seals the condemnation and the misery of every sinner.
II. A recognition of the fact that God is our Judge will necessarily exert a controlling influence upon us. We are greatly influenced by the judgment passed upon our character and conduct by our fellow-men, especially if they are discerning and virtuous, and still more if their good or bad opinion is likely to be of advantage or disadvantage to us. What, then, must be the effect upon any man who really wakes up to the fact that we are under the scrutiny of One who alone can justly estimate our character, and whose estimation of it is of infinite importance to us! To be approved and beloved, or to be disapproved and hated by the Ruler of the universe! It is in one of these conditions that each of us stands to-day. Disapprobation from God is the extremity of disgrace and misery; approbation of Him is the summit of honour and happiness: the former is the natural object of fear, sorrow, and shame, exciting to circumspect avoidance of it; the latter of ardent desire, elevating hope, and rapturous joy, conspiring to animate us in eager pursuit of it.
1. The unpardoned man cannot remember that “the Lord is our Judge” without fear. Thoughts of His nearness, His omniscience, His omnipotence, and His hatred of all sin fill him with alarm. Along with this fear there springs up within him sorrow. The sinner who has become conscious of the discriminating eye of perfect sanctity marking all his paths, mourns for his sins and is troubled. His spirit is broken, his heart is contrite. He sorrows to repentance (2 Cor. vii. 9). To the sorrow is added shame. Whatever brings a stain upon our character in the estimation of our fellow-men naturally produces shame and humiliation. To be detected in what is base confounds most men, even though no further inconvenience is apprehended. To be lost to shame is the last sign of degeneracy; but to deserve blame from God is the deepest ignominy; it must cover with confusion every man who has any sense of God (Dan. ix. 8; Luke xviii. 13).
2. The fear, sorrow, and humiliation which arise in sinful men immediately they remember the holy government which God exercises over them continually, influence those also who are conscious that for Christ’s sake He has forgiven them. They cause them to proceed through life with unremitted caution; to exercise steady care in avoiding every transgression and every omission displeasing to God. They constrain them to walk humbly with Him, and produce in them that modesty, diffidence, lowliness, and sober-mindedness which adorn their character. But these are not the only results of their constant remembrance that “the Lord is our Judge.” (1.) Recognising that His approbation is the sublimest honour, they are inspired with an ardent desire to secure it. That desire gives a direction to their whole conduct (Ps. iv. 6; Col. i. 10; 2 Cor. v. 9). (2.) Conscious that, through Christ, they are the happy objects of God’s favour, the hope of its continuance throughout eternity produces within them a triumphant joy (Rom. viii. 16, 17; Prov. x. 28). The all-penetrating eye of God, so terrible to the sinner, is become to the man who feels himself approved in His sight the encouraging, the exhilarating eye of his Father and Friend. This renders duty delightful, comforts in sorrow, takes away all fear in death.
Concluding Observations.—1. A remembrance that “the Lord is our Judge” will deliver us from bondage to the opinions of our fellow-men. While naturally desirous of their approval, every corrupt fashion presuming to authorise what God disapproves or to explode what He approves will be counted but the silly caprice of fools. If every sensible man prefers the esteem of a few able judges to the applauses of an ignorant multitude, he must be as destitute of good sense as of religion who can hesitate in preferring honour from God to the good opinion of the whole universe. 2. All the present pleasures and advantages which sin can offer will be unable to seduce the man who preserves a lively sense of the Heavenly Judge, for they bear no proportion either to the happiness which accompanies His approbation, or to the misery which arises from His wrath (Matt. xvi. 26, 27). All the losses, troubles, and perils to which virtue can expose him will not have power to terrify him from the love and practice of it (Rom. viii. 18). Conscious that he is observed by God, animated by the sense of his acting his part before so august a Presence, he will exert all the powers of his soul to act it well. In the exertion he will feel a noble expansion of heart, and triumph in the hope of being approved and rewarded, and his hope shall not be disappointed, for its largest promises shall be surpassed by the greatness of his reward.—Alexander Gerard, D.D.: Sermons, vol. ii. pp. 239–274.
The Atonement; or, Salvation Consistent with the Regal and Judicial Character of God.[1]
xxxiii. 22. For the Lord is our Judge; the Lord is our Lawgiver, &c.
There are here two propositions, the one affirming that Jehovah sustains a certain relationship to us, the other declaring that in that relationship, and therefore in a manner perfectly consistent with it, He will save us. The same thing substantially is repeatedly asserted in the Scriptures. The very prophet in whose writings these words occur elsewhere speaks thus in God’s name: “There is no God else beside me, a just God and a Saviour; there is none beside” (xlv. 21); “I bring near my righteousness, my salvation shall not tarry” (xlvi. 13); “My righteousness is near, my salvation is gone forth” (li. 5). All this has been translated into New Testament language in that remarkable utterance of Paul’s, “Christ Jesus, whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in His blood, to declare His righteousness, that He might be just, and the justifier of him who believeth in Jesus” (Rom. iii. 25, 26).