Guilt, Grace and Gratitude

George Bethune

LECTURE XXIII.

JUDGMENT BY CHRIST.

He hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness, by that man whom he hath ordained.—Acts xvii. 31

THE works of nature demonstrate the truth of the revelation, that "God created the heavens and the earth." No power less than infinite, no skill less than all-wise, could produce from nothing, or maintain in its order, so vast, so varied, so harmonious a system. But when we search in the events of human life for evidences of God's moral government, the discovery is partial and even doubtful. Virtue is praised. There are systems and teachers of ethics. Religion is a sacred name. There is no land without temples, no nation without worshippers. Yet there are few who are notable for virtue, none who are perfect. Religion fails to preserve the sanctity of truth, purity, and love. We cannot mistake the fact that men are governed by men more than by God. Their supposed interests, or at the best their natural affections, ramifying self, through family, friends, and humanity, decide for the most part the right and the wrong of every action. What confusion is the result? The rich trample on the poor. The poor conspire against the rich. The just man is persecuted because he is just. The vile, when successful, are flattered in their success. The calumniator stands erect upon the ashes of his victim. The tyrant grasps at other sceptres, and the blood-drenched earth quakes beneath artillery more destructive than heaven's thunders. Vice does often prove its own punishment! There are physical reasons why incautious excess should produce wretchedness, disease, and death. But does virtue escape? It may be imperfect virtue, but has it immunity so far as it is virtue? Is vice punished so far as it is vice? Are rewards and punishments so equally distributed as to show beyond a question that there is a power over all exact in justice? We must go beyond this life and. this world for the satisfaction of our anxious reason, and faith must be our guide. God alone can vindicate his ways to man. He has done so. The ages of heathen ignorance and dim Judaism have for us passed away. The voice of God calls aloud to our souls by the revelation of his son. "Repent, ye children of men. No longer dream of security in your sins, nor think because no fire at once descends to consume the wicked, that sin shall go unpunished. Though men may boast themselves without the fear of God, because one day is like another, and all things continue as they were; though the hearts of the children of men are more fully set to do evil, because of long impunity, know this, that I, the Lord your God, your Creator and your Governor, am your Judge. I have appointed a day in the which to judge the world in righteousness by that man whom I have ordained."

My friends, careless and full of life and worldly hopes as we may be, every one of us must stand before the judgment-seat of God. We do not believe this. It cannot be that we realize it. If we did, this great thought would control our hearts, and press upon our minds, and rule our lives. But we forget it. The tremendous future is shut out from our view by the temptations of the present. O that God would by our holy text this day compel us to believe and tremble, that so we may come to believe and hope!

He will judge. Judgment signifies investigation of the conduct of a moral being, and the passing sentence upon him of reward or punishment, according to his merit or demerit.

God alone is judge. He only has authority. None can judge him, for he is supreme, and his will is the law, and all other beings are his creatures, and therefore his subjects. He does sometimes delegate his authority, as to parents or magistrates, but the judgment in his sight is void if it be not according to his law. He, therefore, is really the judge. It is, then, a most blasphemous thing to quarrel with God's doings, or to doubt the justice of his most holy law and righteous sentences. It is a most presumptuous thing to sit in harsh judgment upon our fellow-men, our fellow-subjects and sinners; for God has said, "Vengeance is mine, I will repay."

God only is able to judge. None but he can discern the inner motives of the moral creature, and know his true character. None but he can discern the consequences of any moral act, or estimate its true goodness or evil. None but he can bestow reward, or execute wrath, after the decision is made. It is, then, a most silly and rebellious thing in us to try ourselves otherwise than by the divine will, or to form our conduct otherwise than by the divine rule. Rather let us ask him to search us and try us, and see if there be any evil way in us, and lead us in the way everlasting.

Judgment is an attribute of sovereignty. There would' be no divine government, and the divine laws would be inoperative and void, if God were not to reward his obedient, and punish his disobedient subjects. The Epicureans were justly considered no better than atheists for teaching that the divinity had no regard to the conduct of men; and those in our time are as bad who strive to think that they may sin without God's taking note or vengeance. It is essential to his justice. For, as he is the Creator, so he is the teacher and pattern for all his intelligent creatures, whose only excellence is in being like him. But, if he never visits iniquity with wrath, or righteousness with favor, if the inequalities of this life are never to be compensated in another, his creatures cannot know from him which is the right or which the wrong. They can have no motive to do well, no determent from doing ill. Nay, his very nature is such that he is a consuming fire to all that is evil, and the light of joy and peace to all that is good. So that they who deny a judgment, destroy all morals, and would abandon the world to a fearful and most destructive confusion of chance.

God will judge the world. By "the world," we must understand men, as the only moral agents' in it. Each man has a particular judgment when he passes into the eternal world by death. For then the spirit returns unto God who gave it, and cannot fail to meet his favor or condemnation. Thus, in the parable, we see Lazarus enjoying his reward in Abraham's bosom, but the rich man lifting up his eyes, being in torments. The penitent thief was promised immediate admission into Paradise. Paul desired to depart and to be with Christ. And Peter tells us that the spirits of the old world who despised the long-suffering of God in the days of Noah, are in prison. This should make us very solemn and pious in our preparation for death, for at any moment death may come and usher us before God, after which no repentance can avail for our deliverance from the wrath of God, which burns unto the lowest hell.

But this judgment is not the great judgment of which the apostle speaks. Nor will all the penalties of sin, nor all the rewards of righteousness, be dispensed until both soul and body shall receive them after the resurrection. Nor will the justice of God be manifested unto all men, except all men be present as witnesses of the judgment of all men. He will judge the world.

The whole world shall be judged. Not one shall escape. Before him shall be gathered all nations. "Every one of us must appear before the judgmentseat of Christ." The rich and the poor, the bond and the free, the learned and the unlearned, the pious and the unbelieving. God will send forth his holy angels to compel every soul before him. His piercing eye shall detect every hiding fugitive. His flames shall burn the terror-stricken, wretched souls that would cover themselves under rocks and mountains.

Yet the individuality of each sinner will not be lost in the vast multitude. Each will be as distinct, and know himself to be as distinct in the eye of the Judge, as though he stood alone and there were no sinner but he. The inquiry will be into all the actions of each, his thoughts, his words, his deeds. For every evil thought and every idle word (Oh what a scrutiny!) will he bring each of us into judgment. Each man shall receive the reward of his own works, whether they be good or whether they be evil. As we have been instrumental in leading others to sin or to righteousness, we shall share in their punishment or reward. But otherwise, no one will suffer for his neighbor, or can thrust his neighbor into his room. Our sins are our own acts; we must bear them ourselves, unless by faith we have covered ourselves with the righteousness of Christ.

In the sight of the whole world we shall be judged. God will bring every man's work into judgment. The evil thoughts of lust, dishonest longings, or envious meanness, which we had hidden in our hearts from our closest friends, will then be apparent. Our secret sins, at the detection of which we would now burn with shame, before the eyes of the good, the eyes of our evil companions, all will appear without cunning, palliation, or excuse. Each one's conscience will then be fearfully awake. We shall feel intensely our own shame. We shall see each one the shame of the rest. The sinner will condemn himself. All sinners will condemn him. There will be no more a false public opinion; no more conspiracies of hand joining in hand to make the wrong appear the right; no more standing by friends to cover up iniquities. The whole world, condemned themselves, will condemn each sinner of the whole world. Oh what infamy for the sinner! oh what illustrious fame for the good.

In righteousness. Not in arbitrary severity. God will be angry with the wicked in that day. But the anger of God is not like the wrath of man, unjust and cruel. The wicked are his enemies, but he will, even in judging his enemies, lay "judgment to the line, and righteousness to the plummet." He will try them fairly, and only by the law he has given them, and the eternal principles of right from which that law proceeded. Their own conscience, the conscience of all moral beings, shall confess him to be just.

Nor will he judge partially or leniently. He has declared that he will by no means clear the guilty; that every man shall receive the reward of his deeds; that the wages of sin is death; and that the wicked shall go away into everlasting punishment. That there will be degrees of wickedness in the persons judged, one cannot question; and, consequently, there will be degrees of punishment; but the judgment will be rigid, no weak sympathy for the criminal will melt the judge to pardon or reduce the penalty. Stern, unbending, perfect righteousness will determine all.

But will there be no mercy? Yes; but mercy through righteousness. God will be as faithful to his promises as to his law. He has promised pardon to Christ for all his people, because Christ for them hath fulfilled the law and made it honorable; carried their sorrows, and borne their sins upon the tree. There was mercy in the provision of the atoning righteousness of the Son of God. There will be justice in acquitting for the sake of that righteousness all who, according to the promise, have trusted in Christ as their surety, their advocate, and redeemer. Thus, even while the sinner saved through Christ enters into eternal life, the justice of God will burn the more brightly, because he pardoned not without a ransom. Vain, therefore, are all the sinner's hopes of escape from the mere goodness or the mere justice of God. Goodness cannot save him. Justice will not let him escape. There is no safety from the righteousness of God, but under the covering wings of a Saviour's righteousness.

This we know from other scriptures is Jesus Christ our Lord. He is the man ordained mediator in all God's dealings with fallen man; ordained as the Saviour; ordained as the advocate; ordained as the king; ordained as the judge.

He is called that man, not because he is merely man, for he is also God, equal with God. For, indeed, who that is not God could bear the tremendous majesty that shall cover the judgment-throne? Who that is not God can exert the omniscient scrutiny essential to that judgment of righteousness? Who that is not God (for if not God, he must be a creature and a servant) can judge the servants of the Most High? But he is called "that man," because, for reasons we shall soon discover, it is Christ, God incarnate as the mediator, who shall execute the judgment of that great day.

Christ is the eternal Word; the Word that was God, and that was made flesh and dwelt among us, his glory being that of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. It is the office of the eternal Word to manifest the godhead. By him the worlds were made. By him all providence is administered, and by him the world will be judged. But it is the Word incarnate by whom God will judge the world. This is because Christ undertook in the covenant of redemption the full vindication of the law. Because of the intercession of Christ the judgment has been suspended. It is, therefore, due to eternal justice, and to the honor of the law, that Christ should adjudge the full penalty of that law upon all who, notwithstanding his atonement, have refused to repent and believe, that they might be saved through the righteousness of God in Christ. It is meet that the world should see that Christ is not the minister of sin, but that even he who opened the way of righteous mercy should execute a righteous vengeance on the impenitent. Nay, his own honor, as the well-beloved of God, demands that he should be uplifted in glory and power, over all those who insulted and reviled and persecuted himself and his people.

Christ, also, has redeemed his people. God has accepted the ransom price. He has, therefore, given him his people, even all who believed upon his name. Therefore, to make his glory as a Saviour most fully manifest, the Father appoints him judge; that with his own lips, those out of which went forth his atoning life, those from which have proceeded so many intercessory prayers, he might pronounce the acquittal of his people; and, with his own hands, that were nailed upon the cross, and so long stretched forth in petition, he might put upon their heads the crown of life.

Thus the apostle declares that God has given assurance of Christ being the judge of the world, by raising him up from the dead, because in raising him from the dead, God the Father by the Eternal Spirit declared Christ's merit in the covenant complete, and his atonement finished.

Here is great comfort for the believer. Sinner though he has been, and is, he shall meet no angry judge. The judge is he who once was his advocate, his elder brother, his sympathizing friend, his everlasting righteousness. Jesus sits upon the throne,—Jesus, who saves his people from their sins.

But it is a huge aggravation of terror to the impenitent, that they shall see in their judge the Saviour they rejected and scorned. All hope will be at an end when the Saviour condemns. They then will be willing to give worlds, if they had them, for one of those gracious invitations, or of those hours of pleading mercy which they once scorned in such frequency. Then shall they be without excuse, for they would not believe and repent, until the very blood of the cross witnesses against them. Oh, how fierce the anger of love like Christ's turned into unpitying wrath

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