18 — As the Final Judge

Chapter 18 THE GLORY OF CHRIST AS THE FINAL JUDGE.

It is not so much the object of the present chapter, to delineate the scenes of the Last Judgment, as to speak of the glory of Christ as the Final Judge. The present world is not the theater of equitable rewards and punishments; nor can it be unless governed by a perpetual series of miracles. Either there is no administration of justice in the universe; or God is unjust; or there is a judgment to come. Law implies responsibility to the Lawgiver. It were more reasonable to deny moral government, than to deny that man is the creature of account. It was not necessary for the world to be furnished with a supernatural revelation for the purpose of revealing this truth; this truth itself is the ground-work of revelation. It is an ultimate fact. Men feel confident of it; the foundation of it is laid deep in the constitution of the human mind. They need a revelation from heaven not so much to assure them of their responsibility, as to define it; to inform them what is its standard; and when, and where, and how they will be called to account, and what will be the final results. For fall information concerning a future judgment, therefore, we must go to the Bible. Here the light is strong and refulgent. Here we learn, that " God hath appointed a day, in which he will judge the world in righteousness;" that "we all shall stand before the judgment-seat of Christ;" that " it is appointed unto men once to die, and after that the judgment;" and that "the small and great shall stand before God, and all be judged according to their works." It will be a day of deep interest to him who made and governs the world, as well as to its numbered inhabitants. The Scriptures speak of it as the " Great Day," and as the "Day of the revelation of the righteous judgment of God." It must be a great and glorious day. But why will it be a day of such importance to Jesus Christ and what is there in the divine arrangements concerning it which will then render Him so ineffably glorious? The following thoughts may deserve some consideration, as a partial answer to this inquiry. In the first place, the time when the final judgment will take place, is determined with a view to his work as the acknowledged Redeemer. In the days of the apostles, there were those who taught that the " resurrection is past already," and others who taught that it was nigh at hand. In subsequent ages, prediction upon prediction has foretold the period; and in our own day there have not been wanting those who have fixed the date of this appearing of the Son of Man, and who have driven thousands to the frantic apprehensions, or the disappointed expectations of his coming. Not a few who discountenance the idea of his premillennial reign, still believe that what they consider the day of judgment, is an event which may come in ten years, or in one, at any hour or at any moment. That such views are without any foundation, is sufficiently obvious from the present state of the world, and from so many unfulfilled predictions which must occupy a longer period in the fulfillment than such views contemplate. The Millennium itself will occupy at least a thousand years. There are affecting events also which the Scriptures inform us are to take place between the Millennium and the end of the world, which necessarily put the final judgment at a distance from the close of the Millennium. The time is fixed by God, and remains a profound secret to all the rest of the universe. How long after the Millennium it will arrive, we may not conjecture. All that is revealed to us is, that, at the close of the thousand years, Satan will be let loose from his chains for "a little season." From " the remnant" of wicked men who remain unsubdued by the gospel during that long-continued period of holiness, a generation will arise who will body forth afresh the spirit of the Beast and the False Prophet, and in whom there will be an inglorious resuscitation of anti-christian principles and influence, a fearful apostasy, an infatuated and presumptuous warfare against the saints of the Most High. " Satan shall be loosed out of his prison, and shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, to gather them together to battle; the number of whom is as the sand of the sea." As this will be the last, so it will probably be a most desperate conflict, and form a most interesting period in the history of time. Prostrate nations will contend against the church, besiege the beloved city, and become so merciless, that the only hope of the saints will be in that miracle of deliverance in which " fire comes down from God out of heaven and devours their enemies." This event will be the proximate precursor of the consummation of all things. It was immediately after this, that the prophet affirms, " And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God." The time had come for the Last Judgment; the time fixed in the purpose of God; the time to which all preceding ages had looked forward. It will not come when men are looking and preparing for it; it will take them by surprise, when they least expect it, and are least preparing for it. It will come suddenly, and as " a thief in the night." Kings will be in the pride of their thronely power; armies will be marshaled on the battle-field; senates will be in the midst of their deliberations, orators of their triumph, banqueting halls of their festivity, bridal circles of their hopes and joy, and the thief and the murderer in the hot career of crime. The frantic world will be shouting its triumphs over a down-trodden, despondent church; when suddenly, and at some unlooked-for signal all faces shall gather blackness at the sight of the " Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven.’’

Nothing shall hasten his coming before the appointed time. The living saints may be impatient for his appearing, but until then he shall not appear. The spirits of the martyrs may have been for ages uttering the cry, "How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth;" but bitter and affecting as the cry has been, he would still give the world every opportunity of repentance. Nor would draw the curtain upon its last hope, until the bright period of millennial glory is past, nor until the " remnant" have so unequivocally manifested their wickedness, that the safety of his cause, and his own glory demand that the end should come. Nothing in the universe can then induce him to any further delay. Many a time has the scoffing infidel given utterance to the blasphemous demand, " Where is the promise of his coming;" many a time has Greek and Jew derided the doctrine of the resurrection and the judgment; and with them, many a time have those who have had their dwelling in God’s sanctuaries turned a deaf ear to these solemn premonitions, and laughed at the thought of that everlasting retribution. Now men will no longer shut their eyes to the light; profligate infidelity will no longer question his coming; the day of scornful defiance will be at an end; and for the first time since the beginning of the world, ridicule, and reproach, and a lying tongue will honor the forbearance and the truth of the Son of God. The great purpose of his redemption, that purpose which lies near his heart, will then be consummated; and providence will seal up its great Statute Book, and this material creation will be arrested in its course. When his design is completed, theirs will be completed; when his work is done, theirs will be done. Events shall not crowd so fast, nor time fly so swiftly, as to prevent him from finishing his great work. If there is a remote tribe, or forgotten island of the sea to whom his gospel has not proclaimed its glad tidings; or if there is a benighted son or daughter of Adam whom he foresees will accept the salvation by putting off this final consummation; the day of reckoning shall not come until that forgotten tribe is thought of, and that wandering sheep gathered into his fold. The day would have been past and gone, and we all should long since have entered upon an unalterable and eternal destiny, had not his great work of redemption been still going on. If there were not hereafter to be another sinner brought to the saving knowledge of Christ; the mystery of God would now be finished, and ere yonder sun has time to cross his meridian, the voice of the archangel and the trump of God would sound. God has committed all things into the hands of Christ as the appointed Mediator. It is signal glory to him that he has preserved the seasons in their revolutions; has kept the lights of heaven in their orbits, the ocean in its bed, and held the elements in his fists; that men and nations have been under his control, and all overruled and governed not only with a view to the disclosures and decisions of this Last Day, but to the most fitting time when they shall be made. It will be known then why this world has stood so long, and why it shall stand no longer; why the Day of Judgment arrived no sooner, and why so soon. Nor amid these wondrous disclosures will anything be more wondrous than his character who is the great Mediator, his glory who is God over all, blessed forever.

We remark, in the next place, it will be an emphatic expression of the glory of Christ, that he himself will he the Judge. After he rose from the dead, he said to his disciples, " All power is given to me in heaven and on earth." God has given to him this authority; and the time is coming when it shall be acknowledged from one extremity of the earth to the other. His cross is the consecrated symbol of empire. By solemn charter, written with the finger of God, and sealed with the blood of the everlasting covenant, he is "head over all things to his church." Nor will he surrender this authority until the close of the Final Judgment. He will sit as King upon the throne at the Last Day; and the last regal act of the God-Man shall be the process and decisions of that day.

There is wisdom and equity in this arrangement. It is altogether fitting that Christ should be the Judge, because he is the Son of God. It is his prerogative whose is the kingdom, and who is exalted as Head above all, to give law to the universe and become its Judge. His real and essential Divinity qualifies him for this high office. He could not have arranged the government of the universe with a view to the judgment; nor could he conduct the process of the Day itself, unless he were truly and essentially God. He could not raise the dead; nor call angels and men before his bar; nor open the books of providence and search the heart; nor judge the world in righteousness; if he were not possessed of every divine perfection. The Scriptures instruct us also that there is a peculiar fitness in his being the Judge, because he is the Son of Man. "The Father judgeth no man, but has committed all judgment unto the Son." This is one of the features of the divine government. It is a beautiful arrangement, that the judge of men should sustain this intimate relation to the nature of those whom he calls before his bar. It is but carrying out the thought, that " as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also took part in the same!" They are the brethren of his own family, the descendants of the same primeval parent, whom he thus summons before him. As by one man came sin and death, so has redemption come; and so shall the final judgment come by One, Jesus Christ.

It is in his character, therefore, as God and man the great Mediator and Redeemer that he will judge the world. The work of redemption began in his incarnation; it was advanced by his life, his miracles, and his preaching; it was perfected by his death; and there is a strong propriety in his still unfolding it, and making its grandest developments, and bringing it to its final issues on the Great and Last Day. It was for this that he rose from the dead, thus incontestably establishing his claims to be the Judge of men at his " appearing and in his kingdom." When the Lord of all thus stooped to the form of a servant; when the eternal Lawgiver consented to become a subject; when he who was rich, and honored, and blessed for evermore, came to a world in which he had not where to lay his head, and hid not his face from shame and spitting, and sunk on the malefactor’s cross; it was in view of this exaltation as the recognized and adored Judge of angels and men. " That at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father." He is the last being in the universe who will allow any injustice to be done to the Deity. Exhibiting as he does the transcendent glory of the Godhead, he will sit upon his throne as the selected and impartial vindicator of all its rights and claims, himself endorsing them all, and pledging his own rectitude not merely to save them harmless, but to crown them and their Author with glory and honor. He is also the last Being in the universe who will allow any injustice to be done to man. Identifying himself with humanity, and linking with it his own fortunes and honor, he occupies the throne as their Friend and Advocate; furnished with every plea on their behalf, and not less tender in his compassions, and not less touched with sympathy for them than when he wept over Jerusalem. From the commencement to the close of this judicial process, every kind sentiment of his bosom is enlisted on man’s behalf. The most depressed of all his followers, and those who, in the present world, have been so burdened and crushed by a sense of their wickedness, that many a time they have thought they should not dare go up to his throne; when they look upon his face so radiant with love and mercy, shall stand with confidence before him. And even the despairing sinner may have this consolation, that if there be one mitigating circumstance in his history, it will not be overlooked nor unappreciated. Guilty man could not have a more friendly Arbiter, nor God, and justice one more safe and true.

Neither the Father, nor the Spirit could so fitly occupy the judicial throne, nor throw around it such brightness; nor could its decisions and sentence come from any lips with so much emphasis as from his. Every virtuous mind in the universe will rejoice when they behold the Mediator in the Person of the descending Judge, and see the Sufferer of Calvary on the throne. It is a delicate, as well as most responsible office which the Son of Man then executes. If it is the glory of an earthly judge to be so well qualified for his office, and so faithfully to have discharged its duties amid scenes of popular tumult and furious revolution, as to secure the approbation both of the government and the people; what glory will rest upon the Person, and encircle the Judgment Seat of the great Mediatorial judiciary, when God, angels, and men thus support his throne!

These thoughts will receive additional importance from a third general remark, which respects the manner in which He will come to judgment. The earth we inhabit will exhibit an unwonted appearance toward the close of that period of time which immediately precedes the General Judgment. If we now look up to these material heavens, or abroad upon the terraqueous globe, we do not perceive that as yet they indicate any mark of decay. The sun does not stagger in his place, nor throw out his beams less brilliantly; nor does the moon walk less majestically her nightly pilgrimage; nor do the planetary bodies move with less energy in their orbits, or exhibit a less sublime and attractive scenery, than they exhibited six thousand years ago. Nor does this earth on which we tread, with its oceans and continents, its lakes and rivers, its cities and villages, its cultivated soil and its uncultivated wastes, its mountains and its plains, and its ten thousand landscapes of inimitable beauty, show any signs of infirmity, or any reluctance or, incapacity to sustain the myriads of animated beings which inhabit it. But the time is coming when they will all become white and withered with age. The Scriptures teach us that " the heavens shall wax old as doth a garment."

These brilliant lights shall be obscured, and gradually become dim. And this earth, so long scourged by the wickedness of man, but subjected to greater bondage when the age of millennial glory shall have passed away, shall give increasing proofs that it feels the burden, and " shall groan and travail in pain together" to the last. Its restless disquietude shall break out in terrible convulsions; in the ravages of burning volcanoes, destructive earthquakes, gloomy and terrific tempests; till worn out with the struggle, the earth itself also shall wax old, and become changed. And although, from the operation of those natural causes super induced by the wickedness of these last days, the number of its inhabitants will not probably be so great as during the Millennium, yet will it be occupied with a full and crowded population. The men of God, in that apostate age, will be few, but many, very many, and like the sands on the shore, will be the men of wickedness. Led on by the Prince of darkness, now for a short season loosed from his prison, they shall go up upon the length and breadth of the earth, infuriate with rage against the diminished church of God, " scoffers walking after their own lusts," buried in the guilty security of sin, and little dreaming that the sun of time is making his last circuit in the heavens.

It is then that that immortal morning will dawn when the Son of Man will come to judge the world in righteousness. We are told that " he shall come in his own glory." That personal glory which was beheld by Saul of Tarsus, and was seen by the disciples on the Holy Mount, where " his face did shine as the sun, and his raiment was white as the light;" that glory which belongs to him as the God Incarnate, and which, unveiled, no human eye ever saw; shall be the robe in which he enwraps himself as he comes in the clouds of heaven. It is not as the babe of Bethlehem that he comes; nor to travel through those scenes of deep humiliation where Jew reproached him, and Roman blasphemed, and slaves smote, and the rabble spit upon him, and soldiers gorgeously and fantastically decked him for the altar; nor is his visage now marred more than any man’s, nor his form more than the sons of men. He shall come, not only " in his own glory," but " in the glory of his Father. His Father’s glory shall rest upon him in all its brightness; he shall be the great and only representative of the Deity in that day, and all divine glories shall be concentrated in his Person, And whatever there is of created glory in heaven shall also then encircle him. Angelic spirits that wait to do his pleasure, and whose bright appearance has, from time to time, in different periods of this world’s history, flashed upon the eyes of men like lightning from heaven, shall appear with him, adding to the splendor of his advent. He shall be " revealed from heaven with his mighty angels;" he shall come " with power and great glory:" it will be " the glorious appearing" of the Great God, our Saviour.

Once he trod this earth in retirement. It was an unnoticed village where he was born, and rendered memorable only by his birth. It was an obscure and even ignominious hamlet where he was brought up. Many were the solitary places where he wept and prayed, unseen but by the Great Invisible, and those heavenly "Watchers" that hovered about his unknown and sequestered paths. Now he comes " in the clouds of heaven." And although he comes suddenly, and as "the lightning, when it shineth from the East into the West," the thoughtless world will have notice of his approach in the heralding trumpets of his glorious attendants. " The Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and the trump of God." Some unearthly blast, and some brilliant object, just perceptible in the far distant heavens but drawing nearer and more near, shall first tell of his approach. No eye can be turned from the affecting sight even to look upon the obscured sun as it retires from its Maker’s presence. The descending Judge fills every eye and every thought. Him, this astonished world is now gazing at with startled apprehension. "They shall see the Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven." " Behold! he cometh with clouds, and every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him, and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him." The one single object in the universe to which all eyes will be then directed, whether it be from heaven, earth, or hell, will be his great glory. Those who have thought and said that his Advent is far away; the millions who have taken refuge in their abjectness, as well as those who have gloried in their wealth and power; the " kings of ’the earth, and the great men, and the chief captains and mighty men," shall see him, and exclaim, " Who can abide the day of his coming?"

We remark again; his glory will be still more enhanced by the process and decisions of the judgment itself. His glorious appearing is no pageant. It is not designed for show, or entertainment, nor as a pompous triumph, in which the badges of his own regal and judicial authority are displayed for the purpose of dazzling the eyes of the beholders. The events and circumstances we have been contemplating are but preliminary to affairs of more serious moment, and to the great business in which every intelligent creature in the universe has a stake deep as eternity. When the voice of the archangel and the trump of God shall sound the summons, both the living and the dead shall come to judgment. That vast living population, scattered far and wide over the earth, from north to south, and from the rising to the setting sun; young and old, king and slave, rich and poor, righteous and wicked, shall come before his throne. And those mighty and forgotten regions of the dead, wherever their bodies were deposited, whether buried in the earth, or floating in the deep sea; whether consumed by the flames, or enriching the battle-field, or evaporate in the atmosphere; all " from Adam to the latest born," shall wend their way to the great arena of the judgment. Not one shall be overlooked, or forgotten; every limb, every perished bone, every floating and secret particle of dust shall obey the summons and come forth. The grave shall be spoiled of its proudest and its meanest triumphs: and now, if one could look upon the earth, he would see not only its empty graveyards, and vacant cemeteries, but the whole earth itself, and its caverned oceans, one mighty excavated globe, and wonder how these countless generations could have found a dwelling beneath its surface. For the first time and the last, the entire race of Adam, of every age, and kindred, and tongue, will be assembled in one congregation before the Son of Man. It is a sublime and graphic description of this assemblage given by the writer of the Apocalypse, in which he says, " And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away, and there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead small and great stand before God; and the sea gave up the dead which were in it, and death and hell gave up the dead which were in them." And to these shall be added every intelligent creature, from every world; not one shall be wanting of the entire moral creation. Holy angels will be there as the favored attendants of their divine Judge. And the unholy too, Satan with all his legions, those seducers of man, those corrupter’s and destroyers of his race, those vaunting enemies of God and his Son, whom he has ’’ reserved in everlasting chains, under darkness, unto the judgment of the Great Day," shall be summoned from their dark abodes.

There will be a marked distinction then between the resurrection of the righteous and the wicked. Those there will be who will " awake to everlasting life;" and those there will be who " shall awake to shame and everlasting contempt." The ungodly and the sinner shall awake, from Cain down to the last reprobate of the human family. They may have glittered in the circles of fashion and beauty on the earth; they may have lived in honor and the adulations of their fellow-men may have followed them to the grave; but they are now stripped of their disguise, loaded with infamy, and held in detestation by every being in the universe. Their bodies will be a fit dwelling for their vile minds. With all those fearful and horrid expressions which every base and malignant passion wakes up in the human countenance, stamped upon it for eternity, and burnt in by the flaming fury of their own terrific wickedness, they will be condemned to look upon their own deformity, and to feel that they are fitted for the doom of outcasts. The bodies of the righteous will have no such loathsome attendants. " Sown in corruption, they will be raised in incorruption; sown in dishonor, they will be raised in glory; sown in weakness, they will be raised in power; sown a natural body, they will be raised a spiritual body." When the souls of the righteous, who have slept in their graves until the resurrection, shall be reunited to bodies thus incorruptible, glorious, vigorous, spiritual, and immortal, the union will be a most welcome and delightful union. They will have left all that was defiled by sin in the grave. There sleep the ashes of every vile appetite and passion. Sin perished within them when these bodies were committed to the dust; and God provided it a fitting burial. It sank in the silent depths of oblivion, buried so deep that the archangel’s trump shall not waken it. No scar, no stain of infirmity shall remain upon their persons; they will be in delightful correspondence with their character, radiant with the beauties of holiness, lighted up with everlasting smiles, resplendent as the reflected glory of their risen Lord, and " like him, for they shall see him as he is." The glorious transformation is perfected of which all were the expectants, who " looked for the Lord Jesus, who shall change his vile body that it may be fashioned like unto their own glorious body." Of the comparatively few holy persons who are found alive on the earth, at this universal resurrection, we have a short, but satisfactory account. After the dead in Christ shall first have risen these living saints shall experience a transformation which is equivalent to the resurrection of those who slept in Jesus. Their bodies " shall be changed in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump; for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised, and we shall be changed. The living righteous shall not anticipate or take the precedence of the sleeping dead. " We which are alive," says the apostle, " and remain unto the coming of the Lord, shall not prevent them which are asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and the trump of God; and the dead in Christ shall first rise; then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air." The assembled universe will now stand at Christ’s Judgment-seat. " Before him shall be gathered all nations. The dead, small and great, shall stand before God. And the books shall be opened; and another book, which is the book of life; and the dead shall be judged out of those things which are written in the books, according to their works." There has been a minute inspection of the character of men in all the progressive ages of time, and an impartial and true record of what they have done, and what they have left undone. The eyes of Him who is seated on the throne have, from the beginning, been running to and fro throughout the earth, with a special view to the investigations, disclosures, and decisions of the Great Day. There has been no escape from his inspection, and there will be no escape from this judicial inquiry. Every son and daughter of Adam will then be found sustaining the same character, and in the same state in which they lived and died. There will be no deception on their part; and there will be no collusion on the part of the Judge. The great inquiry will be, Who are the righteous, and who are the wicked; who are the friends of God, and who are his enemies? The decisions of the Judge will be made dependent upon the character. Men are to be "judged according to their works," because their works are indices of their character. " Every one will receive in his body according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad," because these things show his character, and make it appear whether he is a good or a bad man. When the books shall be opened, there will be a full and convincing demonstration of the true character of all intelligent beings. The book of nature will then be opened; and since the want of knowledge diminishes both the turpitude of sin and its punishment, " as many as have sinned without the law, shall perish without law." The book of providence will then be opened; and the character of men will be tried by all the means and influences which have contributed to render it what it shall then be found. The book of grace will then be opened; and it shall be seen what character this countless multitude have formed under the power of gospel-truth, and what influence this method of redemption for the fallen and guilty has exerted upon them, and to whom it has proved a savor of life unto life, and to whom a savor of death unto death. Then too the book of conscience will be opened; and every one will intuitively and irresistibly perceive his own character, form his Own judgment, and pass his own sentence. And the Lamb’s book of Life too will be opened, containing the record of their names, whose repentance, and faith, and love, and corresponding conduct evince that they are the friends of Christ, have taken refuge in the gospel of his grace, and have lived not unto themselves, but to him who died for them. As the Judge is just, these discriminations will be impartially made and universally recognized. This solemn investigation completed, that mighty host of beings shall then take their places, the righteous on the right hand, and the wicked on the left of the Judge. The separation will begin which will continue forever. Never till then will the full import of those words be understood, " Let both grow together till the harvest." The hour has come when " the angels shall come forth, and sever the wicked from among the just." They may have dwelt together in this world, and have been partakers of the same sorrows and joys, worshiped in the same sanctuary, and eaten at the same table, and slept in the same grave. But these associations and sympathies are over; the line of separation is drawn between the friends of God and his enemies, however intimate their former associations. The strongest tie that here bound men together is not too strong to be severed by those ministering spirits sent forth to "sever the wicked from among the just." These bonds can hold together no longer; and these once indissoluble attachments shall be dissolved by their own uncongenial elements.

It is a heart-affecting view even to anticipate that solemn scene. There on the right hand are the followers of the Lamb of every age, and clime, and name. Princes are there who offered him their gifts, and kings who fell down before him; and there are peasants who feared God and loved his Son. The missionary of the cross is there, whose love to Christ led him to make his grave in foreign lands; and the humble islander is there, who only learned in ruder accents to speak his Redeemer’s praise. The faithful minister is there, who lived and toiled not for the praise or the gold of men, but for his Master’s honor and for the flock committed to his trust. And there is the flock which he guided in the way of life, and the strayed sheep and lambs which he gathered into the fold of the Great Shepherd. There are the matron and the sire whose household altar was consecrated to Israel’s God; and for whose fidelity and prayers, their children, on that Great Day, rise up from one common grave with them to call them blessed. There is the long-lost wanderer whom heaven’s tenderest mercy sought and found, and took off his clothes of shame, and decked him in garments clean and white as the fine linen of the saints. There are the aged, whose hoary head was a crown of glory because found in the way of righteousness; and there the youthful piety, so full of promise, that bloomed for an early grave, and that now bears ’its immortal fruits; and there the smiling infancy of bygone centuries washed pure in the second Adam’s blood, and folded in his bosom who took the little children in his arms. The Christian sisters meet there to part no more; and the parted bridegroom and his bride, and the widow and her husband, all bound in Christian bonds never to be sundered, meet there to celebrate their everlasting nuptials at the Marriage-Supper of the Lamb.

" How fair the daughter of Jerusalem then!

How gloriously from Zion’s hill she looks!

Clothed with the sun, and in her train the moon, And on her head a coronet of stars, And girdling round her waist with heavenly grace, The bow of mercy bright; and in her hand Immanuel’s cross, her sceptre and her hope "

Bat what a strange assembly is that on the left of the Eternal Judge! There are all God’s enemies of every name and degree. Kings who reigned in wickedness are there, but without their crowns. Rich men are there who laid up treasures on the earth, and were not rich toward God; but with none of the appendages of their wealth and pride. And poor men are there, whose poverty was their wickedness, and who learn too late, ______________" that to do nothing was to serve The Devil, and transgress the laws of God."

There is the oppressor, but with no remaining power to oppress. There is the mighty chieftain famed in unjust and inglorious war, and now a bloody culprit at his bar who is the last Conqueror. There is the skeptic whose vaunting reason would not trust the word of God; and the man of science who sought all knowledge but the knowledge of his Maker; and the cunning craftsman, and the eloquent orator whose hand and tongue were all for self and evil. There is the thief and robber, and the practiced cheat and liar, waiting for their portion in the burning lake. There is the duelist, hot from the field of proud resentment and of blood; and there the suicide, who _______________" tired of time, with his own hand Opened the portals of eternity, And sooner than devils hoped arrived I n hell."

All the forms of voluptuousness and sensuality are there; the epicure, the reeling drunkard, the foul adulterer and adulteress, and the thousands who live for sport and merriment. There are the sons and daughters of fashion and of pleasure, who lived only to be seen and admired, and for whom the halls of mirth had more powerful attractions than the house of prayer. Nor are they these alone. There is the hypocrite, gone from the communion-table or from the pulpit to hear the voice, " I never knew you, depart from me ye that work iniquity." There are the thoughtless millions who _________________________’’ got no time To think, and never thought, till on the rock They dashed of ruin, anguish, and despair."

There is the delaying sinner who put off the work of repentance till death awoke him to his doom. And there are the multitudes, who when God called refused to hear, and who grieved his Spirit till the harvest was past. All these and kindred spirits are wicked and unholy, and despised God’s great salvation. Their iniquity no longer keeps them in obscurity; their artifices no longer excuse them; nor will they be protected by the impudence of sin. Those who have deceived themselves and those who have deceived others, as well as those who gloried in their shame, and scandalized the world, are now seen in their true character, and are confounded before God, angels and men. At the summons of the severing angels each separates for his own place. What a sublime, yet touching and mournful scene, when the breathless silence of that countless concourse shall be disturbed, and the righteous shall move in unbroken and outspread phalanx to the right hand of the Judge, and the wicked tread their mournful way to his left!

It is not merely a day of trial, but of judgment and decision. Listen to the affecting narrative of these closing scenes, told in the simple and impressive language of the great Judge himself: " When the Son of Man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory, and before him shall stand all nations. And he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats. And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left. Then shall the king say to those on his light hand, Come ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world! Then shall he say also to them on his left hand. Depart from me ye cursed into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels. And these go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into life eternal!" Such is the glory of the Judge, in the process and decisions of the judgment. His presence, his eye, his voice, his throne of justice and judgment, his edict, obeyed by angels, men and devils, these constitute his glory on that tremendously glorious day!

One more thought: The final issues of the Judgment more than all, disclose the glory of the Judge. We have seen what they are, as they respect the righteous and the wicked. And they will never alter. The edict is final. There is no appeal from this last and highest tribunal in the universe. The sentence is conclusive. The righteous do not fear, the wicked do not hope that it will ever be reversed. His glorious high throne who utters it, stands impregnable on the unchanging issues of this Last Day. It reads lessons for eternity which give it the most conspicuous place in the government of God. They are lessons upon the past, vindicating the ways of God to man; they are lessons upon the future, exalting him as God over all blessed forever. Nothing now remains but the destruction of this worn out earth and this material universe, and the commencement of that new order of things which shall never be disturbed. " The heavens pass away with a great noise, and the elements melt with fervent heat, and the earth also, and all the works that are therein shall be burnt up," and there shall " be found no place for them."

" See how the mountains, how the valleys burn; The Andes burn, the Alps, the Apennines, Taurus and Atlas; all the islands burn; The ocean burns, and rolls his waves of flame.

____________________Nature dies, and God And angels come to lay her in her grave;

O earth! thy hour is come! And the last sand falls from the glass of time."

Then shall appear " New heavens and a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness." Creation, providence and redemption shall have accomplished their object, and the end of the great Redeemer’s incarnation, death and mediatorial reign be attained. A new era in the divine government shall commence, marked by no changes of character, or destiny, and only marked by its forth-going, and everlasting progress. The last revolution in the universe has taken place, because the plans of the " God only wise" require no further change, in order to their perfect consummation. There will be no new form, and no new variety in the divine administrations. Time is the great interpreter of his mysterious designs, and time has had its course. Everything is tranquil now. No tempest bursts upon the calm surface. It is a new Dispensation; the last Dispensation; the Dispensation of eternity. And in these final issues, how is the Son of God glorified! Long and terrible has been his struggle; but the conflict is past. For thousands of years has he maintained it in the midst of a hostile world, and with principalities and powers of darkness, and through deep humiliation and agony. Nor does he regret it now, but looks back to the darkest hour with joy. For this end was he born, and for this cause came he into the world. For this did he become the Priest and Sacrifice that he might bear witness to the truth, and that truth and holiness might triumph. For this did he become the Teacher and the King in Zion, that he might thus be " Lord of the living and the dead." He is the Conqueror now over Sin, Death, and Hell. Grace and righteousness conquer and divide this last reward. What was once but the emblem of suffering and of hope has now become the signal of triumph. That bloody banner, the Cross, which was flung to the winds of time when he was " lifted up," now waves over the redeemed creation, and the song is everywhere heard, " SALVATION TO OUR GOD WHO SITTETH UPON THE THRONE, AND UNTO THE LAMB!" It is the " song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying GREAT AND MARVELOUS ARE THY WORKS, LORD GOD ALMIGHTY; JUST AND TRUE ARE THY WAYS, THOU KING OF SAINTS! The Accuser is cast down; and he who is seated on the throne proclaims, " IT IS DONE: I AM ALPHA AND OMEGA, THE BEGINNING AND THE END!

Such is the glory of Christ as the Final Judge — manifested in the time when the Judgment will take place — in the fact that he himself is the Judge — in the manner in which he will come to the judgment — in the process and decisions of the judgment — and in the issues of that Great Day itself

If there be a subject in which every living man has an interest, it is this expression of the Redeemer’s glory. All worlds will, on that day, gather round the judgment-seat to fix their eyes on this Son of Man. Your destiny and mine will then depend upon the fact whether we have lived to honor him, and whether the joy of our existence will be to do him honor forever. Every one of us must give an account of " himself unto God;" and this will be the test. Happy day will that be to millions. Happy will it be to the astonished Centurion who exclaimed at his cross, " Truly this was the Son of God!" Happy will it be to those daughters of grief, who went forth from Jerusalem, bathed in tears, to attend the forsaken Sufferer to the place of skulls! Happy will it be to the enraptured Paul, who, amid all the ignominy cast upon his divine Lord, could say, " God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom I am crucified to the world, and the world to me!" Happy will it be to all those who have " come out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb." Happy will it be to all who love our Lord Jesus in sincerity; who have consented to take up their cross and follow him, through evil report and good report, and who were willing to suffer with him, that they might be glorified together. Happy will it be to those who were not ashamed of him and of his words in this evil and crooked generation, and of whom he will not be ashamed when he shall come in the glory of his Father and of the holy angels! A " wrathful day" will it be to every other son and daughter of Adam. Miserable, beyond utterance, will the man then be, who, in the Saviour he has rejected, sees the Judge from whom he cannot flee; and who because he despised him on the cross cannot stand before him on the throne. The voice of the archangel will not utter a more tremendous sentence than those words, " If any man love not the Lord Jesus, let him be Anathema!"

I utter this closing paragraph then to you who do not love him. The best and most fitting thing we can say to you is, that repentance is the great doctrine, the revealed privilege, the sweet hope of his precious gospel. "God now commandeth all men everywhere to repent because he hath appointed a day in the which he will judge the WORLD in righteousness." Retrace your downward steps, and repair, in true and godly sorrow for your sins, to his cross. Mourn and be in bitterness, as one is in bitterness for his first born, over your rejection of him. So true is it that all holiness and all happiness are bound up in Christ, that severed from him there is nothing but wickedness, and therefore nothing but tribulation and anguish to every soul of man. Most glorious will he be, when he comes to judge the world. Upon his head the crown shall flourish, while all his enemies shall be clothed with shame.