THERE is a judgment to come, and every man will have to give an account of himself to God. The career of man on the earth, and the words and deeds of every one, will be brought into the light, and will be judged by God according to His estimate of right and wrong. It is the fashion of the day to suppose God will deal with man, not according to the divine standard of good and evil, but according to human ideas or tastes. This misconception of God’s character will avail nothing in the coming day, for the dead, small and great, called forth by irresistible power, will stand before the tribunal of divine justice, and all will have to give an account of themselves to God. Man may spend this lifetime as he lists, but escape from the judgment that follows after death will be impossible. Let no one be deceived—there is no choice as to giving an account of ourselves in the future to God.
The result of the Day of Judgment, let it be ever remembered, will be eternal, and the sentence then passed will be unrevoked forever.
Man stands facing judgment to come, and earnestly do we press this most solemn consideration upon our readers.
But there is a judgment of God against sin that is passed. In that judgment we may read, without difficulty, the character of God in His dealings with sin. In that judgment no drop of mercy alleviated the cup of wrath—no light shone in the darkness—righteousness had fall sway, and sin its deserts. The One judged was none less than the Son of God. He knew no sin—He was holy and perfect—but He stood in the place of the guilty, and God made Him to be sin for His people, and dealt with Him as the Substitute. “Jehovah laid on Him the iniquity of us all.” In that hour “it pleased Jehovah to bruise Him.”
What the agony of the judgment was to the gracious Saviour we may learn in measure from His sufferings in Gethsemane, when, looking on to the cross, He prayed, if it were possible, the cup might pass from Him, His grief being such that “His sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground.” (Luke 22:4444And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly: and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground. (Luke 22:44)). But the cup could not pass from Him if sin was to be judged by God according to His own perfection and righteousness; the cup could not pass from Him if we were to be saved, and it did not pass from Him—Jesus took it, and drank it to the last drop, in order that He might save us who trust Him from meeting the vengeance of God against our sins.
The results of that judgment are eternal, and the mercy flowing from it remains unchangeable forever.
If man stands facing the judgment to come, no less does he stand with the judgment of the cross of God’s Son casting its light upon him. Man’s position is that of being between the judgment of the cross that has been, and will never be repeated, and the judgment of the Great White Throne that is yet to be, which will never be repeated. Will our reader make this matter a personal one? Will he in spirit take up his position between
THE JUDGMENT OF THE JUDGMENT OF
THE CROSS AND THE GREAT WHITE
THRONE,
And ask himself, as in the presence of the unchangeable God, whether the eternal results of the judgment of the cross shelter him from the eternal results of the judgment of the Great White Throne; or whether he is content to ignore the judgment of the cross, and to face the judgment of the Great White Throne?
Such as truly trust in Jesus and His blood are forever delivered by what He suffered upon the cross, from the condemnation that will fall upon those who shall stand before the Great White Throne. On the cross the Lord Jesus was judged in the sinner’s stead, and on the Great White Throne He will sit and judge sinners. On the cross He bore the penalty sinners deserve to bear for their sins; on the Great White Throne He will judge sinners for their sins. These are His own words— “Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that heareth My word, and believeth on Him that sent Me... shall not come into judgment (R.V.), but is passed from death unto life.” (John 5:2424Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life. (John 5:24)). Such as are sheltered by the cross of Christ from the wrath to come will not even stand to be judged at the Great White Throne—they “shall not come into judgment.”
Everyone who knows what the Scriptures teach regarding God, either rests his hope for salvation on what Christ suffered for him on the cross, or dares to face God without the merits of that sacrifice. He may go on to death and the judgment that comes after death, with the boldness of those who expect to be made fit for God through the purifying fires of their Protestant purgatory, or with the unconcern of those who expect to be delivered from the result of coming judgment by the intercessions of their priests, but the word of God gives no hope for salvation from the judgment to come—the Great White Throne, other than through the judgment that is passed—even the cross of Calvary.
Now, standing as we each do in this lifetime between God’s two great judgments of sin—between the cross of His own dear Son, and the throne of His judgment—most earnestly do we appeal to our reader to give himself no rest until he be assured that the work of Christ on the cross has delivered him from the wrath which is to come. Now is the season of opportunity, now is the day of salvation, and now God most graciously sets forth on the behalf of sinners the virtue of the atoning blood of Jesus. Now mercy smiles from heaven itself upon man, and love beckons the vilest and the worst to salvation and peace. But when the judgment throne is set, neither mercy nor love will be on the sinner’s side; on the contrary, the sinner, his sins, and the Judge, will be brought together, and brought together for judgment.
And let it never be forgotten that the result of judgment will be eternal, and that the sentence passed then will be, like the salvation given now, irrevocable.