Grace does not set aside government. The grace of God and His government go hand in hand. Indeed grace rests for its righteous foundation on government. God would not be God were it not so.
We, believers, rejoice in the wonderful grace of God. But what enhances it in our estimation is the manner of the grace. It is not a slipshod slurring over of man’s guilt. “Grace reigns through RIGHTEOUSNESS to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Rom. 5:21).
The cross is the outstanding testimony to the grace and government of God—grace, that would proclaim pardon to a guilty world; government, that would make the offer the result of the full settlement of sin at the cross. Were it not so, grace would rest on an utterly insecure foundation, indeed it would be no grace at all, and unworthy of the God presented to us in the Scriptures. It is the glory of the grace of God that it is founded on the immutable basis of absolute and divine righteousness.
For our immediate purpose we consider
1. The judgment of sin at the cross,
2. The judgment seat for believers,
3. The judgment of the living nations,
4. The judgment of the wicked dead.
1. The judgment of sin took place when the Son of God died on Calvary’s cross in the sinner’s place (1 Peter 3:18).
2. The judgment of the believer’s life will take place between the time of the Lord coming FOR His people, and His coming WITH His people to set up His millennial kingdom on the earth (2 Cor. 5:10; 1 Thess. 4:13-18).
3. The judgment of the living nations will take place prior to the setting up of the millennial kingdom (Matt. 25:31-48).
4. The Judgment of the resurrected wicked dead will take place before the dread tribunal of the great white throne (Rev. 20:11-15).
THE JUDGMENT AT THE CROSS
Nothing can exceed this in solemnity. The cross is the centre on which all God’s purposes turn. Behold the Son of God, the Creator of the universe, the Sustainer of all things, become Man in the wonderful condescension of His love to sinful men, dying on that cross! The very sun refused at high noontide to look upon His grief and anguish, as He cried, “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?” Grace, grace abounding, nay super-abounding grace, was there seen: government in all its stern inexorable demand for satisfaction was seen there also. Amazing scene that strikes us dumb with astonishment!
Once and for all and for ever was the sin question settled. “IT IS FINISHED,” were the triumphant words of the Saviour ere He expired. The rent veil, the rending rocks, the earthquake, the opened graves of the saints that arose from the dead—all attested the triumph of the Son of God. Heaven and earth and hades alike united in this amazing testimony.
The judgment upon sin at the cross took place that the believer might be for ever freed from that judgment. So we read the very words of the Lord Himself, “Verily, verily, I say to you, He that hears My word, and believes on Him that sent Me, has everlasting life, and shall NOT COME INTO CONDEMNATION [literally judgment]; but is passed from death to life” (John 5:24).
Will the reader please note carefully the Lord’s emphatic words to the believer, “SHALL NOT COME INTO CONDEMNATION.” Nothing can contradict these words. The reason we emphasize this will at once be apparent.
THE JUDGMENT SEAT FOR BELIEVERS
We read, “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 has done, whether it be good or bad” (2 Cor. 5:10).
On hearing this read for the first time, the young believer may ask, “How is it that the believer is to be judged, and yet the Lord with His own lips assures the believer that he will never come into judgment? Does there not seem a contradiction?”
We answer, The Lord’s words stand good in all their blessed meaning, the fruit of the cross. The believer will NEVER COME INTO JUDGMENT. We can rest assured as to that. The Lord will be true to His own word.
“How then,” we may ask, “does the believer stand before the judgment seat of Christ, and yet never come into judgment?”
The answer is very simple. The believer’s person will never come into judgment, but his deeds will be manifested, deeds of the flesh will suffer loss, deeds of the Spirit will be rewarded. The person of the unbeliever will come into judgment at the great white throne. The person of the believer, according to the words of the Lord Jesus, will NEVER come into judgment.
When the judgment seat of Christ is faced by the believer, he will already be glorified in the presence of the Lord, be like the Lord and with Him for ever. There can be no possible doubt as to his position in the glory, for that depends on the finished work of Christ on the cross. “The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from ALL sin” (1 John 1:7). “By one offering He has perfected for ever them [believers] that are sanctified” (Heb. 10:14). To bring the believer’s person into judgment would be to go back upon the clear assurances of Scripture as to the efficacy of the atoning work of Christ. It would be a denial of the very character of God Himself.
An illustration may help to a clearer understanding of the matter. Some years ago the writer was in the city of Leeds. At that time the assizes were being held, no less a person than the Lord Chief Justice being the Judge. At the same time there was a large flower show being held in the city.
At the assizes there was a great murder case. When the jury retired to consider their verdict we can well realize the awful feelings that filled the prisoner’s mind. The case was clear and there was a sickening dread in the prisoner’s mind that the verdict must be “Guilty.” Look at him as the jury return, and the foreman utters the dread word, “Guilty.” He knows full well that his person is being judged, that in his own body he will have to bear the due reward of his dreadful deed.
Let your thoughts travel to the flower show. The moment has arrived for the Judges to begin their work. Everyone knows that they are not there to judge the exhibitors, but the exhibits, not to judge the persons of the exhibitors, but their works. The word, Judges, does not raise any fears as to policemen, prisons, punishment, and the like, but we can well understand the feeling of the exhibitors as they watch the Judges eyeing their exhibits. They wonder if all the care and labour of weeks and months will receive a commendation, a well done, a reward, or will all their labour go for nothing?
So at the judgment seat of Christ. In bodies of glory, with the flesh left behind for ever, there will be no question as to whether it is to be heaven or hell. The work of Christ has settled that once and for all for the believer, but it will be a question of the Lord giving us His own judgment as to all that we have done in our bodies on earth. How solemn and salutary is it to know all this!
It may be asked, Will our deeds before conversion come out for manifestation, as well as those after conversion. The answer is, “the deeds done in the body” will come up for review, and that covers the whole of our lives.
All the deeds of the believer will be brought into the light and be tested as 1 Corinthians 3:11-15 shows us. Verse 15 of that passage proves conclusively all that we have been saying. It supposes a case where the deeds done in the body of the believer are burned by fire, and then it says, “But he himself shall be saved: yet so as by fire.” The believer is saved because the indestructible foundation is there, but how sad that so much that engaged his attention should be destroyed in judgment, and fire be really his salvation. It is not a question here of eternal salvation through the atoning merits of the cross, but governmental salvation from the entanglements that would hinder the soul from entering upon its heritage.
May not Lot be an example of being saved so as by fire? He made unholy links with Sodom. The fire came. To save his life he had to flee from Sodom. The entanglements were burned, and fire was in reality his salvation from Sodom with its unspeakable filth and wickedness. Lot was saved in his person, but his works were burned.
Matthew 25:14-30 and Luke 19:11-27 set forth the rewards that are given to the faithful servants. Let it be stated that rewards are not meted out in reference to gift, but on the ground of devotedness. So we find the one, whose two talents earned other two, receiving the same reward as the one, whose five talents earned other five. What was committed to each differed in amount, but there was equal diligence, in so far that each doubled what had been committed to his trust. The reward is not given in relation to the amount of gift, but on the ground of devotedness. The amount given to each depends on the sovereignty of the Giver, devotedness is the exercise of the recipient.
May the solemn light of the judgment seat of Christ for the believer exercise its salutary, purifying effect upon each one of us.
THE JUDGMENT OF THE LIVING NATIONS
After the church has been caught up by the Lord Himself, the Spirit of God will be active in blessing among the Jews, and through their testimony among the nations. The coming of the Lord will be inexpressibly solemn for the vast amount of mere profession in Christendom, as illustrated by the position of the foolish virgins being refused admission to the closed door, the opportunity for salvation being over for ever for those who professed Christianity, and were in the light of it, and yet refused it in its reality. Further, there will be the “strong delusion,” according to 2 Thessalonians 2, affecting men’s minds.
But God’s grace will go out to the Jew. A remnant will be converted and will evangelise the nations in view of the return of the Lord to reign upon the earth.
Just prior to the setting up of His kingdom He will bring the nations to His judgment seat, as narrated in Matthew 25:31-46. Then the test will be how they have treated the message, the gospel of the kingdom. Those who have received it will be among the sheep, and go into everlasting life, that is the millennial reign of Christ, which in due time passes into the eternal state. Those who refuse the message of the Lord’s Jewish brethren will be among the goats, and find their portion in everlasting punishment. Solemn thought indeed!
THE JUDGMENT OF THE WICKED DEAD
In turning to Revelation 20 we find there will be two resurrections, one occurring BEFORE the millennium, at the second coming of the Lord, when all the believers, Old Testament and New Testament, will be raised, the living saints changed, and with the raised saints pass into the presence of the Lord.
The other resurrection will take place AFTER the millennium, after the last uprising of Satan, at the end of this sinful world’s history. The heavens and the earth will flee from the face of Him who sits upon the great white throne, and the wicked dead will stand before Him. On the very threshold of eternity will this last great assize take place. The books will be opened and the dead judged therefrom. Only one result will take place, they will be cast into the lake of fire for ever. All will be doomed who stand there. Solemn indeed is this reflection, which should make us very zealous in the preaching of the gospel.