A Word to Young Christians
Another year has come and gone. Time is brief, and eternity draws nigh. It might be here tomorrow, or even “in the twinkling of an eye,” were the Lord to come.
The present determines the future. The life to come is the obverse of the life that is, and time is but the seed-plot of eternity. Now the sowing, then the reaping. “Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap,” are words addressed to Christians. How intensely solemn!
To show clearly that the present and future are correlative—that the one affects the other—let us draw your attention to
THE JUDGMENT-SEAT OF CHRIST
The apostle Paul, writing to Christians, says:
“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).
Young Christian, you must appear there.
Does someone say, “Why, I thought that we were never coming into condemnation? What about that verse, ‘He that hears My word, and believes on Him that sent Me, has ever-lasting life, and shall not come into condemnation.’ Is that not true?”
Dear young Christian, it is most blessedly true, and nothing can ever possibly alter those words of the Lord Jesus. Heaven and earth will pass away—His words NEVER.
More than that. You quoted John 5:24 as it reads in our ordinary Version. In order to give greater elegance to our translation, and avoid repeating the same word over and over again, the translators sometimes used two or three English words to express the meaning of one Greek word. John 5:24 more properly reads:
“He that hears My word, and believes on Him that sent Me, has everlasting life, and shall not come into JUDGMENT, but is passed from death to life.”
Now if the believer will never come into judgment, how can he possibly come into condemnation? If he never appears before God to answer for his sins, how can he ever be condemned for them?
The atoning work of Christ has settled for ever everything relating to the believer’s sins. If God were to reopen that question, it would imply that the sacrifice of His own Son had not settled everything. “It is finished” would not then mean “It is finished.” No! no!! God remembered the sins of the believer once when He laid them upon His own Son, so that now He declares, “Their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more.”
Indeed, so gloriously has Christ wrought, and so thoroughly is God satisfied, that the question of judgment will never be taken up by Him again. “The Father judges no man, but has committed all judgment to the Son” (John 5:22).
It is the Saviour who will be the Judge.
You may ask, “If I am never coming into judgment, why is it that I must appear before the judgment-seat of Christ? How do the two statements agree?”
It is very simple. Both statements are true. YOU will never come into judgment, but YOUR WORKS will. In short, the judgment-seat of Christ is not to judge your person, but
TO MANIFEST YOUR WORKS—
to divest you of all that has been unworthy of Christ in your life, and invest you with a reward for all that has been of and for Christ. An illustration may help. A large number of art students have worked at their different studies during their term of work. The drawings are finished and hung upon the walls of the art saloon, and it is prize-day. The students, attired in their best clothes, accompanied by parents and friends, are all gathered together.
The scene is gay and animated, and the hum of conversation grows louder and louder.
Suddenly there is a hush. Every eye turns to the door.
THE JUDGES HAVE COME!
Do the students turn pale with fear, and do visions of punishments and prisons rise before their eyes? Oh dear no! Do they expect to see judges, with wig and gown, heralded by marshals and ushers, and attended by policemen? Certainly not!
They quietly turn round, and probably see two or three benevolent old gentlemen—art critics—with white beards and gold-rimmed spectacles, who have come not to pronounce judgment upon their persons, but upon their works; not to mete out punishments, but to bestow rewards.
And so it will be with us. The judgment-seat of Christ is the place of manifestation and reward.
It all depends upon how those students used their time and talents during the session as to whether they receive the coveted rewards. And it all depends on how we act during our earthly session as to whether we shall be rewarded.
The awards of earthly judges are necessarily more or less faulty. Those who have most ability—largely an accident of birth—usually gain the rewards. The blessed Lord awards with perfect equity, as One who thoroughly knows our hearts and reads our motives.
Someone may ask, “What about
OUR SINS BEFORE CONVERSION?
Do they come to light?”
Yes, without a question; for they cannot be excluded from “the deeds done in the body.”
Some Christians get angry at the idea that all before conversion will come out. But the secret of their anger is that they are not grounded in grace. Or is it that they are covering up some evil, or have never really confessed without reserve their sins to God?
It will be an immense gain that all should come out—not before others perhaps, but between ourselves and the Lord. It may be in our present condition we could not endure the full consciousness of our sins. We have known people unable to sleep, eat, or drink, so great was their soul-anguish when the sense of their own utter badness dawned upon them. Saul of Tarsus, at the time of his conversion, neither ate nor drank for three days.
The blessed Lord knows all, for He suffered for our sins; but we do not know all. The judgment-seat of Christ will confer at least three immense benefits upon us:
(1) We shall have no reserves with Christ.
This will be a great help to us, and should encourage us to have none now, but to allow the light of that judgment-seat to manifest to ourselves our motives and deeds.
(2) We shall know the full extent of our indebtedness to Christ.
This will so enlarge our sense of His love, that our love will be greatly drawn out to Him, on the principle that to whom much is forgiven, the same loves much.
(3) We shall see eye to eye with Him about our whole life.
We repeat, it will be an immense gain to us to have it all out—to know not only that all our sin is atoned for, but to have done with it in our own souls; for much we harbour now will then pass away in the consuming fire of judgment, and we shall rejoice to see it go.
So we can sing with McCheyne:
“When I stand before Thy throne,
Drest in beauty not mine own;
When I see Thee as Thou art,
Love Thee with unsinning heart—
Then, Lord, shall I fully know—
Not till then—how much I owe.”
Further, all
OUR LIVES AFTER CONVERSION
will be manifest.; our motives, our hidden springs, will be revealed to us as never before. We shall trace the grace of the Lord, in bearing with us all the days of our folly and backsliding. We shall praise Him for the way He sheltered us from temptation, or in love allowed us to eat the fruit of our ways; for the patience with which He taught us our lessons, and we so stupid and slow, and all the while, it may be, thinking ourselves clever and great. We shall then, too, see those things in our lives which were pleasing to Him, and recognize them as the fruit of His grace.
One last word. Should our object in life be to gain a reward at the judgment-seat of Christ?
The answer is simple. If our motive has been reward rather than love to Christ Himself, our motive has been impure, and therefore deeds flowing from an impure motive are impure, and will not be able to stand the fire of judgment.
A single verse will show how far the work may be condemned, yet the person saved:
“If any man’s work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but HE HIMSELF SHALL BE SAVED; yet so as by fire” (1 Cor. 3:15).
It is like a man who has the clothes burnt off his back, yet he himself escapes, as did the three Hebrew children, without the smell of fire.
But if our lives are really set for Christ, it will be a stimulus to us to know how His heart delights to reward and appreciate all He can.
But our pen would run on to an indefinite length; so we lay it down.
May the light—the solemn light—of the judgment-seat shine upon us, even now, disclosing the real weight of our motives and actions; and may the spring of our life be positive attachment of heart to Him who died for us and rose again.