I saw a great white throne, and him who sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away. There was found no place for them. I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne, and they opened books. Another book was opened, which is the book of life. The dead were judged out of the things which were written in the books, according to their works. The sea gave up the dead who were in it. Death and Hades gave up the dead who were in them. They were judged, each one according to his works.
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Revelation 20:11-13 sits inside this longer paragraph.
I saw a great white throne, and him who sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away. There was found no place for them. I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne, and they opened books. Another book was opened, which is the book of life. The dead were judged out of the things which were written in the books, according to their works. The sea gave up the dead who were in it. Death and Hades gave up the dead who were in them. They were judged, each one according to his works. Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire. If anyone was not found written in the book of life, he was cast into the lake of fire.
Parallel Translations
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I saw a great white throne, and him who sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away. There was found no place for them.
I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne, and they opened books. Another book was opened, which is the book of life. The dead were judged out of the things which were written in the books, according to their works.
The sea gave up the dead who were in it. Death and Hades gave up the dead who were in them. They were judged, each one according to his works.
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And I sawe a grett whyte seate and him that sate on it from whose face fleed awaye both the erth and heaven and their place was no more founde.
And I sawe the deed both grett and small stonde before God: And the bokes were opened and another boke was opened which is the boke of lyfe and the deed were iudged of thoo thynges which weer wrytten in the bokes accordinge to their dedes:
and the see gave vp her deed which were in her and deth and hell delyvered vp the deed which were in them: and they were iudged every man accordinge to his dedes.
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And I saw a great white throne, and one that sate on it, from whose face fled away both the earth and heauen, and their place was no more found.
And I saw the dead, both great and small stand before God: and the bookes were opened, and another booke was opened, which is the booke of life, and the dead were iudged of those thinges, which were written in the bookes, according to their woorkes.
And the sea gaue vp her dead, which were in her, and death and hell deliuered vp the dead, which were in them: and they were iudged euery man according to their woorkes.
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Contradictions (3)
Questions where the Bible appears to say two different things, with the passages on each side set together.
Cross-references (62)
- 2 Corinthians 5:10 (v12) For we must all be revealed before the judgment seat of Christ that each one may receive the things in the body according to what he has…
- Matthew 16:27 (v12) For the Son of Man will come in the glory of his Father with his angels, and then he will render to everyone according to his deeds.
- Daniel 7:10 (v12) A fiery stream issued and came out from before him. Thousands of thousands ministered to him. Ten thousand times ten thousand stood before…
- Ecclesiastes 12:14 (v12) For God will bring every work into judgment, with every hidden thing, whether it is good, or whether it is evil.
- Revelation 2:23 (v12) I will kill her children with Death, and all the assemblies will know that I am he who searches the minds and hearts. I will give to each…
Show all 61 cross-references
- Jeremiah 17:10 (v12) “I, Yahweh, search the mind. I try the heart, even to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his doings.”
- Revelation 22:12 (v12) “Behold, I come quickly. My reward is with me, to repay to each man according to his work.
- Revelation 11:18 (v12) The nations were angry, and your wrath came, as did the time for the dead to be judged, and to give your bondservants the prophets, their…
- Revelation 21:1 (v11) I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth have passed away, and the sea is no more.
- Romans 14:10-12 (v12) But you, why do you judge your brother? Or you again, why do you despise your brother? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of…
- Revelation 3:5 (v12) He who overcomes will be arrayed in white garments, and I will in no way blot his name out of the book of life, and I will confess his name…
- Daniel 12:1-2 (v12) “At that time Michael will stand up, the great prince who stands for the children of your people; and there will be a time of trouble, such…
- John 5:28-29 (vv12–13) Don’t marvel at this, for the hour comes in which all who are in the tombs will hear his voice, and will come out; those who have done…
- 2 Peter 3:7 (v11) But the heavens that exist now and the earth, by the same word have been stored up for fire, being reserved against the day of judgment and…
- Revelation 20:13 (v12) The sea gave up the dead who were in it. Death and Hades gave up the dead who were in them. They were judged, each one according to his…
- Psalms 28:4 (v12) Give them according to their work, and according to the wickedness of their doings. Give them according to the operation of their hands.…
- Daniel 2:35 (v11) Then the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver, and the gold were broken in pieces together, and became like the chaff of the summer…
- Matthew 25:31 (v11) “But when the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory.
- Revelation 21:27 (v12) There will in no way enter into it anything profane, or one who causes an abomination or a lie, but only those who are written in the…
- Psalms 62:12 (v12) Also to you, Lord, belongs loving kindness, for you reward every man according to his work.
- Romans 2:5 (v11) But according to your hardness and unrepentant heart you are treasuring up for yourself wrath in the day of wrath, revelation, and of the…
- 2 Peter 3:10-12 (v11) But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in which the heavens will pass away with a great noise, and the elements will be…
- Acts 17:30-31 (v11) The times of ignorance therefore God overlooked. But now he commands that all people everywhere should repent, because he has appointed a…
- Acts 24:15 (v12) having hope toward God, which these also themselves look for, that there will be a resurrection of the dead, both of the just and unjust.
- Revelation 20:11 (v12) I saw a great white throne, and him who sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away. There was found no place for them.
- Proverbs 24:12 (v12) If you say, “Behold, we didn’t know this,” doesn’t he who weighs the hearts consider it? He who keeps your soul, doesn’t he know it? Shall…
- Jeremiah 4:23-26 (v11) I saw the earth, and, behold, it was waste and void, and the heavens, and they had no light. I saw the mountains, and behold, they…
- Jeremiah 32:19 (v12) great in counsel, and mighty in work; whose eyes are open to all the ways of the children of men, to give everyone according to his ways,…
- Luke 10:20 (v12) Nevertheless, don’t rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.”
- John 11:25-26 (v12) Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will still live, even if he dies. Whoever lives and believes…
- Romans 2:6 (v12) who “will pay back to everyone according to their works:”
- 1 Corinthians 4:5 (v12) Therefore judge nothing before the time, until the Lord comes, who will both bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and reveal the…
- 1 Thessalonians 4:15-17 (v12) For this we tell you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will in no way precede…
- Revelation 19:5 (v12) A voice came from the throne, saying, “Give praise to our God, all you his servants, you who fear him, the small and the great!”
- Psalms 9:7-8 (v11) But Yahweh reigns forever. He has prepared his throne for judgment. He will judge the world in righteousness. He will administer judgment…
- Matthew 24:35 (v11) Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.
- 1 Corinthians 15:21-23 (v12) For since death came by man, the resurrection of the dead also came by man. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made…
- Philippians 4:3 (v12) Yes, I beg you also, true partner, help these women, for they labored with me in the Good News with Clement also, and the rest of my fellow…
- Revelation 6:8 (v13) And behold, a pale horse, and the name of he who sat on it was Death. Hades followed with him. Authority over one fourth of the earth, to…
- Revelation 13:8 (v12) All who dwell on the earth will worship him, everyone whose name has not been written from the foundation of the world in the book of life…
- Revelation 16:20 (v11) Every island fled away, and the mountains were not found.
- Psalms 47:8 (v11) God reigns over the nations. God sits on his holy throne.
- Psalms 69:28 (v12) Let them be blotted out of the book of life, and not be written with the righteous.
- Proverbs 24:29 (v12) Don’t say, “I will do to him as he has done to me; I will repay the man according to his work.”
- Hosea 13:14 (v13) I will ransom them from the power of Sheol. I will redeem them from death! Death, where are your plagues? Sheol, where is your destruction?…
- Revelation 6:14 (v11) The sky was removed like a scroll when it is rolled up. Every mountain and island were moved out of their places.
- Revelation 17:8 (v12) The beast that you saw was, and is not; and is about to come up out of the abyss and to go into destruction. Those who dwell on the earth…
- Psalms 89:14 (v11) Righteousness and justice are the foundation of your throne. Loving kindness and truth go before your face.
- Psalms 97:2 (v11) Clouds and darkness are around him. Righteousness and justice are the foundation of his throne.
- Revelation 12:8 (v11) They didn’t prevail. No place was found for them any more in heaven.
- Revelation 20:2 (v11) He seized the dragon, the old serpent, which is the devil and Satan, who deceives the whole inhabited earth, and bound him for a thousand…
- Job 9:6 (v11) He shakes the earth out of its place. Its pillars tremble.
- Isaiah 26:19 (v13) Your dead shall live. My dead bodies shall arise. Awake and sing, you who dwell in the dust; for your dew is like the dew of herbs, and the…
- 1 Corinthians 15:50-58 (v13) Now I say this, brothers, that flesh and blood can’t inherit God’s Kingdom; neither does the perishable inherit imperishable. Behold, I…
- Revelation 4:2 (v11) Immediately I was in the Spirit. Behold, there was a throne set in heaven, and one sitting on the throne
- Revelation 19:11 (v11) I saw the heaven opened, and behold, a white horse, and he who sat on it is called Faithful and True. In righteousness he judges and makes…
- Revelation 20:12 (v13) I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne, and they opened books. Another book was opened, which is the book of…
- Revelation 20:14 (v13) Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire.
- Genesis 18:25 (v11) May it be far from you to do things like that, to kill the righteous with the wicked, so that the righteous should be like the wicked. May…
- Psalms 14:6-7 (v11) You frustrate the plan of the poor, because Yahweh is his refuge. Oh that the salvation of Israel would come out of Zion! When Yahweh…
- Revelation 1:18 (v13) and the Living one. I was dead, and behold, I am alive forever and ever. Amen. I have the keys of Death and of Hades.
61 distinct cross-references across this passage (62 total citations).
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this passage (22 sources)
Historical commentary, presented as a primary source — not an endorsement.
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Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv11–13 That is, a tribunal seat most Princelike and glorious:…
That is, a tribunal seat most Princelike and glorious: for so doth the Greek word also signify.
That is, Christ, before whom when he cometh unto judgment, heaven and earth shall perish for the greatness of his majesty, 2 Pet. 3:7, 10, etc.
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The second part of this Chapter, in which is described the judge, in this verse, and the last judgment in the verse following.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv11–13 11 And I saw a great white throne, and…
11 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.
Ver. 11. And I saw a great white throne] A lively description of the last judgment, to show that henceforth, since the last great battle, the New Jerusalem should have no disturbance till Christ comes to judgment. His throne is said to be white, for like reason as he is said to sit upon a white cloud and a white horse, Rev 14:14; Rev 19:11. He shall give most just and uncorrupt judgment.
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From whose face the earth, &c.] To show either his terribleness or their renovation, 2Pe 3:12; Rom 8:21.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv11–13 God now giveth his prophet a vision of the…
God now giveth his prophet a vision of the last day, the day of judgment. He seeth
a throne, a place of judicature; said to be great, to denote its gloriousness;
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white, to signify Christ’s purity and holiness in his judging the world. And he saw Christ sitting upon it, and all old things passing away. Peter thus describes this flying away of the earth and heavens; The heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works therein shall be burned up, 2Pe 3:10. All these things shall be dissolved, 2Pe 3:11.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
William Burkitt 1703 · Public Domain On v11 Here is another vision which St. John saw, namely,…
Here is another vision which St. John saw, namely, a lively representation of the great day of judgment, when all, both good and bad, that ever lived, shall be raised and sentenced according to their works: the state of the wicked is set forth in this chapter, and the happy condition of the righteous in heaven gloriously described in the two next chapters.
Observe here, 1. The judge described as sitting upon a throne, or seat of judgment; a throne, to denote that this judge is a king; and a white throne, to denote the purity and righteousness of this judge; and a great white throne, because erected for a great Judge, and for a great service, namely, the judging of the whole world.
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Observe, 2. The dreadful majesty and glorious power of this judge declared, that neither heaven nor earth are able to abide his presence, but are said to flee away, and that there was no place found for them.
Observe, 3. The persons judged are here described, and that,
1. By their condition and qualification, all the dead, both small and great; all that ever lived, and all that shall then be found alive.
2. By their posture, they stand before the judge, whilst he sits to show his authority.
3. By the manner of proceeding, which is represented as being after the form of well-ordered judicatories here on earth; wherein the books are produced, namely, the book of God’s omniscience, and the book of conscience, the book of the law, and the book of the gospel. They that had not the written law, shall be judged by the law of nature; they that had the written law are to be judged by that; and they that had the gospel, to be judged by that; and every one according to their works.
Observe, 4. The execution of the sentence of this great judge upon the wicked and impenitent world; they are cast into the lake of fire, which is the second death.
From the whole learn, 1. That it is certain that there shall, and necessary that there should, be a day of judgment.
2. That in that day there will be no exemption of any persons from the examination of the judge. I saw all the dead, small and great, stand before God.
3. That Jesus Christ, called here God, (which clearly proves his deity,) shall come in the clouds to judge the world; and will then be found such a judge as the riches of the wealthiest cannot bribe; such a judge as the power of the mightiest cannot daunt; such a judge as the subtilty of the wisest cannot elude; such a judge as there is no appealing from, no repealing of, his sentence.
Learn, 4. That as the same person shall be judged, who formerly lived, so in the same bodies that died, and were either buried in the earth, or consumed in the sea. The sea gave up her dead; by which understand all places, though attended with never so many improbable circumstances of a resurrection, shall yet give up the dead. Death and hell, that is death and the grave, gave up the dead which were in them; that is by the power of God were made to restore them.
Learn, 3. That the sentence denounced will be according to every man’s work at the great day; according to the nature and quality of the wicked man’s works shall his judgment and punishment be; according to the sincerity, not according to the imperfection, of the righteous man’s works, shall his reward be.
God grant that the consideration of this may so far influence us, that no profit may tempt us, no pleasure entice us, no power embolden us, no privacy encourage us, to do that thing, of which we cannot give a good account in the day of judgment.
William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain On v11 The utter destruction of the devil's kingdom very properly…
The utter destruction of the devil's kingdom very properly leads to an account of the day of judgment, which will determine every man's everlasting state; and we may be assured there will be a judgment when we see the prince of this world is judged, Joh 16:11. This will be a great day, the great day, when all shall appear before the judgment-seat of Christ. The Lord help us firmly to believe this doctrine of the judgment to come. It is a doctrine that made Felix tremble. Here we have a description of it, where observe, 1. We behold the throne, and tribunal of judgment, great and white, very glorious and perfectly just and righteous. The throne of iniquity, that establishes wickedness by a law, has no fellowship with this righteous throne and tribunal. 2. The appearance of the Judge, and that is the Lord Jesus Christ, who then puts on such majesty and terror that the earth and the heaven flee from his face, and there is no place found for them; there is a dissolution of the whole frame of nature, Pe2 3:10. 3. The persons to be judged (Rev 20:12): The dead, small and great; that is, young and old, low and high, poor and rich. None are so mean but they have some talents to account for, and none so great as to avoid the jurisdiction of this court; not only those that are found alive at the coming of Christ, but all who have died before; the grave shall surrender the bodies of men, hell shall surrender the souls of the wicked, the sea shall surrender the many who seemed to have been lost in it. 4. The rule of judgment settled: The books were opened. What books? The books of God's omniscience, who is greater than our consciences, and knows all things (there is a book of remembrance with him both for good and bad); and the book of the sinner's conscience, which, though formerly secret, will now be opened. And another book shall be opened - the book of the scriptures, the statute-book of heaven, the rule of life. This book is opened as containing the law, the touchstone by which the hearts and lives of men are to be tried. This book determines matter of right; the other books give evidence of matters of fact. Some, by the other book, called the book of life, understand the book of God's eternal counsels; but that does not seem to belong to the affair of judgment: in eternal election God does not act judicially, but with absolute sovereign freedom. 5. The cause to be tried; and that is, the works of men, what they have done and whether it be good or evil. By their works men shall be justified or condemned; for though God knows their state and their principles, and looks chiefly at these, yet, being to approve himself to angels and men as a righteous God, he will try their principles by their practices, and so will be justified when he speaks and clear when he judges. 6. The issue of the trial and judgment; and this will be according to the evidence of fact, and rule of judgment. All those who have made a covenant with death, and an agreement with hell, shall then be condemned with their infernal confederates, cast with them into the lake of fire, as not being entitled to eternal life, according to the rules of life laid down in the scripture; but those whose names are written in that book (that is, those that are justified and acquitted by the gospel) shall then be justified and acquitted by the Judge, and shall enter into eternal life, having nothing more to fear from death, or hell, or wicked men; for these are all destroyed together. Let it be our great concern to see on what terms we stand with our Bibles, whether they justify us or condemn us now; for the Judge of all will proceed by that rule. Christ shall judge the secrets of all men according to the gospel. Happy are those who have so ordered and stated their cause according to the gospel as to know beforehand that they shall be justified in the great day of the Lord!
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv11–13 And I saw a great white throne,.... This vision…
And I saw a great white throne,.... This vision refers not to the Gospel dispensation, from the exaltation of Christ to his second coming; when he sat down on his throne at the right hand of God, and was declared Lord and Christ; when there was a shaking of the heavens and the earth, a removing of the Mosaic economy, and the ordinances of the ceremonial law in Judea, and of Paganism in the Gentile world; when the Gospel was preached to all nations, and the dead in sins were quickened, and arose and stood before the throne of grace; when the books of the Scriptures were opened and explained, and the book of life was also opened; and by the conversion of some, and not others, it was known who were written in it and who were not, and men were judged to be alive or dead in a spiritual sense, according to the influence the opening of these books had upon them; and the powers of the world, comparable to a sea, and of death and hell, were not able to hold in the dead in sin, when they were called to life, with respect to whom death and hell were destroyed; nor was the Gospel the savour of death to any but to such who were not written in the book of life. This, in other words, is the sum of Cocceius's sense of this vision; but this affair will be over, and all God's elect gathered in by the preaching of the Gospel, before this vision takes place: nor does it respect the restoration of the Jews, who now are as dead, like Ezekiel's dry bones, but will at this time be quickened, and stand upon their feet an exceeding great army, and will be gathered from the several parts where they are as dead; and when it will be known by their conduct and behaviour who are God's elect among them, and who are not; which is Brightman's interpretation of the vision: but this, as we have seen, will come to pass according to the vision in the preceding chapter, before the thousand years begin; whereas this vision will not begin to be accomplished until they are ended: it is best therefore to understand it of the general judgment at the last day, which is the common sense of ancient and modern interpreters; though it seems only to regard the judgment of the wicked, for no other are made mention of in it: the "throne" here seen is a throne of judgment; it is called a "great" one, because a great Person sat upon it, the Word of God, the King of kings and Lord of lords, even he who is the great God, and Judge of the whole earth; and because of the great work that will be transacted upon it, the judgment of all the wicked; this will be the greatest assize that ever was held; it is called the judgment of the great day, and the great and dreadful day of the Lord, Jde 1:6, Mal 4:5 this throne is also said to be a "white" one; just as the same Person is said to sit upon a white cloud, and ride upon a white horse, Rev 14:14 it may be in allusion either to a white and serene cloud, or to a throne of ivory, such an one as Solomon made, Ch2 9:17 and this is either expressive of the majesty and splendour of it, it being a throne of glory, or a glorious throne, Mat 25:31 or else it may denote the purity and justice of him that sits on it, according to which he will proceed in judgment, and finish it; his character is the righteous judge, and the judgment he will execute will be righteous judgment:
and him that sat on it; the throne was not empty, one sat upon it, who is no other than the Son of God; to whom all judgment is committed, and who is ordained to be Judge of quick and dead; and is every way fit for it, being of great knowledge, wisdom, and sagacity, and of great integrity and faithfulness, as man and Mediator, and being, as God, both omniscient and omnipotent, and so capable both of passing a right sentence, and of executing it; to which may be added, his great majesty and glory, necessary to strike an awe, and command an attention to him:
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from whose face the earth and the heavens fled away, and there was found no place for them; which is to be understood not figuratively, as in Rev 6:14 where in the one place is described the destruction of Paganism, and in the other the destruction of the Papacy, and all antichristian powers; but literally, and not of the present earth and heaven, as they now are, for these will be burnt up with fire at the beginning of the thousand years, but of the new heaven and new earth, at the end of them; and the phrases of fleeing away, and place being found no more for them, show the entire annihilation and utter abolition of them; after this there will be no place in being but the heaven of angels and saints, and the lake of fire, in which are the devils and damned spirits: but though this is mentioned here, it will not be till after the judgment is over; for how otherwise will the dead have a place to stand in before the throne, or hell, that is the grave, and also the sea, give up their dead, Rev 20:12 but it is observed here, though afterwards done, to set off the majesty of the Judge upon the throne, at whose sight, and by whose power, this will be effected.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv11–13 And I saw - A representation of that great…
And I saw - A representation of that great day of the Lord. A great white throne - How great, who can say? White with the glory of God, of him that sat upon it, - Jesus Christ. The apostle does not attempt to describe him here; only adds that circumstance, far above all description, From whose face the earth and the heaven fled away - Probably both the aerial and the starry heaven; which "shall pass away with a great noise." And there was found no place for them - But they were wholly dissolved, the very "elements melting with fervent heat." It is not said, they were thrown into great commotions, but they fled entirely away; not, they started from their foundations, but they " fell into dissolution;" not, they removed to a distant place, but there was found no place for them; they ceased to exist; they were no more. And all this, not at the strict command of the Lord Jesus; not at his awful presence, or before his fiery indignation; but at the bare presence of his Majesty, sitting with severe but adorable dignity on his throne.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv11–13 Verse 11. A great white throne] Refulgent with glorious…
Verse 11. A great white throne] Refulgent with glorious majesty.
Him that sat on it] The indescribable Jehovah.
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From whose face the earth and the heaven fled away] Even the brightness of his countenance dissolved the universe, and annihilated the laws by which it was governed. This is a very majestic figure, and finely expressed.
There was found no place for them.] The glorious majesty of God filling all things, and being all in all.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv11–13 Rev 20:11. The course of these prophecies, after many…
Rev 20:11. The course of these prophecies, after many important visions describing the state of the church and world in this present life, brings us at last to the great and final judgment, when the whole scene and mystery of Providence shall be finished. Then the great doctrine which runs through the whole of these prophecies will be fully verified, namely, that truth and righteousness shall surely prevail in the end, against error and all iniquity; eternal happiness shall be the reward of the faithful, and everlasting destruction the punishment of the wicked. This is represented as a sixth period of Providence, after which there will be in the seventh period an everlasting sabbath; a state of eternal rest and happiness for all the righteous, and of the most perfect worship of God, in the praises and devotions of the heavenly church. — Lowman. And I saw — A representation of the great day of the Lord; a great white throne — How great who can say? White — With the glory of God, and to show the holiness, justice, and equity of him that sits on it, the Lord Jesus. The apostle does not attempt to describe him here; he only adds that circumstance, far above all description; from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away — At least the aerial, if not also the starry heaven; and there was found no place for them — But they were wholly dissolved; the very elements melting with fervent heat. It is not said they were thrown into great commotions, but they fell into dissolution; not they removed to a distant place, but there was found no place for them: at least as to their present state; they ceased to exist, they were no more. See on 2Pe 3:7-13. And all this, not at the strict command of the Lord Jesus, not at his awful presence, or before his fiery indignation, but at the bare presence of his Majesty, sitting with severe, but adorable dignity, on his throne.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv11–13 And I saw a great white throne - This…
And I saw a great white throne - This verse commences the description of the final judgment, which embraces the remainder of the chapter. The first thing seen in the vision is the burning throne of the Judge. The things that are specified in regard to it are, that it was “great,” and that it was “white.” The former expression means that it was high or elevated. Compare Isa 6:1. The latter expression - white - means that it was “splendid or shining.” Compare 1Ki 10:18-20. The throne here is the same which is referred to in Mat 25:31, and called there “the throne of his glory.”
And him that sat on it - The reference here undoubtedly is to the Lord Jesus Christ, the final Judge of mankind (compare Mat 25:31), and the scene described is what will occur at his second advent.
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From whose face - Or, from whose presence; though the word may be used here to denote more strictly his face - as illuminated, and shining like the sun. See Rev 1:16, “And his countenance was as the sun shineth in his strength.”
The earth and the heaven fled away - That is, as the stars, at the rising of the sun, seem to flee to more remote regions, and vanish from human view, so when the Son of God shall descend in his glory to judge the world, the earth and all other worlds shall seem to vanish. Every one must admire the sublimity of this image; no one can contemplate it without being awed by the majesty and glory of the final Judge of mankind. Similar expressions, where the natural creation shrinks back with awe at the presence of God, frequently occur in the Bible. Compare Psa 18:7-15; Psa 77:16-19; Psa 114:3-5; Hab 3:6, Hab 3:10-11.
And there was found no place for them - They seemed to flee “entirely away,” as if there was “no” place where they could find a safe retreat, or which would receive and shelter them in their flight. The image expresses, in the most emphatic manner, the idea that they entirely disappeared, and no language could more sublimely represent the majesty of the Judge.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain On v11 The New Heaven and the New Earth. The Kingdom…
SECTION SEVENTH
The New Heaven and the New Earth. The Kingdom of Glory
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Rev_20:11 to Rev_22:5
A.—IDEAL HEAVENLY WORLD-PICTURE OF THE CONSUMMATION—ABOUT TO CHANGE TO THE REAL WORLD-PICTURE OF THE NEW EARTH
Rev_20:11 to Rev_21:8
1. The End of the World; the Resurrection; the Judgment
11And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on [the one sitting upon] it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away [om. away]; and there was found no place [place was not found] for them. 12And I saw the dead, small and great [the great and the small],14 stand [standing] before God [om. God—ins. the throne];15 and the [om. the] books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those [the] things which were [om. which were] written in the books, according to their works. 13And the sea gave up [forth] the dead which were in it; and death and hell [hades] delivered up [gave forth] the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man [each] according to their works. 14And death and hell [hades] were cast into the lake of [ins. the] fire. This is the second death16 [ins., the lake of the fire].17 15And whosoever [if any one] was not found written in the book of life [ins. he] was cast into the lake of [ins. the] fire.
See Rev_21:1 ff for the analysis on Rev_20:11 ff.
Footnotes:
[8]Rev_20:6. [Tisch. (8th Ed.) inserts the article in accordance with א. B*.; Alf. brackets it; Lach. and Tisch. (1859) omit with A.—E. R. C.]
[9]Rev_20:8. Τὸν πόλ, according to Codd. A. B*., et al.
[10][The G. V. reads here (Eze_38:15): “Thou shalt come out of thy place, namely, from the ends against the north.”—Tr.]
[11][The LXX. has ̔Ρώς, but neither the Vulgate, nor the German, nor the English Version, gives it.—E. R. C.]
[12]Rev_20:9. Ἀπὸ τοῦ θεοῦ is supported by Codd. א. B*., et al., but is not firmly established. [Treg. inserts; Lach., Alf., Tisch., omit with A.—E. R. C.]
[13]Rev_20:10. [Tischendorf (8th Ed.) inserts this article with א.; Lach., Tisch. (1859), Treg., Alford, omit with A. B*. P., et al.—E. R. C.]
[14]Rev_20:12. The Recepta inverts the order, giving “small and great.”
[15]Rev_20:12. Codd. A. B*., et al., give θρόνου; the Rec. gives θεοῦ.
[16]Rev_20:14. A. B*., et al., give οὖτος ὁ θάνατος ὁ σεύτερός ἐστι.
[17]Rev_20:14. This clause is omitted by the Rec. [Crit. Eds. insert it in acc. with א. A. B*. P.—E. R. C.]
SPECIAL DOCTRINO-ETHICAL AND HOMILETICAL NOTES (ADDENDUM)
Section Twentieth
The New Heaven and the New Earth. The Kingdom of glory a. Heavenly World-picture of the Consummation. (Rev_20:11 to Rev_21:8)
General.—We here refer to our detailed treatment of the subject in the Exeget. Notes (p. 358 sqq.).
Special.—The end of the old world, the natal hour of the new world. This truth is (1) prefigured by life in nature (out of death, life); (2) grounded in the antithesis between the old and the new life of the Christian (the dying of the old man, the rising of the new man); (3) mediated, in its realization, by the verbal prophecies of Scripture and the real prophecies of the development of the Kingdom of God (every apparent down-going, the condition of a glorious resurrection).—The end of the world, a presentiment of all creature-life.—The new world, an object of the aspiration of all the pious.—[Rev_20:11-15.] Individual features of the end of the world: The Judge; the down-going [of the old world]; the resurrection; the judgment; the Book of Life; the lake of fire.—[ch. 20 sqq.] The new world: A consummate reality; anew Heaven and a new earth; the new Jerusalem; the new habitation of God (Rev_20:3); the new existence (Rev_20:4); the new creation (Rev_20:5).—The Word of God, the foundation of the first world (Joh_1:1[–3]);—in the explication (and world-historic operation) of His words, the foundation of the second world.—Certainty of the new world, (1) in respect of its Founder (Rev_20:6); (2) in respect of the heritage which it shall afford to the conquerors [Rev_20:7]; (3) in respect of the certainty of its antithesis [the lake of fire, Rev_20:8].—The second death? Infinitely mysterious in its nature. On the other hand, exceedingly clear as the final consequence, and hence the final punishment, of consistent sin. The second death, the last consistent result of the first beginnings of evil.—The contradiction immanent in the figure of the lake of fire, in perfect accordance with the essence of godlessness: 1. Extreme agitation and motion; 2. In perfect aimlessness; 3. Hence ethical self-consumption on the basis of physical indissolubleness.—Significant character-portrait of the lost under the superscription of the fearful. True heroic courage in the light of eternity; and its aim.
Starke: There are two lines of opinion as to the vision set forth in chs. 21 and 22. Some consider that whilst it presents, chiefly, the condition of the Church on earth during the thousand years, a picture of the glorious state of the Church in Heaven is commingled with the former view; others hold that the contents of these two chapters refer particularly to the glorious state of the Church Triumphant in Heaven.—Quesnel: (Comp. Rev_21:4 and Joh_16:20.) O precious tears of penitence and grief shed by the righteous and accounted worthy to be wiped away by the hand of God Himself. (Rev_21:6.) God will yet manifest Himself to His Church as Alpha and Omega, and prove that the promise which He gave in the beginning, He will emphatically fulfill in the end.—Quesnel [Rev_21:8]: There is a, fearfulness which can condemn us equally with any misdoings.
Claus Harms, Die Offenb. Joh. gepredigt (Kiel, 1844; p. 183): The New Jerusalem. I. It has its name and form from that Jerusalem in Israel. II. But the glory of the new is far greater than the glory of the old. III. Greater, even, than anything the Prophets have predicted in regard to it. IV. Yes, the new Jerusalem surpasses even Heaven and eternal blessedness. V. Christians, have we this glorious city before our eyes? VI. And in our hearts?
Haken, Kosmische Bilder, Riga, 1862 (p. 190): The new Heaven and the new Earth. Psa_102:25-26; Heb_1:10. In both passages the terms pass away [perish] and change are promiscuously employed; the Heavens pass away only so far as they are changed.
[From M. Henry: Rev_20:11-15. Observe, 1. The throne and tribunal of judgment, great and white, very glorious, and perfectly just and righteous. 2. The Judges 3. The persons to be judged. 4. The rule of judgment settled; the books were opened. The book of God’s omniscience, and the book of the sinner’s conscience; and another book shall be opened—the book of the scriptures, the statute-book of heaven, the rule of life. This book determines matters of right; the other books give evidence of matters of fact. 5. The cause to be tried; the works of men, what they have done, and whether it be good or evil. 6. The issue of the trial and judgment; and that will be according to the evidence of fact, and rule of judgment.—Rev_21:3. The presence of God with His people in heaven will not be interrupted as it is on earth, but He will dwell with them continually.—The covenant interest and relation that there are now between God and His people will be filled up and perfected in heaven. They shall be his people; their souls shall be assimilated to Him, filled with all the love, honor and delight in God that their relation requires; this shall be their perfect holiness, and He will be their God; His immediate presence with them, His love fully manifested to them, and His glory put upon them, will be their perfect happiness.
Rev_21:4. Note, 1. All the effects of former trouble shall be done away. God Himself, as their tender Father, with His kind hand, shall wipe away the tears of His children; and they would not have been without those tears when God shall come and wipe them away. 2. All the causes of future sorrow shall be forever removed; There shall be neither death nor pain; and therefore no sorrow nor crying; these are things incident to that state in which they were before, but now all former things are passed away.
Rev_21:5-6. We may and ought to take God’s promise as present payment; if He has said, He makes all things new, it is done.—Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End. As it was His glory, that He gave the rise and beginning to the world, and to His Church, it will be His glory to finish the work begun, and not to leave it imperfect.—The desires of His people toward this blessed state [Rev_21:1-4] are another evidence of the truth and certainty of it; they thirst after a state of sinless perfection, and the uninterrupted enjoyment of God; and God has wrought in them these longing desires which cannot be satisfied with anything else, and therefore would be the torment of the soul if they were disappointed; but it would be inconsistent with God’s goodness and His love to His people to create in them holy and heavenly desires, and then deny them their proper satisfaction; and therefore they may be assured when they have overcome their present difficulties, He will give them of the fountain of the water of life freely.
Rev_21:6-8. The greatness of this future felicity is declared and illustrated, 1. By the freeness of it. 2. The fullness of it; inherit all things. 3. By the tenure and title by which God’s people enjoy this blessedness; by right of inheritance, as the sons of God. 4. By the vastly different state of the wicked.
Rev_21:8. Observe, 1. The sins of those who perish. The fearful lead the van in this black list; they durst not encounter the difficulties of religion, and their slavish fear proceeded from their unbelief. They, however, were yet so desperate as to run into all manner of abominable wickedness. 2. Their punishment. This misery will be their proper part and portion, and what they have prepared themselves for by their sins.—From The Comprehensive Commentary. Rev_21:8. There is then a fearfulness which alone is sufficient to cause our condemnation, as well as the other crimes here mentioned. It is not only that fear which causes us to deny and abandon the faith; but that also which causes us to be wanting to important and essential duties, through fear of hurting our fortunes, our ease, and even our temporal and spiritual interests, and of creating ourselves enemies. True courage is, to fear nothing but God and displeasing Him. Real cowardice is, not to have courage to overcome self, nor renounce the creature, through the hope of enjoying the Creator. (Quesnel.)—From Vaughan: Rev_21:3. To have God with us is to be perfectly safe: to have God for our God is to be perfectly happy.
Rev_21:8. The fearful. O terrible end! O fatal compromise carried on too long and too far with sinners and with sin ! O spirit of oversensitiveness, of dislike to trouble, of dread of isolation, of inability to judge decisively and to act courageously, which has brought you, by slow stages, by easy descents, to a level so vile, and a companionship so horrible !—From Bonar: Rev_20:12. Books are opened—books probably containing God’s history of the sinner’s life, His record of the sinner’s deeds. … The Divine version of human history how unlike all earthly annals ! Most of the leading facts the same, yet how differently told and interpreted. Alongside of these is another book, called the book of life—the register of those whose portion is life eternal.
Rev_21:13. Judged every man according to his works. God keeps His diary of every soul’s doings and sayings and thinkings.
Rev_21:14. Of the old prediction in Hosea (Rev_13:14): “O death, I will be thy plagues; O grave, I will be thy destruction,” John here records the awful (and glorious) fulfillment.]
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv11–13 great--in contrast to the "thrones," Rev 20:4.
great--in contrast to the "thrones," Rev 20:4.
white--the emblem of purity and justice.
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him that sat on it--the Father [ALFORD]. Rather, the Son, to whom "the Father hath committed all judgment." God in Christ, that is, the Father represented by the Son, is He before whose judgment-seat we must all stand. The Son's mediatorial reign is with a view to prepare the kingdom for the Father's acceptance. When He has done that, He shall give it up to the Father, "that God may be all in all," coming into direct communion with His creatures, without intervention of a Mediator, for the first time since the fall. Heretofore Christ's Prophetical mediation had been prominent in His earthly ministry, His Priestly mediation is prominent now in heaven between His first and second advents, and His Kingly shall be so during the millennium and at the general judgment.
earth and heaven fled away--The final conflagration, therefore, precedes the general judgment. This is followed by the new heaven and earth (Rev. 21:1-27).
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv11–13 THE FINAL JUDGMENT AND AWARDS, Rev_20:11 to Rev_22:5.
THE FINAL JUDGMENT AND AWARDS, Rev_20:11 to Rev_22:5.
1. The throne, the resurrection, and vanishing earth, Rev_20:11-12.
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As we approach the great finalities a change seems to be made in the mode of representation from the symbolical to the more exactly pictorial. Truths are exhibited less by representative images and more by literal presentation. But, 1. This is rather a difference of degree than of kind. A symbol is selected, usually, for some resemblance by which it suggests the symbolized object. A picture, therefore, is only a symbol with an increased amount of resemblance, even until it becomes an exact pictorial likeness of the object. 2. When we come to the last events, symbols grow difficult to comprehend, and direct picture becomes necessary. Even then the picture becomes the best representation of the fact for us, in our present earthly state. What obliges the interpreter to view this exhibition of last things as approaching so near to an exact likeness as to be essentially a literal description of supernal events and objects is the correspondence with other passages of Scripture, which are to be held literal, unless we would lose all certainty of interpretation. John’s pictures of the finality, while more symmetrically pictorial, agree with those of Christ, (Joh_5:25-29; Mat_25:31-46;) Paul, (1Co_15:22-28; 2Th_1:7-10;) Peter, (2Pe_3:7; 2Pe_3:10; 2Pe_3:12-13;) John, (Rev_6:12-17;) and James (Jas_5:3; Jas_5:7).
11. I saw—From what standpoint did the seer behold the throne? See note Rev_21:5.
Great white throne—”Great,” says Bishop Newton, “to show the largeness and extent, and white to show the justice and equity, of the judgment.”
Him that sat on it—”None other,” says Newton, “than the Son of God, for (Joh_5:22) the Father hath committed all judgment unto the Son.” And this entire passage is to be identified with Mat_25:31-46. The great white throne here, is the throne of his glory there. And each entire passage supplements the other. This excludes the great pre-millennial error of imagining Rev_19:11-21, to be the judgment-advent.
From whose face—Homer’s image of Jupiter sitting upon his throne, nodding with his ambrosial curls, and shaking all Olympus with his nod, has been admired for its sublimity. But how small its imagery compared with this enthroned One, from before whose face creation flees!
Earth… fled—Hence, a new heaven and a new earth appears at Rev_21:1.
No place for them—The apparent meaning is, not that the face of the earth is changed and renewed; but that the very solid globe itself vacates its place and disappears. This implies not annihilation, but removal and departure of the old, and substitution of the new. And this seems to coincide with 2Pe_3:10, “the heavens shall pass away with a great noise.” See note there.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv11–13 The great white Throne, the General Resurrection, the Judgement…
The great white Throne, the General Resurrection, the Judgement on all the Dead and on Death and Hell, Rev_20:11-15
11. a great white throne] Probably not absolutely the same as that of Rev_4:2 &c.: the King is to sit now not as Lawgiver or Administrator but as Judge. Possibly it is called “great” as compared with the thrones of Rev_20:4; “white,” of course, as symbolical of the holiness and purity of the judgement to be administered.
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and him that sat on it] This has throughout, from Rev_4:2 onwards, been universally the title of God the Father. Moreover, the description of the Great Assize here is substantially the same as that of Dan_7:9-10 : and there the Ancient of Days, Who sits on the throne, is plainly distinguished from the Son of Man. Therefore we are no doubt to understand the presence of the Father here, in spite of St Joh_5:22; Joh_5:27. There is no contradiction, if we take a duly high view of the relation between the Father and the Son. St Paul’s doctrine, Act_17:31; Rom_2:16 (allowing that Tit_2:13 is ambiguous), shews the accurate relation between the two sides of the truth: and Rev_3:21, compared with our Lord’s own words in St Mat_16:27 and parallels, shews the propriety of this image.
from whose face &c.] The passing away of earth and heaven is spoken of in Isa_51:6, St Mat_24:35 and parallels; but the strong expression of their fleeing before God’s presence is peculiar to this place: Psa_104:32, however, is something of a precedent. That the destruction will be by fire is not stated here, or anywhere but in 2Pe_3:10; 2Pe_3:12, and perhaps 2Th_1:7-8. In St Peter l.c. we have this destruction of the world by fire compared with the destruction by the Flood, and this parallel seems to have been recognised in popular Jewish belief. Popular Christian belief continued the series, by interpolating between the two a purely mythical “flood of wind;” an idea also found, curiously enough, in the Mexican mythology, which completed the elemental series with a destruction by earthquakes. The lesson of all this seems to be, that the Deluge is a matter of universal tradition, and that the destructibility of the world is recognised by a universal instinct: but that the manner of its destruction is not so revealed, that it can safely be conceived by us in picturesque detail. The destruction of our globe, perhaps of the whole solar system, by fire is quite within the bounds of possibility, even according to the known laws of nature; but those laws more naturally suggest the world literally “waxing old like a garment, and them that dwell therein dying like a moth,” and the elements rather congealing with cold than “melting with fervent heat.” On the other hand, passages like Act_10:42; 1Th_4:15; 2Ti_4:1; 1Pe_4:5 seem plainly to prove that the human race will not be extinct when that Day comes, but that there will be “the quick” as well as “the dead” ready to undergo the Judgement. But the judgement of the dead only is described here. St John had learnt, as St Paul had not, that the dead would be the larger class of the two: whether he learnt it from his own longer life, or from the length of time implied in this vision.
and there was found no place for them] The phrase is a reminiscence of Dan_2:35; we had a similar one in Rev_12:8.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv11–12 (11) And I saw a great white throne .…
(11) And I saw a great white throne . . .—Or, And I saw a great white throne, and Him that was seated thereon, from whose face fled the earth and the heaven, and place was not found for them. The throne is described as great and white, to set it in strong contrast to other thrones mentioned in the book, e.g., Rev_4:4; Rev_20:4. It is a white throne, in token of the purity of the judgment which follows. He who sits upon it is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity. It is asked, Who is He that is seated here? Throughout the book God is called “Him that sitteth upon the throne” (Rev_4:3; Rev_5:1); but we must not understand this as excluding the Son of God, who sits with His Father on His throne (Rev_3:21), and who, as Son of Man, declared that He would sit upon the throne of His glory and divide “all the nations” as a shepherd divideth the sheep from the goats (Mat_25:31-32; comp. also Rev_6:16; Rev_11:15-18). At the face of Him who sits upon the throne the heaven and earth flee. Hengstenberg interprets this of the putting out of the way “all of the irrational creation which had been pressed into the service of sin.” Gebhardt interprets it of “the destruction of the whole present visible world.” A comparison, however, of the imagery employed in Rev_6:12-14; Rev_16:19-20, should make us cautious of asserting that any great physical catastrophe is described here. Doubtless revolution must precede renewal (Rev_21:1); but it is never safe to ground our expectations of the nature of such changes upon language which is confessedly poetical in form. Some physical revolutions do in all probability await our earth, but the eye of the prophet looks more to the moral and spiritual regeneration of the world—more to the spiritual well-being of mankind, than to any physical changes which may synchronise with the culmination of the world’s moral history.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv11–13 And I saw a great white throne. And I…
And I saw a great white throne. And I saw; introducing a new phase of the vision (el. ver. 1, etc.). A throne is seen as in Rev_4:2; it is great, perhaps, by comparison with those mentioned in ver. 4; white, because this is the colour of purity and all heavenly virtues. (cf. Rev_1:14 Rev_2:17 Rev_3:4, etc.) And him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them. The true reading, "before the throne," in the following verse makes it clear that God the Judge is here intended. Perhaps from Mat_25:31 and Joh_5:22 we must infer that God the Son is meant. The destruction of the world is complete place is found for them;" they are annihilated. Such an event is nearly always portrayed in the description of the last judgment in the Apocalypse and in the New Testament generally. (cf. Rev_16:20)
Vers. 11-15. (compared with Rev_22:12) "The day of the Lord.
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The several enemies of the Church Satan, the first beast, the second beast, and the harlot have one by one passed away from view. Now only men remain to be dealt with, both good and bad. It is necessary for us to avoid a confused blending of themes, as well as too frequent reiteration. We shall, therefore, pursue the following plan (which, indeed, is that required by the Apocalypse itself): We shall first deal with three themes common to all: the day of the Lord; the resurrection; the judgment. Then we shall see what light Scripture throws on the destiny of each; studying first the doom of the ungodly, and then the glory of the new heaven and the new earth. The topic of our present homily isThe day of the Lord. Inasmuch as our exposition of this and kindred themes can be valid only as it accords with the general tenor of the Word of God, we must ensure a wider basis on which to rest our unfolding of this stupendous theme than can possibly be found in this symbolic passage alone. If we group three other passages with it, our course will be clearer. The first is one which follows very shortly on our present one, and is in the twelfth verse of the last chapter of the Apocalypse. The second is that declaration of the Apostle Peter in Act_2:17-21, The third is the passage of the Prophet Joel, on which the apostle based his declarations concerning the "great and terrible day of the Lord." In combining the three we shall therefore be locating the second advent just where it is set in this book, and indicating its purposes in harmony with the whole tenor of Scripture.
I ALL PARTS OF SCRIPTURE CARRY FORWARD OUR THOUGHTS TO A GREAT DAY. The Apocalyptic word, in Rev_22:12, is but the final setting of a truth which pervades the whole of Scripture. "That day," "the great day," "the day of the Lord," "the great and terrible day of the Lord," "the day when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven," "the last day," "the harvest, these and many other such phrases are found. Enoch prophesied, "Behold, the Lord cometh," etc. Job declared, "He shall stand at the latter day upon the earth." Asaph sang, "Our God shall come, and shall not keep silence." The preacher said, "God shall bring every work into judgment." The prophets cast their glances forward far beyond the first appearing of our Lord. Isaiah, Hosea, Joel, and the rest. Our Lord, in the three several stages of his teaching, declares the same. When in the flesh, he spake of the time when he should come in his glory. He inspired Peter, Paul, and John to write of his reappearing. And all but his last word in the Apocalyptic unfoldings is, as it were, the final seal upon all this: "Behold, I come quickly; and my reward is with me, to give every man according as his work shall be.
II THE TIME IS FIXED FOR THE COMMENCEMENT OF THAT DAY. "I come quickly." This was said eighteen hundred years ago, and our Lord is not come yet. But "one day is with the Lord as a thousand years," etc. Time is not counted only by the ticks of a dial, but by the growth of men. The second coming is, according to the Apostle Peter, the event which is at once to consummate and close this aeon. Paul tells us, "Now is the day of salvation;" and "He hath appointed a day in which he will judge the world," etc. The Prophet Joel tells us, "In those days, and in that time, when I shall bring again the captivity of Judah and Jerusalem, I will also gather all nations." So we find in the New Testament that the receiving of Israel once more shall be followed by the Bringing in of the fulness of the Gentiles. These two great issues are to be witnessed before the end cometh. As the world is not moving on blindly without any definite end at all, so neither is it moving on without a Divine foresight and purpose as to when or how the end shall come. "The spirit of the living creature is in the wheels; The wheels are full of eyes." Towards this momentous point all things are tending. To the last the world will seem indifferent thereto. "As it was in the days of Noah... so shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed.
III STARTLING SIGNS WILL HERALD THE APPROACH OF THAT DAY. Our Lord and his apostles were very clear on this matter. (Mt 24 Ac 2) Nor was the Prophet Joel, among others, less so. (Joe_2:31 Joe_3:15; comp. also Hag 2 with Heb 12) There is room for wide differences of opinion here as to whether all these expressions signify extraordinary and marvellous natural phenomena, or rather great convulsions in the ecclesiastical and political spheres. Possibly both are intended, Moral and physical crises and epochs have often coincided, and may again. In Humboldt"s "Kosmos" no fewer than seventeen instances are given of remarkable natural phenomena similar to those described in Scripture, some of which occurred at great crises in national life or in the world"s history.
IV A VAST ASSEMBLAGE WILL BE GATHERED ON THAT DAY. What a vision before the mind"s eye when we look at the Apocalyptic words! "To give every man;" "Every eye shall see him; .... We must all stand before the judgment seat of Christ." See also the Prophet Joel"s words, "Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision;" where the term "decision" is from a word that denotes a threshing instrument, by which the wheat is separated from the chaff; and the word "multitudes" is from one that signifies "a hum," and brings vividly before the mind the confused noise of a vast crowd. Crowds on crowds! One living, surging sea of human souls. A threshing process is being carried on, and "He shall separate them one from another!
V THE LIFE WORK OF MEN WILL BE FINISHED ON THAT DAY. "To give every man according as his work shall be." Not his works, as if they were isolated details; but work, as if it were a definite whole. Even so. The work is as the man is. On the side of good or of evil, as he has taken his stand, there will his work be ranged. "Ye did it unto me," "Ye did it not unto me," are phrases so comprehensive as to include and to classify all moral acts whatsoever. And however doubtful it may have seemed at life"s earlier stages, on which side any one might be ranged, no doubt will be possible when wheat and tares alike are ripe at the great harvest day. As we have shown in an earlier homily, we can know men by their fruits. God knows them by their tendencies. And when tendencies have developed to issues, the righteousness of God in judging accordingly will be made manifest. For
VI A RIGHTEOUS RECOMPENSE WILL BE AWARDED ON THAT DAY. "To give every man according as his work shall be." Here we have the distinct statement of the meaning and object of our Lord"s second advent a meaning and an object so momentous, that we cannot dislocate this reappearing without seriously affecting our conception of the whole plan of redemption. If we look at our Lord as coming to bring in a regeneration which the gospel has designedly failed to achieve, our views of our duty and of the glorious gospel will be very seriously lowered. But it is not thus that Scripture locates the great day. It is the decisive day, the day of ripeness, the day of separation, the day of final award. (cf. Rev_22:12) Then God will judge the secrets of men. We shall all be made manifest before the tribunal of Christ.
VII RESULTS WILL CONTRAST AS WIDELY AS CHARACTERS ON THAT DAY. "Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." Every man will receive in his body the things done, whether good or bad. "The heavens and the earth shall shake, but the Lord shall be the Hope of his people, and the Strength of the children of Israel." On one side we read that the wicked "shall be punished with everlasting destruction," etc. On the other, "He shall come to be glorified in his saints, and to be admired in all them that believe." So that it is easy to see the reason why, on the one hand, the second coming of our Lord is "the blessed hope," while on the other it is "the great and terrible day." It will be to a man glorious or terrible according to the attitude of the man towards his God and Saviour. There is a day coming that shall burn as an oven, when men will "return, and discern between the righteous and the wicked, between him that serveth God and him that serveth him not.
VIII THESE RESULTS ARE FINAL. So far as the disclosures of the Word of God are made, the horizon is bounded by these two issues glory to the righteous, condemnation to the wicked. On the question What do these severally mean? we treat afterwards. But the dread aspect of finality which characterizes the varied passages of the Word of God which speak of the doom of the wicked, precludes us from asking What lies beyond these disclosures? Where Scripture bounds its testimony, we must end our thinkings, for the one and sufficient reason that thought has no further basis on which to act. For our part, we can affirm neither the endlessness of future punishment, nor annihilation, nor restoration. "But," it may be demurred, "the ultimate issue must be one or the other." Possibly so. But even if it be so, it does not follow that we can tell any individual soul how it will be with him. If we be asked again, "Why can you not affirm either?" we reply We cannot affirm restoration, because many passages seem to us to preclude it. We cannot affirm annihilation, because it loses sight of the fact that, according to the usus loquendi of Scripture, there may be existence in a state of death. We cannot affirm the endlessness of punishment, because:
(1) That would be affirming the tremendous doctrine that sin will last as long as God lasts.
(2) The assertion would go beyond the necessary meaning of the phrases used to imply duration, which only so far as evil is concerned indicate indefinite rather than endless duration.
(3) It would also ignore the fact that the strongest phrases in the Word of God for duration, and those which involve endlessness, are all on the side of good.
But while we refrain from asserting the absolute endlessness of future punishment, we do affirm:
(1) That God has not shown us an end to it.
(2) That every moment a sinner continues to harden his heart against God, he is doing what he can to make repentance an impossibility.
(3) That if a man resists Divine love here, no one can show what is to make him more yielding hereafter.
(4) That every man will be dealt with by God in absolute and unswerving equity. Whatever may be any individual theory, all these four last-named positions are absolutely certain. Objection: But how about the heathen world? What will be the condition of the men who have lived in pagan darkness? Will they necessarily be lost because they have had less light than others?
We reply:
(1) No; not necessarily. The Scripture again and again teaches that men"s salvation does not depend on the measure of light God saw fit to send them, but on the use which they shall have made of the light they had.
(2) We have no doubt whatever that before this great decisive day comes, every child of man will have been brought into direct contact with the claims of the Lord Jesus Christ, for acceptance or rejection; and that no soul ever reaches the crucial point of its probation till such is the case. (cf. 1Pe_4:6) How could there be a common basis of judgment if some had never heard of Jesus? Our Lord will not come till he has all things in readiness to judge the living and the dead.
IX Finally, IT BEHOVES EVERY MAN TO PREPARE FOR THAT DAY. Whatever may be obscure as to the time or place in which these tremendous scenes will be enacted, there is quite enough of clearly revealed truth respecting it to give men urgent reasons for preparing to meet their God; and to make pastors and teachers passionately earnest in setting before their hearers the solemnity of the destinies which loom before every man. Just as each atom of matter is related to every other, so has each moment of our time a bearing upon the last, the supreme, the decisive day. Every day we are piling up thoughts, words, deeds, which take their place for good or evil in the fabric of character; and as is character at last, so will be the award. "Oh, to be ready, ready for that day, Who would not fling earth"s fairest toys away?
Vers. 11-15. The resurrection from the dead.
This paragraph is an amazingly compressed eschatology. We have already studied the Scripture teaching on "the day of the Lord" which it opens up to us. We have now to look at the dread incidents which will mark that day. One of these is indicated by the words, "I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne... And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them." We will, with these words as our center point, survey the doctrine in the light of the general tenor of Scripture.
I AT THE COMING OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST THERE WILL BE A GENERAL RESURRECTION FROM THE DEAD. There is nothing in Scripture to lead to the conclusion that there will be two bodily resurrections. Those which are mainly supposed to teach it do not. Others teach precisely the contrary.
1. There are two passages which are among the principal ones that are adduced for the doctrine of two bodily resurrections, one of the saints, and afterwards of the wicked.
(1) The first is Rev_20:3. This we have dealt with in the homily on ver. 4.
(2) The other is 1Th_4:16, which is looked at by some as if it taught that the dead in Christ should rise first, and the dead out of Christ afterwards. But the antithesis is not between the dead in Christ and other dead, but between the dead in Christ and those who are living at the coming of the Lord. First, the dead; then we who are alive.
2. Other passages leave distinctly on the mind the impression of one resurrection, not of two; e.g. Joh_5:28 Mat_25:41 Act_24:15 Dan_12:2. We are pointed to one day or time, whether Scripture speaks of the righteous, or of the wicked, or of both.
(1) Of the righteous. (2Th_1:10 Heb_9:28 1Jn_2:28, 29 4:17 Php_1:10 3:20, 21)
(2) Of the wicked. (Rom_2:6 2Pe_3:7, 2Pe_3:13)
(3) Of both. (Mat_7:21-23 Mat_10:32, 33 13:30, 42, 43 16:27 Mt 25 Act_17:31 Rom_2:6, 16 14:10 1Co_3:12-15 2Th_1:7-10) It is scarcely too much to say that it is impossible to explain all these passages except on the supposition that there is to be a resurrection of the dead, both of the just and of the unjust. There is, however, another passage, which, if possible, is more decisive still, viz. Joh_6:39, Joh_6:40, Joh_6:44, Joh_6:54. Here it is four times stated that the resurrection of the believers shall take place at the last day, which could not be if that of the wicked were separated from it and appointed for a later period. There will be one resurrection from the dead.
II WHAT WILL THE RESURRECTION BE? Granted that it will be of all the dead: (Joh_5:28) what is meant by it? We replyIt will be a resurrection of bodies.
1. The bodies of the righteous will rise. (Php_3:21 1Co_15:43 Rom_8:11, Rom_8:23)
2. The bodies of the wicked will rise. (Joh_5:29 Act_24:15 Mat_5:29, 30 Mar_9:43-47 Mat_10:28 2Co_5:10, Greek) The dead will rise with bodies which will be according to character, and which will contain within themselves provision for joy or woe. Query: Have we any clue in Scripture as to the relation which exists between the body that is laid in the grave and that which will rise from it? We reply Not any direct clue; but we have a very clear statement of an apostle in 1Co_15:36-38, concerning four well-known principles and methods of God in the natural world; and if we apply these, as he would have us do, to the doctrine in hand, we shall find many difficulties cleared out of the way. The four facts are these.
(1) There can be no rising without a previous sowing and decay.
(2) The body that is sown is not the body that shall be.
(3) Yet to every seed there is its own body.
(4) The relation between the two is a secret in the mind of God.
"God giveth it a body as it hath pleased him." If these are borne in mind and carried out to their legitimate issue, they will leave us no difficulty in the matter save the one, that we do not know the whole of anything.
III How WILL THE RESURRECTION BE EFFECTED?
1. By the power of God. (Mat_22:29)
2. By the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ. (Joh_5:28, 29 Php_3:21)
3. By the energy of the Holy Ghost. (Rom_8:11)
4. Angels will be the attendants and instruments. (Mat_13:39-41 1Th_4:16)
If we here do little more than quote Scripture, it is because that is all that we can do. We know nothing more about the resurrection than we are told by our Lord and his apostles. We cannot forget that the Redeemer, in his memorable reply to the Sadducces, in which he showed them that their blundering over the doctrine arose from ignorance of Scripture, also pointed out in what the real glory of the resurrection consists, viz. not in the reproducing of like flesh and blood, nor in the repetition of an earthly life, but in the raising of the entire man to a life of nobler energy, in which it would be possible for him to realize the full meaning of the words, "I am the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob." He who was their God would be to them all that a God could be, and would raise them up and present them to himself in all the perfection of a complete and glorified manhood.
IV ON WHAT GROUND MAY OUR BELIEF IN THE RESURRECTION SECURELY REST? There is one ground which is sufficient in itself, viz. the testimony of Jesus Christ and his apostles. Well aware are we that this is an age of revolt from authority. Or, rather, it is supposed to be so. And men think that they require clear proof from actual experiment before they believe. But a little close examination will dispose of this self laudatory theory. For first, if the proof of x be direct and personal, based on his own trial, to him the issue is knowledge, not faith. And second, unless his own proof can be repeated or actually is repeated by others, they must accept another"s finding on faith in him. And so it is in the entire scientific realm. There is no man of science that does not owe to the experiments of others ninety-nine hundredths of all his knowledge. In other words, the great bulk of scientific knowledge rests on the authority of others. There are three kinds of authority which will stand as long as the race lasts.
(1) That of personal proprietorship.
(2) That of adequate knowledge.
(3) That of intrinsic and self-evident truth or worth.
With regard to the resurrection. The Lord Jesus Christ, as Lord of all, has authority of the first-named order. His apostles, as taught by the Holy Ghost, have authority of the second order. Hence the question between faith and unbelief regarding the resurrection ceases to be one of the surrender of authority as a ground of faith, and becomes merely one of the transfer of authority. Are men prepared to accept as authorities on this matter men who ask them to disbelieve the resurrection, because science can give them no information respecting it? We, for our part, challenge men to produce more trustworthy testimony on any matter, than that of our Lord and his apostles concerning the resurrection. If asked, then, for the ground on which we believe it, we would reply:
1. The Lord has assured us of it (Joh_11:23)
2. He regards it as a part of the trust committed to him. (Joh_6:39, Joh_6:40)
3. He has led the way by his own resurrection. (1Co_15:17)
4. He has declared his will that his people shall follow him to glory. (Joh_17:24)
5. The completion of his own mediatorial work demands it. (1Co_15:29-32 1Th_2:19 Col_1:28 Jud_1:24)
V WHAT WILL FOLLOW FROM THE RESURRECTION? (Ver. 14, "Death and Hades were cast into the lake of fire.") The bodies of men before the resurrection were, so to speak, held in the grasp of death. The spirits of men were in Hades, i.e. in the invisible realm those of the blessed in a state of happy rest and honour in and with Christ; those of the ungodly and unbelieving under the guard of Christ, with a view to the great, the decisive day, ushered in by the resurrection. When the mighty voice of the Son of God shall wake the dead, then Death shall resign his hold of the bodies, and the invisible world must open its gates for all its occupants to quit those mysterious realms. Thus Death will be dead. And the invisible realm will be vacant. Both will have served a purpose in the development of the Divine plans, but they will be no longer. They will be "cast into the lake of fire.
VI WHAT USES HAVE BEEN MADE OF THE DOCTRINE OF THE RESURRECTION? Perhaps few doctrines have suffered so much as this from the meddling and muddling of man. And in part, at any rate, it is owing to this that it has been so misused. Yet not altogether to this cause must we attribute such abuse. For the doctrine is confessedly so mysterious, that the proud heart scorns it. It is so fraught with terrors to the ungodly that the wicked tremble at it. (See Sir Samuel Baker"s conversation with an African youth on the resurrection; Dr. Moffat"s with an African chief upon it.) It is very remarkable that we have in Scripture illustrations of no fewer than seven ways of treating this doctrine.
1. Some denied it altogether. (1Co_15:12)
2. Some declared that it was past already. (2Ti_2:18)
3. Some made it a plea for putting forth curious questions. (Mat_22:28)
4. Some mocked. (Act_17:32)
5. Some postponed the consideration of the matter. (Act_17:32)
6. Some believed. (1Pe_1:3-5)
7. One, at least, with a touching blending of faith, fear, and. commonsense, was unable to formulate the doctrine, but reposed implicitly in the Lord Jesus Christ. (cf. Joh_11:26, Joh_11:27, "Believest thou this? etc.) We admire the answer of Martha, in which she seems to say, "Yea, Lord, I believe it, because I believe thee, though I scarcely understand what it means!" Happy they who, with extreme difficulty in formulating the doctrine in detail, can fall back in loving faith in him in whom it centres, and who "will make it plain." As that excellent man, Dr. Clerk Maxwell, said, shortly before death, "It is but a very little of pure truth that we can reach; but what a mercy to be able to say, "We know whom we have believed!
VII BELIEVING THE DOCTRINE, WHAT OUGHT TO BE ITS PRACTICAL POWER?
1. It has a gladsome side. Herein:
(1) Let the believer rejoice. (Col_3:3, Col_3:4)
(2) Let the Christian worker gather from it a holy stimulus, and keep it in view in all his teaching of Jesus Christ. (Col_1:28, 29 1Th_2:19, 20 1Co_15:58)
(3) With this great crisis in view, let the hearer of the gospel remember his responsibilities. (Heb_13:17)
(4) Let all Christian people see to it that they abound in the work of holy living. (1Jn_2:28 2Pe_3:14)
2. It has, moreover, an aspect of unspeakable solemnity. (Rev_1:7 Joh_5:28, Joh_5:29) To rise from the dead to confront the Judge of all, in an unprepared and unpardoned state, how terrible!
The Lord grant that we may find mercy of the Lord in that day!
Vers. 11-15. Judgment; or, the opening of the books. ()
Following on the resurrection is the judgment. In connection with this, we read that before the face of him that sat upon the throne the heavens and the earth fled away. This may include the final conflagration. But what the phrase actually means, no man is in a position adequately to judge. Such passages as Psa_102:26, 27 Mat_24:35 Mat_19:28 Heb_1:12-14 2Pe_3:7, 10-12 1Jn_2:17, prepare us to expect vast changes. "If there is any analogy between what has been and what is to be, there may yet be another catastrophe on the surface of the earth by virtue of which present forms of life will cease to be, and give place to others of a higher order than ever earth has known." Now, the Bible presents to us a moral development. Science shows us physical development. And we are led, by comparing both together, to the conclusion which we have before expressed, that as in the past so in the future, moral and physical events will synchronize, and that when the earth is ripe for geologic change it will also be ripe for a moral one. Planting our feet firmly on the words which the Holy Ghost teacheth, we say There cometh a great decisive day, as tremendous in its moral and spiritual revelations and issues as it will be august in its physical changes. We recognize Divine disclosures concerning the latter as well as concerning the former. There are Divine disclosures to reason in the stone book of nature, and Divine declarations to faith in the written revelation. Where science ends revelation carries us forward, and while the former forecasts the re-preparation of the stage for further action, the other reveals the action which is to take place on that stage. Science brings to view natural law; revelation, a series of laws equally firm and sure; even those of a moral government superadded to physical control, and of a redemptive work inserted into a moral administration. There is a day coming when the working of these varied sets of laws will culminate. In the "economy of the filling up of the seasons" things are kept in store against that day. It is very remarkable to find such vast events indicated in so few words as we find here. But the fact is that all physical charges arc but subordinate to the supreme moral and spiritual issues which are pending. On these we at once proceed to dwell.
I "THE GREAT DAY" WILL PROVE AT ONCE A CLIMAX OF HISTORY AND A REVELATION OF CHARACTER. Its bearing on the human race is indicated by the words, "day of judgment;" in which term there are included:
1. The appearing of mankind before God.
2. The manifestation of character.
3. Approval or disapproval.
4. Recompense or penalty.
"It has for a long time been disputed whether the judgment of the world will be an external, visible, formal transaction, or whether the mere decision respecting the destiny of man; the actual taking effect of retribution is represented under the image of a judicial proceeding, like what is common among men." The latter opinion would have more on its side if it were only in such a symbolic book as this that the latter is suggested. But the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments combine in presenting the judgment as a vast solemn last assize.
II THE ENTIRE ADMINISTRATION OF JUDGMENT IS IN THE HANDS OF THE LORD JESUS CHRIST. (Joh_5:22, 27 Act_10:42 Act_17:31 Rom_14:10 2Co_5:10 Php_2:11) He is the Head of the human race, both by his original position as Son of God, and by his assumed position as Son of man. He "both died, and rose, and re-lived, that he might be Lord both of the dead and of the living.
III SCRIPTURE TELLS US WHO WILL BE CONCERNED IN THE TRANSACTIONS OF THE JUDGMENT DAY. Devils. (Jud_1:6 2Pe_2:4 Mat_8:28) Men, (Rom_2:4-11) including pagans, Jews, Christians, nominal and real. All. (Rom_14:10) None will elude the judgment of God. (Rom_2:3) "Every one shall give account of himself". (Rom_14:12)
IV WE ARE ALSO TOLD WHAT WILL BE JUDGED.
1. Deeds. (2Co_5:10)
2. Words. (Mat_12:36, Mat_12:37)
3. Thoughts. (1Co_4:3-5)
4. Secret things. (Rom_2:16)
5. "Every secret thing". (Ecc_12:14)
"There is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed; and hid, that shall not be known.
V MEN WILL BE JUDGED ACCORDING TO THE LIGHT THEY HAD; i.e. according to the use they made of the light God had granted then. (Rom_2:11-15 Mat_10:15 Mat_11:21-24 Luk_11:31, 32 12:47, 48 Act_10:34, Act_10:35) The principles here laid down are those of most manifest equity, and we are quite sure that there will be nothing contrary thereto in the sentence of God. The late Dr. Lawson, of Selkirk, was once asked by a flippant young man how he could think that any, such as Plato and Socrates, would be lost because they had not heard of Jesus Christ. He replied, "If it please God in his mercy, and through faith in his Son, to take you and me to heaven, and that we shall find there Socrates and Plato, I am sure we shall be glad indeed to meet them; but if we shall not find them in heaven, I am also sure that the Judge of all the earth will be able to assign a good reason for their absence, and that none in heaven will be either able or willing to dispute either the justice or the wisdom of his sovereign arrangements." We may also add that Scripture not obscurely intimates that every soul will, before the dread day comes, be brought into contact with the Lord Jesus lot acceptance or rejection; and those who followed conscientiously the dimmer light will surely accept joyfully the clearer. Certainly the Judge of all the earth will do right.
VI WHERE IS THE RECORD OF THE ACTS, WORDS, AND THOUGHTS WHICH WILL BE DISCLOSED AT JUDGMENT? In "the books." What are these? Who can tell? We would reverently suggest:
1. There is that unerring record the memory of God. To the Divine mind everything is present (Psalm 139). By him nothing is forgotten. All the manifold and complicated currents of human thought, the varied fluctuations of human wills and impulses, the maze of human design and plan, past, present, and future, are all laid open to his searching glance. Not one passing thought eludes his notice or escapes from his memory. In his mind is a complete and permanent photograph of every soul.
2. Then there is our own memory. Judging from the collection of facts from which Science essays to draw her conclusions, nothing ever drops completely from man"s memory. A word, a look, a sound, a song, a feature, a locket, a hair, may recall deeds and thoughts of a generation past. Let but the barriers which imprison memory be removed, as they seem to have been in the case of many persons near death, and the whole of one"s life may rush back in an instant, and reveal the man to himself in a way that shall either make him dumb with horror or inspire him with joy.
3. If this be so, then the memory of others must be a permanent record of a large part of our lives. For if our memory records the impulses we give, it would seem also, by parity of reasoning, to be a record of the impulses we receive. Thus the power exerted by us over others, and by others over us, creates indelible impressions on their minds and ours, so that their "books" and ours mutually supplement and confirm each other. "You cannot meet a stranger in the streets, nor utter a word in your remotest solitude, nor think a thought in your inmost heart, but lo! this recording angel has noted it down upon the tablets of your soul forever" (Macleod).
4. Science itself suggests wondrous disclosures in this direction. The great mathematician Babbage, in his Bridgewater Treatise, remarks, "The whole atmosphere is one vast library, on whose pages are recorded all that man has ever said or woman whispered." The air, the light, are ever the bearers of our deeds and words. "It is probable," says Coleridge, "judging from the facts presented in medical records, that all thoughts are in themselves imperishable; and that if the intelligent faculty should be rendered more comprehensive, it would require only a different and apportioned organization the body celestial instead of the body terrestrial to bring before every human soul the collective experience of its whole past existence. And this this, perchance, is the dread book of judgment, in the mysterious hieroglyphics of which every idle word is recorded.
5. And then there will be another record in the countenance of the man. The spirit forms the face. Even here, "it is not in words explicable with what Divine lines and lights the exercise of godliness and charity will mould and gild the hardest and coldest countenances, nether to what darkness their departure will consign even the loveliest. For there is not any virtue the exercise of which even momentarily will not impress a new fairness upon the tortures; neither on them only, but on the whole body."The work of grace reforms the countenance. The work of sin deforms it. To a sufficiently keen observer, a man"s face is a living book in which his character may be read. Yea, it is even so. "Books" in abundance are every moment having entries made therein from which the character and desert of each can be clearly read at last. So much so is this the case, that it is far easier to see how ruin impends than how salvation is possible, with such a long catalogue of sins as must attach to every man"s life. Knowing as we do that in the physical world there is no forgiveness of sins, it is impossible, without Bible teaching, to see how salvation ever can be inserted into the condition of a sinful man. This naturally leads us to another inquiry
VII WHAT WILL BE THE ISSUES OF THE JUDGMENT? These will be twofold.
1. Eternal life. (Comp. Mat_25:31-40 Rom_8:33, 34 1Jn_4:17 2Ti_4:8 Rev_2:10 Rev_3:5) Scripture is very clear as to the issues of the judgment in the case of the blessed. There is, in fact, one sentence in the paragraph before us which indicates the joyous aspect of the judgment to them. "Another book was opened, which is the book of life". (cf. Isa_4:3 Luk_10:20 Php_4:3 Heb_12:23 Php_3:20) This book of life includes all the saved. Every one of them is written there. The Father"s name is written on their foreheads. Their names are written in the Father"s book. And this is emphatically a book of grace. Without the redemptive scheme of Divine love, there never would have been any such book at all. Nor should it be left unnoticed that it is called in Rev_13:8 and Rev_21:27 the Lamb"s book of life. The names recorded there are of those who have been redeemed by his blood, and who are his purchased possession. These shall be welcomed by him to the everlasting kingdom "prepared from the foundation of the world.
Difficulty (1): Difficulties may here occur to the minds of many; such as these: It be a matter of revealed truth that acts, words, and thoughts shall be brought forth to light, and if the sins of the believer in Christ are thus brought to view and exposed before all, will not that interfere very materially with the joy of the saved? Reply:
(a) It is not surprising if, when we attempt detail, we soon get beyond our reach in dealing with themes so vast.
(b) In this case, however, whatever sin comes out to light, does so as that which is repented of on the one side, and forgiven on the other. So that
(c) even thus the testimony would be borne more vividly to the renewing and forgiving grace of God.
Difficulty (2): We read in Joh_5:24 that he that believeth shall not come into judgment; and yet we read elsewhere, "We must all stand before the judgment seat of Christ:" how is this? Reply: Believers, with others, will be made manifest before the judgment seat of Christ; but their manifestation will be that of pardoned and of sanctified men, whose guilt is cancelled and whose sin is removed. Surely, when this is taken into account, the difficulty ceases. There will be no such judgment as involves condemnation.
2. On the other side, the issue will be condemnation. The terrible word "Depart!" sums up all hell. (cf. Rev_2:6-16 2Th 1 2Pe_3:7 Mar_9:43-48) What further remarks we have to offer on the after state of the ungodly we reserve for the next homily, observing here only that katakrima cannot mean anything less than "an adverse verdict;" and what that may involve, as a final sentence from the lips of the King of kings, we pray God we may never know!
Note: That scenes so solemn as the one put before us in this paragraph are meant to tell mightily upon us, and that they ought to do so, we cannot question, however incapable we may be of realizing all the details thereof. Any one or more of the following applications may well be earnestly pressed on the conscience by pastors and teachers.
1. Let every believer keep in view the judgment day, with anxious desire then to be approved of the Judge. (1Jn_2:28)
2. Let us endeavour more fully to realize the fact that we are perpetually under the scrutinizing gaze of him "with whom we have to do.
3. Let us regard every action as a laying up of treasure or of wrath against the great revealing day. (Rom_2:5 1Ti_6:19)
4. How intensely momentous does a pastor"s or a teacher"s work appear in view of that day (Heb_13:17) It is not to be wondered at if at times the weight of responsibility is more than he knows how to bear.
5. The responsibility of those who hear the Word is obviously correspondingly great. It also is implied in Heb_13:17.
6. None should forget that there is a Divine, a gracious meaning, in the prolonging of the "day of salvation." The promise and the menace are not forgotten. God is not weak. Neither is he indifferent. He is "long suffering towards us, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance." With a view to this his goodness is drawing men now. He waits to be gracious. But we have no reason for thinking that he will wait always.
Vers. 11-15. The second death: the lake of fire.
"This is the second death, the lake of fire." Few of our readers, if any, are likely here to lose sight of the symbolic style of the Apocalypse a style which, indeed, so largely pervades it, that if there were not other passages bearing on like themes and couched in different phraseology, its interpretation would be impossible. And even with the aid of the plainer words, the theme before us is so vast, so dread, so fraught with terror, that for our part we scarcely know how to write upon it or even to approach it. Nor even now can we pretend to do more within the space at our command than to lay down some seven distinctly revealed lines of Divine teaching concerning the future state of the ungodly. When these seven lines are put together they will be found to include all the main teachings of the Word containing so dread a theme. We regard it as needless to do more at this stage of the exposition than to remind the reader of the point we have reached in the grand unfoldings of this book. The resurrection is past, the judgment has been set, men have been adjudged each one according to his works. And it is from this revealed point of time that we now start. May the writer"s pen be guided, and his heart inspired in a holy and a trembling awe, as he now essays to point out the results of the Judge"s solemn word, "Depart!
I AT THIS POINT THE REVEALED PERIOD OF PROBATION FOR THE RACE CLOSES. It is very clear, from the apostolic explanation in 2Co_6:2 of the phrase, "a day of salvation," that the present gospel day is thereby intended. This is the day of salvation, in which mercy may be obtained. To this day there is a limit. "After that thou shalt cut it down." The vine dresser could not ask for any further postponement of the act when fruitlessness was decisive and final. We are not in a position to look at the meaning of the great decisive day in relation to the government of God until we understand the Scripture doctrine of human probation. We know that nations, empires, and cities have a day of probation. So have Churches. So have individuals. Their probation may close even before their natural life ends. It was so with Judas. The line, however, which marks the close of probation is not a temporal one, but a moral one. The close of probation is reached when the state of fixedness in sin is reached. (cf. Mar_3:29, 30, Revised Version) Hence we have but to expand the conception of that of individuality to that of universality to see how completely this accords with the frequent reference in Scripture of "the harvest day." Whoever lives in the habit of resisting God is hardening himself into a state of fixed unfruitfulness. And the last day will be the decisive day of treatment, because it is the consummation day of character.
II "THE DAY OF SALVATION" WILL BE FOLLOWED BY "THE DAY OF JUDGMENT." The latter may be a period as prolonged as the former. During "the day of salvation" grace reigns. In "the day of judgment" absolute and unswerving equity will mark the Divine procedure in every case. (Rom_2:6-16) And, as we understand the meaning of that, in its bearing on our present theme, we would express it thus: Whosoever refused grace, when it was freely offered him in the day of salvation, will be dealt with according to equity when that day is over.
There will be nothing of vindictiveness, harshness, or excess. Nothing in degree or duration which will not be known by the individual conscience, to be absolutely right.
III AT THIS DAY OF JUDGMENT THE RIGHTEOUS WILL NO MORE BE MINGLED WITH THE WICKED. The two solemn words, "Come!" "Depart!" will mark a difference in lot corresponding to difference of character, and also a separation of the one from the other. And it may well be made a theme of prolonged study to inquire into the meaning of the several words which express the character of those "without." There are no fewer than thirteen terms by which they are indicated. "Dogs," "sorcerers," "whoremongers," "liars," "the fearful," "unbelieving, .... idolaters," "murderers," "fornicators," "abominable," "those who worship the beast," "those who worshipped the dragon," "those who are not in the Lamb"s book of life." Such is the terrible list. On earth they met with the righteous, but were never confounded with them; in the next they shall neither mix nor meet. (cf. Mat_7:23 Heb_12:14) We know that such characters may be met with on earth now; what they will be is but the continuation of what they are. (see Rev_22:11)
IV FOR SUCH THE JUDGMENT DAY WILL INVOLVE A LOT WHICH IS THE TENFOLD ANTITHESIS OF LIFE. Let the student reverently compare the several terms which are set over against the word "life":
1. Life and punishment. (Mat_25:46)
2. Life and judgment. (Joh_5:29)
3. Life and wrath. (Joh_3:36)
4. Life and the second death. (Rev_20:14, Rev_20:15)
5. Life and destruction (Mat_7:13, 14).
6. Life and the lake of fire. (Rev_20:15)
7. Life and hell fire. (Mat_18:9)
8. Life and everlasting fire. (Mat_25:41)
9. Life and the unquenchable fire. (Mar_9:48)
10. Life and everlasting contempt. (Dan_12:2)
What a burden for men to unfold to their fellow men terrors of the Lord"! Yet this must be done. Who can gauge the contents of these phrases?
V THIS RENDERING TO EVERY MAN ACCORDING TO HIS DEEDS WILL BRING APPALLING SUFFERING. It is very common for those who wish to prejudice their hearers or readers against the doctrine of future punishment, to use more frequently than any other phrase the words "eternal torment." This is exceedingly unwise and worse, as an examination of the use of the word in the New Testament will show. Twice is this word, however, used in the symbolic language of this book. What was its intention? It is used to denote the tormenting process inflicted on accused ones, to extort from them the confession of the truth. May there not be herein a deep truth indicated, that even the perishing ones will clearly see, yea, and confess, that God is righteous? But if we are asked the question In what will the sufferings of the lost consist? we reply:
1. We earnestly trust we may never know.
2. So far as Scripture teachings guide us, we cannot avoid seeing that six features will mark them.
a. There will be the unrest of spirit under the just wrath of God.
b. There will be a sense of defeat.
c. Of loss.
d. Of exclusion
e. Or remorse.
f. Of hopeless and unavailing regret at the thought of what might have been. (cf. Joh_3:36 1Co_15:25 Mat_25:28 Luk_13:28 Mat_27:4 Mat_25:10 Luk_13:24 2Th_1:8, 9 Mat_7:23 Heb_10:26, Heb_10:27)
VI THERE IS A DREAD CONSENSUS OF CONVICTION AMONG EVANGELICAL PREACHERS AND TEACHERS ON THESE STUPENDOUS THEMES. Startling as such an assertion may be, when the controversies on future punishment are borne in mind, it is one which we venture to make, and one which we deem of infinite importance. We are well aware of the different theories on this subject. There is what is called the "orthodox" theory that the punishment of the wicked will be endless. There is the annihilation theory. There is the future restoration theory. There is the theory of the relativeness of revelation with regard to time. It is no part of our purpose here to defend or to criticize either. Our space will not permit of it. The books mentioned in the footnote will furnish the needed material for this. Our aim is rather to indicate how much common ground there is for evangelical preachers and teachers to occupy in proclaiming "the terrors of the Lord." The following statements will show how far earnest representative men in the several leading divisions of eschatolegical thought travel together on similar lines. They teach:
1. That when the Son of God comes as the Judge of all mankind, the time of probation for the human race will have closed.
2. That then every eye shall see him, and that all things will be in readiness for a righteous administration of judgment.
3. That all men will then appear before the tribunal of the Lord Jesus Christ.
4. That every man will, ere then, know of his own personal relation to the Lord Jesus, and that he is to be the Judge of all mankind.
5. That the final state of every soul will depend on its attitude to the Lord Jesus Christ.
6. That men will be sentenced, not according to the light God saw fit to send them, but according to the use they have made of the light granted to them.
7. That the Lord Jesus Christ, as an omniscient and unerring Judge, will sentence every man; that this sentence will be according to truth; and that it will be the outworking of moral laws that are in operation now, which are like their Author, "the same yesterday, and today, and forever.
8. That the measure of punishment will be according to the measure of guilt.
9. That for the righteous there will be joy and honour unspeakable, which will never end.
10. That for the wicked there will be irremediable loss, unutterable woe, for a duration of which no man can gauge the extent, accompanied with a depth of remorse that no tongue nor pen can describe.
11. That for those who reject Jesus Christ in this life there will be no such thing as making up lost time, and that they will never attain to the blessedness they would have reached if they had received Christ in this, the accepted time. Their time once lost is lost forever, and the corresponding loss of blessedness will never be retrieved.
Surely here is enough, and more than enough, for focused power in the pulpit in the presentation of the revealed truth of God on the future destiny of the ungodly. And when we see what a dread aspect of finality there is in such words as "The door was shut;" when we remember how repeatedly the trumpet call Now is sounded; when we know that these are spoken of as the last days, and that the day of judgment is "the last day;" when there is no hint of an offer of mercy in the next life to those who have rejected Jesus Christ in this; when we know that, by continued sin, men are getting into a state of hardness in which no means known to us can possibly reach their consciences; to shrink from the presentation to them of their risks would be gross unfaithfulness. There is no need to indulge in the excessive statement that sin will last as long as God lasts; there is no need to indulge in flaming descriptions of material fire and of bodily torture; there is no reason for so setting things as to make one"s moral nature and conscience revolt therefrom; in fact, there is every reason for not doing anything of the kind. For, within the lines indicated of a widely spread agreement among men of diverse conclusions as to the ultimate issue, the facts of life are so real, the drift of evil is so manifest, the penalties on sin are so stern, the Word of God is so clear, the commission to the Christian teacher is so direct, and the importance of commending ourselves to every man"s conscience is so vast, that with the most careful accuracy, measured statement, calm reasoning, pungent appeal, impassioned fervour, we are bound even weeping to plead with men in Christ"s stead, to "be reconciled to God," reminding them that not the whole of life to live, Nor all of death to die.
There is there isthe second death, even the lake of fire.
Vers. 11-15. The final judgment.
Stripped of its imagery, this most solemn Scripture declares to us the truth which is found in records manifold. Those of the Bible. The confirmatory passages are everywhere throughout its pages, and especially in those which record the very words of Christ. The most dreadful things in the Bible fell from his lips. Those of the traditions of ancient and heathen peoples. Everywhere we find, as especially in Egypt, creeds which declare a final and awful judgment. Those of conscience. They tell of "a fearful looking for of judgment." Read "Macbeth," and wherever any great writers have drawn true portraitures of men, the witness of conscience may be heard in them all. The imagery here is taken from the tribunals, and the procedure in them, with which the age of St. John was familiar the august and awe inspiring paraphernalia of justice, the magnificent and elevated throne of the judge, the giving of the evidence, and the sentence. But underlying all this metaphor are such truths as these
I THAT DEATH DOES NOT END ALL. This great transaction takes place when life is over, when this world is done with. Men, therefore, live on after death, or else they could not appear at this judgment bar. And that men do thus continue to live in their true real self, there is much evidence, beside that of Scripture, to show. The ancient Greeks disputed whether the relation of the soul to the body was that of harmony to the harp, or that of the rower to the boat. If the former, then, if you destroy the harp, you destroy the harmony it gave forth; and so, if you destroy the body, you destroy the soul too, and death does end all. But if the second, then the boat may sink or go to pieces, but the rower lives on still. And so is it with the soul. The body its boat may sink into the depths of the grave, but the soul sinks not with it. Professor Huxley has affirmed that "life is the cause of organization, and not organization the cause of life;" and Tyndall has shown that dead matter cannot produce life. Life, therefore, must exist prior to and independent of matter, and therefore can exist after the material organization which it for a while animated has decayed. We are the same self conscious beings in old age as we were when in childhood, though our bodies have changed over and over again meanwhile. Death, then, does not end all; we live on, and so one demand of the doctrine of final judgment is met.
II THAT THERE SHOULD BE RECORDS UPON WHICH THE JUDGMENT SHALL PROCEED. They are spoken of in this Scripture (ver. 12) as "books." "And another book, which is the book of life." The books contain biographies, and therefore are voluminous. The "other book" contains but names, and therefore is but one. No biography is needed; nought but the fact that they believed in Jesus. But what is meant by the "books"? Simply that there are records of the soul"s life, which will be opened and read in the great judgment day. They are found:
1. In the souls of others. In the character we have helped to impress upon them. There is no one but what has written down evidence about himself on the souls of others. If we have helped them heavenward, that is there; if we have urged them hellward, that is there.
2. But chiefly in our own souls. We are always writing such record, and it may be read even now in the body, in the countenance, in the very way we bear ourselves before our fellow men. Character can be read now. It comes out at the eyes, in the look, the aspect, is heard in the tone of voice. But much more helps to conceal it. The restraints of society, the regard to the opinion of others, make men reticent and reserved and full of concealment of their real selves. But in the spiritual body it is altogether probable that the essence of the man will be far more visible may, in fact, be, as many have thought, the creator of its body, so that "every seed" shall have "its own body." But on the soul itself its record will be read. Many a man can trace yet the scar of a wound, and that not a severe one, which he received thirty, forty, fifty, years and more ago. The ever changing body will so hold its record. And there are scars of the soul. Wounds inflicted on it will abide and be visible so long as the soul lasts. Like the undeveloped plate of the photographer, a mere blurred surface until he plunges it into the bath, and then the image comes out clearly; so our souls are now illegible and their record indistinct, but when plunged into the bath of eternity, then what has been impressed thereon will be distinct and clear. Then the image of "the deeds done in the body" will come out with startling but unerring accuracy. If man can find out means, as he has found, so to register the words and tones of a speaker that they can be reproduced years after, and whenever it is desired, is there not in that discovery of science a solemn suggestion that all our "idle" and worse "words" may be recorded somewhere, and be heard again when we thought they were forgotten forever? Yes, there are records. And
III A JUDGMENT. "It is appointed unto men once to die, and after death the judgment." "And they were judged every man," etc. (ver. 13). What do these Scriptures mean? Now, the Greek word for "judgment" is "crisis;" that is the Greek word, simply, in English letters. But what is more is that our word "crisis" does more accurately set forth the meaning of "judgment" than what is commonly understood thereby. When we speak of a "crisis," we mean a turning point, a decisive settling as to the course which affairs will take. That is a crisis. But when we speak of "judgment," the imagery of these verses rise up before our minds, and we think of an external judge, and a sentence that he passes upon us. Judgment, however, often takes place. How common it is to hear it said of a man who has passed through some great experience, "He has never been the same man since"! Great trials, disappointments, distresses of any kind, and great successes and wealth also, act as crises, turning points, judgments, to a man. They act like the watershed of a district, which determines which way the streams shall flow; so these great crises of a man"s life turn this way or that the moral and spiritual dispositions which dwell in him. They do much to settle him in a fixed habit of character, for good or ill, as the case may be. How much more, then, after "death" must there be "judgment"! Then, freed from all the restraints of life, from all that hindered the manifestation of what he really was, his nature now gravitates towards that side of spiritual character to which it has long been leaning, but from which it has hitherto been held back. It takes up its position according to its nature. If evil, with the evil; if good, with the good for in this case his name is found "written in the book of life." It is ill for us to put off the idea of judgment until some far distant day, amid some unwonted scenes. God"s judgments are continually taking place, and every thought, act, and word is helping to determine to which side, whether to the right hand or to the left, our souls shall go.
IV THE SENTENCE. It has been said that this judgment told of here is of the ungodly only, and that the book of life is mentioned only for the sake of showing "that their names are not there." We cannot think this. Nothing is said about the sentence of any, only the final fate of the ungodly. "The lake of fire," the "oven of fire" (Matthew 13), and similar expressions, are metaphors taken from the barbarous punishments of that age. To east men alive into fire was a fearful but not unusual punishment. Hence it is taken because of its fearfulness as a figure of the final fate of the ungodly. Evil character such as that into which they have settled is like a raging fire, and the blindness of heart and mind which attends such character is like "the blackness of darkness" itself. We may see men in hell today when filled with the fury of rage and passion; and, blessed be God, we may see others in heaven because filled with the peace of God. Heaven or hell is, in great degree, in a man ere ever he enters either the one or the other. They are in us before we are in them, and the judgment is but each man"s going to his own place. What solemn confirmation, then, do such Scriptures as that before us receive from observed facts and experiences of men in this life! What urgency, therefore, do they lend to the exhortation, "Commit thy way unto the Lord"! And how prompt should be our resolve to entrust the keeping of our souls unto Christ, so that in the great judgment after death they may go with Christ and his.saints into eternal life! "Jesus, by thy wounds we pray, help now that our names may be written in the book of life" (Hengstenberg). S.C.
Vers. 11-15. The final judgment upon evil conduct.
The scenes of the Book of Revelation are now approaching completion, and they present more definitely the characteristics of "the end." Judgment proceeds on human conduct daily, but there is a final judgment, "the judgment of the great day," when "we shall all stand before the judgment seat of God." That dread day is now present to the mind of the seer, and before that inner eye, by a spiritual illumination, the solemn scene is depicted. It is pictorial, and, like the Lord"s own picture of the separating of the sheep from the goats, though it lacks the completeness of this teaching, it has aspects of the most awful grandeur. In the symbolical presentation the following dreadful features are prominent
I THE AUTHORITY, SANCTITY, AND DREAD TERRIBLENESS OF THE DIVINE JUDGMENT. The symbol of the authoritative character of the judgment is represented in "a great throne;" its sanctity in the ever-present symbol of purity it is a "white" throne, "we know that his judgment is according to truth;" while the terribleness of the holy judgment is indicated in the assertion that the very "earth and the heaven fled away" from "the face" of him that sat on the throne.
II THE UNIVERSALITY OF THE JUDGMENT. The symbol here approaches a terrible realism. The seer beheld "the dead, the great and the small, stand before the throne," and "the sea" and "death and Hades gave up the dead which were in them, and they were judged." The judgment is upon the "dead," and it transplants our thoughts to the final issues of human history.
III The judgment which is universal is also MINUTE AND INDIVIDUAL. "They were judged every man." None escape or pass by. Every servant to whom the Lord has entrusted goods must give account of the same.
IV The judgment proceeds UPON THE CONDUCT OF THE EARTHLY LIFE. "They were judged every man according to their works. Then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, "Every idle word that men shall speak they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment.
V THE FINAL, TERRIBLE AWARD OF EVIL DOING. "If any was not found written in the book of life, he was cast into the lake of fire." That this represents the termination of the present order of things is indicated by the destruction of death and Hades; the present, the temporary, is swallowed up in the final. One side only of the judgment is represented that of the wicked.
Truly these awful scenes are not for the eye, but for the heart. No picture is permissible of any part of these unspeakable things. Men must take the terrible intimations, and ponder them in their hearts; and "blessed" is the man that so "reads" and so "understands the words of the prophecy of this book," that he turns in lowly meekness to him who is the one and only Saviour of men, and seeks by his grace to walk "in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless. R.G.
Vers. 11-15. The fourth scene in the history of humanity: the age of retribution.
"And I saw a great white throne," etc. There was one fact common to all the preceding epochs through which redeemed humanity had passed they were all probationary, all connected with the overtures of mercy to the guilty, and the means of spiritual purity, blessedness, and elevation for the polluted, unhappy, and degraded. But the probationary element, which had run on through all dispensations from Adam to Christ, and through all revolutions from Christ to the consummation of the world, is now closed; its last ray has fallen, its sun has gone down to rise no more. Hence on, every man shall be treated according to his past works, and shall reap the fruit of his own doings. The morning of retribution has broken. The magnificent passage before us points to the period designated in Scripture "the day of God," "the judgment of the great day," "the revelation of the righteous judgment of God," "the eternal judgment." It may be well to premise at the outset, in order to guard against the tendency of associating too much of what is merely material and human with the circumstances and transactions of this period, that this retribution will literally involve the judiciary circumstances here portrayed. I have heard and read discourses on this subject, which impress the mind more with a kind of Old Bailey scene, than with the great moral facts which distinguish that period from all preceding times. It is true that we have here the mention of the "throne" and "books" common to human courts; but it should be remembered that inspired writers, in accommodation to our ordinary habits ay, and laws of thought reveal to us the unknown through the medium of the known. What mind, in sooth, can receive any new idea without comparing it with the old? We judge of the unseen by the seen; we learn what the testimony of others unfolds to us through the medium of what we have already beheld. Thus "the day of judgment" is set forth under the figure of ancient courts of judicature, which in general features agree with all the modern courts in the civilized world. There is the judge on his seat or throne; there is the prisoner arraigned; there is the investigation carried on through "books" or documents; and there is justice administered. Now, there is quite sufficient resemblance between these courts of human justice and the judicial transactions of God at the last day, to warrant the former being employed as illustrations of the latter, without supposing a "throne" or a "book" whatever. For example:
1. There is the bringing of the Judge and the accused into conscious contact.
2. There is the final settling of the question of guiltiness or non-guiltiness, according to recognized law.
3. There is the administration of an award to which the accused is bound to submit. Let us now proceed to notice a few facts in relation to this retributive period.
I THIS RETRIBUTIVE PERIOD WILL DAWN WITH OVERPOWERING SPLENDOUR UPON THE WORLD. Observe:
1. The character of this manifestation. He comes on a throne. A "throne" is an emblem of glory. It is generally valuable in itself. That of Solomon consisted wholly of gold and ivory; but its glory mainly consists of its being the seat of supremacy. Hence ambition points to nothing higher. The people have ever looked up with a species of adoration to the throne. But what a throne is this! "His throne was like the fiery flame, and his wheels as burning fire." It is a "white throne." Human thrones have often, perhaps generally, been stained by sensuality, injustice, and tyranny. The throne has sometimes become so loathsome that the people, roused into indignation, have seized and burnt it in the streets. But this is a "white throne." There is not a single stain upon it. He who has ever occupied it "is light, and in him is no darkness at all." It is a great "white throne." Great in its occupant: "He filleth all in all." Great in its influence. Toward it the eyes of all intelligences are directed; to it all beings are amenable; from it all laws that determine the character and regulate the destiny of all creatures proceed.
2. The effect of this manifestation. Before its refulgence this material universe could not stand; it melted it vanished away. "No more place was found for them" (ver. 11). It will pass away, perhaps, as the orbs of night pass away in the high noontide of the sun: they are still in being, still in their orbits, and still move on as ever; but they are lost to us by reason of a "glory that excelleth." What a contrast between Christ now as the Judge, and Christ of old as the despised Nazarene!
II THIS RETRIBUTIVE PERIOD WILL WITNESS THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD, AND THE CONSEQUENT DESTRUCTION OF HADES AND THE GRAVE. "And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell Hades delivered up the dead which were in them" (ver. 13). The words suggest two thoughts on this subject.
1. That in the resurrection there will be a connection between man"s raised and man"s mortal body. A resurrection of the material relics is a traditional dogma of the stupid, not a conviction of the studious. It is evidently implied that the resurrection-body is a something that has come out of the body, deposited either in the grave or the sea. What is the connection? Is it meant that men will come up with exactly the same bodies as they had during the probationary state? This, probably, is the vulgar idea, and this is the idea against which infidels level their objections. The question is now, as of old, "With what body do they come?" And assuming that they come in the same body, they commence their antagonistic reasonings and their sneers. But this is not the Scripture doctrine. "That which thou sowest, thou sowest not that body that shall be." If it be said Is there no identity, no sameness? I ask What do you mean by "sameness"? If you say sameness, in the sense of particles, bulk, or capacity, I answerNo! The sameness between the old body and the resurrection body is not the sameness between the seed you deposit in the soil and the wheat which in autumn is produced by it. The one grows out of the other, has the form of the other; the resurrection body is not the same as the old probationary body, in the same sense as the body of any given individual is the same in its man-state as it was in its child-state. Take the case of a man in two different periods of life say, ten years of age and sixty. In the intervening periods his body has passed through several radical changes; yet at sixty he feels that he has the same body which he had at ten. It is not until your science comes that he questions it; and where the science has been the most convincing, it has never destroyed this underlying consciousness of physical identity. How can you account for this consciousness of sameness?
(1) Not because he knows the particles to be the same. He cannot know that, for it is contrary to fact; the particles of his body, when a child, having gone off long ago, and mixed themselves, perhaps, with a hundred different bodies.
(2) Not because he knows the amount is the same. He may know that there are ten times the quantity in the one body state as in the other.
(3) Not because he knows the capability is the same. In its childish stage it was weak, incapable of much labour or endurance; but in its man-state it is vigorous its physical powers have increased manifold. How, then, can you account for this consciousness? Consciousness must have some truth as a foundation.
(a) Because he knows the one has risen out of the other. It has been an evolution. The casual connection has been preserved. The one was the outcome of the other.
(b) Because he knows the one has retained the same plan, or outline as the other. If the body, in the man-state, had taken a form different to that of its child-state, the consciousness of identity might have been lost. If it passed, for instance, from the human form to the lion, eagle, or any other form, though the particles might have been all retained, and bulk and capacity continued as ever, the sense of identity would have been lost.
(c) Because he knows the one fulfils the same functions as the other. The body, in the child-state, was the inlet and outlet of himself. Through it, in all cases, he derived and imparted his feelings and ideas. It was the great medium between his spirit and the material universe. Now, for these three reasons, man may feel that his resurrection body is the same as the one in which he spent his probationary life. It grows out of the buried. There is in the body that went down to the grave a something, I know not what, which the man, the spiritual self, takes into his immortal frame. The resurrection body may retain its present form or outline; it may be moulded after the same archetype. It may also fulfil many of the same functions. Ever will it be the medium between the material and the spiritual. I know, then, of no objection that you can urge against the fact of a man having a resurrection body which he may feel to be identical with his probationary body, that could not antecedently be urged against a fact in the present experience of every adult the fact of an individual having a man body which he feels to be the same as his child body.
2. That the resurrection will be coextensive with the mortality of mankind. "The sea gave up its dead." What a vast cemetery is the sea! Here mighty navies slumber; millions of the industrious, the enterprising, and the brave, lie beneath its restless waves. But all must now come forth. All that have perished whether in the barques of scientific expedition, or the ships of commerce, or the fleets of conquered nations, must come forth in this dread day. "Death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them" (ver. 13). This is the grave. "All that are in their graves shall hear the voice of the Son of man, and shall come forth." What a voice is that! It would reverberate over sea and land, from island to island, from continent to continent; roll its thunders through the deepest vaults and catacombs; and soon the mouldering skeletons and the scattered dust would feel the stir of life, and spring to immortality. Martyrs, who had no grave to shelter them from the storm of ages, whose dust was consumed in the flames, and left at the mercy of the wild elements, would appear again; as the field of battle, where mighty armies struggled in demon fury, would start to life on the plains where, in hellish rage, they fell. "And hell gave up its dead." Hell here means, not the place of punishment, but the universe of disembodied spirits, both good and bad. This Hades of the Greeks, and Sheol of the Hebrews, sends forth all the myriads of human souls that it has ever received, from Abel to the last man that grappled with the" king of terrors." "The small and great." Not an infant too young, not a patriarch too old. Tyrants and their slaves, sages and their pupils, ministers and their people all will appear.
III This RETRIBUTIVE PERIOD WILL BRING HUMANITY INTO CONSCIOUS CONTACT WITH GOD. "And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God" (ver. 12). They stand before God; they confront him, as it were, eye to eye, being to being. Each feels God to be the All to him now. The idea of God fills every soul as a burning flame. They stand before him, feeling his presence, and awaiting his doom fixing word. This is a distinguishing feature of the retributive period. In every preceding period of human history, with the exception of the millennial ages, the vast majorities of all generations had no conscious contact with God. Some denied his very being, whilst others desired not a knowledge of his ways. But hence on, forever and ever, all the good and the bad will "stand before God will be in conscious contact with him. His felt presence will be the heaven of the good, and his felt presence will be the hell of the ceil.
1. There will be no atheism after this. How will the atheist teachers of the past ages feel now? Lucretius, Democritus, and Strabo among the ancients; Diderot, Lagrange, D"Alembert, Mirabeau, and Hobbes amongst the moderns, will feel now, and evermore, that the greatest reality in the universe was the Being whose existence they impiously ignored or denied.
2. There will be no deism after this. The men who taught, through preceding ages, the doctrine that God had no immediate connection with his creatures; that he governed the universe through an inflexible system of laws; that he took no Cognizance of individuals, and felt no interest in them, will know now that no being in the universe had been in such close contact with every particle and period of their existence as God. All the objects that intervened between God and the soul will be withdrawn now; the veil of sense and matter will be rent asunder, to unite no more.
3. There will be no indifferentism after this. God"s Being, presence, and claims will no longer be subjects of no importance. They will be everything to all. God"s presence will fill the conscious life of all, as midday sun without a cloud the day.
IV THIS RETRIBUTIVE PERIOD WILL SETTLE FOREVER THE QUESTION OF EVERY MAN"S CHARACTER AND DESTINY. "And the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works," etc. (vers. 12, 13). Here observe three things.
1. That the worth of a man"s character will be determined by his works. "According to their works." Not by religious position, or creed, or profession, or office; but by "works." "What has a man done?" will be the question.
2. That a man"s works will be determined by recognized authorities. "Books" will be opened. God"s moral and remedial laws are books, and these books will now be opened opened to memory, to conscience, and the universe. This will be a day of moral conviction.
3. That according to the correspondence, or noncorrespondence, of man"s works with these recognized authorities will be his final destiny.
"Whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire" (ver. 15). "The book of life the remedial law or scheme of salvation the gospel. Whoever was not found vitally interested in this was cast into the lake of fire.
What a scene is this that has passed under review! In its light how mean do man"s highest dignities and honours appear! How ineffably paltry the pageantry of courts! how empty the pretensions of sovereigns! How solemn is life, in all its stages, relations, and aspects! God help us to live in the light of that day"! D.T.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On v11 I saw a great white throne.
Rev_20:11-15
I saw a great white throne.
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The age of retribution
I. This retributive period will dawn with overpowering splendour upon the world.
1. The character of this manifestation. A throne is an emblem of glory. This is a white throne. There is not a single stain upon it. It is a great white throne. Great in its occupant: He filleth all in all. Great in its influence: toward it the eyes of all intelligences are directed; to it all beings are amenable; from it all laws that determine the character and regulate the destiny of all creatures, proceed.
2. The effect of this manifestation. Before its refulgence this material universe could not stand: it melted--vanished away. It will pass away, perhaps, as the orbs of night pass away in the high noontide of the sun: they are still in being, still in their orbits, and still move on as ever; but they are lost to us by reason of a glory that excelleth.
II. This retributive period will witness the resurrection of the dead and the consequent destruction of Hades and the grave.
1. In the resurrection there will be a connection between mans raised and mans mortal body.
(1) The one rises out of the other.
(2) The one retains the same plan, or outline, as the other.
(3) The one fulfils the same functions as the other.
2. The resurrection will be co-extensive with the mortality of mankind. Not an infant too young, nor a patriarch too old. Tyrants and their slaves, sages and their pupils, ministers and their people--all will appear.
III. This retributive period will bring humanity into conscious contact with God.
1. There will be no atheism after this.
2. No deism.
3. No indifferentism.
IV. This retributive period will settle for ever the question of every mans character and destiny.
1. The worth of a mans character will be determined by his works.
2. A mans works will be determined by recognised authorities. Gods moral and remedial laws are books, and they will now be opened--to memory, to conscience, and to the universe.
3. According to the correspondence, or non-correspondence, of mans works with these recognised authorities will be his final destiny. (D. Thomas, D. D.)
The great white throne
I. A throne. Yes, a royal seat, a seat of judgment, the seat of the great King and Judge of all.
II. A great throne. All earths thrones have been little, even the greatest--Nebuchadnezzar, or Alexander, or Caesar, or Napoleon; but this is great; greater than the greatest; none like it in magnificence.
III. A white throne. White is purity, truth, justice, calmness. Such is the throne to be--unsoiled, untainted, incorruptible; no one-sidedness nor imperfection; no bribery nor favour there. All is white--transparent and spotless perfection.
IV. One seated on it. It was not empty or unoccupied, nor filled by a usurper, or by one who could not wield the power required for executing its decrees. God was seated there; that very God before whose face heaven and earth flee away; that God whose presence melts the mountains, and made Sinai to shake (Psa_102:26; Isa_36:4; Isa_2:6; Jer_4:23; Jer_4:26; Rev_6:14; Rev_16:20). How terrible to stand unready before such a Judge and such a throne! All justice, all perfection, all holiness! Who can abide His appearing? But besides the Judge and the throne, there are the millions to be judged. (H. Bonar, D. D.)
The great white throne
I. When once the great white throne is erected, all distinctions of this life will have been for ever abolished. We often marvel at the contrast exhibited in the present life, between the circumstances or conditions in which mankind are placed. From the extreme of affluence to the extreme of destitution there are endless varieties of condition, yet, in certain respects, all are equal; the noble and the mean; the richest and the poorest. Surely it ought to make the wealthy set loose to their riches, and the poor think lightly of their poverty, when it is remembered how soon the small and the great will stand alike before God, to be judged according, not to their respective conditions on earth, but each according to his works.
II. The next feature which calls for notice is the opening of the books. The idea is that of a faithful register to be brought forward hereafter, to decide the everlasting portion. Thus, when we hear of the books to be opened at the judgment, and of men being judged out of those things which are written in the books, we are, in effect, reminded that the actions which we day by day commit, the very words we speak and the thoughts we indulge, contribute the materials for a final reckoning, upon the issue of which will be suspended eternal joy or eternal shame. This regard to the inevitable connection between conduct in this life and our portion in eternity, would serve alike to restrain from iniquity and impel to obedience.
III. It must not be overlooked, however, that while mention is made of books--of several volumes of account--out of which the dead will be judged, allusion is made to but one book of life, containing the names of those who would be saved. Possibly an intimation is hereby conveyed as to the comparative fewness of the saved. Yet another interpretation of the difference is, that, whereas there are many different methods by which men may go to perdition, there is but one way of life. It is not alone the heathen, who never heard of a Redeemer; nor the infidel, who professed to disbelieve the existence of God or a revelation; nor the heretic, who corrupted the truth and turned the grace of God into lasciviousness; not alone the scoffer, the profligate, the profane, who will be excluded from heaven; but the impenitent, the unbelieving, the unconverted, the ungodly--all who have refused to lay hold of the salvation which is offered in the gospel.
III. The dead, universally, are said to be judged according to their works. This accords with the representation given in other parts of the Bible. The reward is of grace; the judgment is according to things done in the body.
IV. The issue of the judgment, as described in the closing verse of the chapter. No sooner has the evangelist spoken of the judgment itself, than he tells us of the extinction, thenceforward, of death and of hell. There will be no more slumber in the grave. Up to this period the wicked will nat have entered upon the full consummation of misery. The soul is not the man. The soul, in union with the body, constitutes the nature, which Christ redeemed, and which must, hereafter, partake of punishment or reward. Hence the complete wretchedness will not overtake the wicked till the final abolition of death and the grave. Whosoever was not found written in the book of life, was cast into the lake of fire. This will be the consummation of the ruin of the ungodly. From this doom there will be no appeal; from this sentence no reprieve. We can be earnest for time; who, comparatively, is earnest for eternity? The book is still open. Christ is willing to write your name there. (Bp. R. Bickersteth.)
The great white throne
I. What John saw. When the eagle-eyed seer of Patmos, being in the Spirit, looked aloft into the heavens, he saw a throne, from which I gather there is a throne of moral government over the sons of men, and that He who sits upon it presides over all the inhabitants of this world. There is a lawgiver who looks down and spies every action of man, and who does not suffer one single word or deed to be omitted from His note-book. Now we know that this moral governor is God Himself, who has an undisputed right to reign and rule. Some thrones have no right to be, and to revolt from them is patriotism; but the best lover of his race delights the most in the monarchy of heaven. In addition to this, His throne is one from the power of which none can escape. The sapphire throne of God, at this moment, is revealed in heaven, where adoring angels cast their crowns before it; and its power is felt on earth, where the works of creation praise the Lord. Even those who acknowledge not the Divine government are compelled to feel it, for He doeth as He wills, not only among the angels in heaven, but among the inhabitants of this lower world. See, then, at the very outset how this throne should awe our minds with terror. Founded in right, sustained by might, and universal in its dominion, look ye and see the throne which John of old beheld. This, however, is but the beginning of the vision. The text tells us that it was a white throne. Does not this indicate its immaculate purity? There is no other white throne, I fear, to be found. Why, then, is it white for purity? Is it not because the King who sits on it is pure? Hark to the thrice sacred hymn of the cherubic band and the seraphic choir, Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of Sabaoth. Creatures who are perfectly spotless themselves unceasingly adore the yet superior holiness of the great King. Oh fairest of all thrones I who would not be a willing subject of Thy peerless government? Moreover, the throne is pure, because the law the Judge dispenses is perfect. There is no fault in the statute-book of God. When the Lord shall come to judge the earth, there will be found no decree that bears too hardly upon any one of His creatures. The statutes of the Lord are right; they are true and righteous altogether. I have thought, too, that perhaps this throne is said to be a white throne to indicate that it will be eminently conspicuous. You will have noticed that a white object can be seen from a very great distance. We must see it; it shall be so striking a sight that none of us will be able to prevent its coming before us; every eye shall see Him. Possibly it is called a white throne because of its being such a convincing contrast to all the colours of this sinful human life. There stand the crowd, and there is the great white throne. What can make them see their blackness more thoroughly than to stand there in contrast with the perfections of the law and the Judge before whom they are standing? Perhaps that throne, all glistening, will reflect each mans character. The next word that is used by way of adjective is great. It was a great white throne. You scarcely need me to tell you that it is called a great white throne because of the greatness of Him who sits upon it. Speak of the greatness of Solomon? He was but a petty prince. Speak of the thrones of Rome and Greece before which multitudes of beings assembled? They are nothing, mere representatives of associations of the grasshoppers of the world, who are as nothing in the sight of the Lord Jehovah. A throne filled by a mortal is but a shadow of dominion. This will be a great throne because on it will sit the great God of earth and heaven and hell, the King eternal, immortal, invisible, who shall judge the world in righteousness, and His people with equity. You will see that this will be a great white throne when we remember the culprits who will be brought before it; not a handful of criminals, but millions upon millions; and these not all of the lesser sort, not serfs and slaves alone whose miserable bodies rested from their oppressors in the silent grave; but the great ones of the earth shall be there; not one missing. It will be a great white throne, because of the matters that will be tried there. It will be no mere quarrel about a suit in Chancery, or an estate in jeopardy. Our souls will have to be tried there; our future, not for an age, not for one single century, but for ever and for ever. Turn not away your eyes from the magnificent spectacle till you have seen the glorious Person mentioned in the words, And Him that sat on it. The most fitting One in all the world will sit upon that throne. It will be God, but hearken, it will also be man. The Christ whom you despised will judge you, the Saviour whose mercy you trampled on--it is He who shall judge righteous judgment to you, and what will He say but this--As for these Mine enemies, who would not that I should reign over them, cut them in pieces before My eyes!
II. The inferences which flow from such a sight as this.
1. Let me search myself.
2. Having spoken a word to the Christian, I should like to say to every one of you, in remembrance of this great white throne shun hypocrisy.
3. But there are some of you who say, I do not make any profession of religion. Still my text has a word to you. Still I want you to judge your actions by that last great day. Oh sir, how about that night of sin? No, say you, never mind it; bring it not to my remembrance. It shall be brought to thy remembrance, and that deed of sin shall be published far wider than upon the house-tops. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
The great white throne, the opened books, and the assembled dead
I. The supreme tribunal: A great white throne. It is a new wonder. St. John saw other thrones in more than one apocalyptic disclosure, but none like this. It is unique and transcendent. It is great. It represents Divine majesty. It is white. Its intolerable splendour is without a stain. It is not a throne of grace. To it no penitents are welcomed. None could bow before it. No elemency is published and no forgiveness dispensed. It is the supreme and final tribunal. From the decisions of this bar there is no appeal. The sentences of the King are irreversible.
II. The intolerable purity of the judge: Him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away. Descriptions may be indefinite from the lack of graphic ability in the narrator, or from the impossibility of seizing and reporting the transcendent and stupendous objects which he has to record. Not a single minute particular is given in St. Johns outline of the dread vision. All that we are told of the throne is, that it is vast, and dazzling in its whiteness. Him that sat upon the throne; but not a syllable is there about that sight. Of that face--its majesty, brightness, terror--St. John could utter nothing; but he has recorded what followed its unveiling. Earth and heaven, as conscious and guilty things, fled away--just as the stars retreat and disappear when the sun darts forth at break of day, or rather as tow and gossamer fly and vanish when touched by the flame. The face from which all nature shrank into instantaneous invisibility, and could discover no space to hide in, was incapable of description.
III. The universality of the dread assize: I Saw the dead, small and great, stand before God. Earth and heaven were permitted to vanish from the face, the splendour and purity of which they could not endure. Not so men. The guiltiest, though the heart shrink, must encounter the sight and hear the sentence. St. John saw the earth and heaven fly; but the dead, small and great, stand, stand before the throne, and await their doom.
IV. The impartiality of the solemn awards. The prominent truth in the vision is, He will judge the people righteously. According to their works, as good or evil, holy or unholy, the sentence will be given. Faith |n the blood of atonement, without a life of reverence, virtue, love of God, self-sacrifice, and Christ-like nobleness, is the pretence of hypocrites and traitors. According to their works, St. John saw every man judged.
V. Great and approaching changes in the seen and unseen worlds: And death and Hades were cast into the lake of fire. We cannot understand this statement without recalling the peculiarities of our present life. To the righteous now there exist the earth and the unseen heaven. After the judgment the distinction between the earth where we are and heaven where God is, will be abolished. The earth and the visible skies are to depart; the unseen heaven will alone remain. Resembling changes await the wicked. The bodies of the unrighteous are in the graves of this planet. Their souls are in Hades awaiting judgment. The scene of retribution is a future and unseen world. After judgment, the earth and the grave will be Be more. Hades--the unseen world of spirits--will be similarly abrogated. Death and Hades, and all which they represent, will merge in retribution, of which the lake of fire is the symbol. (H. Batchelor.)
The great white throne
I saw a throne. There is a throne now, but men do not see it. There is a real government now, but it will be a visible one then. You know the sceptic has doubts, because he cannot see. He says, Where is God, and whom is the throne? I have never seen it. Did you ever see the throne of England? I never did--but you know there is one; you know there is a government. I never saw the Queen, and I dare say many of you have not seen her, but you know there is a Queen. I never saw the great King, but He is here. He reigns; and by and by His throne will become visible, and faith and doubt will be lost in sight, and the believer will say, It is He; and the infidel will say, It is He; and there will be no more doubting and no more believing--it will be sight. I saw a throne. It is called a great throne. I saw a great white throne. Now, of all the seats in the world, I believe thrones are the filthiest. I believe the throne of England to be one of the purest in the world; but that throne has oftentimes been stained with the blood that tyrants have shed. But that is the great white throne. Many a time darkness has dimmed it round, for clouds and darkness are round about him; it has been veiled in mystery; but behind the cloud it was a white throne--a throne that never was tarnished by injustice, and that never was defiled by wrong-doing. The infidel and the doubter have often had hard thoughts of God; but when the throne is set it will be seen to be without a stain. I saw a great white throne, and Him that sat on it. It is the Man of Calvary; it is the Babe of Bethlehem--but, oh, how changed! See His eyes piercing and flashing--pictures of His penetrating wisdom. See His feet that have the glow of the furnace, that outshine the sun in its glory. And then hear His voice. It is louder than the choruses of mature. It is as the voice of many waters. And as He says, Rise, ye dead. they come forth at His bidding. Oh, when that day comes, may you find that the blessed One who sits upon the throne is your friend. A minister was one day travelling with a young spark, a sceptical fellow; and as the manner of such men is, and probably liking a little to annoy the person with whom he was travelling, he said, among other things, Talk about the Bible being an inspired book! why, I tell you, those books of the old pagans were far better; it is not fit to be named in the same day of the week with Homer. Well, said the minister, calmly, since you seem to be so great an admirer of Homer, would you give me a specimen--some favourite passage from your beloved author? In a minute, said the young man, I will; and very readily he pointed to what he thought a fair specimen of the sublimity and power of Homer, where he speaks in these words--Jove frowned and darkened half the sky. Now, there, sir, said he, just think of the sublimity of that figure--the very frown of the god darkened half the face of nature. I grant, said he, you have selected with very good taste; but before you venture to pit your favourite author against the inspired Word of God, read it a little more. What do you say to this: I saw a great white throne, and Him that sat upon it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away. How much less sublime what you have repeated from Homer is than that? The young man was silent. I hope he learned never again to pit any book against the Book of God. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it. Now, those of you that are at all acquainted with the opinions of the people that lived when the Apostle John wrote, will know that it was thought among the most impossible of things that anybody should ever be recovered that was lost in the waters. Hence, in the Odyssey you will find that when Ulysses was in peril of drowning he moaned that he had not fallen in the fight before the walls of Troy, for he speaks of himself as sinking in the waters, and so being for ever dead. And it was a great opinion that all who had not sepulchral rites could never have peace or happiness after; the body they never dreamed could rise, but even the spirit they thought was destroyed. Blessed be God, we have a better view than that. How many of the bravest of Britains sons and the fairest of her daughters have gone forth and have gone down with the storm for their requiem, the wreck for their coffin, and the waters for their winding-sheet. There they are. Though you do not know where they are lying, Jesus knows; and when the last trump is heard they will come forth. And not only so, but death and hell shall give up the dead that are in them. This is a noble personification. Death and hell are the twin giants that rule the grave and the spirit-world. What a blessed thing it is that both will be conquered! When the trumpet is blown, the dust in the charnel will begin to stir and creep and quiver, and bone will come to his bone, and the frame will be built up again. And when the trumpet is blown, it will be heard in the highest heaven, and the blessed spirits will come down, and it will be heard in the deepest pit, and the lost souls will come up, and there, by some wondrous appointment, body and soul will be remarried never to be divorced for ever. And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God. I saw them--small and great--the man of wealth and the man of rank, the prince and the man of poverty. What a mighty host will that be! You and I will be among the number. Then there is another thing. The books were opened. Now what are these books?
1. First of all, there will be the books of Gods requirements. Where are these books? There are many. First, Gods requirements as they are written in nature. The poor pagan has had that book, that book whose syllables are constellations and whose letters are stars. The firmament has declared the being and power of God, and the dew of heaven and the flowers of nature have shown His goodness. There is enough in nature to make a man feel after God, if haply he may find Him; and the heathen have had that.
2. Then there will also be that book of moral conscience which God puts into a man; and He has written something on the page of every heart. You may, if you like, try to be irresponsible, but there is something within that wont let you feel like that. When Pericles once kept one of his friends waiting, when at last he got in he said, Pericles, why was I kept waiting so long? He said, I was preparing the accounts for the citizens. Why take so much trouble? said his friend; why not declare yourself irresponsible? Well, now, that is just what many silly infidels of this day say. They cannot get their accounts quite clear for the throne, but I tell you what they do--they declare that they are not responsible, that they are conquered by circumstances, and cannot help whatever they may be. Will that do? God will open the book of conscience, and He will judge you, and your own conscience will attest that God is true.
3. Well, then, there is the book of inspiration. Every sceptic in this land will be judged by this book. Your not believing it is no reason; if you do not believe it, you ought.
4. Well, the book of Gods providence will be opened, and God will be justified in that day. You know sometimes His providence seems dark, and we are sometimes inclined to grumble, and say this is wrong and that is wrong; but when that day comes, it will all be open, and we shall say, It is all right, and even the sinner will be obliged to bow his head and say, It is all just.
5. And there is another book--the book of Gods remembrance. It is a beautiful figure that represents the Divine knowledge as the book of Gods remembrance. That book will be opened, and your very secret sins will all be there.
6. Ay, and then the book of memory will be opened. There are some strange facts that now and then transpire with respect to human memory. I do not believe when a thing has once been in your mind you ever really lose it again. I cannot understand it at all, but I could tell you fact after fact about it. I remember coming home from an appointment one very dark night, and there came on a storm, and by and by the lightning flashed out, and for an infinitesimal portion of time I could see everything. There I saw the church steeple, which might be a mile off, as plainly as could be, and the whole of the landscape, in that infinitesimal portion of time. Have you never had it like that in your memory? I believe there is a key somewhere that would unlock everything you ever did, and bring it up before your mind. Now, when the books are opened, the book of memory will be opened, and there will come flashing up pictures of all sorts of things you did; and I tell you, if you do not get sin washed away by the blood of Christ, there is nothing for you but horrors--horrors for ever. (S. Coley.)
I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God.--
The last judgment
When Massillon pronounced one of those discourses which have placed him in the first class of orators, he found himself surrounded by the trappings and pageants of a royal funeral. The temple was not only hung with sable, but shadowed with darkness, save the few twinkling lights of the altar. The beauty and the chivalry of the land were spread out before him. There sat Majesty, clothed in sackcloth and sunk in grief. All felt in common, and as one. A sense of the indescribable nothingness of man at his best estate, of the meanness of the highest human grandeur, now made plain in the spectacle of that hearsed mortal, overcame him. His eye once more closed; his action was suspended; and, in a scarcely audible whisper, he broke the long-drawn pause--There is nothing great, but God. I take the sublimely affecting sentence and mould it to the present theme--There is nothing solemn but judgment. The thunderstorm is solemn: when the lightnings, as arrows, shoot abroad. But what is it to that far-resounding crash, louder than the roar and bellow of ten thousand thunders, which shall pierce the deepest charnels, and which all the dead shall hear? The ocean-tempest is solemn: when those huge billows lift up their crests; when mighty armaments are wrecked by their fury. But what is it to that commotion of the deep, when its proud waves shall no more be stayed, its ancient barriers no more be observed, the largest channels be emptied, and the deepest abyss be dried? The earthquake is solemn: when, without a warning, cities totter, and kingdoms rend, and islands flee away. But what is it to that tremour which shall convulse our globe, dissolving every law of attraction, severing every principle of aggregation, heaving all into chaos and heaping all into ruin? Great God! must our eyes see--our ears hear--these desolations and distractions? Must we look forth upon these devouring flames? Must we stand in judgment with Thee? Penetrate us now with Thy fear; awaken the attention, which Thy trump shall not fail to command; surround our imagination with the scenery of that great and terrible day!
I. Let us consider the scenery which shall illustrate this august assize. The throne is the emblem of royal dignity. It is the symbol of Divine supremacy. The Lord hath prepared His throne in the heavens, and His kingdom ruleth over all. It is a great white throne. It is vast, shadowy, undefined. No rainbow of the covenant girdles it; no suppliants or penitents sue before it; no pardons are issued from it. It is a tribunal throne. He hath prepared His throne for judgment. It is occupied. There is One, that sitteth upon it. This is often characteristic and distinctive of the Father. There is no manner of similitude. Nothing at first appears to guide us in the present discrimination. There is no form. It seems essential, and not distinguished, deity. But need we be at loss? We must all appear before the judgment-seat of Christ. He now thinketh it no robbery to be equal with God, and as God He is Judge Himself. From the face of Him who sitteth upon the throne, the earth and the heaven flee away. Who can think of that countenance and not associate with It pensive downcast, deepest affliction, sweetest meekness? Into what expression mast that countenance have now kindled! With what terrors must it now be clothed! Things inanimate, insensible, smitten with a strange panic and with a sudden dismay, start back; and those refulgent heavens and this fair earth shrink into ancient disorder and anarchy: they rush into primeval chaos and night. Rut net so can the sinner flee away; rocks--mountains--cannot cover him; there is no hiding-place for the workers of iniquity. It makes little difference whether it be the greater catastrophe or the inferior; the larger could not strike a deeper terror--the smaller could not induce a less. And why do heaven and earth pass away? and why is no more place found for them? They have realised their end. They were but as the scaffolding; the erection is complete. They are of no further use. They may be set aside. The mystery of God is finished. There is the consummation. Time, therefore, need be no longer.
II. We now, then, turn to the multitude that shall be summoned to this judgment. Death delivered up the dead which were in it. This is the power of the grave, it is the personification of death. He who burst the barriers of the tomb and made death bow before Him--He shall send forth His mandate, publish His behest; and then the vaults and the catacombs and the mummy pits and the bone-houses shall disgorge their relics. It was much for the sea to obey Him who sitteth on the throne; it was more for inexorable death--the grave--the sepulchre--to yield its victims; but hell--the place of departed spirits, where the disembodied soul of man is to be found, whether in happiness or in woe--hades has listened to a voice until then unknown to it. The gates of the shadow of death unbar, and its portals fly open. And now there come--there come--there come--clouds of spirits rolling upon clouds, in swift succession, with impetuous rush; sumless, but unmixed, but individualised; the consciousness of each distinct, the character of each defined, the memory of each unobliterated, and the sentence of each foredoomed. And hades sends back spirits to those bodies, which the sea and the grave may no more retain. The small and the great stand before God. All who have been among the mighty, and would not let go their prisoners, and who destroyed the earth, and all of minor state. None are so great that they can intimidate: none so little that they can escape. And thinking of that mighty throng, there is a distinctive circumstance which must not be overlooked: every man was judged. God can say, All souls are Mine; and all souls, on that day, shall pass in review before Him. Each of your idle words, each of your vain thoughts, each of your impure desires, every bias of your spirit, every movement of your heart must reappear. Be sure your sin will find you out.
III. Let us consider the process which must determine this judgment. When Hilkiah found the law, and read it to the people, they rent their clothes, terror-struck, that they had committed so many offences against a long-forgotten law. Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right? He is the God of judgment. He is the God of truth. But we are sure that the judgment of God is according to truth. But then that book, which is closed to so many, shall be opened--shall be opened in all its injunctions, all its penalties, all its sanctions. You will not then think that its bands are small; you will not then think that its terrors are weak. If the law, by one drop of its present fury, one flash of its present power, causes the stoutest heart and the most rebel conscience to quail, how will the stoutest heart be as tow in the fire, and the most rebel conscience be as wax before the flame, when this book shall be opened!--shall be opened in all its contents, shall be opened in all its principles, shall be opened in all its awards! But these books may refer to the discoveries of the gospel. And these might indeed cheer, and these ought indeed to fortify, if you have won Christ and are found in Him. Yet if you are unbelievers still, if you are enemies in your minds by wicked works, this book, the word of reconciliation, is more portentous in its aspect against you, even them the volume of the law. You will be judged according to this gospel. All the beseechings of mercy, all the remonstrances of authority, all the pleadings of tenderness! This book shall be opened only the more terribly to convict and to condemn. Mercy will in that day be more terrible than justice. (R. W. Hamilton, D. D.)
The last judgment
I. The majesty of the tribunal.
II. The person of this judge. Here is justice, we may say, here is retribution, in the very commencement of this judgment, the very constitution of this court--the once abased but now exalted--openly exalted--Jesus, is receiving from His Father a compensation for all His former degradation and shame.
III. The dissolution of the whole material world. What is a man advantaged if he gain the whole of such a world as this? The world would be a poor thing to make our portion, even if it were destined to last for ever, but we shall be alive ages and ages after it has perished; and if the world is our all, where then will our happiness be? where will our comfort and support be?
IV. The strange, vast assembly gathered together in it.
V. The process of this judgment.
1. Its exactness. The books were opened. The books were opened--the book of Gods law; the law of His universe, which every creature is bound by his very existence in His universe to obey. The book of His gospel--a book superadded in mans case to the book of the law, and as binding on man when made known to him as the law itself. And then there is a hook to be opened within us, the book of memory and conscience. There are few of us who have not at intervals been surprised at the power of these two faculties within us; it is an indication of their future power when they are called forth in their full energy before our Judge.
2. The justice or equity of this judgment: The dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books. False accusers can do nothing against us now. Friends and flatterers can do nothing for us. They will not be listened to. The books--the true and faithful books only--will be regarded, and by their testimony will our sentence be determined.
3. The wonderful grace that will be manifested by Him in this judgment. There is another book mentioned. Another book was opened, which is the book of life. He that believeth shall be saved, it says. Now bring forward that book of life. It is My once secret register of all that are Mine. Open it. There stands that mans name written; I with My own hand wrote it there; and though My law condemns him, and record upon record condemns him, yet he believed in Me for salvation, and that is enough--I will never condemn him. I will not blot out his name out of that book of life, but I will confess his name, declare and proclaim it here as a name dear to Me, before My Father and before His angels. (C. Bradley, M. A.)
The great assize
There are three great days connected with the history of our race.
1. The day the world was made.
2. The day the world was redeemed.
3. The day the world will be judged. It is to the last of these days our text invites attention. Come forth with me and view the scene. Every prophecy is fulfilled, the last hour arrived; the funeral day of the world has come. For the first and last time are found in one great assembly every angel, every saint, and every devil. The books are opened.
I. The preliminaries of the judgment.
1. The day will be ushered in with sound of trumpet and the voice of God. The debaucher will be revelling in obscenity--the prodigal rioting in prodigality and wantonness--the self-righteous wrapped up in his own carnal security--the robber on his errand of sin--the whisperer slandering his neighbour--the infidel glorying in his shame--the miser counting over his gold--the soldier in the tented field--the sailor on the briny deep--the careless sitting at ease--the hypocrite practising deceit. When the shrill blast of the archangels trump, waxing louder than ten thousand thunders, shall shake the earth, and the angel shall swear by Him that liveth for ever and ever that time shall be no more.
2. The Judge will appear. Every eye shall see Him, for like the sun He will appear equally near to all who shall be placed at His dread tribunal. All our previous ideas of grandeur will be infinitely surpassed by the realities of this solemn scene.
3. The dead shall be raised, and all created intelligences shall stand arraigned before the judgment-seat. People of every age and condition, rank and degree. Populous assemblies! Not one missing of past, present, or future generations.
II. Proceedings of the judgment. And the books were opened.
1. There will be the book of Gods omniscience. Every thought, feeling, desire, motive, and purpose of every heart are fully recorded; and every act of every life.
2. The book of conscience. The one will be found to tally exactly with the other. Oh, trifle not with your conscience, for it will wake up in the judgment and echo the truthfulness of Gods omniscience.
3. The book of life. The Divine wisdom or remembrance, whereby the Lord knoweth them that are His.
III. Its final and irreversible results.
1. The whole will be divided, and there shall be no mistake. Not one sinner shall stand in this vast congregation of the righteous.
2. Sentence will be pronounced. If we have not on the wedding garment, we must hear that awfully tremendous voice saying unto us, Depart, ye cursed.
3. Execution of the sentence. (J. D. Carey.)
The last judgment
I. The seat of judgment--a great white throne.
1. Its dignity. A throne is the seat of royalty (1Ki_10:18-19; Isa_6:1).
2. Its purity. White is an emblem of purity. As from the majesty of this throne there can be no appeal, so with respect to the equity of it there can be no just cause of complaint.
II. The author of judgment.
1. Who is the Judge? Jehovah in the person of Christ. The Father judgeth no man (Joh_5:22).
2. His qualification for His work.
III. Infinite knowledge.
(1) Unspotted justice.
(2) Unlimited power.
III. The subjects of judgment. I saw the dead, small and great, etc.
1. The appearance will be universal.
2. The appearance will be inevitable.
IV. The rule of judgment. Conclusion:
1. Flee to the Cross of Christ.
2. Ever associate that day with feelings of the deepest solemnity. (J. G. Breay, B. A. )
The last judgment
I. The subjects of the judgment.
1. The dead, small and great.
(1) Young and old.
(2) Rich and poor.
(3) Illiterate and learned.
2. These shall stand together before God.
(1) Social distinctions are not accounted at that tribunal.
(2) Ethnic distinctions cease.
(3) Distinctions of time also are at an end. All generations mingle in one grand congregation.
3. The value of character will then appear.
(1) When conventional, accidental distinctions vanish, the real, permanent distinctions of character come out in the boldest relief.
(2) The interval of the disembodied and millennial states will afford the best opportunities for reflection upon that conduct which is now crystallised into character.
(3) If anything further is needed to force home this lesson upon the spirit, here it is in the excitements of the judgment--the prodigies--the Judge--the witnesses--the impending doom.
II. The character of the judge.
1. Christ appears not now as Mediator.
(1) Death ends probation.
(2) The shadows of the great judgment are felt here in the court of conscience. Works, words, thoughts, motives, should be ever examined here in anticipation of the more imposing court.
(3) The preparation of holiness we must have.
2. He now appears as King.
(1) He comes in the glory of His Father--the glory of His Divinity. The dead stand before God.
(2) He comes in His own glory--the glory of His exalted and beatified manhood. Here is the only universal Monarch. On His head are many crowns.
(3) He comes with His retinue of holy angels.
3. His resources are equal to the occasion.
(1) See the effect of His glance. The world kindles into conflagration (verse 11; 2Pe_3:7-12).
(2) The eye of flame can discriminate as it can search.
(3) What impiety can dare that throne?
III. The standards of the judgment.
1. The book of Gods works.
(1) This volume treats of His power. The forces of Nature assert His sovereignty. How has that been respected?
(2) It treats also of His wisdom. The exquisite dovetailing of things, nice adjustments, wonderful adaptations, assert His adorableness. How has that been respected?
(3) It treats further of His goodness. What contrivances to give pleasure to His creatures! Every voice of beneficence calls for gratitude. How have we responded?
2. The book of Gods Word.
(1) In this we have His law.
(2) In this also we have His gospel.
3. The book of memory.
(1) Gods memory forgets nothing.
(2) Mans memory will be prodigiously quickened.
4. The book of condemnation.
(1) The names of the doomed are written there. The character of the writing is legible and black.
(2) How many millions will find their names there! Is yours amongst the number?
(3) What does it mean to be written there? Exclusion from heaven.
5. And another book was opened which is the book of life. (J. A. Macdonald.)
The last assize
Though the Book of Revelation contains much that is mysterious, and even inexplicable, passages such as this are as instructive as magnificent. The delineation is that of transactions in which we must all bear a part in the last general assize. It was before the Redeemer that the mighty multitude of those whom the grave had surrendered were arraigned, the title of absolute divinity being justly assigned to Him who is evidently the Son of Man, seeing that the two natures coalesced indissolubly in His person. Our text then proceeds to give some account of the principles upon which judgment will be conducted, showing that an accurate register has been kept of human actions, and that men will be judged according to their works, and therefore judged in righteousness. We know not whether the principles of Gods moral government are insisted on with sufficient frequency and urgency from our pulpits, but we are sure that they produce not their due influence on the great mass of men. Here and there, indeed, you may meet with an individual whose thoughts are set on the account which he must one day render, and whose habitual endeavour it is to preserve an habitual sense of the coming of the Lord. But even individuals such as these will confess to you that their endeavours are but partially successful; that they have great cause of humiliation before God, on account of their forgetfulness of the day of trial. So that there can be no class of hearers to whom the subject of discourse presented by our text is not appropriate. We shall premise a few remarks on the necessity of a general judgment, in order to vindicate Gods moral government, and then proceed to examine the several assertions made in our text in regard to this fact. Now, in every age of the world, men have been perplexed by what seemed opposite evidences as to the superintending care of a wise and beneficent Being. On the one hand, there is no doubt that we live under a retributive government, and that cognisance is taken of our actions by an invisible but ever-present Being whose attributes render Him the determined foe of vice and the steadfast upholder of righteousness. On the other hand, there has been an irresistible demonstration, from the experience of all ages, that no accurate proportion is at present maintained between conduct and condition, but that vice has most frequently the upper hand, while righteousness is depressed and overwhelmed. There has been no reconciling of these apparent contradictions, except by supposing that human existence would not terminate with death, but that in another, though yet unknown state, vice would receive its due meed of vengeance, and righteousness of reward. Thus you see how reason concurs with revelation in directing your thoughts to a state of retribution. We next remark that the season of judgment is not to arrive until the end of all things, when the dead shall be raised. Once admit that all men are to be put upon trial, and you also admit, so far as we can see, that their final portion is not entered upon ere that trial is past; for what could be more contrary to all show of justice than the sentencing after execution? But when men would curiously inquire into the particulars of the intermediate state, we are not at all able to answer their questions. We doubt not that the justified soul is immediately assured of its acceptance with God, and consigned to the peace and repose in the blessed certainty that heaven will be its portion. We doubt as little that the soul of him who dies in his impenitence is immediately conscious that its doom is determined, and given over to anguish and remorse because allowed no hope that lost time may be redeemed and hell yet avoided. It is the whole man, the compound of spirit and flesh, which has obeyed or transgressed; it must be therefore the whole man which is put upon trial, and which receives the portion whether of promise or threatening. Thus, whatever our thoughts of the intermediate state, we know that the allotments of eternity cannot be fully dealt out unless the vision of our text shall have been first accomplished, and the dead, small and great, stand before their God. We pass now to the contemplation of the person of the Judge. We wish to set before you the combined wisdom and mercy of the appointment, that He who is to decide our portion for eternity, is the very Being who died as our surety. We cannot dispense with the omniscience of Deity; we see clearly enough that no finite intelligence can be adequate to that decision which will ensure the thorough justice of future retribution. But then neither can we dispense with the feelings of humanity; at least we can have no confidence in approaching His tribunal if we are sure that the difference in nature incapacitates Him from sympathy with those whose sentence He is about to pronounce, and precludes the possibility of His so making our case His own as to allow of His deciding with due allowance for our feebleness and temptations. It is thus we are assured that mercy and justice will alike have full scope in the transactions of the judgment, and that in appointing that the Mediator who died as our substitute will preside at our trial, God hath equally provided that every decision shall be impartial, and yet every man be dealt with as brother to Him who must determine our fate. It would have been an encouragement to wickedness had the Judge been mere man, and therefore liable to be deceived. It would have filled humble piety with dread had the Judge been only God, and therefore not touched with a feeling of our infirmities. This leads us to our concluding point, the thorough righteousness of the whole procedure of the judgment. (H. Melvill, B. D.)
The judgment
It is related of Daniel Webster, the reality of whose moral endowments no one disputes, that when once asked what was the greatest thought that had ever occupied his mind, he replied, The fact of my personal accountability to God. Eliminate accountability, and man drops into the category of instinct and natural desire; if he is a savage, he becomes a beast; if he is civilised, he becomes virtually a criminal. Freedom and conscience imply accountability; accountability implies rendering account, and this implies a judgment; such is the logic that covers human life, few and simple in its links, but strong as adamant and inexorable as fate. It underlies and binds together the twofold kingdom of time and eternity--one chain, whether it binds things in heaven or things on the earth. It is the weakness of formulated theology that it arbitrarily transfers the most august and moving features of Gods moral government to a future world, thus placing the wide and mysterious gulf of time and death between actions and their motives. All broken law begins at once to incur judgment; the quick pang of conscience that follows sin is the first stroke of judgment; while undergoing it the soul is passing a crisis, and turns to the right or the left hand of eternal righteousness. Thus we are all the while rendering account to the laws without and within; we are all the while undergoing judgment and receiving sentence of acquittal or condemnation. Conduct is always reaching crises and entering upon its consequences. It may be cumulative in degree, and reach crises more and more marked; it may at last reach a special crisis which shall be the judgment when the soul shall turn to the right or left of eternal destiny. A profound view of judgment as a test or crisis entailing separation, shows us that it attends change; for it is through change that the moral nature is aroused to special action. It is a law that catastrophes awaken conscience. It is also a peculiarity of the action of the moral nature under great outward changes that man is disclosed to himself. Recall the most joyful event of your lives, and you will find it to have been also a period of great self-knowledge. Recall your deepest sorrow and you will still more vividly recognise it as an experience in which there was a deep, interior measurement of yourself. If change has this revealing and judging power, the change of worlds must have it in a superlative degree. It is appointed unto men once to die, and after that cometh judgment; the testing and unveiling of character and conduct. Pre-eminently, far beyond anything that has preceded, man is then judged and assigned his true place and direction. I think the central truth of the judgment can nowhere more easily be got at than in the passage before us. No other symbol than that of books could so vividly convey the fact that the whole life comes into judgment. Nothing is left out or forgotten; there can be no mistake. The books are the unerring transcript of the life. The simplicity of the symbol is marred by the introduction of another book than those recording the works. Why is there another book which is the book of life --and what does it mean? Mankind do not go up to the throne of God to be judged simply by their works. Parallel with humanity is the kingdom of heaven. Parallel with mens deeds are the purposes of God. Over and above what humanity does of itself is a plan of redemption, the working out of which enters into human destiny. It may be that the other book represents that other power, and the influences that flow out of the life of Christ. It is a book of life, and He is the life of the world. Men are judged by the records of their works, but it may be that the sentence pronounced is affected by what is written in the book of life. I am aware that this complicates the thought, but we must remember that the problem of spiritual destiny is not absolutely simple. But we will leave this side issue and turn to the main thought--the books out of which men are judged. The books must be found in God, or nature, or man. The mind of God must indeed be a tablet whereon are written all the works of men, but let us not touch that ineffable mystery without warrant. Science, in the person of some of its high priests, has suggested that all the deeds of men are conserved as distinct forces in the ether that fills the spaces of heaven, and may be brought together again in true form, in some new cosmos, as light traversing space as motion is turned to heat when arrested by the earth. But we can find no link between such a fact, if it be a fact, and the moral process of judgment. We must search man himself for the elements of his great account. Take the mind: at first it is merely a set of faculties, without even self-consciousness, but contact with the world brings them into action--first observation, then memory; soon the imagination spreads its folded wings; then comes the process of comparison and combination, and thus the full process of thinking is developed--a process to which there is no end, and the capacities of which are immeasurable. When we reach the limit of our own powers, we open the pages of some great master of thought, and there find new realms that reveal corresponding powers. Take the soul: there are faculties that exist only in germ till certain periods of life arise. The child knows nothing of the love that breaks in upon the youth with its rapturous pain and yearning of insatiable desire, flooding the heights of his being, but the capacity was in the child. The soft touch of a babes hand unlocks new rooms in the heart of the mother. New relations, new stages of life, disclose new powers and reveal the mysteries of our being. We are all the while finding out new agencies in nature; even its component parts are not yet all discovered, while the forces developed by combination are doubtless immeasurable in number and degree. Take the memory, the faculty through which the consciousness of identity is preserved. With so important a function to fulfil, it is altogether probable that its action is absolute, that is, it never forgets. We cannot understand its action, but probably we speak accurately when we say that an impression is made upon the mind. The theory that memory is a physical act, and therefore cannot outlast death, is untenable. Matter, having no real identity, cannot uphold a sense of identity, which is the real office of memory. The impression of what we do, say, hear, see, feel, and think, is stamped upon the mind. An enduring matrix receives the impression; is it probable that it is ever lost? We think we forget, but our thought is corrected by everyday experience. The mind wearied by till forgets at night, but remembers when sleep has refreshed the body. The body forgot; the mind retained its knowledge. We forget the faces we have seen, but on the first fresh glimpse we remember them. We revisit scenes that long since had faded from memory, but the new sight uncovers the old impression. Even so slight a thing as a note of music, or a perfume, will bring up scenes long ago forgotten; a strain of music, and a face that had grown dim to memory, comes back from the dead in all its freshness. De Quincey, a profound observer upon the subject, says that when under the influence of opium, the most trifling incidents of his early life would pass again and again before his distempered vision, varying their form, but the same in substance. These incidents, which were originally somewhat painful, would swell into vast proportions of agony, and rise into the most appalling catastrophes. This was the action of a diseased nature, but it indicates what shape our lives may assume if viewed at last through the medium of a sin-diseased soul Not only does the memory retain conduct, but all impressions upon the soul remain imbedded within it. Nothing is lost that has once happened to it. We are taking into ourselves the world about us, the society in which we move, the impress of every sympathetic contact with good or evil, and we shall carry them with us for ever. We do not pass through a world for nought--it follows us because it has become a part of us. It may be said that these impressions are so numerous and conflicting that they can yield no distinct picture hereafter. But we must not limit the capacity of the soul in this respect, in the presence of greater mysteries. In some sense, it may present, as it were, a continually fresh surface. A most apt illustration waits upon our thought drawn from the palimpsests forbad in the monasteries of Italy; parchments that, centuries ago, were inscribed with the history or laws of heathen Rome, the edicts of persecuting emperors, or the annals of conquest. When the Church arose, the same parchments were used again to record the legends and prayers of the saints. Later still, they were put to further use in rehearsing the speculations of the schoolmen, or the revival of letters, yet presenting but one written surface. But modern science has learned to uncover these overlaid writings one after another, finding upon one surface the speculations of learning, the prayers of the Church, and the blasphemies of paganism. And so it may be with the tablets of the soul, written over and over again, but no writing ever effaced, they wait for the master-hand that shall uncover them to be read of all, What are these apocalyptic books but records of our works printed upon our hearts? What are the books opened but man opened to himself? is is a view of the judgment that men cannot scoff at. Its elements are provided; its forces are at work; it lies within the scope of every mans knowledge. It is but the whole of what we already know in part. As there are powers in man that render judgment possible, so there are conditions on the other side that cooperate. One cannot be judged except there be one who judges. Man is judged by man; nothing else were fit. The deflections from perfect humanity cannot be measured except by the standard of perfect humanity. Hence it is the Son of Man, the humanity of God, who judges. When man meets Him, all is plain. His perfection is the test; He furnishes the contrast that repels, or the likeness that draws. This then is judgment: man revealed by the unveiling of his life, and tested by the Son of Man. (T. T. Munger.)
The judgment
I. Its place in Christian belief.
1. It is an essential part in the creed of a Christian.
2. Its importance may be gathered from its prominence in the Scriptures. It is foretold in the Old Testament--the Psalms, Isaiah, Daniel, Malachi, all reveal it. Our Lord, in His parables, especially in those called eschatological, because of their reference to the last things. The scene in Mat_25:1-46. is in line with the text. The day of judgment is pointed to both in the Epistles and Apocalypse.
3. Yet belief in the general judgment is difficult. The mystery is so transcendental, so vast, so seemingly unlikely, that the inability of the imagination to bring home to itself this stupendous truth is apt to lead the understanding astray and to obscure the light of faith.
II. Why there should be a general judgment? The question was debated of old, why the particular judgment of the soul in the hour of death should not suffice. It was urged that the Lord judged the penitent thief and rewarded him with Paradise on the day of his death; Nah_1:9 was quoted; and the fact that desert appertains only to the deeds of this life. Yet one verse demolished all this (Joh_12:48). The reasons for the general judgment may be found in this--that the issue of our actions do not stop with the actions themselves. Not only actions, but their far-reaching effects, will form the subject-matter of that tribunal. The complete being, body and soul, must also be arraigned before judgment is complete.
III. The procedure.
1. The persons: the dead, the living being numerically inconsiderable when compared with the generations of mankind who had departed.
2. Small and great stand before God--that is, all earthly distinctions no longer are of any account; as we should say, all sorts and conditions of men. The only surviving difference is that of goodness or badness.
3. They stand before the throne. They are not merely spirits, but men and women in bodily form.
4. He who sits upon the throne is the Son of man.
5. The books were opened, etc.; that is, the secrets of all hearts are made manifest (Psa_1:3; 1Co_4:5). Another book, etc., has been differently explained, as that which pours light upon what is written in The books, declaring what is good and what is bad in reality; or again, it is taken to be the book of Divine predestination; or again, as by St. Anselm, as the life of Jesus, which is to test the life of His followers, which, perhaps, is the best exposition, for the issues are decided by the lives of those judged--by their works.
IV. Lessons.
1. Test our belief in the Second Advent of Jesus Christ: is our faith in the mystery clear and vigorous, resting upon Divine revelation and the teaching of Christs Church?
2. Has the mystery an effect upon our lives, knowing it is one in which we must take part? Does it impress upon us the seriousness of life, and how we shall have to answer for all our actions?
3. Are we becoming more familiar with that other book, the life of Christ, as written in the Gospels and made manifest in the lives of His saints? and seeking to bring our lives into more accord with it?
4. Do I live as one who really believes in the day of judgment? (Canon Hutchings, M. A.)
Standing before God
Do you not see what that means? Out of all the lower presences with which they have made themselves contented; out of all the chambers where the little easy judges sit with their compromising codes of conduct, with their ideas worked over and worked down to suit the conditions of this earthly life; out of all these partial and imperfect judgment chambers, when men die they are all carried up into the presence of the perfect righteousness, and are judged by that. All previous judgments go for nothing, unless they find their confirmations there. Men who have been the pets and favourites of society, and of the populace, and of their own self-esteem, the change that death has made to them is that they have been compelled to face another standard, and to feel its unfamiliar awfulness. Just think of it. A man who, all his life on earth since he was a child, has never once asked himself about any action, about any plan of his. Is this right? Suddenly, when he is dead, behold he finds himself in a new world, where that is the only question about everything. His old questions as to whether a thing was comfortable, or was popular, or was profitable, are all gone. The very atmosphere of this new world kills them. And upon the amazed soul, from every side, there pours this new, strange, searching question, Is it right? That is what it is for the dead man to stand before God. But, then, there is another soul which, before it passed through death, while it was in this world, had always been struggling after higher presences. Refusing to ask whether acts were popular or profitable, refusing even to care much whether they were comfortable or beautiful, it had insisted upon asking whether each act was right. It had always struggled to keep its moral vision clear. It had climbed to heights of self-sacrifice that it might get above the miasma of low standards which lay upon the earth. In every darkness about what was right, it had been true to the best light it could see. It grows into a greater and greater incapacity to live in any other presence, as it had struggled longer and longer for this highest company. Think what it must be for that soul, when for it, too, death sweeps every other chamber back and lifts the nature into the pure light of the unclouded righteousness. Now for it, too, the question, Is it right? rings from every side; but in that question this soul hears the echo of its own best-loved standard. That is what it is for that soul to stand before God. God opens His own heart to that soul, and is both judgment and love. (Bp. Phillips Brooks.)
The books were opened.
The open books
By this imagery it is clear we are meant to understand that there is a record before God of all that we do here. Words and acts of ours which may have escaped our own memory are not lost sight of by Him. In one of the Bridgewater treatises, published some fifty years ago, Babbage pointed out what is in a certain sense true, however overstrained the speculation may have been, that there exist at this moment traces of every word ever spoken upon earth. We are all familiar with the facts that sound takes time to travel and that the further it travels the fainter it becomes. We know also that the air pulsations set in motion by our words do not cease to propagate themselves when they become inaudible to our ears, but that they travel on in fainter pulsations capable of being discerned by organs more sensitive than ours. Babbages remark was that no limit can be assigned to this propagation; that the waves of air raised by any spoken word within some twenty hours have communicated to every atom of the atmosphere an altered motion due to the infinitesimal portion of the primitive motion conveyed to it through countless channels, which altered movement must continue to influence its path through its future existence. Those aerial pulses, unseen by the keenest eye, unheard by the acutest ear, unperceived by human senses, are yet demonstrated to exist by human reason. True they may be infinitely small; but modern science concerns itself much with the infinitely little. Babbages speculation, then, was that if a man possessed unbounded knowledge of mathematical analysis he would be able to calculate the minutest consequence of any primary impulse given to our atmosphere; or conversely from every slightest deviation from its orderly motions to detect the operation of a new cause, to trace the time of its commencement and the point of space at which it originated. Thus, he says, the air itself may be regarded as a vast library on whose pages are for ever written all that man has ever said or even whispered. If we could imagine the soul in an after state of existence connected with a bodily organ of hearing so sensitive as to vibrate with motions of the air even of infinitesimal force, all the accumulated words pronounced from the creation of the world would fall at once upon the ear. Imagine in addition a power of directing attention entirely to any one class of vibrations; the apparent confusion would vanish, and the punished offender might hear still vibrating on his ear the very words uttered perhaps centuries before, which at once caused and registered his condemnation. And so in like manner he contends, the earth, air, and ocean are eternal witnesses of the acts we have done. No motion impressed by natural causes or by human agency is ever obliterated. The track of every vessel which has yet disturbed the surface of the ocean remains for ever registered in the future movements of all succeeding particles which may occupy its place. The solid substance of the globe itself, whether we regard the minutest movement of the soft clay which receives its impression from the foot of animals or the concussion produced from fallen mountains rent by earthquakes, equally retains and communicates through all its countless atoms their apportioned share of the motions so impressed. Thus while the atmosphere we breathe is the ever living witness of the sentiments we have uttered, the waters and the more solid materials of the globe bear equally enduring testimony to the acts we have committed. Fanciful as this speculation of Babbages may be, I could not help being reminded of it by the invention of the phonograph, an invention which seems destined to advance to greater perfection, through which what might seem to be the most transient thing in nature, the utterances of the human voice, are permanently fixed, so that words spoken in America have been heard in our islands, and it seems likely that men of future generations will be enabled to compare the very tones of the voice of actors or orators of our day. These things are only worth mentioning just as enabling the imagination to familiarise itself with the fact that words and actions of ours, transient as they are, can write themselves in permanent record. But there are ways in which they do so which come more practically home to us than those I have mentioned, which one is tempted to dismiss as a mere scientific fancy. In the first place, our words and actions are written in the book of our own memories. In fading characters, no doubt. Yet we know that many things which we seem to have long forgotten are not really blotted out of our recollections. Some accident often brings up to our remembrance events or conversations of times long gone by, which had been absent from our minds for years. A statement made by the late Admiral Beaufort has been often quoted. He was rescued from drowning, and reanimated after he had for some time lost consciousness. He stated that in the last few moments of consciousness a host of long buried memories had suddenly started into life, and that he seemed in these few moments to peruse the history of his whole past life. But this writing of the book of your memory is a trivial thighs in comparison of what I wish next to speak of: the writing on the book of your character. I had better explain what I mean by this word character. Mr. Mill long ago asserted that you could with certainty predict any mans actions on any occasion if you knew his character and knew the motives that were influencing him. The assertion is not true if you use the word character in its ordinary sense. A man may have deservedly got the character of being miserly, and yet you cannot be certain that he will not act generously on some particular occasion, and vice versa. The sense in which the proposition is true is, if you understand by character the degree of susceptibility to different motives at any particular instant. So understood, the proposition is true, but it is one of those identical propositions which convey no information. You can tell with certainty whether or act a man wilt be impelled to action by a certain motive if you know what is at the moment the amount of his susceptibility in respect of that motive. But what I want now to remark is that character (in this, which may be called the scientific sense of the word) is in a state of continual change. Not to speak of changes of disposition resulting from changes of bodily health, every one of our words and acts in some degree influences our character, which results as the integral of a number of very small influences. The amount of change at any moment is imperceptible. The friend whom we meet day by day seems to us in bodily form the same to-day as he had been yesterday; until one day perchance it strikes us how much altered he is from what we can remember him, and in any case one who has not seen him for some time is struck at once with the change, perhaps finds it difficult to recognise him. In like manner it occurs to us from time to time to Cake notice of changes in a friends character. We may take notice, for example, that he is less easy to deal with, more snappish in temper than he used to be. The topic does not need to be enlarged upon, what enormous alteration can be matte by the accumulated effect of minute changes, each separately, it may be, absolutely undiscernible. But what, though obviously true, much needs to be borne m mind is that none of these minute changes takes place without a cause. It changes in character take place, it is because every incautious word that falls from our lips, every thoughtless action, though our own attention may have been scarce conscious of it, is writing itself on our nature in characters far more deep and more practically important than in those traces on inanimate nature which formed the subject of Babbages speculation. But there is yet another larger book on which our words and actions write themselves; for they influence not only ourselves, but others. Babbage spoke of the traces spoken words leave on the physical atmosphere. There is a moral atmosphere which presses on as all, though as in the ease of the physical atmosphere we feel not the pressure, and scarce take note of its existence unless when its motions are unusually violent. I mean, as of course you understand, the public opinion of the community in which we live, which is practically the law that regulates our conduct. On the wholesomeness of this atmosphere our moral health in great measure depends. But it too responds obediently to every impulse communicated to it by those who live in it. Public opinion is in short nothing but the aggregate representation of the moral sentiments of each individual of the community; and plainly each change in the moral condition of any individual affects that of the community. In an infinitely small degree, no doubt, but I have been all along pointing out that all the great changes in nature are the results of the accumulation of movements each infinitesimally small. Yet, however small the direct effect of the action of one individual on the whole community, it might be large enough in his own immediate neighbourhood. Poisonous miasma might be enough to make a whole house uninhabitable which might have no perceptible effect when diffused through the whole atmosphere. But no comparison with the action of completely inanimate bodies gives an adequate illustration. If you insert a little leaven into a lump of dough, it would be a delusion to imagine that the amount to which the character of the mass had been altered could be estimated by comparing the weight of the newly inserted matter with the weight of the entire. Now, as in water face answereth to face, so the heart of man to man. The same temptations which assail us beset others too; if we are sensible of higher and nobler motives, so are others. The sight of a brave and generous deed excites admiration, which soon leads to imitation; the fall of one man leads others to think lightly of a similar fall as natural and pardonable. If it be true that every sound we make sets waves of air in motion which spread in wide and wider circles, far more is a similar statement true of the moral effect of the waves we set in motion. For the mere physical effect is so attenuated as it spreads as to become in a moment or two imperceptible to our senses, but as I just pointed out, it is otherwise in the moral atmosphere. Each disturbance brings new forces into action, so that the effect resulting from a single impulse may be immensely greater than any one could have predicted as due to the original force. Thus, though what we have said or done be not recorded by pen, ink or paper, it may be written in more permanent form by its influence upon others or ourselves. If I have seemed to you over subtle in elaborating the proof of this, remember I am doing no more than insisting that that is always taking place, instances of which are perpetually striking you. We may, if we look back on our own history, be able to trace in some degree how events were linked together and how trifles helped to bring us to form important decisions. But of the greater part of this we know little. And if God could enable us to read the book of our own lives we should be astonished to find how the performance of some petty act of duty has been blessed by Him as the means of giving us strength for higher service in His cause; or how some apparently trifling opportunities neglected had checked our own spiritual life or had resulted in serious injury to others. When the books are opened God may permit us to see, as He can see, each act written by its consequences. Nothing would make us more hate and dread sin than if we could see how each act of sin may not only be written in terrible stains on our own hearts and consciences, but even on those of persons dear to us, who may have drunk in poison from our example, which cannot be neutralised even by our repentance. I have not spoken of that book which most naturally suggests itself to a reader of the text, the book of Gods omniscience, but I have shown that without going beyond what our own reason and experience tell us of we can see that our own words and actions do permanently record themselves. (G. Salmon, D. D.)
The revivals of memory a prophecy of judgment
I. A perfect memory, then, will accompany judgment. The fields of memory at some magic touch give back again all the lights and shadows which have ever swept across their surface. The children of memory rise again from their graves, and wander in without warning into the once familiar rooms which they have long ceased to visit. The canvas of memory is retouched by some artist whose skill restores the tints which had faded away. The colours of memory are like those in Egyptian halls, long concealed by sand, but fresh as if they had just come from the painters hand when the drifted heaps are blown away. Is there absolute oblivion? What destroys memory and effaces her work finally? Not the loss of a sense--the deaf musician still possesses the strain which the outward ear has not heard for years. Not old age--the old mans memory is the one thing more touching than his forgetfulness. Not madness, or the fever which for a time seems to calcine the images of the mind. Memories retain in very different degrees, like the sand, like the freestone, or the marble; but all are gifted with this possibility of resurrection.
II. With a full perception of the reality of judgment accompanied with a revived memory we shall most profitably enter upon a consideration of the danger of evil thoughts. Let us suggest some simple rules of self-examination.
1. We should then, really examine ourselves, if possible every day, with this prayer--try me, O God, and seek the ground of my heart; prove me, and examine my thoughts. We should ask ourselves two questions every night. First, have I led any into sin this day? We sin together--can we repent together? Second, have I harboured willingly and knowingly any evil thoughts? Have I allowed the birds of evil omen to settle down upon the sacrifice, and failed to sanctify Christ as Lord in my heart? In the dreadful chronology of sin, the actual fall is often not the first, or the hundredth sin.
2. I now suggest some simple rules. When unholy thoughts come, pray quickly--Spirit of evil! in the name of Jesus of Nazareth, depart. Blessed Spirit of purity! quench this sinful thought. After falling into sin, pray--God, be merciful to me a sinner! For the sake of Jesus Christ, lay not this sin to my charge. Occupy yourselves with business. Go into virtuous society. Do not go about visibly brooding. Take freely to wholesome literature and innocent recreations.
III. Enough, perhaps, of details. A word of motives.
1. A great commentator on Scripture advises us, if we are tempted to unholy thoughts, to look through our window. Gaze, he says, upon the serenity of the sky, and be possessed with a loathing of impurity. But what if we have lost the faculty for such a sight? what if we are colour-blind to all the blue of heaven? Seek for a purer joy.
2. Dwell upon the reality of judgment: Without this you will be liable to strange falls. You will be like sailors who are lost because they have not calculated for the send of the sea. (Abp. Wm. Alexander.)
The books of judgment
It is obviously of no importance whether we assume that the terms thus employed convey only an image or an absolute and literal reality. If the language is metaphorical, it is nevertheless used to convey to us the ideas which we should naturally conceive from the actual unfolding of a vast register.
1. First, then, there is the book of Gods remembrance. Now, strictly speaking, there can be no such thing as forgetfulness in relation to God. Memory implies previous forgetfulness. To remember, is with an effort to summon up the past. But with God, who is eternal, inasmuch as time is not to Him, there can be no such distance put between one event and another. All things are uniformly and unchangeably present to Him. Neither does the multiplicity of the things recorded there cause either mistake or confusion. All things are always present to the infinite mind of the Eternal. Take the old man of fourscore years; God does not call up as by an effort that mans boyhood and earlier manhood, but He looks upon all that he then did, or said, or thought, as though it were now going on: for no past nor future can limit Him who is incomprehensible. The history of every one of us is indelibly written on the mind of God Himself.
2. But we believe that yet another book will then be opened. Each of us carries his own history, written and engraven on the tablet of his own spirit. Conscience will then slumber no more. No counterfeit voices will then drown its accents, or confuse its utterances. No burden of the flesh shall make the vision grow dim, which shall show us to ourselves, shall blur its colours, or distort its lineaments. Imagine, as far as you can, this perfect selfknowledge for the first time breaking in upon us by the quickening power of conscience. We are not, indeed, left altogether without witness beforehand of what this will be. We have an assurance respecting it, amounting to all but the testimony as of some who have risen from the dead, to tell us what they have seen and known. What if we go hence impenitent and unforgiven? What will it be in the resurrection of the dead, in the day when the dead, small and great, shall stand before God? The light of Gods countenance shines in on that stricken soul, alas! not now to save and bless, but to witness against, and to condemn. The first glance shows all. He knows as He is known. It tallies--that witness of conscience--with Gods knowledge and revelation of him. Self-convicted, self-condemned, sinner, depart!
3. Two volumes have already been opened. A third remains. Another book was opened, which is the book of life. Now with the idea of life is intimately associated the presence and working of God the Holy Ghost. He is the Lord and Giver of life. From our baptism upwards, the Holy Ghost has been dealing with us, is dealing with us still, except we be reprobates. Nothing but our own deliberate sinfulness, the wilfulness of our own evil choices, can undo the Spirits blessed work in our souls. The result of this life-long process of judgment will be seen then, when the books shall be opened, and that other book--the Book of Life. The question then will be, What can you show of the Spirit of Christ? Upon the manifold doings of the earthly life, where is the seal of the Spirit of the Lord? What remains when the sifting is over, when all former judgments of the Spirit close in this one final judgment, after which is heaven or hell everlasting? (Bp. Morrell.)
The opening of the books
Someone has said, and the saying has often been applauded, Give the past to oblivion, the present to duty, and trust the future to Providence. I fear that many of us are much more ready to comply with the first of those three directions than with the other two; indeed, many of us need no persuasion to induce us to consign the past to oblivion, or, at any rate, a great portion of it. But before we turn our backs upon it, might it not be well to form some sort of definite idea of the record that it contains, lest one day we should have to renew our acquaintance with it under the most painful possible circumstances? Above all, before we consign it to oblivion, would it not be wise to endeavour to make sure that God has consigned it to oblivion also, or, at any rate, that part of it which tells against us? Judge therefore yourselves, that ye be not judged of the Lord. Unfortunately, however, this is just what most men are exceedingly reluctant to do. Too many resemble in this respect the conduct of the fraudulent bankrupt, who has a general idea that he is not solvent, but goes on from day to day counting upon the chapter of accidents, and hoping that some fortunate circumstance may sot him on his legs again; but who shrinks from going carefully through his books and facing his actual commercial position. Even so men drift on from day to day with a sort of undefined misgiving that all is not right between themselves and God, but shrink from facing the true state of the case; never put to their hearts the question, How much owest thou unto my Lord? or probe their consciences with an honest inquiry, What hast thou done? Are you prepared to face the record of your life? What! Would you shrink from putting that volume into my hands, and permitting me to read its contents in the ears of this congregation, or of your own friends? Then reflect, I beseech you, what will be your feelings when its inmost secrets are divulged in the very presence of your Judge and before an assembled world. We must realise our own individuality then, if we fail to do so now; and indeed it must be admitted that many of us do fail to realise it. Ah, it will avail us little to realise then, it may be for the first time, all that our own separate and distinct existence involves! Nay, rather, it can only enhance our terror then and deepen our despair. But it is otherwise now. And, oh, let me urge upon you the importance of rising above the shallow unrealities of a merely conventional life! Surely it were wiser that as such you should live, not indeed ignoring your relations to society, but neither, on the other hand, permitting your own individuality to be mastered by these relations. But there are other thoughts suggested to our minds by the words of our text. No doubt some other books may be opened in that last dread assize besides those which contain the record of our earthly lives. The book of Nature, which contains so much that seems perplexing and mysterious, and which is so often misread now, and still more frequently never read at all, will be opened at last in all its wonder. And when the books are opened at last, how strong, how damning will be the testimony of Nature against those who have deified her or endeavoured to content themselves with her. Wilt not His voice be heard upbraiding those who have thus abused her? Ye fools and blind, I told you that here ye were strangers and sojourners, that ye were born to trouble, as the sparks fly upwards. I told you that here moth and rust do corrupt, that the grass withereth and the flower fadeth, and that the fashion of this world passeth away. I told you that the things which are seen are temporal. Why did ye live in contradiction to my teaching, ever seeking in me what ye should have known I could not bestow? I might have been your handmaiden or your instructress, but ye insisted on making me your substitute for God, and in doing so ye abused the gift God gave you in me, and, lo! He hath done justly in taking it away. Ye chose earth instead of God, and now ye have lost both for ever. Yet another book mill be the book of Providence, which will contain the record of Gods dealings with us, just as the book of our lives contains the record of our dealings with God. Here is one who had a pious father, whose life was a constant example of all that is beautiful and attractive in true religion. That life appealed to you, more eloquently than any sermon could; but you hardened your heart against it, and turned your back upon your fathers God. You have been the subject of a mothers prayer. Ah I how often has she watered her pillow with her tears for you. You have often been stirred to the very depths of your nature by the appeals of that earnest servant of God whose ministry you attend, and time was When his holy eloquence so deeply impressed you that Son were almost persuaded to yield. Ah! in such cases as these, how will you face the book of Gods providence? But there is another book surely that will be opened then, though to many it is a closed book now--the book of Revelation. The words that I speak, exclaimed the Christ, the same shall judge you at the last day. Ah! we may close our Bibles now, and keep them closed; but remember the glad tidings of deliverance and salvation has gone forth, and we have heard it, and whether we receive it and benefit by it or not, we can never be as though that sound had never reached us. And closely connected with this volume of Revelation there is another which will be opened then, though men seldom think of attempting to read it now--the record of the inner revelations of God to the soul, the story of the dealings of God the Holy Ghost with the heart of man. It will be, I am persuaded, a startling surprise to not a few when this book is opened. How many an inward desire, how many a smothered emotion, how many a rising tear, that they never thought of attributing to anything but natural causes, will men find to have been due to the secret influence of the Spirit of God! But there is one book more, and for purposes of judgment it is the most important book of all; and it is spoken of here as affording the criterion by which men must stand or fall, and its name is the Book of Life. Of this mysterious volume no less can be said than that Christ Himself is its Author. No one else can write a page or a line or a name in the Book of Life. Are any of you saying to-night, Would to God my name might be written in the Lambs Book of Life, but how is it to be done? I have no power to write it there, and I feel as though it never could be written there. I have merited death over and over again; eternal life I feel, I know, I never can merit. To such let me say, the kingdom of life, the land of the living, has been thrown open to you by Him whom St. Peter well calls the Prince of Life, and he has obtained the right to introduce you into the fellowship to inscribe your name upon that muster-roll. Put your case into the great Life-givers hands. Tell Him that you have discovered yourself to be a citizen of the City of Destruction. Tell Him that you feel you cannot by any effort of your own will quicken your own soul, and that therefore by faith you cast yourself upon Him as the Resurrection and the Life, and you shall prove in your own experience the truth of His words: He that believeth on Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and he that liveth and believeth on Me shall never die. He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: but he that believeth not the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him. (W. H. M. H. Aitken, M. A.)
Life a book
You are writing your own history, your own biography, the memoirs of yourself. A mysterious and invisible agency is silently tracing the records of your life. The waves in the sea write their history in the ripple marks, congealed in the sands; and so, the hidden and silent currents of our thoughts and feelings leave behind them permanent traces. What you write, God reads. Life is a history. We may classify mens lives as we do books. We have separate series on different subjects.
1. Life may be the history of mind--its growth, culture, and education--its thoughts, perplexities, and questionings--its researches and conclusions. And, yet, till we sit at the feet of the Great Teacher, and learn of Him, we shall never find rest for our souls.
2. Life may be the history of the affections. In some lives the affections determine the character. They are the freshness, the beauty, the strength and joy of life. They may be misplaced--they may degenerate into passions. Instead of being the strength of life, they may become the source of its weakness. A life without love to Christ is a life that does not know what love is, that has never read the literature of the spiritual realm, that has never found the love that passeth knowledge.
3. Life may be the history of the flesh. It may be a life in the flesh--the minding the things of the flesh; a life written in the letter, not in the spirit; a life in sensuous characters. If we live after the flesh, we shall die.
Take another series of the books.
1. The book may contain the history of a life that has its ideal--its pattern--its standard. All its endeavours are after the higher life. He who has seen the perfect will never more be satisfied with the imperfect. He who has looked on the mark of the prize of his high calling of God in Christ Jesus, will forget the things that are behind, and reach forth unto those things that are before. But the book may contain the history of a life that has no ideal, no standard; that is, formless, shapeless, purposeless: a life that proposes to itself no end, that has no continuity, no cohesion, that is fragmentary and broken; a life, the scattered fragments of which can never answer any efficient purpose. We may look at another series.
2. In the book we may read the history of a brave life--a life that has its foundations in the everlasting principles of truth; that brings nothing but truth to the truth, and so builds up character; that offers stern resistance to all forms of evil, and does battle with all kinds of falsehood; that practises self-denial; that builds no cross for itself, and yet never fears any cross the world can build; that uses suffering as a sharp instrument for fashioning life, and bringing it into conformity to Christ. It may be a simple and quiet life of which we read the records--a life not wanting in its naturalness, its beauty, its fragrance. The true sons of God often live in obscurity; the world knoweth them not, but then--it knew Him not.
3. It may be the history of a useful life--a life essentially practical--the epitome of which may be found in the words descriptive of the life of Christ, Who went about doing good. When you die, it may be said that you rest from your labours, and that your works follow you.
4. The book may contain the history of a Christian life. It is the life of one who felt himself to be a sinner, and has looked out of himself for a Saviour--who has come with all his guilt to the Cross--whose trust is simply in the one Sacrifice for sins.
5. You may read a book that contains the history of an unreal life--a life professing to be Christian, but not a Christ-like life; a life that has the form, but not the power, that has a name to live, but is dead; a life that adjusts with the greatest care the drapery of religion, that arranges all its folds, so that they may fall gracefully around it; a life that has the lamp, but not the oil in the vessel. There is another book which you may read every day--it is the history of a life that is, alas, very common--a life of indifference to everything spiritual. It does not positively reject, but it offers indifference to the Gospel: indifference to Gods love, to Christs death, to the Spirits work, to all earnest and loving appeals. It is indifference that ruins men. There is only one more series which we can find time to glance at.
6. It is a worldly life which we are reading now. It thinks only of buying and selling and getting gain. With what sorrow we read the history of a life that is perverted and abused. But we cannot finish reading these books that are open to us without being impressed with the fact that many a life is the history of failure. There was failure at the beginning, failure in the middle, and failure at the end. The book may have this title--The History of a Life that was a Failure. Some of you are young; you have a fair page; there is as yet no blot, no erasure has been made; you have life before you--it is unwritten. Take care what you write, for what is once written is written. There can be no new edition, with its emendations and corrections. Ask Gods Spirit to teach you, to help you, to guide you by His counsel. We may learn from the subject, The Possibilities of Life. We may well be aroused from our apathy, and be ashamed of our indolence. Is there no end grand enough? Is there no prize sufficiently attractive? Why do we not exercise ourselves unto godliness? Do not confine all labour to the wants of the outward life. Strive for things that are worth striving for. Work out your own salvation, etc. The books will be opened. We are to be judged out of the book which we ourselves have written. We are now framing the indictment; we are collecting the evidence; we are preparing the materials of judgment. We shall judge ourselves, and God will judge us. (H. J. Bevis.)
The opened books
I. There is no power of mans body, no faculty of his mind, no feature of the world he lives in, which does not become a book recording all he does.
1. Man has a relation to God. God is part of his world. Gods memory and Gods heart must become a record for or against him.
2. We stand in relation to the Book in which God has recorded His will. It challenges our belief and exacts our obedience. It lays down the principles of holiness, and enforces the guilt of transgression. Such a Book surely must be laid open at the bar of Judgment. Its mysterious passages will be read in a flood of light. Its neglected pages will flash with the fire of indignation.
3. Providence is another book in which mans character is written. The mind of man cannot disentangle the threads that are intermingled in the web of life. But there is one Hand that can. He knows the end from the beginning.
II. Science has its own suggestions on this matter. It points us, for instance, to a slab of sandstone taken from the quarry, and bids us notice the impressions left upon it. In the dim past a reptile of monstrous shape walked along the shore of an ancient sea seeking its prey, and left these marks behind it. The next tide covered the footprints with a layer of sand, and the following tide did the same. For centuries that process was repeated; deeper and deeper sank the sandstone, still preserving the story of the reptiles life, till a change took place. The mass of rock, long buried, was heaved up again into the sunlight. Man needed the rock for his dwelling: the crowbar opened the leaves of the stone book, and science interpreted it. Yes! and we are told that what the rock did for that reptile the universe is doing for us. The air is a vast library, on whose pages are written for ever all that we have said or even whispered. There is not a thought, or a feeling, permitted to lodge in the mind that does not mark the face. We cannot by abstaining from action cease from writing: work undone, duty unperformed, responsibility not met, have their record too. Every man is writing memoirs of himself. The character we trace is immortal. It cannot be folded up as a vesture and laid aside. The dead does not and cannot bury its dead. We cannot revise this book. Only once do we take a step or decline to take it; once taken it cannot be recalled. The past closes up like a crystal wall behind us, transparent but impervious. Further, the mind is a book; every faculty a volume by itself. Imagination is the divinest and most regal. Heaven comes to earth; the plainest house is turned into a palace. This world, cursed as it is by sin, seems a second Eden, and God walks up and down in it. But let the imagination pass under the domain of an impure or sinful passion: it does not cease to work, but its bearing is changed, and what a change! God is gone; the light is put out. The imagination has gone out into foul places. It has been a hewer of wood and drawer of water to Satan. At his bidding the eye sees vile visions, the tongue sings foul songs, the hand handles black deeds. What a spectacle when that book is opened! If imagination is the grander faculty, memory is the more useful. It is the mother of arts and sciences; the parent of history and experience. It is an ocean which, if it swallows up every jewel, will one day bring all to light. A great sea filling, never full, but from which will come one day a perfect resurrection. Latimer tells us that, when examined before Bishop Bonnet, he took special care of what he spoke. He heard a pen at work in the chimney behind the cloth, setting down all, and perhaps more than all, he said. Imagine how we should feel in daily life if told that some one was writing our history, that his reporters were present when we spoke, that his spies watched every movement when we went abroad, that they dogged our footsteps out of doors, sat with us at table, followed us to our profoundest meditations, watched us in an hour of prayer. This imagination is a fact. On the broad page of memory every event of daily life is written and cannot be erased. That book will also one day be opened. Think of Felix and Nero confronted by Paul, Pharaoh by Moses, Ahab by Elijah, the father by the child whom he has permitted to tread the way to ruin; the minister by the people to whom he preached smooth things; the murderer meeting again the victim for whose blood he plotted; the seducer compelled again to face the poor girl whose life he has blighted. The thought becomes more terrible when we remember that conscience is another book. Conscience is a sort of moral memory. It may be said to anticipate as well as to reflect. Nothing escapes its watchful eye. Every sin is duly marked, every corrupt imagination, every wrong principle, indulged in or professed. Every idle word, every unhallowed thought, goes to swell the score. Even if our sins were as frequent as our breathing, the account goes on day after day; pages are filled till the last awful hour has come, when the sinner beholds the magnitude of his transgressions.
III. Retribution is a fact which the preacher must declare, and which the man must ponder. But retribution is not the gospel of Christ. It is to be used for the levelling of the wall that guards the mount, that the King of Glory may enter in. There is another book in the hand of the Judge. It is the Book of Life. When His children are recorded there He gives them a new name. What beautiful names He gives! It is worth becoming a child of the family to get one. For Abram He writes Abraham, the Father of the faithful and Friend of God. For Saul of Tarsus, Paul the Apostle of the Gentiles. Jacob, the supplanter, becomes Israel, Prince with God. (J. A. Macfadyen, D. D.)
The books opened
I know not how many books there shall be, nor how ponderous, nor all their titles: but I remark, first, that there will be a book of tears. Have you ever thought, ye afflicted ones, that God is keeping a record of all your woe? There have been grains of corn found in ancient sepulchres, three thousand years old, but they have been brought out and recently planted, and have come up luxuriantly. So the sorrows of earth have in them enough vitality to produce an eternal fruitage. They that sow in tears shall reap in joy.
2. Again, I remark that there will be a book of unforgiven sins. The iniquities of the righteous will all have been pardoned, and so will not be mentioned. But the sins of the unpardoned will on that day be announced. Sins of the heart: the pride that would not bow to Divine authority, the foolish choice of this world to the next, the impure thought, the unholy imaginations. Sins of the tongue: tattling, base innuendoes, backbiting, profanity, hypercriticism of the conduct of others. Sins of the hands, of the eyes, of the feet, from the smallest omission to the most diabolical commission, all of which shall be recorded in the book from which the Judge shall read. Oh, when it is opened, what cowering! what shame! what hate! what woe! what despair! Drunkenness will answer for all the property wasted, for all the manly natures it imbruted.
3. Again, I remark, there will be a book of privileges. If you have lived twenty years, you have had more than one thousand Sabbaths. If you have lived more than fifty years, you have had more than two thousand Sabbaths. What will be our sensation when those one, two, or three thousand Sabbaths confront us at the judgment. From that book of privilege God will read so many strivings of the spirit, so many sicknesses when we vowed return, so many sacraments, so many death-beds, so many accidents, so many escapes, so many warnings, so many glorious invitations of a crucified Jesus.
4. Again, there will be a book of good deeds. Then we shall hear of the cup of cold water, given in the name of a disciple; the food left at the wayside cabin, the smile of approval, the word of encouragement, the good deed of which made no record, blazing out among the names of those who endowed universities, and civilised nations, and broke shackles, and disenthralled empires, and inspired generations.
5. Again, there will be a book of death. When it is opened, all the evil-doers of earth will tremble for their fate. What a long catalogue of liars, drunkards, thieves, murderers, adulterers, vagabonds, tricksters, oppressors, defrauders, infidels, blasphemers! Glory to the grace that ransomed the chief of sinners. (T. De Witt Talmage.)
The book of memory
I am assured that there is no such thing as forgetting possible to the minds thousand circumstances may and will interpose a veil between our present consciousness and the secret inscriptions of the mind, but alike, whether veiled or unveiled, the inscription remains for ever. Just as the stars seem to withdraw from the common light of day, whereas we all know that it is the light which is drawn over them as a veil, and that they are waiting to be revealed when the obscuring daylight shall have withdrawn. (De Quincey.)
The book of life
I. It is vital; hence here called the book of life. And if our names be written in this book of life, then the law of life is written vitally in our souls. The entire destruction of the adversary and all his powers. If I am identified with this book of life, I am brought to where the adversary, as far as I am concerned, and all his powers, are brought to nought.
II. This book is not only vital but also exemptional. It is exemptional in a threefold respect.
1. First, in exempting us from the wrath to come; such shall not be cast into the lake of fire. This globe shall be burned; but what care I for that? I have a new earth.
2. As this book of life exempts from the wrath to come, so it exempts us from the fear of man.
3. Third, it is exemptional also from delusion; cannot deceive these people.
III. But, lastly, this book of life is admissional. If I am identified thus with the gospel, if I am an able servant of the new covenant, if I overcome the fear of man, if I am delivered from delusion, and am thus called, and chosen, and faithful, then I shall be admitted into this city. There shall in no wise enter into it anything that defileth; and we can enter there without defilement only by the perfection that is in Christ; nor worketh abomination; and we can enter free from abomination only by the same thing, the completeness that is in Christ; or maketh a lie; and we can enter there only by the truth; but they which are written in the Lambs book of life. (James Wells.)
The book of life
Tamerlane had always by him a catalogue of his best servants, and their good deserts, which he daily perused. (J. Trapp.)
The dead were Judged … according to their works.--
The Day of Judgment
It belongs to man, in which he would seem to differ essentially from the inferior animals, to make himself and his own thoughts an object of thought; not only to know what he is doing, but to be able to review his conduct and compare it with an ideal standard of expediency and right; in one word, to call himself to account. There is, therefore, an important sense in which the whole of human life is one continued Day of Judgment. Moreover, the self-judgment here referred to is understood and felt to be of an authority and sanction higher than that of man. We cannot shake off the conviction that there is a Divine, as well as human, element in conscience. It is the voice of God speaking to us through the human faculties, ordained by Him for that purpose. Who can believe that God has so made us, that we cannot help judging ourselves by the law o! right, without believing, at the same time, that He intended us to be judged, and rewarded or punished according to that law? On looking round, however, we see that this law is very far from being universally applied, or fully carried out in the present life. If there is ever to be a perfectly righteous retribution, we must look for it beyond the grave. By such natural intimations as these, almost every people, with or without the aid of revelation, have been led to entertain, with more or less distinctness and confidence, the presentiment of a judgment to come. Even in Homer there are unmistakable traces of a popular belief in a future state of existence, where the fate of the individual is made to turn, more or less, on his previous character, and especially on his conduct towards the gods. The same is also laid down as a practical doctrine of great moment by the best among the pagan philosophers and moralists; and sometimes, as in the apologue of Erus the Pamphylian, given in Platos Republic, in language bearing striking resemblance to that used four hundred years afterwards in the New Testament. A brave man, having fallen in battle, was permitted to return to the earth on the twelfth day, in order to warn the living by a revelation of what he had seen. He had seen the dead arraigned, and when the judges, to borrow the words of the apologue, gave judgment, they commanded the just to go on the right hand, and upwards through the heaven, having fitted marks on the front of those that had been judged; but the unjust they commanded to the left, and downwards, and these likewise had behind them marks of all that they had done. From the pagans we pass to the Jews, among whom Christianity arose. Moses, their great Lawgiver, aimed to establish what is called a theocracy, that is government of God upon earth, in which perfect righteousness was to be fulfilled. Of course, in such a state of things, as they had a present Divine judgment, there was the less occasion to appeal to a future Divine judgment. Be this, however, as it may, there can be no doubt that in the time of our Lord the great body of the Jewish people had become believers in the doctrine of a future state of rewards and punishments. Accordingly, the doctrine of a future state of retribution cannot be accounted a Christian doctrine in the sense of being first taught in Christianity. It has given us new evidence of the facts in the case; it has enabled us to see these facts in new lights, and under new aspects and relations: so that the old doctrine, in itself considered, has become substantially a new doctrine. This being the case, it remains for me to speak of what may properly be considered as peculiar and original in the Christian doctrine of the judgment to come. On the whole, the most natural and Christian view would seem to be, that, with every individual, as soon as this life ends the next life begins. As regards everything pertaining to the form and manner--or, so to speak, the outward appearance--of the invisible world, what most distinguishes Christianity when compared with other and false religions, is, not the fulness of the information it conveys, but its discreet and solemn reserve. One thing, however, is put beyond question--happiness to the good, misery to the bad; that is, all that can give moral effect to the revelation: not a word, not a syllable, either to stimulate or gratify an idle and impertinent curiosity. Nowhere but in Christianity will you find it distinctly laid down, as of Divine authority, that every man will be judged at last by what he has himself done, whether it be good or bad. Let us now go one step further, and ascertain, if we can, precisely what is meant when it is said that men are to be judged according to their deeds. If, therefore, there is one thing clearer than any other in Christian ethics, it is this--that every man is to stand or fall according to what he is in himself;--not by what he does, except in so far as it expresses what he really is. Acts of worship in a hypocrite, munificent gifts merely for the name of it, solemn make-beliefs of the would-be worshipper of God and the world at the same time, go for nothing. The question continually returns, what is man in himself? There is no occasion for the nice balancing of accounts, item by item, referred to above; neither is there any occasion for a miraculous memory to enable us to call to mind every thought we have indulged, every word we have uttered, and every action we have performed. It will be enough, if we know in what moral and spiritual state all these have left us; and to know this it will be enough, if we are made conscious of what we are. It may be said, that the guilty soul will still be in the hands of a compassionate God; and this is true. Beware, however, of making compassion in God what it often is in man--a mere tenderness, I had almost said a mere weakness. Nor is this all. We must not expect in the next world what is incompatible with its nature and purpose. We are placed here to make a beginning. Are you sure it will be so in the world to come? Why first a world of probation and then a world of retribution, if after all both are to be equally and alike probationary? Let us not run risks, where the error, if it be one, is irretrievable, and the stake infinite. (James Walker.)
On future happiness or misery
I. There exists a natural sense of equity in the mind, which dictates, that recompense in futurity will be apportioned according to our knowledge or ignorance of our duty, to our exemption from temptations, or the magnitude of our dangers;--that flagrant offences ought to be more severely punished than smaller errors; great excellences more honoured than inferior good qualities; and, in short, that the number of good or bad deeds, as well as their nature, will be estimated in our great account. And these notions respecting the Divine administration appear to be sanctioned by striking facts. In the economy of the present world, it is most clearly perceived to be a general law of the Divine Providence, that different degrees of iniquity shall produce, as their natural consequences, nearly proportionate measures of suffering. Does not the dissipated character, even after his reformation, experience the result of the waste he has made, in fortune, in health, in reputation, or in time? Is he not often deeply stung by self-reproach on account of the past, though he feels humbly assured that, through Christ, it is forgiven?
II. To these surmises of reason, let us annex the surer information of scripture. It is enjoined (Deu_25:2.) that, if the wicked man be worthy to be beaten, the judge shall cause him to be beaten according to his fault by a certain number, namely, of stripes:--in allusion to which passage our Saviour declares (Luk_12:47-48). Again, when our Lord declared to the cities of Galilee, It shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon, etc., it is obvious that in this very phrase more tolerable, the same diversity of future allotment is implied--the same balance of disobedience and suffering (Jam_3:1).
III. An assent to this article of belief is beset with several dangers, against which it is of the utmost moment that a serious caution should be offered.
1. Beware, in admitting this delicate doctrine, of considering works as in themselves worth anything--as in the smallest degree establishing a right to remuneration in the sight of a pure God. What hast thou that thou didst not receive? and, after ye have done all, say, we are unprofitable servants.
2. Another danger is that of our resting satisfied with inferior degrees of obedience. Tis well:--we are secure of obtaining some place in heaven;--we may with safety, therefore, now leave something undone, or not trouble ourselves about higher attainments. But chiefly be it remembered, as the most serious truth, that though the gospel of Christ offers happiness to the penitent, no portion of that happiness can be expected by the presumptuous transgressor, let him offend but even in one point.
3. A mercenary service, in opposition to that holiness which results from the love of God, is likewise to be apprehended as a perversion of the doctrine before us. (J. Grant, M. A.)
The sea gave up the dead which were in it.--
The sea giving up its dead
I. This great doctrine, the resurrection of the body, seems yet better fitted than the kindred truth of the immortality of the soul, to make a powerful impression on the mind of man, when receiving the gospel for the first time. The heathen may have heard of the existence after death of the immaterial spirit within him; but he thinks of that principle as something impalpable and unearthly, that he has never yet seen, and that is scarce the same with himself. Talk to him of the inward man of the soul, and he listens as if you spoke of a stranger. But bring your statements home to the outward man of his body, and he feels that it is he himself who is to be happy or to be wretched in that eternity of which you tell him. Hence a living missionary, in his first religious instructions to the king of a heathen tribe in South Africa, found him indifferent and callous to all his statements of the gospel, until this truth was announced. It aroused in the barbarian chief the wildest emotions, and excited an undisguised alarm. He had been a warrior, and had lifted up his spear against multitudes slain in battle. He asked, in amazement, if these his foes should all live. And the assurance that they should arise filled him with perplexity and dismay, ouch as he could not conceal. He could not abide the thought. A long slumbering conscience had been pierced through all its coverings.
II. The sea will be found thickly peopled with the mortal remains of mankind. In the earlier ages of the world, when the relations of the various nations to each other were generally those of bitter hostility, and the ties of a common brotherhood were little felt, the sea, in consequence of their comparative ignorance of navigation, served as a barrier, parting the tribes of opposite shores, who might else have met only for mutual slaughter, ending in extermination. Now that a more peaceful spirit prevails, the sea, which once served to preserve, by dividing the nations, has, in the progress of art and discovery, become the channel of easier intercourse and the medium of uniting the nations. It is the great highway of traffic, a highway on which the builder cannot encroach, and no monarch possesses the power of closing the path or engrossing the travel. Thus continually traversed, the ocean has become, to many of its adventurous voyagers, the place of burial. But it has been also the scene of battle, as well as the highway of commerce. Upon it have been decided many of those conflicts which determined the dynasty or the race to whom for a time should be committed the empire of the world. All these have served to gorge the deep with the carcases of men. It has had, again, its shipwrecks. Though man may talk of his power to bridle the elements, and of the triumphs of art compelling all nature to do his work, yet there are scenes on the sea in which he feels his proper impotence. The sea, then, has its dead.
III. The meeting of the dead of the sea with the dead of the land.
1. There must be, then, in this resurrection from the sea, much to awaken feeling in the others of the risen dead, from this, if from no other cause: these, the dead of the sea, will be the kindred and near connections of those who died upon the land. Among those whom the waters shall in that day have restored, will be some who quitted home expecting a speedy return, and for whose coming attached kindred and friends looked long, but looked in vain. The exact mode, and scene, and hour of their death have remained until that day unknown to the rest of mankind. And can it be without feeling that these will be seen again by those who loved them, and who through weary years longed for their return, still feeding the hope that keeps alive despair? The dead of ocean will be the children and pupils, again, of the dead of the land. Their moral character may have been formed, and their eternal interests affected, less by their later associates on the deep than by the earlier instructions they received on shore.
2. Let it be remembered, again, that a very large proportion of those who have thus perished on the ocean will appear to have perished in the service of the landsman. Some in voyages of discovery, despatched on a mission to enlarge the bounds of human knowledge, or to discover new routes for commercial enterprise, and new marts for traffic. Thus perished the French navigator La Perouse, whose fate was to the men of the lash generation so long the occasion of anxious speculation. Still greater numbers have perished in the service of commerce. As a people we are under special obligations to the art and enterprise of the navigator. We are a nation of emigrants. The land we occupy was discovered and colonised by the aid of the mariner. The seaman has, then, been employed in our service. And as far as he was our servant doing our work, we were bound to care for his well-being; and if he perished in our service, it was surely our duty to inquire whether he perished in any degree by our fault.
3. Others of those buried in the waters have lost their lives in defence of those upon the shore. Can a nation claim the praise of common honesty or gratitude, who neglects the moral and spiritual interests of these their defenders?
4. Let us reflect, also, on the fact, that many of those who have perished on the waters will be found to have perished through the neglect of those living on shore. We allude not merely to negligence in providing the necessary helps for the navigator. May there not be other classes of neglect equally or yet more fatal? The parent who has neglected to govern and instruct his child, until that child, impatient of all restraint, rushes away to the sea as a last refuge, and there sinks, a victim to the sailors sufferings or the sailors vices, can scarce meet with composure that child in the day when the sea gives up its dead. Or if, as a community, or as churches, we shut our eyes to the miseries of the sick and friendless seaman, or to the vices and oppressions by which he is often ruined for time and eternity, shall we be clear in the day when inquisition is made for blood? No, unless the Church does her full duty, or, in other words, reaches in her efforts the measure of her full ability, for the spiritual benefit of the seaman, her neglect must be chargeable upon her.
5. Many of the dead of the sea will be found to have been victims to the sins of those upon shore. Those who have perished in unjust wars waged upon that element, will they have no quarrel of blood against the rulers that sent them forth? The statesmen, the blunders or the crimes of whose policy the waters have long concealed, must one day face those who have been slaughtered by their recklessness. And so it may be said of every other form of wickedness, of which those that sail in our ships are rendered the instruments or the victims. The keeper of the dram-shop, or the brothel, where the sailor is taught to forget God and harden himself in iniquity, will not find it a light thing, in that great day of retribution, to encounter those whom he made his prey. The literature of the shore will be called to account for its influence on the character and well-being of the seaman. The song-writer, who, perhaps, a hungry and unprincipled scribbler, penned his doggrel lines in some garret, little careful except as to the compensation he should earn, the dirty pence that were to pay for his rhymes, will one day be made to answer for the influence that went forth from him to those who shouted his verses in the night watch, on the far sea, or perchance upon some heathen shore. The infidel, who may have sat in elegant and lettered ease, preparing his attacks upon the Bible and the Saviour, thought little, probably, but of the fame and influence he should win upon the shore. But the seeds of death which he scattered may have been wafted whither he never thought to trace them. And in that day of retribution he may be made to lament his own influence on the rude seaman whom he has hardened in blasphemy and impiety, and who has sported with objections derived by him at the second hand or third hand from such writers, whilst he figured amongst his illiterate and admiring companions as the tarred Voltaire or Paine of the forecastle and the round top, the merriest and boldest scoffer of the crew. Lessons:
1. The dead shall rise, all shall rise, and together. From the land and from the sea, wherever the hand of violence or the rage of the elements have scattered human dust, shall it be reclaimed. And we rise to give account. Out of Christ, judgment will be damnation.
2. If the reappearance from the seas of the sinner who perished in his sins be a thought full of terror, is there not, on the other hand, joy in the anticipation of greeting those who have fallen asleep in Christ, but whose bones found no rest beneath the clods of the valley, and whose remains have been reserved under the waters until that day, while, over their undistinguished resting-place, old ocean with all its billows has for centuries pealed its stormy anthem?
3. This community especially owes a debt to that class of men who go down to the sea in ships, and do business in the great waters.
4. It is, again, by no means the policy of the Church to overlook so influential a class as is that of our seafaring brethren. They are in the path of our missionaries to the heathen. If converted, they might be amongst their most efficient coadjutors, as, whilst unconverted, they are among the most embarrassing hindrances the missionary must encounter.
5. While humbled in the review of her past negligence, and in the sense of present deficiencies, as to her labours for the seaman, the Church has yet cause for devout thankfulness in the much that has recently been done for the souls of those who go down to the sea in ships, and in the perceptible change that has already been wrought in the character of this long-neglected class of our fellow-citizens and fellow-immortals.
6. In that day, when earth and sea shall meet heaven in the judgment, where do you propose to stand? Among the saved, or the lost--the holy, or the sinful--at the right hand of the Judge, or at His left? (W. R. Williams, D. D.)
On the general resurrection
I. The elements into which the dead are dissolved do only receive them into safe custody. The matter out of which we are made doth never perish; the foundation remains, though it put on a thousand shapes and figures. The quantity and quality indeed of many mens bodies is lost, by various transmutations, in the several elements through which they pass after their dissolution: yet for all this, the substance is kept entire, and wholly incapable of being destroyed.
II. These elements are, at the command of the Almighty, to give up those pledges which they receive. The fish that swallowed up Jonah, and afterwards threw him up again upon the dry land, when God by His will appointed it so to do, was not more obedient to that will than each element shall be in giving up the dead upon the authority of His command.
1. The earth, and the sea, and other quarters of the world to which they retire, are in every point known to God. Nor is He ignorant of the means which are proper to unite them, how far soever they may be scattered, or how much soever confounded.
2. Another argument why the dead should be given up at His word is, because the matter whereof they were composed lies subject to Him, and He can new-mould and repair it as He pleaseth. What work can be too hard for Him that is above all resistance whatsoever? Could He do the greater work in making us that which we were not, and shall we doubt of His ability in the less, which is refashioning us to what we were? But it may be asked, What necessity is there for such a general delivery of the dead? Cannot the sea and the land bury us, as it does other creatures, who are dissolved into those elements and perish? Why must we be reposed in them, as in a treasury; preserved for a time, in order to be taken out or given up again? At present I would only observe, that the necessity of this dispensation will appear from the consideration of God, of Christ, and of mankind.
(1) Of God, who is necessarily just; and therefore is in justice concerned in a general giving up of the dead to Him, that so the whole man may acknowledge the righteousness and equity of His government.
(2) The necessity of the rising again will appear by a consideration of Christ, who has merited lordship and dominion over us. Now the honour of that lordship would cease, except the dead were given up to be subject to His rule.
(3) The consideration of mankind evinces the necessity of this dispensation, who are subject to His laws, and qualified with natures to receive wages. These are divided into good and bad, each of which have need of a resurrection. The good, that so they may silence their false accusers and clear their innocence to the world, and experimentally find by what they reap that their labour hath not been in vain in the Lord. The bad, that they may receive a due recompense of their deeds. Further, it is to be considered, that although the personal acts of sin in the wicked are transient, and die with the committers; yet the poison and infection of those acts long continues. To conclude. You hear there is no retreat, no sanctuary for your bodies to lodge in, neither in sea, nor in land, nor fire, nor air, but they will be everywhere exposed to the all-seeing eye of God, and ready to be given up at His command. (James Roe, M. A.)
Death and hell were cast into the lake of fire.--
Death and the grave
It is of His two chief enemies that God here speaks--death and the grave, or place of the dead. This is not the first time, nor the only place, in which they are thus classed together. There is a striking series of passages, running through all Scripture, in which they are named as allies--fellow-workers in the perpetration of one great deed of darkness from the beginning. Often are death and the grave in the lips of Job. David speaks of them (Psa_6:5). Solomon uses them in figure (Son_8:6). Hezekiah refers to them (Isa_38:18). Isaiah mentions them in their connection with Messiah (Isa_53:9). Hosea proclaims their awful fellowship in evil (Hos_13:14). Paul takes up the language of the old prophets (1Co_15:55). And then, as the summing up of the whole, we have these strange words of the text. This is the end of that death.power which was let loose in paradise, and which has continued exercise dominion upon earth through these two channels. The reign has been long and sad; it has been one of dissolution, and blight, and terror; but it ends at last. Death has been the sword of law for ages; but when it has done its work on earth, God takes this sword, red with the blood of millions, snaps it in pieces before the universe, and casts its fragments into the flame, in the day of the great winding-up, in token that never again shall it be needed, either on earth or throughout the universe. The grave has been the chain and the prison-house of justice; but when its purpose is served, and justice has got all its own in the heaven of the saved and the hell of the lost, God gathers up each link of the chain and flings them into the lake of fire upon the head of the great potentate of evil; He razes the dungeon to its foundation, and buries its ruins in a grave like that of Sodom, the lake of the everlasting burnings. Death and the grave were east into the lake of fire.
I. God abhors death. It is to Him even more unlovable than it is to us. He has set limits to its power; He has made it to His saints the very gate of heaven--for blessed are the dead that die in the Lord; He has proclaimed resurrection and interruption. But still, with all these abatements, He loves it not, nor is reconciled to it in one act or aspect. It is, in His eyes, even more than in ours, an enemy, a destroyer, a demon, a criminal, a robber. So thoroughly does He loathe it, that in order to make His displeasure known, He reserves it to the last for doom; He sets it apart for a great outstanding condemnation, and then casts it into the lake of fire.
II. Gods reasons for abhorring death.
1. It is the ally of sin (Rom_5:12). Partners in evil, sin and death have held dark fellowship together from the beginning, the one reflecting and augmenting the odiousness of the other; like night and storm, each in itself terrible, but more terrible as companions in havoc.
2. It is Satans tool. To inflict disease, but not to heal; to wound, but not to bind up; to kill, but not to make alive--these are the works of the devil which God abhors, and which the Son of God came to destroy.
3. It is the undoing of His work. God did not mean creation to crumble down or evaporate. But death has seized it. Mans body and mans earth are falling to pieces, undermined by some universal solvent; the beauty, and the order, and the power giving way before the invader. The sculptor does not love the hand that spoils his statue, nor the mother the fever that preys upon her darling; so God has no pleasure in that enemy that has been ruining the work of His hands.
4. It has been the source of earths pain and sorrow. Pain is the messenger of disease, and disease is the touch of deaths finger; and with disease and death what an amount of sorrow has poured in upon our world!
5. It has laid hands on His saints. Though He permitted Herod, and Pilate, and Nero, and the kings of the earth, to persecute His Church, He did not thereby indicate indifference to the wrong, far less sympathy with the wrong-doer. He treasures up wrath against the persecutor; He will judge and avenge the blood of His own. So will He take vengeance on the last enemy,
6. It laid hands upon His Son. Death smote the Prince of life, and the grave imprisoned Him. This was treason of the darkest kind, the wrong of wrongs, perpetrated against the highest in the universe, Gods incarnate Son. And shall not God visit for this? Shall not His soul be avenged on such a destroyer for such a crime? (H. Bonar, D. D.)
And whosoever was not found written in the book of life, was cast into the lake of fire.--
The eternity of the sorrows of the lost
Is this, then, the end of all the projects and all the acts of the boastful sinner--man? Alas I who, then, art thou, that repliest against Omnipotence? Who art thou, that thinkest God is to be mocked?
I. When the day of judgment shall come, and how long it shall last, Revelation has not disclosed. It is called the day of judgment: but in Scripture a day is not always meant to express that particular portion of time which we affix to the term; but a season. But however long or however short a period the tremendous judgment of the world will occupy, we know assuredly that at its conclusion a solemn separation will be made of those who have served God, from those who have served Him not. The place to which the latter will be consigned is described in almost every term expressive of sorrow and pain. It is called a furnace of fire, the bottomless pit, whence shall be seen ascending the smoke of the torments of the damned. Scripture warns us in the plainest terms, that it is not merely the loss of the happiness which God had offered that the condemned sinner then shall suffer, but some positive and exquisite anguish and torment. They shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of His indignation. They shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever. Depart from Me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire. Their worm dieth not, and their fire is not quenched. They shall go away into everlasting punishment.
II. The leading observations which have been made against the doctrine of eternal punishments.
1. The chief one--and, indeed, what almost comprises all the rest--is that it seems hardly consistent with the justice of God to inflict eternal punishment for a temporal sin. The notion seems to arise from the want of a due consideration of what is sin. If a man considers only one or two individual acts of his own wickedness, there may appear between them, taken abstractedly, and eternal punishment, a great disproportion. But he omits to consider what the effect of those few acts is, not only on his own soul, but on the world in which he lives. But independently of the effect of sin on others, you ought not to forget, however trifling your sin may appear, what is the nature of a sinful soul in the pure sight of God! There is another consideration. Although eternal punishment is denounced against what are termed temporal sins, yet it is only on sins unrepented of. God has shown you how you may flee from the wrath to come. He has declared how you may be redeemed from the influence and the curse of sin. The degree of your punishment will certainly be proportioned to your sins, for the Judge of all the earth will do right. But its duration seems to be fixed for eternity by the immutable laws of Providence, because no revealed means remain after death for cleansing your soul from its pollution. There is yet one other consideration. When a man dies without repentance and change of heart, after a life of habitual neglect of heaven, it is but reasonable to believe that had his life been prolonged, and the power of indulging in sin remained, he would have continued a sinner as long as he continued to exist. It is said, I know, that punishments cannot be meant to be final and eternal, because they are intended to reclaim, either by their effect on the sinner himself, or as examples to others. The punishments of this world are so. But lest we should presume, and think these His only judgments, He has given us proofs sufficient that in the ordinances of His providence there are such things as final punishments. Every one knows that the whole world was once exterminated except one family, and that such extermination was for its sins. We are hereby taught that punishment is not always intended for the reformation of the sinner.
2. We will now consider those observations which are drawn against the doctrine from Scripture itself.
(1) We are reminded, then, that the words which are made use of to imply what we consider to be a never-ceasing duration are often applied in Scripture to other matters, which are known to have an end, and therefore that they mean not strictly and properly eternity, but only a long and undefined succession of ages. It is perfectly true that the words, eternal, everlasting, and for ever, are applied to some things which are known to have an end: but we see them also applied to those things which we know have no end; and, above all, the expressions in question concerning the duration of punishments are those which are applied to show the true and proper eternity of the Supreme Being Himself. To reconcile this apparent inconsistency, however, is not very difficult. These words, eternal, everlasting, and the like, seem always meant to indicate the longest expressible existence of the thing, or the being, to which they are applied.
(2) It is said that the doctrine of eternal punishments militates against the known mercy of God and the general spirit of the gospel, which is a scheme of salvation. It is maintained that as it is impossible for any creature to live in eternal torments, though some may persist for a longer, some for a shorter, period, all in the end must be subdued, and that a universal restoration will crown the solemn scene: that, as the Son of Man came to seek and to save that which was lost, His coming would be defeated if the greater part were lost for ever; that when it is said He must reign till He hath put all enemies under His feet, and that the last enemy, which shall be destroyed, is death--the death here intended is the second death--and that when this penal fire shall have accomplished in purpose, it, too, shall be extinguished; that then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. These are contemplations, full indeed of awfulness, but full of holy joy, and agreeing, as they do, with the hopes of frail and sinful man, are too readily, perhaps, indulged by him as founded on irrefragable truth. Whatever meaning your own opinion may affix to the Scriptural expressions concerning the duration of the sinners woes, remember one truth, viz., that no limit is there affixed to them; that, allowing the terms to mean only a succession of ages upon ages, yet that no period is mentioned when such succession shall end. On what is to take place after the day of judgment Scripture seems purposely silent. (G. Matthew, M.A.)
The terrible doom of the lost
It is a pathetic tale to tell, but I do not vouch for its absolute truth, that once a famous composer wrote a great anthem to be sung at a festival. He sought to picture the scenes of the final judgment, and introduced a strain of music representing the solemn lamentations of the lost. But no singer was found willing to take such a part. So the wailings and woes were omitted; and when the passage was reached, the leader simply beat the time in silence till the awful chasm was passed, and the musicians took up gloriously the strains of celestial unison lying on the other side of it, The shout of them that triumph and the song of them who feast. (C. S. Robinson, D. D.)
Society divided by Christ into two great parts
In a sermon preached by the Rev. J. H. Jowett, M.A., he pointed out the different aspects from which the world and Christ viewed society. The world draws a horizontal line of division, or rather two lines, which mark off humanity into three sections, the upper, middle, and lower classes. Christ draws a vertical line throughout the whole scale, dividing society into two parts, those on the right hand and those on the left; the sheep and the goats.
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
B. W. Johnson 1891 · Public Domain On vv11–13 11–15. And I saw a great white throne, and…
11–15. And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it. This is one more act in the great drama. The throne of judgment is set. The nations, living as well as dead, are called to stand before God. The white throne indicates purity, triumph, and glory. It is the color of the light. From whose face the earth and the heaven fled away. See 21:1. There is to be a new heaven and earth. The old ones are destroyed to be reconstructed.
B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain On vv11–13 And I saw
And I saw
great white throne
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The expressions, "the judgment," or, "day of judgment," as the passages and their context show, refer to the final judgment of Rev 20:11-15.
there was found no place for him
The "day of destruction" is that aspect of the day of Jehovah Isa 2:12. (See Scofield "Rev 19:19") (Summary) which visits final and eternal judgment upon the wicked. Three such "days" are included in the "day" of Jehovah, and are described in the references beginning with Isa 34:1-9. See Scofield "Mat 25:32".
And I saw (See Scofield "Rev 20:12").
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On v11 The last judgment:
The last judgment:
v. 11. 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.
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v. 12. And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened; and another book was opened, which is the Book of Life; and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works.
v. 13. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them; and they were judged every man according to their works.
v. 14. And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death.
v. 15. And whosoever was not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire.
In a few bold strokes the prophet sketches the picture of the last Judgment: And I saw a great white throne and Him that sat upon it, from whose presence there fled the earth and the heaven, and a place was not found for them. This is the throne of Christ, to whom the Father committed the Judgment. It is a white and pure throne of everlasting innocence, holiness, and justice. He is, however, no longer the poor Son of Man in His state of humiliation, but the exalted King and almighty Judge, before the aspect of whose face the very earth and heaven itself turned away and fled, because they could not endure those flaming eyes with their awful portent of judgment. he heavens, being on fire, shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, 2Pe 3:12.
The Judge being present, the last great trial may open; all men must appear before His judgment-seat: And I saw the dead, the great as well as the small, standing before the throne; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which was that of life. And the dead were judged according to what was written in the books, according to their works. And the sea gave up the dead that were in it, and death and hell gave up the dead that were in them; and they were judged, every one according to their works. No matter where men may have found death, whether on sea or on land; no matter where their souls may be on that day, whether in hell or in heaven, they must be reunited with their bodies to appear before the judgment-seat of Christ. And then the record-books will be brought out and opened, the books of guilt and damnation, where the names of those are recorded that remained in unbelief and enmity until the end, as well as the Book of Life with the lists of those that were faithful unto death. Not one name will be omitted; every man’s name will be found in either the one or the other group. As their faith or their unbelief manifested itself in their works, so will the Lord render His sentence. And from that sentence there will be no appeal, that will decide the eternal fate of every person that ever lived in this world. It is the inevitable doom.
The bliss of the believers having been indicated above and a description following in the next chapter, the doom of the enemies of God is very briefly indicated: And death and hell were thrown into the lake of fire. These two great enemies of mankind, that have dogged its footsteps ever since the first sin, will be disposed of forever in a punishment which fits their crime: This is the second death, the lake of fire. From this death all children of God are free, since they are partakers of the first resurrection, since the second death, eternal damnation, has no power over them. But as for the unbelievers: And if anyone was not found written in the Book of Life, he was thrown into the lake of fire. In the Book of Life are recorded the names of all those that are in Christ Jesus. These not even death can separate from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus, our Lord. The absence of any one’s name from this book, however, means that he is condemned forever to the place where their worm will not die, neither will their fire be quenched, and they will be an abhorrence to all flesh.
Summary
The seer describes the era of comparative quiet, during which the Church of Christ will be propagated, followed by the loosing of Satan, his subsequent attempt, with the aid of all antichristian forces, to overthrow the Church, and his condemnation to everlasting torment; the chapter closes with a brief description of the lest Judgment.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv11, 13 General Information:
General Information:
This is the next part of John's vision. He describes suddenly seeing a great white throne and the dead being judged.
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The earth and the heaven fled away from his presence, but there was no place for them to go
John describes heaven and earth as if they were people who were trying to escape God's judgment. This means that God completely destroyed the old heaven and earth. (See: Personification)
the mighty and the unimportant
John combines these opposite-meaning words to mean all of the dead people. (See: Merism)
the books were opened
This can be stated in active form. AT: "someone opened the books" (See: Active or Passive)
The dead were judged
This can be stated in active form. AT: "God judged the people who had died and now lived again" (See: Active or Passive)
by what was recorded
This can be stated in active form. AT: "by what he had recorded" (See: Active or Passive)
translationWords
throne
earth
heaven
die
might
Book of Life
judge
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv11–13 20:11-15 This segment portrays a court hearing at which…
20:11-15 This segment portrays a court hearing at which the dead are judged on the basis of their works. God’s response to eternal rebellion is eternal punishment.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.