God's Verdict on Man

IT T is a miserable interval that elapses in a great and exciting trial, between the verdict of the jury and the sentence of the judge. Miserable to the spectators, miserable to the judge, and supremely miserable to the criminal. The last ray of hope is extinguished in the prisoner’s horizon. The blackness of darkness seems to reign. There is nothing for him but to bow the soul in blank despair to the stroke which is to crush it in the dust, apparently for ever.

It shows the sad apathy of men in spiritual things, that while human verdicts and human sentences are received with such emotion, men are naturally so little concerned either as to the Divine verdict on their conduct, or the Divine sentence on their guilt.” No doubt as things usually go on in the world, we want the excitement and concentrated attention of a trial. There is nothing to rivet the eye or overpower the senses, or to constrain men to feel that their eternal destinies are tremblino in the balance. The forbearance of the judge often hardens the heart, and because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, the hearts of the children of men are fully set in them to do evil. But is it not strange that men can read in the Word of God, that they are all guilty in his sight, and receive the tidings with so little emotion? Nay, more, that they can fcike the announcement very much as a matter of course, the consequences of which need in no way trouble them? And that instead of earnestly inquiring, what is the sentence attached by their judge to the guilt which has been proved against them, and whether there is a possibility of that sentence being repealed, they eat and drink, and joke and play, in utter regardlessness as men did the’’ day when Noah entered the ark, and as they shall still be doing when the sign of the Son of man appears in heaven?

We have seen God’s verdict on man — all the world become guilty before God. We have examined some of the grounds of the verdict, and have found that no human being can escape the charge of ungodliness and selfishness. It is plain that no man born of woman is just before God. We are all transgressors of a law that is holy and just and good. What is the consequence? Is our transgression simply a thing to be regretted, regretted in heaven and regretted on earth, but merely regretted? Is it to be regarded simply as an untoward event, lessening our happiness, and hindering our progress, no doubt, but not leading to more serious evil? Is it like a break-down in a journey, or an accident at sea, a distressing occurrence in itself, but of which we must just try to make the best, and go crippling on, as best we may? Such is undoubtedly the feeling and the philosophy of many in our day. Human nature, unfortunately, has got crippled somehow. The machinery has got out of gear, and is not working very comfortably or very efficiently. Well, it is no doubt a pity. But just let us be patient. Let us try to make the best of it. Let us calmly examine what is wrong, and endeavour to adjust it, as you would disentangle a hank of ravelled worsted. All will come right by-and-by. But dont let us be frightened by the thought of punishment, or anything of that kind. Dont let us get disheartened with depressing views of our unworthiness. God is merciful and full of compassion. Siiiely we may expect He will be ready to help us in repairing this catastrophe, and not fall on us, like an angry tyrant, terrifying us with vengeance, and driving us to despair.

This is an easy view of the situation, and recommends itself to many a mind. But even before we go to the Word of God to compare it with its testimony, let us see whether there be not a voice in our bosoms that utters a different sound. Are there no remains in us of a conscience that testifies that when wrong has been done, punishment is due? If I rob, or steal, or He, or cheat, am I able to comfort myself with the thought that it is a mere derangement of my moral machinery, and that it would be both foolish and wrong to dream of punishment? Or if my self-love flatters me that in my own case this is the right view of the matter, is my judgment the same when the guilty party is another? When Nathan comes to me with a story of shameful wrong, — of a rich man that, when a stranger came to him, forbore to take of his own flocks wherewith to entertain him, but seized the poor man’s ewe lamb that had grown up together with him and his children, that did eat of his own meat, and drank of his own cup, and lay in his bosom, and was unto him as a daughter, — is there no indignant voice that sounds out from my breast, ‘The man that hath done this thing shall surely die? ‘And if the prophetic story has been but a disguise, designed to secure my verdict before I recognize the criminal, how absolutely condemned and silenced I must lie when he looks me in the face, and says to me, ‘Thou art the man! ’

‘If our own hearts condemn us, God is greater than our hearts, and knoweth all things, When we open our Bibles, and inquire what is taught there as to the sentence and fruit of sin, we find nothing to allay the terrors of conscience, but the case much worse than we had even supposed.

I. In the first place, we find passages almost without number that declare death to be the punishment of sin. ‘In the day thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die.’ ‘The soul that sinneth, it shall die.” The wages of sin is death.’ By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin.’ If we ask what this death means, we find abundant evidence that it is a condition of most grievous pain and suffering. ‘The smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever.’ It is, moreover, a state of abandonment, — of separation from all gracious, blessed influences, — banishment from the Lord, consignment to the place where He hath forgotten to be gracious. Hence it is also a state of moral dissolution and spiritual death; unholy feelings have the mastery of the soul; unable to recover itself, unable to restore the dominion of love and purity, it is like the troubled sea when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt. Its element is the outer darkness, where there is weeping, and wailing, and gnashing of teeth.

2. There is no part of the Bible where this is more frequently taught, or rather assumed as the doom of sin, than that which contains our Lord’s own discourses — the four Gospels. Underneath the whole course of our Lord’s teaching, there lay the awful truth that man is lost and ruined, and that it needs but a touch, as it were, to precipitate the catastrophe, and plunge him into the abyss. The herald of Christs kingdom made men familiar with the wrath to come,’ and announced the coming of One who would gather the wheat into his garner, and burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire, And though the sermon on the mount begins with a garland of blessings, it makes it plain that these are only for the redeemed children of the kingdom, and that mankind at large are separated by but a thin crust, as it were, from horrible ruin. How often, in that sermon, does Jesus withdraw the veil, and give us a glimpse of the world of woe! As when He warns us that it is better for us that one of our members should perish, than that our whole body should be cast into hell. As when He cautions us against the spirit of anger, and startles us by saying that to call a brother Thou fool,^ is to make ourselves in danger of hell-fire. As when He points to the doom of the hypocrites ’ in that day,^ for whom no place can be found in the kingdom of heaven, and whose sentence is, ‘Depart from me, ve that work iniquity.’ The very sermon that opens with words of blessing closes with the sound of destruction, — the ruin of the house built on the sand; as if the Lord could not dismiss the feeling that, spite of all He came to offer to men, and spite of all His earnestness in offering it, destruction was the doom to which multitudes of them would finally come.

The same thing is true of all Christ’s ministry. He speaks and teaches all through like one solemnized and saddened by the awful fact of man’s ruin through sin. He is moved with compassion as He sees the multitude walking on the broad road and going to destruction, — all but the few who have been persuaded to enter in at the strait gate. Now He warns us not to fear them that kill the body, but rather to fear Him who can destroy both soul and body in hell. Now He tells us of the rich man that lifted up his eyes in hell being in torment. Now of the foolish virgins that had no oil in their lamps, and found the door shut when they would have joined the bridegroom. Now of the guest that came to the feast without the wedding garment, and was cast into outer darkness, amid weeping and gnashing of teeth. Now of the dread assize, when the cons SENTENCE ON MAN. 33

Son of man appears in His glory, and sets the

sheep on His right hand and the goats on His

left. Now He warns Capernaum, that exalted

though she had been to heaven, she would be

brought down to hell. Anon Chorazin and

Bethsaida are reproached with their unbelief, and

told that it would be more tolerable for Sodom

and Gomorrah than for them in the day of

judgment. And when He speaks of His clients

it is as of persons condemned and ruined. ‘The

Son of man is come to seek and to save that

which is lost.^ ‘God so loved the world that he

gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but should have

everlasting life.^ The rescue of a single sinner is

such a glorious event that there is joy over him

in the presence of the angels of God; and the

best and truest representation both of the nature

of the deliverance and the joy which it awakens,

is found in the exclamation of the father of the

prodigal: This my son was dead, and is alive

again; he was lost, and is found.^

It is amazing that this great element of Christ’s teaching should have failed to arrest universal attention, and that in some of those able books on the life of Christ that have lately appeared, no notice should have been taken of it, in the enumeration of the great lessons of his ministry. The fact is, and it is a most instructive and remarkable one that in Christ’s own discourses there are more references to hell and its punishments than in all other parts of the Bible put together. Though He came to reveal the Father, and pre-eminently to reveal His love; though the angels sung at His birth, ‘■ Glory to God in the highest, on earth peace, good-will to men, though every utterance of His lips was steeped in love, and all His garments smelled of myrrh and aloes and cassia out of the ivory palaces, He nevertheless spoke more, and more frequently, of hell, than any other inspired teacher whatever. The only one of the Apostles that in any marked degree followed up this line of teaching was that beloved disciple whose heart bore the closest resemblance to Christ’s own; but in his case it was rather symbolical pictures of retribution than direct lessons on hell that he was commissioned to communicate. And is there not something very solemn and very touching in the fact that to so large a degree our blessed Lord reserved this awful line of instruction to Himself? On the one hand, does it not show how deeply He was impressed with the reality of hell, — how some plaintive dirge like that of the Dies Irae’ seemed ever to sound in His ears, — how the awful fact that sin had made hell the eternal prison of lost humanity haunted His tender soul, and gave untold bitterness to His tears, depth to His pity, and tenderness to His pleadings? Does it not go far, too, to account for the bursts of holy indignation which He poured out from time to time on the scribes and Pharisees, who seemed to be exerting all their energies to hinder the escape of the lost, and thrust them back into their horrid prison? On the other hand, does it not show us that, in the view of our blessed Lord, this whole subject of everlasting punishment was too solemn to be handled by common hearts or in common moods, and that a wrong impression of it was liable to be conveyed, unless it were set forth in the spirit of most gentle compassion and longing love? Who can estimate the evil done by those rough and hard-hearted denunciations of woe in which some indulge, and which even from Protestant pulpits are no better than Papal or Pagan anathemas? Or how can we sufficiently deplore the fact, that when men are most excited by passion and debased by sensuality, it is from this region they are most prone to fetch their epithets of abuse! that the mention ot hell and damnation, which our blessed Lord so earnestly sought to associate with the deepest solemnity and the tenderest awe, should be connected, in the experience of multitudes, only with the most savage passions and brutalities of the vilest of mankind!

We must remember, at the same time, that while our Lord thus assumed and dealt with the lost condition of men, He never confounded their several shades of guilt, or their several degrees of punishment. He left abundant room for discrimination between the servant that knew his Lords will and the servant that knew it not; and while He made it quite plain that, in the case of those to whom He was appealing, and all in similar circumstances, the great law of punishment would take the fullest effect if they disregarded His voice. He showed such reserve in alluding to the future doom of communities, like Tyre and Sidon, or Sodom and Gomorrah, as ought to repress all harsh speculation on our part as to their future condition, and make us fall back in patient trust on the soothing and assuring thought — Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?’

3. If we seek for still further evidence of God’s sentence on sinful man, we shall find it in the experience of all in whom the Holy Spirit begins the new life by convincing them of sin. The starting-point of that life is the sense of ruin, the consciousness of being exposed to everlasting misery — sometimes springing up in the soul with instantaneous suddenness and sometimes beginning quietly, and gradually increasing in strength, until at last it becomes insupportable.

Thus, on the great day of Pentecost, the first evidence of a Divine work was seen when the thousands were pricked in their heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the Apostles, Men and brethren, what shall we do?^ They felt themselves condemned and lost; Gods verdict and sentence of death against them as sinners, were borne home to their consciences by the power of the Holy Spirit; and that great instinct of self-preservation which makes us shrink from approaching hurt and destruction was roused into unprecedented activity, because their danger seemed to come from the Author of their being, and the destruction that hung over them was infinite and everlasting.

The intensity of mens convictions mav differ greatly according to the measure and manner of the power exerted by the Spirit, and the temperament and circumstances of the persons themselves. But unless there has been produced in mens hearts, at some time and in some way, a real sense of sin and condemnation, leading to a real acceptance of the Saviour and His work, there can be no reliance on the permanence of their impressions; their goodness may be but as the morning cloud and the early dew.

Christianity answers to all the wants of mans nature, the more superficial as well as the more profound. It answers, for example, to his desire of knowledge, his admiration of what is noble and disinterested, his craving for sympathy, his love of rest, his longing for a happier world, his ardent desire for re- union with all whom he has loved and lost. Taking hold of such feelings as these, Christianity exerts a measure of influence on many. But if no deeper cravings have been stirred, and no firmer grip has been taken, of the soul, its serious feelings may change with the seasons, and even vanish like a dream. Doubtless it was such superficial impressions that our

Lord meant to indicate in this parable of the sower by the seed on stony ground that sprung up so rapidly, but as soon as the sun was up, withered away, because it had no root and no deepness of earth. To endure for ever, and bring forth fruit, religion must take hold on the deepest wants of our nature. It must come to us as lost sinners, in fact, bringing iis the salvation that we need. It must come to us as the rope comes to the shipwrecked sailor, as food comes to the famished traveller, as a reprieve comes to the condemned malefactor. We must take hold on Christ, not merely because He is a nobler character than Brahma or Mahomet; not merely because His religion has a gentler spirit and a purer aim; not merely because the New Jerusalem is a fairer city, and its music of a sweeter strain; not merely because the scriptural vision of Paradise Regained is the brightest we have ever known or fancied; — but, emphatically, because we are condemned criminals, and Christ only can pardon us; because our hearts are under sin, and Christ only can free us; because we are unfit for holy fellowship, and Christ only can make us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light; in a word, because we are wretched and miserable, and poor, and naked, and blind; and no store but that of Christs fulness can provide the blessings out of which such numberless wants can be supplied.

When any ones heart is truly under the convincing power of the Holy Ghost, there are at least two views of his state that give rise to the conviction that he is justly condemned in the .iight of God.

In the first place, many are overwhelmed by a sense of the guilt of their past lives. It is the past that appals them. All along, from very infancy to the moment when conscience awoke, they see nothing but a career of guilt. The grand purpose of their lives neglected; the great God, whose their breath is, treated with indifference, His holy law trampled under foot, selfindulged and humoured in a thousand forms.

irregular lusts and passions tolerated; — all these, varied perhaps by deeper and darker crimes, seem strewn in dismal profusion along their bygone lives. It is not as if they had been labouring in the main to serve God, and here and there had failed. It seems rather as if God had been utterly neglected, had not received from them one act of genuine service, one throb of filial affection, or one feeling of loyal devotion. A glimpse of the bright devotion and service of the angels gives a deeper shade to the guilt that shrouds their life. And u’hen they come to see God in His true character, as revealed in Christ, rich in mercy and overflowing with love, yet infinitely holy, the sense of their unworthy conduct becomes overwhelming. God be merciful to me a sinner,^ is the prayer that rushes to their lips; if thou. Lord, shouldest mark iniquity, O Lord, who shall stand? ’

There are others, again, who are overwhelmed chiefly by the sense of their present or current deficiencies in the sight of God. It is the present, rather than the past that appals them. Let them try their very best, they cannot come near to the requirements of Gods holy law. Iniquities are ever prevailing against them. The heart is like a mint, coining ungodly feelings in guilty profusion. Though you were to assure them of pardon for the past, it would matter but little, so long as their ungodly hearts were there to pour out fresh streams of corruption and wickedness. They mourn most bitterly their diseased, sin-ridden nature. How is that polluted fountain ever to be turned into a crystal stream? Each time they survey their hearts they see fresh evidence of the awful virulence of the leprosy that has assailed them, and feel disposed, like the leper of old, to rend their clothes and bare their heads, and exclaim, Unclean! unclean! In spite of their most earnest efforts, despair would seize them, were there no free grace to brighten their prospects. The forlorn and exhausted traveller who has lost his way in a wintry night, and after shouting himself hoarse, and dragging his limbs through drifting snow till he can drag no longer feels as if there were nothing for him but to lie down and sleep the sleep that knows no waking, does not experience half such joy and relief, when a light hard by suddenly reveals a friendly cottage as the sinner, wearied in his vain efforts to purify his heart, feels when he hears the voice of Jesus — Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest/

No doubt it seems a hard doctrine that in the sight of God all men are under condemnation. Human nature sometimes appears in so interesting a light that it seems as if none but the most heartless of men could believe that all lie under the sentence of death. Gentle beings come on the scene, whose very looks of love and goodness seem to warm the air and make a sunshine in the shady place y noble-hearted men spring forward to deeds of generosity and self-denial that draw one long burst of applause from every spectator; and it seems horrible to suppose that such persons are to be regarded as ’ children of wrath even as others, The doctrine of the Bible is that they are so ly nature. Who can tell but that very gentleness and generosity are fruits of grace? It is certain that ’ every good and perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variableness, or shadow of turning, Happily, we are not required to judge what degree of consciousness of renewal there must be during the introduction of the divine life into any heart, and its establishment there with a preponderating power. This is one of the deep things of God, from which, in many instances. He has not been pleased to remove the veil of mystery. Men are only too ready to tear away the veil left by God, and to constitute themselves judges of the spiritual state of their brethren. But let us grant that beautiful features may appear in the character of the unregenerate, in the character of men whom the will of God does not habitually sway, and who have no knowledge of the grace of God in Christ. It does not follow that because of these beautiful features they are not under the condemnation of God. A chain may have some admirable links in it, and yet be as unserviceable as a hempen cord. An old abbey may present a perfect arch or a beautiful capital here and there,, and yet be an utter ruin. A ship may show a beautifully carved prow, or a faultless deck, and yet be as unfit for sea as the coarsest raft that was ever nailed together. The question is not whether men or women have some interesting and attractive features about them. You generally find that in the character even of the bacchanalian there is a sort of jovial good-humour, which is attractive to his companions, and contributes to the hilarity of the social hour. But. this flowing joviality may exist side by side with the spirit that breaks the heart of a gentle wife, and leaves the offspring of his own body unclothed, unfed, untaught, uncared for. So also there may be bursts of generosity and gleams of gentleness in natures that show great deficiency under the strain of ordinary duty. Account for such beautiful features as we may, they in no way clash with the truth that men by nature He under a sentence of death in the sight of God. Who that is weighed in the balances of the All-holy One shall not be found wanting? Who shall escape the condemnation due to those that have failed in the great end of life — have worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator who is blessed for evermore? Who can affirm that, without any renewing process from above, the power of good in his nature preponderates above the power of evil, and that he finds within himself strength sufficient to conquer in every conflict, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life — all, in short, that is not of the Father, but of the world? No doubt there may be found men who affirm that they do all this, just as the young man in the Gospel most honestly assured Christ that he had kept all the commandments from his youth. But as our blessed Lord had in reserve a test of fidelity to high duty which even this young man could not stand, so must all boasters and self-complacent

flatterers find, in the great day of judgment, that their standard has been miserably defective, and their performance infinitely inadequate. While the weather continues calm and mild, it is easy to live in a house built upon the sand. It is when the rain descends, and the wind comes, and beats upon that house, that its real feebleness is discovered, and its helpless inhabitant buried in the ruins. Sometimes, even in this life, the self-satisfied pharisee is disturbed in his fancied security. The sick bed brings him nearer to God, and in that clearer and holier light, his life has an ugly look, and he trembles to look forward. If the few streaks, as it were, of divine light that penetrate by the sick chamber into the soul, can shake his confidence, what must he feel in the full blaze of the judgment-seat? For the loftiness of man shall be bowed down, and the haughtiness of men shall be brought low: and the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day.’

It is vain to make out that we are clean in the sight of God. Strive as he may, the Ethiopian cannot change his skin nor the leopard his spots. Infinitely better at once to give up the conflict; to let the divine light in freely upon our hearts and lives; to admit the justice of the divine sentence against us; to cease to dispute the truth that the wages of sin is death; and to find our comfort in the glorious counter-truth the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord/