Before the Judgment-Seat
“T^rE shall all stand before the judgment” seat of Christ.” The colossal dimensions of that assemblage utterly stagger me. I try to imagine all the present population of the American republic — forty millions strong — convened in one mass meeting. To them I add all the existing peoples on the globe. Then I begin to add the generations of the dead. But the tremendous total breaks me down. There is not room in one little finite mind to put the bare idea. But there is room in God’s mind; and there will be room enough too for them all “before the judgment-seat of Christ.” He who telleth all the stars of heaven by name will recognize every single individual so closely that not even a beggarchild will be missed. Each person will stand as distinct and alone before the eye of the Judge as Warren Hastings stood before the tribunal of the House of Lords. No one must imagine that he will be “lost in the crowd,” or escape that flame-bright eye.
Upon that throne of judgment, Jesus shall sit; for the Father hath committed all judgment to the Son of Man. The despised Nazarene shall then come in his glory to that great white throne, and all his holy angels with him. Is it a violent supposition that he will then bear the marks of the nails and the spear of Calvary on his glorified form? We trow not. Sinners shall then look upon Him whom they have pierced, and shall wail because of him. The heirs of glory shall see in those scars of the cross their title to an everlasting inheritance. It will be upon the brow that once wore the crown of thorns that the imperial diadems will then be placed. John in his vision saw “on His head many crowns.”
Before that dazzling tribunal, we are told that “the books shall be opened,” and that every man will be judged out of those things which are written in the books, according to his works. The wonder grows. All the myriad millions of the globe in one assemblage! And every act of all these innumerable myriads brought out, and weighed, and passed upon with the most infallible equity! Yet we must accept this statement, or reject the whole revelation. For we are distinctly told that God “will bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good or evil.” Fasten your mind to that fact, my friend. Just consider that you will be called to give account for every mercy and every moment, every talent and every trust, for every Sabbath and every sermon, for every line and letter of God’s law and God’s love. For all these the Omniscient Judge will “reckon with you.” And for nothing may you expect a closer and more searching inquiry than for your use or abuse of your influence. And suppose that your influence may have thrown some fellow-creature ofl” of the track that leads to heaven! Are you sure that you wUl be admitted to the realms of bliss from which you have helped to keep another out? Think about this a moment before you sing again those self-assuring lines about “reading your title clear to mansions in the skies.” It will certainly require an infinite wisdom in the Supreme Judge to unravel the tangled web of daily life in which so many good men have been instrumental in producing so many bad acts of their fellow-creatures. Will all these sins of God’s people which misled them into iniquity go entirely unpunished? I tremble at the very question.
“There’s pity for the hardened knave,
And mercy for the thief that stole;
But God in justice ne’er forgave
The murder of a human soul.”
At that august judgment-seat every one will be dealt with in the impartial spirit of a justice that cannot err a hair’s breadth. There can be no bribery in that court. No titled sinner will reap any favors from his rank. No cunning sinner can take advantage of the technicalities of law. No appeal can be made to a higher tribunal. No wily advocate can befog the case, or move for an arrest of judgment. For once the universe will behold a tribunal on which infinite justice will preside, and dispense decisions with a spirit of ineffable love.
We learn beforehand that, in that Supreme Court, those who “Tcnew their Master’s will and did it not” shall be condemned to “many stripes.” Oh! it will be a terrible thing to go up to that judgment-seat of Christ from before some pulpits, and out of some communities! It will certainly fare better with the poor wretch who stumbled into eternity from the heathenish haunts of Sodom, than with the cultured sinner who trampled on ten thousand Gospel truths in his guilty road to the judgment-seat. To topple over into hell from the very summit of the Hill of Zion will be a frightful fall. If faithful pastors ever shudder at that judgment-seat, it will be when they see what is becoming of some of their own congregations. The very people who once melted and wept under revival sermons may then be calling upon the rocks and mountains to fall ofl them, and hide thpm from the wrath of the rejected Lamb. Perhaps the reader of this paragraph may be one of those very people.
There is another thought which always weaves itself into every conception I ever form of the judgment scene. And that is the excruciating separations which that day will make. All the heart-breaking farewells of earth melt into nothing when compared with those leave-takings for an endless eternity. Who dares to conceive of them? How well I remember the shudder with which, in early childhood, I used to listen to that homely but thrilling hymn: —
“Oh! there will be parting, parting, parting — At the judgment-seat of Christ, Brothers and sisters there will part. Parents and children there will part, Will part to meet no more!”
If we would but run that dividing line — even in our imaginations — more often now, it would make us more tenderly faithful to the souls of those we love. God save us from the agony of breaking away from our own children then — and for ever!
Such are a few of the thoughts which crowd into my mind as I sit to-night alone, and let the light of that tremendous judgment scene break in upon me It is an awful mystery; but through the mystery I see clearly a righteous Saviour on his throne, a heaven of glory, a hell of torment, — and every single human being bound either to the one or to the other. With the “fierce light” of that judgment-seat beating upon our path, let us all enter upon a year that brings us the nearer towards it.