THE JUDGMENT SEAT OF CHRIST IS NOT A REFUGE FOR BELIEVERS WHO REJECT THE
SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE OF SELECTIVE RESURRECTION AND SELECTIVE RAPTURE.
FOREWORD
[Hudson
Taylor and others have been exponents of ‘secret’ or ‘partial’ rapture and a
‘partial’ reign. This view I must say I
have no hesitation whatever in accepting. To me it is perfectly clear that only those
who qualify will be given positions of trust and authority, or in other
words will reign with Christ. But many
eminent believers reject the Scriptural doctrine of Select Resurrection and
Select Rapture. A major thrust for their
rejection, and often the sole basis of it, is that all Christians must appear (in Heaven, as they suppose)
before the Lord’s Judgment Seat. Therefore the time of judgment is after
resurrection and not before it: Heaven being the place to establish
whether a believer will enter or be excluded from the
Millennium. (See Luke 20: 35;
21: 34-26; Matt5: 20; 7: 21; 18: 3; Luke 14: 14; 1 Cor 6: 9; Gal. 5: 21; Eph.
5: 5, 6; Phil. 3: 11; Col. 3: 23, 24; 1 Thess. 2: 11; 2 Thess. 1: 5, 6; 1 Tim.
5: 24, 25; 2 Tim. 2: 12, 13; Heb. 4: 1, 11; 12: 12; Jas. 1: 12; 2: 24 ; 1 John
3: 24; 2 John 2: 8; Rev. 2: 10, 26, 27; 3: 10,11, 21; 11: 18; 12: 11; 20: 6.)
The following writing by Mr. G. H. Lang, exposes
from Scripture the error and weakness in such logic.]
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1.
God has an inescapable duty to be the "Judge of
all the earth" (Gen. 18. 25). Those who submit to Him are subject to this
judgment equally with the insubordinate: "The Lord
shall judge His people" (Deut. 32: 36; Psa. 135: 14; Heb. 10: 30). The children of the sovereign are amenable
to the laws and the courts and liable to penalty for misconduct.
2.
This judgmeint is ever in process. There is a perpetual overruling of human
affairs by higher authorities. Prominent instances are Job
(ch. 1 and 2),
Ahab (1 Kin. 22), Nebuchadnezzar (Dan. 4). The
first case shows the judicial proceedings effecting perfecting, the second
death, the third reformation.
Job
was a godly man under discipline for his
good: an upright man was made a holy man. Thus
still does God chasten His sons that they may become partakers of His holiness
(Heb. 12: 10, 11).
Sinning
Christians were disciplined even unto premature death, and it is explained that
this operates to save them from liability to condemnation at the time when God
will deal with the world at large (1 Cor. 11: 32).
3.
But this continuous judicial administration has its crisis sessions, its
special occasions. Instances are: the
Flood; the destruction of
Hereafter
there will come the destruction of Gentile world dominion and the punishment of
Antichrist. Then the judgment at
But
it is most necessary to keep in mind that all such separate and specific
sessions are but part of the
ceaselessly operating judicial administration of heaven and earth.
4.
It is important to remember that the Son of man is the chief Judge of the
universe. It was He who acted at the
Flood: "Jehovah sat as king at the Flood" (Psa. 29. 10). It was He who, in
holy care that only justice should be done, came down to enquire personally
whether Sodom and Gomorrah ought to be destroyed (Gen. 18: 20,
21), and Who again came down to deliver Israel
from Egypt (Ex. 3: 7, 8). it was His
glory as judge that was seen by Isaiah (ch. 6; John 12. 41), and later by Ezekiel (ch. 1).
He is the Man appointed to judge the world in righteousness on
behalf of God the Father (Acts 17: 31); for the Father has entrusted all judgment
unto the Son, in order that He may receive equal honour with the Father (John 5: 19-29).
5. Yet it is particularly needful to note that the last cited
passage is in reference to the future sessions of the
divine judgment, for the judging in question is there set in direct
connection with the raising of men from the dead (John 5. 21, 22,
27-29). For when the Son of God became man He ceased
for the present to supervise those judgments of heaven. This was among the dignities of which He
emptied, that is, divested Himself, for His immediate and blessed purpose in
becoming man was their salvation from judgment (John 5: 24). Therefore He said: "God sent not the Son
into the world to judge the world, but that the world should be saved through
Him" (John 3: 17); nor has He yet resumed the office of supreme
Judge, though appointed thereto as man. In relation to the world He is still the
Dispenser of the grace of God, not yet the Executor of His holy wrath, as He
will one day become.
This
is clear from three chief considerations:
(1)
That the Father has called Him to sit at His own right hand until the time when
His enemies are to be put under His feet (Ps. 110:
1; Heb. 1: 13; 10: 13). That is,
He is not yet sitting upon His own throne and asserting His own right and
authority, as He will do in a later day (Rev. 2:
26, 27; 3: 21; Matt. 25: 31); but He is waiting expectantly that coming
day.
(2)
And therefore is it twice pictured that, as Son of man, the Lamb, He is
hereafter to be brought before the Father to be invested officially with that
authority to judge and to make war the title to which is His already but the
exercise of which is in abeyance (Dan. 7: 13, 14;
Rev. ch. 4 and 5). In both of these scenes it is God the Father
who is shown acting from the throne of judgment until the Son has been thus
formally installed as Judge.
(3)
And therefore is He now the Advocate of His people before the Father (1 John 2: 1). But the Advocate cannot be at the same time
the Judge.
6.
Thus during this interval the especial concern and sphere of the Son of man is
the company He is calling out of the world, the
And
this work calls for both grace and judgment. He "can bear
gently with the ignorant and the erring, sympathizing with our infirmities"
(Heb. 5: 2; 4: 15); but dealing with kind
severity with the wilful of His people. "Behold then the
goodness and severity of God" (
7.
Judgment upon His own people therefore God exercises now; this is the
very period for it; but the general judgment of the world is deferred:
"The time
is come for judgment to begin at the house of God" (1
Pet. 4: 17). And again: "If we discriminated [sat in strict judgment upon] ourselves, we should not be judged; but when [failing
in this holy self-judgment] we are judged, we are
chastened by the Lord [here perhaps the Father; comp. Heb. 12: 5, 9, where He who chastens is the Father
of spirits] that we may not be condemned with the world"
(1 Cor. 11: 30, 31). And this chastening
may extend to bodily weakness, positive sickness, or even death.. So it was in
the cases of Ananias and Sapphira (Acts 5: 1-11,
and see Jas. 5: 19, 20; 1 John 5, 16, 17; Matt. 5:
21-26; 18: 28-35).
8.
The Lord made many most serious statements as to His dealings with "His own" servants at His return. Some of these are:
(1) Luke 12: 22-53. From dealing with the crowd He turns and
speaks specifically to, His own disciples (verse 22).
Only genuine disciples, regenerated persons, are able to fulfil His precepts
here given. To mere professors the task
is impossible, and such cannot be in view. They are to live without any anxiety as to the
necessities of life, and in this are to be in express contrast to the nations;
they are His "little flock," for whom
the Father intends the kingdom, and therefore they are to give away, not to
hoard, and so to lay up treasure in heaven (21-34).
It is impossible to include the
unregenerate in such a passage; nor would it be attempted save to avoid the
application to Christians of part of the succeeding and connected instruction.
This
instruction is that disciples are like the personal household slaves of an
absent master, who upon his return will deal with each according to his conduct
during the master's absence. In particular,
the steward set over the household will be dealt with the more strictly that
his office, opportunities, and example were the higher. The goodness of the master is seen in exalting
the faithful (though from one point of view he had done no more than his duty
and was an unprofitable servant) to almost unlimited privilege and power:
"He will set him over all that he hath"
(verse 44): his severity is shown by "cutting
in sunder"* the servant who had abused his trust, and
appointing his portion with the unfaithful (35-53).
[*Equals
"severely scourge," because the
scourge used cut deeply into the flesh - see margin.]
(2)
This is elaborated and enforced in later statements. Luke
19. 11-27. The picture is
the same- namely, the absent master and the faithful or unfaithful servants. The "pound"
represents that deposit of truth entrusted to the saints (Jude 3), for their use among men while
Christ is away: "Trade ye till I come."
The Nobleman himself held and used it
while here, and left it with us when He went to receive the kingdom. If we
traffic with knowledge it increases in our hands and we gain more; if we
neglect to do so it remains truth, retaining its own intrinsic value ("thou hast thy pound"), but we do not accumulate
knowledge, nor benefit others, nor bring to our Lord any return for His
confidence in us. In this parable it
is not the personal life of the slave that is in question; that may have been
good: it is his use of the truth in either spreading it among man, or
hiding his light under a bushel of silence, or, as the picture is here, burying
the pound in the earth.
The
unfaithful servant loses opportunity further to serve his lord, the pound is
taken from him. Sadder still, his lord
has no confidence in him. But he is not
an enemy of his lord, nor is treated as such. He does not lose his life. The contrast is most distinct between him,
however unfaithful, and the foes and rebels: "But these mine enemies that would not that I should reign over
them, bring hither and slay them before me" (verse 27).
(3)
Matt. 24: 42-25, 30. Only a few days later the Lord repeated
this instruction, with fuller detail. The
head slave, set as steward of the house during the absence of the master, will
be set over all his lord's possessions if only he have acted faithfully (45-47). "But if that
evil servant" abuses his position, and becomes self-indulgent
and tyrannical, he will be "severely scourged,"
and his portion be allotted with the hypocrites, where he will weep and gnash
his teeth over his folly and lot.
Only
a believer who does not consider his own heart will assert that a Christian
cannot act the hypocrite, be unfaithful, or arbitrary and unloving. But the pronoun "that"
- "But if that evil servant,
etc.," leaves no option but to regard him as a believer, for it has no
antecedent to whom it can refer except the faithful servant just before
described, no other person having been mentioned. "That evil
servant": what evil servant? and there is no
answer but that the faithful steward has become unfaithful * : And
such cases are known. Nor
will we, for our part, join to consign all such to eternal ruin
rather than accept the alternative of the temporary, though severe, punishments
intimated by the Lord being possible to a believer. Those who take the latter course, mainly
influenced to support certain dispensational theories, have surely never
weighed the solemnity of thus easily consigning so many backsliders to endless
misery.
[*
Since,
then, an unbeliever is (a) not set by the Lord over His
house, nor (b) could feed the souls of his fellows, nor (c) could be so
faithful as to become at last ruler of all the possessions of the Lord, this
man must be a true believer. But when
such a one may lapse from his fidelity he does not thereby become unregenerate;
consequently the unfaithful steward is still called one of the Lord's "own servants"; and therefore a believer may incur
the solemn penalties veiled under the figures used.
If
it be thought inconceivable that the Lord should describe, one of His
blood-bought and beloved people as a "wicked
servant" (Matt.
25: 26), it must be weighed that He had before
applied the term to a servant whose "debt" had been fully remitted: "thou wicked servant, I forgave thee all that debt" (Matt. 18: 32). Thus one who, as
an act of compassion by the Lord, has been fully forgiven all his failure as a
servant may prove a "wicked servant," his wickedness consisting in this, that though
forgiven he would not forgive. To
deny that a child of God can be unforgiving is to blind the eyes by denying sad
and stern fact. The Lord left no room
for doubt that members of the divine family were in His mind by the application
of the parable He then and there made: "Even
so shall my heavenly Father do unto you [Peter, whose question as to forgiving had drawn forth the
parable, and the other disciples, verse 1,
21], if ye
forgive not, each one of you (hekastos), his brother
from your hearts" (35). It is the Father and the brothers
who are in question, not here those outside the family circle.
Moreover,
if this parable be pressed to include a mere professing but unregenerate person
some inevitable implications must be accepted. It is by no means denied that there are such
persons, but if they are in view here these consequences follow: -
(a)
An unregenerate person has had "all his debt
forgiven."
(b)
In spite of this free forgiveness he remains unregenerate.
(c)
A forgiven sinner can have the free pardon of his sins, revoked, in which case
he will thereafter stand in his former lost estate exposed to the eternal wrath
of God. He may be saved to-day yet lose
this [eternal salvation]
to-morrow.
(d)
Though delivered to the "tormentors"
he may entertain hope that he may yet himself “pay all
that is due” (verse 34); that is, the wrath of God against the unregenerate
can be somehow, some time satisfied by the sufferings and efforts of the
sinner himself. In these
cases therefore "Christ died for nought";
they can at last secure their own deliverance.
In
the fact, however, being “delivered to the tormentor”
has no reference to the eternal judgment of the lost. In the lake of fire neither lost angels nor
lost men are stated to torment one another, but are all alike in the same
torment. It is a picture of present and
temporal chastisement under that continually proceeding judgment of God above
indicated, and which applies to His family as to others. Regarded thus the above confusing implications
do not arise, implications which no one divinely illuminated could accept. But it results that the wicked servant is a
real servant, not a hypocrite, and were it not for the severity of the
punishment no one would be likely to question this.
It
is not difficult to see what the punishment is.
(a)
The forgiveness of his great failures as a servant can be
revoked, and he be made to feel the sin and bitterness of not having walked by
the same spirit as his Lord, nor rendered to Him the due use and return of the
benefits grace had bestowed.
(b)
Paul says of some who had once had faith and a good conscience (or they could
not have thrust these away), and who had started on the voyage of faith (or
they could not have made shipwreck), "whom I
delivered to Satan" (the present "tormentor,"
as of Job); but not to be afflicted by him in hell, but for their recovery,
"that they might be taught not to blaspheme,"
which the torments of the damned will not teach them, as
far as we see in the Word (1 Tim. 1: 19, 20.
See also 1 Cor. 5: 3-5).
(4)
We remark upon one other instance of these solemn testimonies by Christ, the
parable of the virgins (Matt. 25). It is to
the same effect.
(a)
They are all virgins, the foolish equally with the wise,
which figure is inappropriate to indicate a worldling in his sins, even though
he be a professing Christian. In the
only other places where it is used figuratively and spiritually it certainly
means true Christians (2 Cor. 11: 2; Rev. 14: 4).
(b)
They are all equally the invited guests of the bridegroom, not strangers, let
alone his enemies. -
(c)
They all have oil, or, the foolish could not say "our
lamps are going out." Without
some oil the lamps could not even have been lit, for a dry wick will not kindle
and certainly could not have burned during the time they had slept.
(d)
But the foolish had no supply to replenish the dimly burning flax and revive their
testimony. They had formerly been "light in the Lord," but had been thoughtless as
to grace to continue alight.
(e)
They found means for this renewing, for in spite of the darkness they gained
the bridegroom's gate.
(f)
They did not lose their lives, as enemies, but they did lose the marriage
feast, and were left in the darkness outside the house. This is parallel to the "wicked servant," who also did not lose his life
but did lose the entrance into the joy
of his master at his return, and was cast into "outer
darkness."
Two
observations are vital to grasping the meaning of these judgments.
(1)
A marriage feast is obviously no picture of anything eternal. Plainly it is a temporary matter. Grand, intensely happy, a highly coveted
honour, especially when the king's son, the heir apparent, is the bridegroom,
it yet is but the prelude to a life, a reign, not anything
long-extended, let alone permanent. Does
not this correspond to the joy of the millennial kingdom as the glorious
prelude to the eternal kingdom? For
the "marriage of the Lamb" comes at
the immediate inception of that millennial kingdom (Rev.
19: 6-9). And are not the invited
virgins those of whom verse 9 says, "Blessed are they that are bidden to the marriage supper of
the Lamb," rather than the wife herself? A bride is not usually invited to her wedding
feast: it cannot (save, perhaps, among Moslems) be held without her. Does not this give the clue to what the
virgins and the unfaithful servant lose?
(2)
"Outer darkness" is no picture of the
lake of fire. It is the realm just
outside the palace where the feast is held, not the public prison or execution
ground. If the strict sense of Scripture
pictures be kept, and imagination be not allowed to fill in what the Divine
Artist did not put in, much confusion will be avoided.
It
has been felt that the words of the bridegroom to the virgins, "Verily I say unto you, I know you not" preclude
us from taking these to represent His true people. But again the picture itself will give the
real sense. The bridegroom is here
pictured as standing within the heavy and thick outer door that secures every
eastern house of quality, and the door is shut. He does not open it, or he would see who they
are, and that they are some of his own invited guests; but standing the other
side of the closed door he says, in idiomatic English, I tell
you sincerely, I don't know who you are (Ameen lego humin, ouk oida
humas). Into such a picture it is
not permissible to read in divine omniscience; it must be taken simply as it is
given.
Its
force may be gathered more readily by the distinction between what is here said
and what the Lord said in Matt. 7: 15-23. There He spoke of false prophets, bad trees,
men who, like the sons of Sceva in Acts 19: 13,
used His holy name without warrant. Picturing Himself as standing face to face
with these He protests, I never at any time made your acquaintance!
Here the scene is changed; there is no
closed door between: the verb to know is different: and
the word rendered "never" is most
emphatic and gives force and finality to the assertion (Oudepote egnon
humas). He did not speak thus to the
virgins.
9.
It is not our present purpose to consider all such testimony of the Word. Enough has been advanced to show how much and
how solemn is the teaching of Scripture as to judgment upon careless
Christians. We wish only to deal now
with the time of the judgment seat of Christ as to
His people.
The
most general opinion is that this judgment lies between the moment of the
Lord's descent to the air, when they, dead and living, are caught up to Him
there, and that later moment when He is to descend with them to the earth to
set up His kingdom. That is, the judging
of His saints will take place during the Parousia.
Observations.
(1.)
No passage of Scripture seems, distinctly to place this judgment in this
interval and in the air. It seems to be rather assumed that it must take
place then and there since the effects of it are to be seen in the different
positions and honours in the kingdom immediately to follow.
(2.)
As regards the parabolic instruction Christ gave when here it is to be observed
that it speaks only of persons who will be found alive when the "nobleman
... the master of the house" returns. Strictly, therefore, these parables tell
nothing as to the time and circumstances of the judgment of dead believers.
It must be allowed that the
principles of justice will be the same for dead and living, but the details as
to the judgment of the former cannot be learned from these passages.
(3.)
Some presuppositions held are:
(a)
That every believer will share in the first resurrection and the millennial
kingdom.
(b)
The opposite, that not every believer will do so.
(c)
That the judgment of the Lord will result in some of His people suffering loss
of reward because of unfaithfulness, but nothing more than loss. This involves that none of the positive and
painful inflictions denounced can affect true believers.
(d)
The opposite, that the regenerate may incur positive chastisement as a
consequence of the Lord's judgment at that time. Thus in "Touching the Coming of the Lord"
(84, 85. ed.. 1), upon Col. 3. 25,
"For he that doeth wrong shall receive again
the wrong that he hath done (margin): and there is
no respect of persons," Hogg
and Vine apply this text to that
judgment of Christ at His parousia, and say: "It
may be difficult for us to conceive how God will fulfil this word to those who
are already in bodies of glory, partakers of the joy of the redeemed in
salvation consummated in spirit, soul and body. Yet may we be assured that the operation of
this law is not to be suspended even in their case. He that 'knoweth
how to deliver the godly out of temptation, and to keep the unrighteous under
punishment unto the day of judgment ' (2 Pet. 2: 9), knows also
how to direct and to use the working of His law of sowing and reaping in the
case of His children also. The attempt
to alleviate the text of some of its weight by suggesting that the law operates
only in this life, fails, for there is nothing in the text or context to lead
the reader to think other than that while the sowing is here the reaping is
hereafter. It is clear that if it were
not for this supposed difficulty of referring the words to the Christian in the
condition in which, as we know from other Scriptures, he will appear at the
Judgment-seat of Christ, the question whether that time and place were intended
would not be raised."
(e)
Some (Govett, Pember, and others)
who hold that "the millennial kingdom may be
forfeited by gross sin,” suppose that all believers rise in the first
resurrection, appear before the judgment-seat of Christ, and being adjudged by
Him unworthy of the kingdom they return to the death state to wait the second
resurrection and the great white throne judgment. Their names being then as believers found in
the book of life, they have eternal life in the eternal kingdom, but they will
have missed the honour of sharing in and reigning in the millennial age.
These two last ideas (d) and (e) seem alike utterly impossible. It seems wholly inconceivable that a body
heavenly, spiritual, glorified, like indeed to the body of the Son of God
himself, can be subjected to chastisement for guilt incurred by misuse of the
present sin-marred body. Not only the
manner of the infliction but the fact of it seems to us out of the question.
It seems equally so that a body that is immortal and incorruptible can
admit of its owner passing again into the death state. The ideas and the terms are mutually
contradictory and exclusive. Of those
who rise in that first resurrection the Lord said plainly: "neither can they die any more" (Lk.
20. 36).
What,
then, is the solution of these difficulties?
10.
We turn to passages dealing directly with the subject.
(1)
2 Cor. 5. 10. "We
make it our aim, whether at home or absent, to be well-pleasing unto Him. For
we must all be made manifest before the judgment-seat of Christ; that each one
may receive the things done through the body, according to what he hath done,
whether it be good or bad." This
chief statement leaves unmentioned the time and place of the judgment.
(2)
Heb. 9. 27. “It is
laid up for men once to die and after this judgment” (meta de touto
krisis, no article). Thus judgment
may take place at any time after death. Luke 16
shows Dives suffering anguish immediately after death, for the scene is
Hades, the realm of the dead between death and resurrection, and his
brothers are still alive on earth. But
again, Rev. 20: 11-15, shows another, the
final judgment after resurrection, after the millennial kingdom. Both are "after
death."
Neither of these passages suggests the parousia in the air as
the time or place.
(3)
The statements of the Lord as to His dealing with His own servants at His
return, contemplate that His enemies will be called before Him immediately
after He will have dealt with His own household: "But
these mine enemies, who would not that I should reign over them, bring hither,
and slay them before me" (Lk. 19: 27).
"Hither,"
that is, to the same spot where He had just been dealing with His
servants. This, as to servants then
alive on earth at least, excludes the parousia in the air, for His enemies will
not be gathered there.
(4)
Luke 16. 19-31. Dives and Lazarus are seen [in Hades] directly
after death in conditions the exact reverse of those just before known on
earth. The passing of the soul to that other world, and the bringing about of so
thorough a change of condition, is too striking, too solemn just to
happen. Some one must have
decided and ordered this reversal; that is, there must have been a
judging of their cases and a judicial decision as to what should be their lot
in the intermediate state.
This judgment therefore may take place at or immediately
after death,
as Heb. 9. 27 above. And in
the time of Christ thus almost all men believed. See, for example, the judgment of Ani directly
after death, before Osiris the god of the underworld, in the Egyptian Book
of the Dead. Or, as to the
Pharisees, to whom particularly Christ spoke of Dives and Lazarus, see
Josephus, Antiquities, 18. 3.
(5)
2 Tim. 4: 6, 7, 8. "I am
already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure is
come. I have fought the good fight, I
have kept the faith; I have finished the course, henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which
the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give to me at that day: and not only
to me, but also to all them that have loved His appearing."
Paul
was now certain he had won his crown. When
writing to the Philippians a few years before (3.
10-14) he spoke uncertainly: "not that I
have already obtained," for then he had not yet finished the course; but now he writes with certainty. How could this assurance have become his save
by communication from the Righteous Judge? But this implies that the Judge had both
formed and communicated His decision upon Paul's life and service, even though
Paul had not yet actually died. In
such a case, as it would seem, any session of the judgment seat "in that day" will be only for bestowment of
the crown already won and allotted, not for adjudication upon the race or
contest, the latter having before taken place as to such a person.
(6)
The expression "I have finished my course" is taken from the athletic world
which held so large a place in Greek life and interest and is so often used by
Paul as a picture of spiritual effort. In 1 Cor. 9: 24-27, it is used
as a plain warning that the coveted prize may be lost. Phil. 3: 12-14
employs it to urge to intense and unremitting effort to win that prize. The Lord is the righteous Judge,
sitting to adjudicate upon each contestant in the race or contest.
Now
of unavoidable necessity the judge of the games automatically formed his
decision as to each racer or wrestler as each finished the course or the
contest. The giving of the prizes was
indeed deferred to the close of the whole series of events: Paul's
crown would be actually given "in that day"; but not till
then did the judge defer his decision as to each item or contestant. It could not be, for the most celebrated of
the Greek games, the Olympic, lasted five days.
The
figure, taken with the case of Paul, and in the light of Dives and Lazarus, suggests
a decision of the Lord as to each believer before or at the time of his
death. That decision issues in determining the place and experience
of the man in the intermediate state, and may extend to assurance that he has
won the crown, the prize of the high calling.
(7)
Rev. 6. 9, 11, The Fifth Seal. As before
shown, these martyrs "under the altar" are not yet raised from the
dead, for others have yet to be killed for Christ's sake, and only then will
they be all vindicated and avenged. But to each one of them separately a
white robe is given. Now ch. 3. 4, 5, shows
that the white robe is the visible sign, conferred by the Lord, of their
worthiness to be His companions in His glory and kingdom. This again
makes evident that for these the Lord's judgment has been formed and announced.
No later adjudication upon such is needful or conceivable; only the giving
of the crown "in that day."
11.
From these facts and considerations it seems fairly clear that the judgment of
the Lord upon the dead of His people is not deferred to one session but
is reached and declared either (a) immediately before death
(as Paul), when there is no further risk of the racer failing, or (b) immediately
after death (as Lazarus), or (c) at least in the intermediate state of
death (the ‘souls under the altar’).
If
this is so, then it will follow that the
decision of the Lord as to whether a believer is worthy of the first
resurrection and reigning in the
kingdom is reached prior to
resurrection, in which case the two insoluble problems above
stated simply do not arise, that is, there is no question of one raised in a
deathless state returning to the death state, nor of bodies of glory being
subjected to chastisement. Believers
adjudged not worthy of the first resurrection will not rise, but will remain [in Hades] where they
are until the second resurrection.
We
agree fully that the judgment seat of Christ will issue in chastisement for
unworthy living by Christians, but this will not be inflicted after
resurrection.
(8)
Rev. 11. 18 repays exact study. The four and twenty elders worship God because
He has put forth His "power, His great power"
(teen dunamin sou teen megaleen) and
has exercised His sovereignty. In
consequence of this asserting of power there are five results. (1) The nations are angry, (2) God's wrath
replies, (3) there arrives "the season for the
dead to be judged," (4) for the faithful to be rewarded, and (5)
for the destruction of the destroyers of the earth.
Since
prophets and saints are to receive their reward at the resurrection of the just (Luke
14. 14), the first resurrection (Rev. 20:
1-6), the season for the dead to be judged and rewarded is here found
directly before the destruction of the Antichrist and his helpers in the
wasting of the lands.
Concerning
this judging of the dead three features are to be noted.
1.
It must be of godly dead, for it is
before the thousand years, whereas the judgment of the ungodly dead is
thereafter (Rev. 20. 5, 11-15).
2.
It is a judgment of persons who are dead at the time they are judged. There is no ground for reading in that they
have been raised from the dead before the judgment takes place. They are styled "the
dead." No one would think of styling living persons "the dead." The term employed (nekros) is nowhere
used of persons who are not actually dead, physically or morally. Moreover, resurrection does not of itself
assure life. That unique and glorious change to be the portion of such as share the
first resurrection (1 Cor. 15) is their
special privilege; it does not attach to all resurrection. Dead persons can be raised dead. In John 5. 29
our Lord creates a clear contrast: "They that have
done good shall come forth unto resurrection of life; and
they that have done evil unto resurrection of judgment."
The Lord did not say that they shall
come forth out of the tombs alive, but that "they shall come forth unto resurrection of life"
or "unto resurrection of judgment" (eis anastasin). There seems no scripture, indeed, that at
the moment they come forth they have even a body, other than that psychical
counterpart before noticed and which persists in the death state.
Thus
in Rev. 20. 12 also it is as dead
that they are judged: "I saw the dead standing
before the throne ... and the dead
were judged." It should
therefore be supposed that those there present whose names are found in the
book of life will thereupon be restored to life, that is,
will be given an immortal body; even as the Lord said: "The Father raiseth the dead (egeirei tous nekrous) and makes them live
(zoopoiei), thus also the Son makes to live whom He
will" (zoopoiei, John 5: 21). Here two operations are distinguished by the
"and makes them live."
3.
The verb to be judged, "the
season of the dead to be judged," is the infinitive passive
aorist (kritheenai). Being an
aorist it has the force of a completed and final action. But this final judgment, which disposes of the
case, may be the conclusion of a process of judgment. This is seen in another place where this
aorist is twice used, Acts 25: 9, 10. Festus asked Paul whether he would be willing
to go up from Caesarea to
This
short discussion is no more than suggestive, directed to certain obscurities
and perplexities found in our main theme, designed to provoke enquiry so as
further to elucidate truth and dispel darkness. May the Lord in grace use it to this end.
G. H. LANG.
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