AN INTRODUCTION

“We rejoice in the truth, so clearly stated in the Scriptures … that there is no wrath in store for those whom God has justified through faith in Jesus Christ, and that they have, by His grace, perfect deliverance from condemnation, so that there is no controversy here. But while there is no wrath and no condemnation for those that are in Christ, they are to expect chastening and discipline. … Chastening is radically different from wrath. The latter is the portion of those who reject the Gospel; the former is wholly for believers. In 1 Cor. 11: 32 the contrast between chastening and condemnation is sharply drawn: ‘When we (believers) are judged we are chastened of the Lord, that we should not be condemned with the world.’”

- PHILIP MAURO.

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“Every single day of the three-week long trial, Hazel Stewart entered and excited Coleraine Courthouse amid the impressively protective huddle of her immediate family. With her hand wrapped securely in his, her second husband David Stewart would walk on one side, occasionally nodding reassurance or smiling encouragement.

Lisa, her daughter by Hazel’s first husband, the murdered Trevor Buchanan, would take the other side, the young woman’s blond head held high, her eyes steadfastly focused ahead, her fingers often entwined around her mother’s other hand.

And then finally there was the sad-eyed Andrew, the son Hazel also had with Trevor, bringing up the rear as the family group passed through the phalanx of Press and television cameras. And no wonder the cameras were there to record every forensic detail of this quartet’s progress…

For this has surely been one of the most compelling court cases of our times. A case that has intrigued and shocked, that has brought together sex and religion, seeming respectability - glamour even - and sordid, heartless murder.

It is a case that has twinned soap opera plot with Biblical backdrop - mixing in lust and greed, adultery and murder.

And above all cruel, callous betrayal.

It is a story which began in the devout church community where Colin Howell and the then Hazel Buchanan met and which ended in chilling horror at dead of night behind a row of houses known as The Twelve Apostles.

Yet the Hazel Stewart who walked into court each day could hardly have looked less like a woman involved in such a hideous plot.

Undoubtedly good-looking despite the obvious strain increasingly scored upon her face, the 47-year-old Stewart (her 48^th birthday fell during the closing days of her trial) was always immaculately presented.

Make-up understated but artful; hair subtly highlighted.

The green brocade coat for her earlier appearances was soon swapped for a plum, boucle wool number that became her standard.

Neat, businesslike, but warm and soft.

It was a masterclass in ‘dressing for defendants’.

Hazel never actually took the stand. And the former Sunday school teacher gave little away either as she listened to the evidence, including those searching police tapes of her interviews (in media reports of her trial the same phrase is used time and time again to describe her demeanour – ‘showed no emotion’). Only when she listened to herself speak of her fear about losing her husband (David) and her son and daughter did she cry. Yet throughout much of the grim, dreadful revelation of her role in the murder of the man who was the father of her children, she remained impassive.

Soft. That was the word Hazel used on the tapes to describe herself.

‘My personality is soft and weak and vulnerable, and he (Howell) had full control of me. I was easy prey,’ she said at one point.

‘I was a soft, easy target,’ she told police at another time. Soft? A woman who, by her own admission, checked in the boot of the car to see the body of her lover’s murdered wife, who stood with her hands over her ears while her own drugged husband cried out as he was mercilessly killed, who cut up and burned the hosepipe used to gas him, laid out the fresh clothes his corpse was to be dressed in, and changed the very sheets of the bed where he fought for life.

Soft? A woman who kept her steely nerve and brazenly lied to police in the immediate aftermath of that double killing. Who backed up her lover’s cover story, and only weeks after her murdered husband was laid to rest resumed her affair with the man who, with his bare hands, had taken his life.

Soft?

Hazel Stewart was not the one who finally snapped. It was Colin Howell (51) who finally came clean in January 2009 - first to church elders then to the police.

His affair with Hazel had continued for a number of years after the double murder. The pair had gone on holidays together to Newcastle and to the Lake District.

Soft may be how Hazel Stewart sees herself.

But she carried the black secret of that gruesome night for 17 long years, keeping it from Trevor’s children and from her wider family, who never truly believed that their brother did indeed take his own life.

She kept it from her second husband too.

From the man who loyally stood by her after her arrest and throughout the case. David Stewart - a policeman, like her first husband - is among those now paying the price for her wickedness and her terrible deceit.

For just as Hazel Stewart has been at the heart of the protective bubble of her immediate family’s love, so too is she at the centre of the malign ripples that affect so many other innocents in this case.

What, you wonder, can now be going through the heads and the hearts of her two children?

Lisa and Andrew were 10 and nine when their father was murdered. Old enough to remember him. How desperately torn must they have been as they listened to those damning police interviews? And small comfort, in this delayed justice, for the dignified family of Trevor Buchanan.

Or for Lauren, Colin Howell’s poor daughter who as attended the case alongside the Buchanan family.

Lauren has lost not only her murdered mother Lesley, but also her brother Matt, who died at the age of 22 in an accident in Russia in 2007.

Her father is in prison. She is left to pick up the pieces.

Hard to argue, then, with the interviewing officer Detective Sergeant Ferris who could be heard on those incriminating tapes telling the “soft” woman at the centre of all this misery: “It was vicious in relation to what you did, both of you. You showed no regard for your partners, for their families, and no regard for your own children.

“You made that decision that you could live with your two children, aged only nine and 10 at the time, and you agreed to a plan that resulted in the father of your two children being murdered in the very house where they lay sleeping.

“It can’t get any colder.”

- LINDY Mc DOWELL (BELFATS TELEGRAPH. TUESDAY, MARCH 3 2011)

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PART 1

THE EVER PRESENT DANGER

1

The Provocation

“In Heb. 3: 4, 5, 6, Christ is compared with Moses, who was faithful as a servant in all God’s House, for a testimony of the things which were to be spoken subsequently (which we take to be ‘the things which we have heard’). Christ, however, is not a servant in God’s House, but Son over His House; and then follows the statement that directly concerns us: ‘Whose house are we if we hold fast the confidence and rejoicing of the hope firm to the end!’ What follows is given for the purpose of teaching us what is meant by holding fast the confidence and rejoicing (or, as it has been otherwise rendered, the boldness and boasting) of the hope firm to the end. That such is the purpose is evident from the fact that the next words are ‘Wherefore (omitting the parenthesis to end of verse 11) take heed lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God.’ For information as to what is meant by departing from the living God as the result of unbelief, we are referred to the ninty-fifth Psalm, the last part of which is quoted in full and declared to be the saying of the Holy Spirit.

From this we learn that the period denominated ‘To-day’ is the present day of our sojourn and pilgrimage on earth; and that ‘the end,’ unto which we are again and again admonished to hold fast our confession and our confidence, is the end of our pilgrim journey. We learn further that the danger against which we are so pointedly and earnestly warned is something that corresponds to the ‘provocation in the day of temptation in the wilderness,’ the dire consequence of which was that God swore in His wrath that those who provoked should not enter into His rest. What, then, was the ‘provocation,’ and what does it stand for as a type? Turning to Numbers 14. we find at verse 11 the words ‘And the Lord said unto Moses, How long will this people PROVOKE Me? and how long will it be ere they BELIEVE Me, for all the signs which I have shewed among them?’ And at verse 23: ‘Surely they shall not see the land which I sware unto their fathers, neither shall any of them that PROVOKED Me see it.’

Here we have the provocation and the penalty. The provocation was not a single act, but - the culmination of a series of acts. The Lord’s question was ‘How long will this people provoke Me?’ And in verse 22 He spoke of them as ‘those men which ... have tempted Me now these ten times, and have not hearkened unto My Voice.’ Therefore, it will be profitable to trace the steps which culminated in provoking the irrevocable punishment inflicted on those whom God still owned as His people, and over whom He still continued to watch in the wilderness where they were condemned to remain. If we take care to avoid the first step of the provocation we shall not incur the indignation.

In the latter part of Numbers 10. we read of the journeyings of the Israelites under the guidance of Jehovah, the Shepherd of Israel, the Ark of the covenant going before to search out a resting place for them; and we read also the words that Moses uttered when the Ark set forward, and when it rested. Nevertheless, at the beginning of chap. 11. we find a record of the people complaining, and of the Lord’s displeasure thereat. The occasion or subject of the complaint is not stated. Any complaint, therefore, concerning the incidents of our pilgrimage, may be the starting point of departure from the living God. We need to learn obedience and contentment by the things we suffer; as the Apostle Paul could say, “I have LEARNED, in whatsoever state I am, to be content” (Phil. 4: 11). This contentment does not come by nature, it must be ‘learned’. Let us, then; watch ourselves and check every tendency to complain of the hardships of the journey.

The next incident is recorded in Numb. 11: 4-6:

‘And the mixt multitude* that was among them fell a lusting; and the children of Israel also wept again, saying, Who shall give us flesh to eat? We remember the fish, which we did eat in Egypt freely; the cucumbers, and the melons, and the leeks, and the onions, and the garlic. But now our soul is dried away. There is nothing at all beside this manna before our eyes.’

[* NOTE. To come to the conclusion, as some Christians do today, that ‘the mixt multitude that was among them,’ were not regenerate souls, but unregenerate ‘professors’ only! - is to have completely missed the point of the Apostle’s warnings addressed: “unto the church of God at Corinth’! See 1 Corinthians, chapters 5, 6, and 10.

‘Replacement Theology,’ so popular today amongst Anti-millennialists, would have us believe that God does not really mean what He says; and “the Land of Promise” is not upon this earth, but in heaven!

“When these passages are studied together, it is abundantly apparent that the promise concerned (1) the land, (2) the [redeemed] people, and (3) the Messiah (in Whom all nations of the earth would be blessed). As Jehovah is a faithful God, He will keep all three parts of the covenant [made with Abraham], and the fact that persons from nations other than the Jewish people are blessed in the Messiah is no proof that God will not keep His promises concerning the land and the [Jewish] nation. In fact, it is a strong indication that He will perform ALL that He has spoken:” S. A. Toms.]

So the next step in the provocation came through the ‘mixt multitude’ which had come up with them out of Egypt (Ex. 12: 38). It is dangerous for the people of God to have a ‘mixt multitude among them.’ These are sure to give voice to their desires, and thus stir up the flesh in the believer. Recollections of Egypt were revived. And here the deceitful heart and memory played a trick that is common enough, though hard to explain. All the asperities of their oppression in Egypt, the cruel servitude, the bitter bondage, the task-master’s lash, the harsh increase of the burden, were entirely forgotten. The great wonders wrought by the Hand of the Lord and His mighty deliverance out of the house of bondage, were also forgotten. They recalled only the things of Egypt which serve to satisfy the natural appetite. They despised the bread of God, which He supplied daily for their recurring needs, and craved the food of Egypt. They were thus the types of those whom Paul characterizes as ‘enemies of the Cross of Christ; whose end is destruction, whose god is their belly, who glory in their shame, who mind earthly things’ (Phil. 3: 18, 19).

The manna which God supplied to His people in the wilderness stands for the Word of God on which His people are privileged now to feed, that they may be ‘nourished up in the words of faith’ (1 Tim. 4: 6). From this we may learn that it is a very serious matter to slight the Word of God. To do so is to neglect the appropriate spiritual food which God, in His goodness, has supplied, in order that we may be nourished and strengthened to bear the trials of the way. Disinclination to feed on the Word is a common complaint among Christians, particularly among such as have fellowship with the mixed multitude of Christendom, who have no taste at all for the bread of life. Let us take careful note of this, and not permit either the habits of our neighbours or the pressure of things about us, to divert us from the daily, deliberate, meditative reading of the Word of God. Regular attention to this important matter will go far towards fitting us to overcome the severe trials that surely lie in our path. The reading matter of the day, that is devoured by the people of the world, and by the mixed multitude, is utterly unfit for the people of God. Not only is it quite void of spiritual nutriment, but it vitiates the taste therefor. Much of the religious literature of the day is no better, and some of it is even worse. The attempt to make spiritual things palatable, by means of artistic and literary expedients, is sure evidence of a state of spiritual decline, which may end in apostasy. It is written of the Israelites that they subjected the manna to culinary expedients in order to make it more palatable, not relishing it in the state in which God gave it to them. For ‘the people went about, and gathered it, and ground it in mills, or beat it in a mortar, and baked it in pans, and made cakes of it’ (Numb. 11: 8). But that did not satisfy them; for eventually they came to such a pass as to say, ‘Our soul loatheth this light bread’ (Numb. 21: 5). It is safe to say that, of the literature of the day, not the thousandth part contains any spiritual nutriment; and beside that, it must be remembered that the very soundest and most spiritual books cannot take the place of the Word of God. This admonition applies to the old and young alike.

To despise the provision which the Lord has made for His people is to despise the Lord Himself, as He said on the occasion we are now considering, ‘Ye have despised the Lord Who is among you, and have wept before Him, saying, Why came we forth out of Egypt?’ (Numb. 11: 20).

God has taken pains to teach us very plainly and forcibly the seriousness of neglecting our spiritual food, which He supplies, namely, the words of eternal life. The incident of the preference of the Israelites for the food of Egypt is rehearsed in Psalm 78. There it is written, ‘And they sinned yet more against Him by provoking the Most High in the wilderness. And they tempted God in their heart by asking meat for their lust’ (ver. 17, 18). And the reason is given, ‘Because they BELIEVED NOT in God, and trusted not in His salvation, though He had commanded the clouds from above, and opened the doors of Heaven, and had rained down manna upon them to eat, and had given them of the corn of Heaven. Man did eat angels’ food’ (ver. 22-25). The brief explanation is that ‘THEIR HEART was not right with Him’ (ver. 37).

Again in Psalm 106 the incident is recited in detail; and, as we have already seen, Psalm 95. refers prominently and pointedly to the provocation in the day of temptation in the wilderness.

Proceeding with the record given in Numbers, we find 3 chap. 12. the sedition of Aaron and Miriam against Moses, which amounted to rebellion against the Word of God, Who spoke through Moses. Aaron and Miriam wished their utterances to have the same authority as those of Moses. ‘And they said, Hath the Lord indeed spoken only by Moses? Hath He not spoken also by us?’ Many among professed christians are saying the same thing to-day, putting the uninspired words of man on the same level with the Word of God. Those who were most closely related to Moses ‘refused him that spake on earth’ (Heb. 12: 25), and they did ‘not escape’ punishment.

Chap. 13. relates another step in the departure of the Israelites from the living God, giving a further manifestation of the existence in themselves of ‘an evil heart of unbelief.’ The subject of this chapter is the sending of the spies to investigate and report upon the Promised Land. They believed not God’s report concerning the land. His announcement did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard. So they sent chosen leaders to spy the land, with instructions to ‘SEE the land, what it is; and the people that dwelleth therein, whether they be strong or weak, few or many; and what the land is that they dwell in, whether it be good or bad; and what cities they be that they dwell in, whether in tents or in strong holds; and what the land is, whether it be fat or lean, whether there be wood therein or not’ (ver. 18, 19, 20).

From Deut. 1: 22 we learn that the sending of the spies was the act of the people, God permitting them in all these matters to have their own way, which they preferred to His. They saw His works, but did not know or desire His ways. Moses in his farewell words to the people said:

‘And I said unto you, Ye are come unto the mountain of the Amorites, which the Lord our God doth give unto us. Behold, the Lord thy God hath set the land before thee. Go up and possess it, as the Lord God of thy fathers hath said unto thee. Fear not, neither be discouraged’ (Deut. 1: 20-22).

This surely should be enough for those who had faith in God. But ‘their heart was not right with Him.’ They did not hold the beginning of their confidence, in which they set out from Egypt, stedfast unto the end. They wished to ‘see the land,’ not believing the word of the report concerning the ‘things not seen.’ So the account continues:

‘And ye drew near unto me, every one of you, and said, We will send men before us, and they shall search us out the land and bring us word again by what way we must go up and into what cities we shall come’ (ver. 23).

Two things are prominent in this action of the congregation of Israel; first, that they had more confidence in the report of men than in that of God; and, second, that they had more confidence in the guidance of human leaders than in that of God, notwithstanding that He, as Moses reminds them, ‘went in the way before you to search you out a place to pitch your tents in, in fire by night to show you the way ye should go, and in a cloud by day’ (ver. 33).

Taking the two accounts (that in Numbers and that in Deuteronomy) together, we may see that God was virtually ignored by His people. They did not consider His purpose or will in the matter, or even consider whether He had a will as to their entering the land of their inheritance. They disregarded His promise made to them in Egypt that He would ‘bring them up out of that land unto a good land and a large, unto a land flowing with milk and honey’ (Ex. 3: 8). They acted as if they lacked trustworthy information concerning that land; as if their entering or not was a matter for their own choice after due investigation and deliberation, and as if, in case they should decide to enter, they would have to determine for themselves the route to take.

Can it be denied that there are Christians - in name, at least, and probably in fact as well - who are acting similarly with reference to ‘the things which we have heard’ concerning the habitable earth to come, the Rest that remaineth unto the people of God? We apprehend that the number of such is great. ‘Let us fear, therefore, lest a promise being left us of entering into His rest, any of you should seem to come short of it.’

Let it be noted that it was those who had heard the announcement of God that provoked Him by the way in which they acted with regard to the things announced. ‘For some, when they had heard, did provoke’ (Heb. 3: 16). The announcement was perfectly plain. It could not be misunderstood, although it could be treated with indifference, slighted and neglected.

Now, it is expressly stated that good things have been announced to us, ‘as well as unto them’ (Heb. 4: 2). This is not the preaching of the gospel of God’s grace to the unconverted. It is the announcement by God Himself of good things to come, which He has prepared for those who love Him and manifest their love by holding fast the beginning of their confidence in Him steadfast unto the end. This is the ‘word’ which will not profit, if not mixed with faith in us who have distinctly heard it.

The action of the congregation of Israel in the matter of the spies teaches plainly the lesson that when the people of God are lacking in the energy of faith, by reason of insufficient spiritual nourishment, due to their own neglect of the Word of God, the effect is to throw them back upon the resources of nature, and upon the methods and means of the natural man, even in matters connected with their spiritual concerns. This is a condition that widely prevails at the present day. On every hand we see attempts at producing spiritual results by means of natural agencies, and the consequences are deplorable indeed. All these fleshly activities are outward manifestations of the inward presence of an evil heart of unbelief; and the source of it all is the failure to heed, believe, and obey the Word of God.

The spies returned and reported to the congregation the things that they had seen, which, in the state of their heart towards God, outweighed the things that He had spoken concerning the land. ‘They brought up an evil report of the land which they had searched’ (Numb. 13: 32). God describes the action of the spies as ‘bringing up a slander on the land’ (Numb. 14: 36). In Psalm 106., God says, ‘Yea, they despised the pleasant land, they believed not His Word’ (ver. 24). And this unbelief culminated in the rebellion recorded in Numb. 14.

‘And they said one to another, Let us make a captain, and let us return into Egypt.’ This was the last step in their departure from God, and brought upon them the judgment of being shut out from the land which they had despised.

In studying this incident, in the light of what is said of it in the Psalms and in Hebrews, we observe that the action of the congregation of Israel was the natural outcome of the state of their heart. ‘Their heart was not right with Him, neither were they stedfast in His covenant’ (Psa. 78: 37). Accordingly, in applying the lesson to us, the Holy Spirit has much to say about the state of our hearts. These are the exhortations that are spoken in our ears: ‘The Holy Ghost saith, To-day, if ye will hear His Voice, harden not your hearts.’ ‘Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief.’ ‘While it is said, To-day, if ye will near His Voice, harden not your heart.’ ‘Again, He limiteth a certain day, saying in David, To-day, after so long a time; as it is said, To-day, if ye will hear His Voice, harden not your hearts’ (3: 8, 12, 15; 4: 7). The Word of God which lays everything bare, as the two-edged knife of the priest exposed all the inward parts of the offering, pierces even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart (4: 12). All our hidden thoughts and intents are laid open to the Eyes of Him with Whom we have to do. And it is because of this that God has given to us the services of ‘a great High Priest Who has passed through the heavens,’ and a throne of grace to which we have access by His Name and in the merits of His Sacrifice on our behalf,

Special attention should be paid to the consequences of the provocation, as announced in these words of the Lord to Moses: ‘Surely they shall not see the land which I sware unto their fathers, neither shall any of them that provoked Me see it.’ ‘As I live, saith the Lord, AS ye have spoken in My Ears, SO will I do to you. Your carcases shall fall in this wilderness, and all that were numbered of you, according to your whole number, from twenty years old and upward, which have murmured against Me, doubtless ye shall not come into the land which I sware to make you dwell therein, save Caleb, the son of Jephunneh, and Joshua the son of Nun’ (Numb. 14: 23, 28, 29, 30).

Briefly, then, the punishment visited upon the Israelites consisted in giving them what they had preferred. They preferred not to enter the land; and God granted them their choice. It seems that, when the people of God desire their own ways, in preference to His, He often allows them to have their desire. When they longed for the food of Egypt He gave them a surfeit of flesh; but ‘while the flesh was between their teeth, before it was chewed, the wrath of the Lord was kindled against the people, and the Lord smote the people with a very great plague’ (Numb. 11: 33). So in the Lord’s dealings with His people to-day, those who long for the enjoyments, indulgences, pleasures etc., which this world affords, are often permitted to have them; but sometimes ere they can derive any satisfaction therefrom - ‘ere it was chewed’ - they are cut off in the midst of their carnal pleasures according as it is plainly declared, ‘if ye (believers) live after the flesh ye shall die’ (Rom. 8: 13).

In the words of Psalm 78: 29-31: ‘So they did eat, and were well filled; for He gave them THEIR OWN DESIRE; they were not estranged from their lust. But while the meat was yet in their mouths, the wrath of God came upon them, and slew the fattest of them, and smote down the chosen men of Israel’ And in the words of Psalm 106: 13-15: ‘They soon forgot His works; they waited not for His counsel; but lusted exceedingly in the wilderness, and tempted God in the desert. AND HE GAVE THEM THEIR REQUEST; but sent leanness into their soul.’

Once more, when the people wished to investigate the land for themselves by chosen representatives, God again gave them their desire. He allowed the whole congregation to be halted for forty days, while the leaders of Israel, one man from each tribe, searched the land concerning which God Himself had given them a report. But for every day they thus hindered the carrying out of His promise - a promise made four hundred years previous to Abraham, and renewed to them through Moses - they were condemned to spend a year in the wilderness. ‘After the number of the days in which ye searched the land, even forty days, each day for a year, shall ye bear your iniquities, even forty Years, and ye shall know My breach of promise (or estrangement)’ (Numb. 14: 34).

And finally, when the people ‘turned back and tempted God, and limited the Holy One of Israel’ (Psa. 78: 41), and said, ‘Would God we had died in this wilderness’ (Numb. 14: 2), God again gave them their wish, saying, ‘As ye have spoken in Mine Ears so will I do to you’ (14: 28).

This should teach us to search our hearts, by the light of God’s Word, for any desires which are not in accord with His revealed purpose for us. In the particular case which we are now studying, it is God’s revealed purpose to lead many sons unto glory; and it is necessary to the accomplishment of this purpose that they should give heed to, and obey, the word spoken to them. This purpose of God is not for their satisfaction only, or chiefly. It is primarily for His own satisfaction, and for the glory of His First-Begotten, Who glorified Him in the earth, and Who is now waiting for the joy that was set before Him when He endured the Cross. It is an exceedingly serious matter to hinder this purpose of the Father. He has graciously made it known to us, and great will be our loss if we set not our hearts in line with its accomplishment. If, therefore, we allow and cherish in our hearts desires for the seen things of this age, giving them preference over the things ‘which we have heard’ but have ‘not seen as yet,’ then, regardless of our Christian name and profession, we do provoke God, and render ourselves liable to such consequences as the Israelites brought upon themselves; that is to say, we may fail to enter into the ‘Rest’ that God has announced to us, and be condemned instead to have our portion in the wilderness of this age, and in the things that pertain to it, according to the desire of our hearts.

It is important to observe that those who provoked God in the wilderness by their unbelief and disobedience, and who were in consequence shut out of the Promised Land, did not cease to be the Lords people, and that He did not refuse to pardon their iniquity. Moses interceded for them, as he had done at Sinai, and said, ‘Pardon, I beseech Thee, the iniquity of this people, according to the greatness of Thy mercy, and as Thou hast forgiven this people, from Egypt even until now. And the Lord said, I HAVE PARDONED according to thy word’ (Numb. 14: 19, 20).

By this we are taught that God’s pardon to His [redeemed] children does not mean the remission of the appropriate consequences of their wrong-doing. That is what we usually mean when we ask forgiveness of our sins; but God’s pardon is something different from that. It is written that every transgression and disobedience receives ‘a just recompence of reward’ (Heb. 2: 2); and again, that ‘whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap’ (Gal. 6: 7). And again, that everyone shall receive ‘the things done in his body according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad’ (2 Cor. 5: 10). And again, ‘He that doeth wrong shall receive for the wrong which he hath done’ (Col. 3: 25). God’s pardon means that He does not cast away His people though He punishes their sins; as said the Psalmist: ‘Thou answeredst them, O Lord our God: Thou wast a God that forgavest them, though Thou tookest vengeance of their inventions’ (Psa. 99: 8; 9: 8). He shut the disobedient people out of the Land of Promise; but He Himself accompanied them [in the desert]. The pillar of cloud and fire never left them. The manna never failed. For ‘about the time of forty years suffered He their manners in the wilderness’ (Acts 13: 18). We often think of what they suffered, and seldom of what God suffered. Nevertheless, ‘in all their affliction, He was afflicted.’ See also Neh. 9: 19.

God’s dealings with David impressively teach the same lesson. Immediately upon David’s confession of sin, Nathan said, ‘The Lord also hath put away thy sin’ (2 Sam. 12: 13). Nevertheless, the punishment for the sin was not remitted or abated. The sword never departed from David’s house, and the other items of his punishment were fully carried out, according to the Word of the Lord (2 Sam. 12: 10-12).

As we have seen, the righteous retribution which God visits upon His people, frequently takes the form of permitting them to have the preference of their own hearts. It was thus when the people said, ‘Give us a king to judge us’ (1 Sam. 8: 6). God first warned them clearly by His prophet Samuel what would happen to them if they rejected Him and chose a human king to rule over them (ver. 9-18). ‘Nevertheless, the people refused to obey the voice of Samuel, and they said, Nay, but we will have a king over us, that we may be like all the nations’ (19-20). So God gave them a king in His anger, and not only so, but He gave them just such a king as their own hearts desired.

On another greater and more solemn occasion, a choice was presented to the people. The choice then offered them lay between Jesus Christ, the Son of God, and Barabbas, the murderer. And they all cried saying, ‘Not this man, but Barabbas’ (John 18: 40). The apostle Peter subsequently reminded the people of Israel of that choice saying, ‘Ye denied the Holy One and the just, and desired a murderer to, be granted unto you, and killed the Prince of Life’ (Acts 3: 15). That choice was in reality the choice of ‘the princes (or rulers) of this world’ (1 Cor. 2: 8); and accordingly; God allowed the world to have the ruler it preferred; for the Devil, who has the power of death, is ‘the prince (or ruler) of this world’ (John 14: 30); and ‘he was a murderer from the beginning’ (John 8: 44).

Before leaving the record of the provocation in Numb. 14., we would direct attention to the remarkable promise found in verse 21: ‘But as truly as I live, all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord.’ It is a very significant fact that the Lord, in pronouncing the judgment that excluded - the disobedient people from the land of Canaan, should have uttered and recorded an oath which is to have its fulfilment in ‘the habitable earth to come,’ whereof Canaan was the type.

The essence of the lesson put before us in the incidents of the ‘Provocation’ is that, when God, having redeemed for Himself a people at a great price, and having revealed to them His mighty power and His tender mercy, speaks to, them of a place of wondrous blessing which He Himself has chosen for them, and into which He purposes to bring them; and when those to whom this purpose is revealed despise ‘the pleasant land’ and manifest a preference for the things they are leaving behind them, God’s fiery indignation is aroused against them, insomuch that He shuts them out of the promised blessing, and leaves them to a dreadful alternative.

The same lesson is taught by the Lord Himself in the parable of the great supper (Luke 14: 16-24). The Lord had been speaking of recompense at the Resurrection of the just whereupon one of those that sat at table with Him said: ‘Blessed is he that shall eat bread in the Kingdom of God’ (ver. 14, 15). The general subject of the parable, therefore, is ‘the Kingdom of God,’ which will be introduced at ‘the Resurrection of the just’ [or ‘righteous’*]; and the specific subject is the blessing of eating bread (which signifies the satisfaction of the soul) in that Kingdom. “A certain man made a GREAT supper and bade many!’ This great supper represents the ‘good things to come,’ to which the saints of this era are invited. But the invited guests were more interested in the things of their immediate surroundings than in the great supper. Their conduct revealed the preference of their hearts. Therefore the lord of the household was ‘angry,’ and sent out his servant to bring others in (‘seeing therefore that some must enter therein’ Heb. 4: 6), in order that his house might be filled. And concerning those who lightly esteemed his invitation, he declared, ‘I say unto you that none of those men that were bidden shall taste of my supper!’ They preferred not to come, and he left them to the consequences of their choice.

[* NOTE. This is not to be understood as a ‘Resurrection’ of all who are ‘justified by faith’ through the imputed righteousness of Another; but a ‘Resurrection’ of those whose personal, active righteousnesses, will have been judged to have fulfilled the Lord’s required standard to ‘enter into the Kingdom of heaven’: it is a righteousness, which has to be shown to have exceeded that of “of the scribes and Pharisees” (Matt. 5: 20; 7: 21, R.V.).]

How, then, shall we escape if we, after the same example of unbelief, make light of and neglect ‘so great salvation,’ whereof a beginning was spoken by the Lord?

- Quoted from . ‘God’s Pilgrims’ by PHILIP MAURO

2

The Terrible Sin

2 Samuel 11

“In the Psalms of David two very different characters come before us again and again. In some of those Psalms there is expressed the sorrows of one who is consciously righteous, suffering the reproaches of the wicked, yet assured of strength in God, and looking forward to that fulness of joy which is at His right hand. In other Psalms we hear the sobbings of a convicted conscience, a heart deeply exercised over personal transgression, seeking after divine mercy, and being granted a blessed sense of the infinite sufficiency of divine grace to meet his deep need. Now, those two characters in the Psalms correspond to the two principal stages in David’s life as portrayed, respectively, in the first and second books of Samuel. In I Samuel we see him brought from obscurity unto honour and peace, upheld by God in righteousness amid the persecution of the wicked. In the latter we behold him descending from honour, through sin, into degradation and turmoil, yet there learning the amazing riches of divine grace to bear with and pardon one who fell into such deep mire.

Solemn indeed is the contrast presented of David in the two books of Samuel: in the former he is conqueror of the mighty Goliath: in the latter he is mastered by his own lusts. Now the sins of God’s servants are recorded for our instruction: not for us to shelter behind and use for palliating our own offences, but for us to lay to heart and seek with all our might to avoid. The most effectual means against our repeating their sins is to keep from those things which lead up to or occasion them. In the preceding chapter we pointed out that David’s fearful fall was preceded by three things: the laying aside of his armour at the very time it was his duty to gird on the sword; the indulging in slothful ease in the palace, when he should have been enduring hardness as a soldier on the battlefield; the allowing of a wandering eye to dwell upon an unlawful object, when he should have turned it away from beholding vanity.

‘Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation: the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak’ (Matt. 26: 41). Prayer of itself is not sufficient: we have not fully discharged our duty when we have asked God to lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. We must ‘watch,’ be on the alert, noting the direction of our desires, the character of our motives, the tendency of things which may be lawful in themselves, the influence of our associations. It is our inner man which we most need to watch: ‘Keep thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life’ (Prov. 4: 23). Then, if we are faithful and diligent in ‘watching,’ out of a sense of our personal weakness and insufficiency, it is in order to ‘pray,’ counting on the help of our gracious God to undertake for us. To ‘pray’ without ‘watching’ is only to mock God, by seeking to shelve our responsibility.

Prayer was never designed by God as a substitute for personal effort and diligence, but rather as an adjunct thereto - to seek divine grace for enabling us to be dutiful and faithful. ‘Continue in prayer, and watch in the same with thanksgiving’ (Col. 4: 2). Not only does God require us to ‘watch’ before we pray, but we are also to ‘watch’ immediately after. And again we say, that which we most need to watch is ourselves. There is a traitor within our own breast, ever ready and desirous of betraying us if allowed the opportunity of so doing. Who had thought that such an one as David would ever experience such a fearful fall as he had! Ah, my reader, not even a close walk with God, or a long life of eminent piety, will eradicate or even change the sinful nature which still abides in the saint. So long as we are in this world we are never beyond the reach of temptation, and nought but watchfulness and prayer will safeguard us from it.

Nor is it easy to say how low a real child of God may fall, nor how deeply he may sink into the mire, once he allows the lusts of the flesh their free play. Sin is insatiable: it is never satisfied. Its nature is to drag us lower and lower, getting more and more daring in its opposition to God: and but for His recovering grace it would carry us down to hell itself. Look at Israel: unbelieving at the Red Sea, murmuring in the wilderness, setting up the idolatrous calf at Sinai. Look at the course of Christendom as outlined in Revelation 2 and 3: beginning by leaving her first love, ending by becoming so mixed up with the world that Christ threatened to spue her out of His mouth. Thus it was with David: from laying on his bed to allowing his eyes to wander, from gazing on Bath-sheba to committing adultery with her, from adultery to murder, and then sinking into such spiritual deadness that for a whole year he remained impenitent, till an express messenger from God was needed to arouse him from his torpor.

‘And the woman conceived, and sent and told David, and said, I am with child’ (2 Sam. 11: 5). Sooner or later the man or the woman who deliberately defies God and tramples His laws underfoot finds from painful experience that ‘the wav of transgressors is hard’ (Prov. 13: 15). It is true that the final punishment of the wicked is in the next world, and it is true that for years some daring rebels appear to mock God with impunity; nevertheless, His government is such that, even in this life, they are usually made to reap as they have sown. The pleasures of sin are but ‘For a season’ (Heb. 11: 25), and a very brief one at that: nevertheless ‘at the last it biteth like a serpent and stingeth like an adder’ (Prov. 23: 32). Make no mistake on that point, dear reader: ‘Be sure your sins will find you out’ (Num. 32: 23). It did so with David and Bath-sheba, for now the day of reckoning had to be faced.

The penalty for adultery was death: ‘And the man that committeth adultery with another man’s wife, even he that committeth adultery with his neighbour’s wife, the adulterer and adulteress shall surely be put to death’ (Lev. 20: 10). Bath-sheba now had good cause to fear the righteous wrath of her husband, and the enforcing of the dread sentence of the law. David, too, was faced with serious trouble: the one with whom he had had illicit intercourse was pregnant, and her own husband had been away from home for some time. The hidden works of darkness must soon be forced into the light for when Uriah returned the unfaithfulness of his wife would he discovered. This would give him the right to have her stoned, and though David, by virtue of his high position as king, might escape a similar fate, yet it was likely that his guilt would be proclaimed abroad and a general revolt be stirred up against him. But sad as was the predicament in which David now found himself, still sadder was the measure he resorted to in seeking to extricate himself.

Before taking up the doleful details in the inspired narrative, let us first seek to obtain a general idea of what follows - asking the reader to go over 2 Samuel 11: 6-21 ere continuing with our comments. There was no thirsting for Uriah’s blood on the part of David: it was only after all his carnal efforts had failed to use Uriah in covering his own sin, that the king resorted to extreme measures. Another before us has pointed out the awful parallel which here obtains between David and Pilate. The Roman governor thirsted not for the blood of the Saviour, rather did he resort to one expedient after another so as to preserve His life; and only after those had failed, did he give his official sanction to the crucifying of the Lord Jesus. Alas that the sweet Psalmist of Israel should here find himself in the same class with Pilate, but the flesh in the believer is no different from the flesh in the unbeliever, and when allowed its way it issues in the same works in both.

But the analogy between David and Pilate is even closer. What was it that caused David to sacrifice Uriah in order to shield himself? It was his love of the world, his determination to preserve his place and reputation among men at all costs. Love of his fair name in the world, resolved that under no circumstances would he be branded as an adulterer, so whatever stood in the way must be removed. He contrived various expedients to preserve his character, but these were baffled; so just as the lust of the eye led him to adultery with Bath-sheba, now the pride of life goaded him to the murder of her husband. And was it not the same with Pilate? …”*

- Quoted form ‘The Life of David’ by A. W. PINK

* * *

PART 2

COLIN HOWELL’S CONFESSION

AT HAZEL STEWART’S TRIAL*

* The following is a selection only of the many reports published in the ‘Belfast Telegraph’.

FIRST DAY OF PROSECUTION CASE

BELEFAST TELEGRAPH, WEDNESDAY FEBRUARY 9, 2011

* She went along with murder plan because she was scared of lover Howell, court told.

* She ‘let dentist into her home to poison husband.’

* Killer wanted to marry Stewart and start a new life.

* Double killings were a ‘joint plan for selfish ends.’

Dentist’s proposal came four years after the outrage

By DEBORAH McALEESE

Killer dentist Colin Howell asked his ex-lover Hazel Stewart to marry him and start a new life in Scotland after he had murdered her husband and his wife.

Coleraine Crown Court heart yesterday that Howell and Stewart continued their affair for five years after the murders.

Crown prosecutor Ciaran Murphy QC said that Howell and Stewart resumed a sexual relationship just weeks after the funerals of their partners.

He said the relationship was conducted in secret for a while, but by 1994 he was taking his children over to her house and they had gone on holidays together to Newcastle, Co. Down, and the Lake District in England.

The court was told that Howell had gone to Scotland on holiday and saw two dental practices for sale. He proposed to Stewart in 1995 and suggested that they resettle in Scotland but she said no.

Their relationship ended the following year when she began dating another man who she had met in the gym.

The court also heard that Stewart became pregnant to Howell the year before the murders. They both travelled to London where she had an abortion.

When Stewart ended the relationship, the court was told that Howell became angry.

Stewart told police: “He prowled the back of the house, he drove up and down, he wouldn’t let me go, I was scared. He was angry.”

Stewart later married her second husband, retired police officer David Stewart.

Howell married his second wife Kyle. She has since filed for divorce.

Officer who found bodies ‘doubted it was suicide pact’

By DAVID YOUNG

An off-duty detective who discovered the bodies of Lesley Howell and Trevor Buchanan in a fume-filled garage raised concerns with investigating officers that their deaths were not suicide.

David Green told Coleraine Court he had suspicions that dentist Colin Howell, who 18 years later confessed to their murders, may have been involved and had alerted three detectives.

“I believe something had happened which was not good and obviously the suspicion fell on Mr Howell.” He said.

But despite his reservations, the original police investigation in 1991 concluded that the pair had taken their own lives in a bizarre suicide pact.

The finding was based in part on the evidence of Howell and his lover Hazel Stewart, Mr Buchanan’s wife, who is now on trial for the double murder.

They told detectives they believed their spouses killed themselves because they could not come to terms with their affair - when in actual fact they had been murdered.

Mr Green was a member of the same church as the Howells and Buchanans and on the day after their murder, church elder James Flanagan approached him and said Colin Howell was worried because his wife and Mr Buchanan, also a policeman, had gone missing.

Mr Flanagan had gone to check a house in Cartlerock earlier that morning at the dentist’s request but had found nothing.

With Howell having rung him again to ask if he would take another look, the elder asked Mr Green, a then senior detective in the Royal Ulster Constabulary, to accompany him. This time Mr Green checked the garage of the house, which sat in a row called the Twelve Apostles, and made the grim discovery.

“I could actually see blue smoke still in the air, though it looked as if it had been there for a while,” he said.

Mr Buchanan’s lifeless body was slumped in the driver’s seat of a car and Mrs Howell was lying dead in the boot surrounded by family pictures with earphones in her ears.

Mr Green, an experienced detective who at that time had been in the police for seventeen years, said something told him it was not a simple suicide.

Giving evidence in the trial of Stewart, the now retired officer said he was very suspicious about how he found the bodies.

“I was just unhappy with the scene and really became suspicious about the whole thing.”

Pressed by a detective lawyer, Mr Green said “he couldn’t put his finger on” exactly what troubled him about the garage.

The detective was stationed in Londonderry, but he told the court he voiced his concerns with three senior detectives from Coleraine who were working on the case.

‘They met and he outlined plan to murder their partners …

she never objected to it’

By DEBORAH McALEESE

In his confession to police, Howell said he first came up with the idea to murder his wife and Mr Buchanan on May 14, 1991.

He said at that time his wife was distressed over his affair and her father’s death. Howell said he rang Stewart asking her to meet him the following day, and it was then that he outlined his plot “from start to finish”.

“He said she said he was crazy and they wouldn’t get away with it,” said Mr. Murphy.

“She never objected to it.”

Howell then claimed to have given Stewart tablets his late father-in-law had been taking in order to drug her husband on the day he planned to kill him.

When they arrived Howell said he initially was unable to contact Stewart, as she was gone out for the day, but she called back later when she said he reminded her about the tablets. He claimed he told her he would ring her house phone, hanging up immediately so the receiver just made a single clicking noise, when he had killed Lesley.

That night, as his wife lay sleeping on the sofa of their home, Howell laid a hose pipe through the house, placed it beside her mouth and lay a douvet over her head.

She stirred as the poison filled her lungs so Howell held the douvet around her head while she died.

He said she muttered their son Matthew’s name as she desperately gasped for breath. The couple’s four children were in bed at the time.

Howell said he then placed his wife’s body in the boot of his car and rang Stewart.

“When she heard the click she would know Lesley was dead,” Mr Murphy explained to the jury.

Howell said she phoned him straight back.

“He said he knew then he had clearance to go over to the house,” said Murphy.

The dentist said he had briefed Stewart on what she needed to do ahead of his arrival.

Her car needed to be out of the garage so he could drive in, to make sure her husband was asleep and had taken the drugs, that the fireplace was clear so she could burn the hosepipe and that clothes were laid out so she could dress her dead husband.

When he arrived, he told police Stewart was panicking but that he didn’t pay her much attention.

Mr Buchanan was in the bedroom asleep when Howell ran the hose pipe through the house and laid it on his pillow.

He awoke and Howell ran in to tackle him.

They both slid off the bed during a struggle and Howell finally held him down and forced the pipe into the corner of his mouth.

When he was dead, the dentist said he dressed the policeman in the Jeans, shirt, jumper, socks and shoes that Stewart had laid out in the spare room.

He then placed the bodies in the boot of the car with a bicycle over them, drove them to Castlerock and staged the suicide scene. When he finally returned home he said he phoned Stewart to make sure she had cleaned the house, burnt the pipe, and to tell her he had suffered a bruise to his head during the struggle.

Mr Murphy said Howell told Stewart: “You have to say when you are interviewed by police that Trevor came to my house and we had a struggle and Lesley came to your house in the early hours of the morning and you heard them talking.”

The QC added: “Both of them ultimately gave the same version of events to police.”

Howell said he resumed a sexual relationship with Stewart weeks after the funerals of their spouses and continued it for five years, at first secretly, but by 1994 he said he was taking his children round to her house and that they had gone on holidays to Newcastle, Co. Down, and the Lake District in England.

He said he asked her to marry him in 1995 and that he had gone to view two dentistry practices in Scotland in the hope of starting a new life with Stewart and their families.

“She didn’t want that,” said Murphy.

Their relationship ended in 1996 when Stewart began seeing another man, Trevor McAuley. She later married her second husband, retired police officer David Stewart. On the same day that Howell confessed to the police, officers went to Stewart’s home.

‘I did not want to hear it. I put my hands over my ears’

Mr Murphy said that when she was cautioned she replied: “What? What has been said?”

Stewart was then taken to Coleraine police station where she was interviewed over a number of days and gave different versions of what happened.

Initially she said she did not know what Howell had planned, that she was “weak and vunerable” and was scared for her life, as he [was] controlling. She said she felt at times that she was in love with Howell. She said that Howell would never have left Lesley and that one day he said there was a way for them to be together, and that was to kill her husband and his wife.

She allegedly told investigating officers: “Months or weeks before in the car he said something about how this is the only way. I didn’t want to discuss it, he had it fixed in his own mind.

“When he came round with the car maybe I should have done something, I was scared for the children.”

The court heard that on the night of the murder she stood in the bedroom and at one stage looked out and saw her husband lying in the corridor in his boxer shorts. She said she did not want to see him, and she was scared the children would come out of their room.

She said her mistake was getting involved with Howell.

After Howell arrived and ran the hose pipe through the house, she said she heard a struggle in her husband’s bedroom.

She said: “I didn’t want to hear it, I put my hands over my ears, I didn’t want to hear it, I was so scared.”

Stewart told police that after Howell had removed her husband’s body she opened the windows to let the fumes out, vacuumed the carpet and washed and changed the bed sheets.

Asked by police if she had got rid of evidence, she said: “I suppose you could put it like that, I never thought of it like that, I just needed to get the room tidied up.”

She then got sticks and coal and lit a fire to burn the hose pipe, just as Howell had instructed her to do.

In her later interviews she admitted that she had encouraged her husband to take a temazepam tablet that Howell had given her, telling her to crunch it up in his food.

She said Howell wanted her to drug her husband. “He had to have something in him to relax a bit. If Trevor hadn’t taken it he (Howell) couldn’t have gone on with it.”

Stewart said she had lied to protect herself, as well as her two children.

When the police put it to her that she knew Trevor was going to be killed that night, she replied: “Yes.”

‘I wanted the whole thing stopped and I didn’t stop it’

She also allegedly told police: “I wasn’t in good form that day. I knew something would happen. I wanted the whole thing stopped and I didn’t stop it.”

Mr Murphy said that during police interview detectives put it to her that money was never a motivation, but that the motive was for her and Howell “to be alone and to be together”, to which she allegedly replied: “Yes.”

Mr Murphy told the court that there was no doubt Stewart had engaged in a joint enterprise to kill Mrs Howell and Mr Buchanan.

“The purpose was to rid them of their partners so they could be together.” He said.

“Hazel Stewart knew what was going to happen.”

Mr Murphy said Stewart knew Mrs Howell was about to be killed and did nothing to stop it, and that she facilitated the murder of her own husband.

“She did that to facilitate the plan.”

He added: “She led him in and she saw what he was doing, she prepared clothes to be put on her dead husband.

“She stood feet away knowing her husband was struggling for his last breaths. She showed total and utter callous disregard for her husband and endorsed and encouraged exactly what Colin Howell was doing.”

+ + +

DAY TWO OF THE DOUBLE MURDER TRIAL

BELFAST TELEGRAPH, THURSDAY FEBRUARY 10, 2011

* Killer passed on note for his lover on the day of wife’s funeral

* He tried to electrocute wife as she lay in bath, court told

* Pals tell court they suspected double deaths were not suicide

* Detective denies concerns of foul play were raised

Howell’s letter to lover sent on day of wife’s funeral

By DEBORAH McALEESE

Killer dentist Colin Howell asked a fellow church member to forward a love letter to Hazel Stewart on the day of his wife’s funeral, a court has heard.

In the letter Howell said he had taken a mother from her children, but that he believed “God will provide for them.”

He also pleaded with Stewart to continue the relationship after they both had time to grieve over the deaths of their partners.

Stewart (47) denies murdering her husband Trevor Buchanan and Howell’s wife Lesley in May 1991. Their bodies were found in a fume-filled car in Castlerock in an apparent suicide pact.

Her former lover Howell (51) has already pleaded guilty to the charges and was jailed for 21 years.

At Coleraine Crown Court yesterday, Derek McAuley, an acquaintance of Howell’s and fellow member of Coleraine Baptist Church, said that on the day of the funerals the dentist gave him a letter in a sealed envelope and asked him to deliver it to Stewart.

Mr McAuley said before the letter was passed to Stewart, he steamed the envelope open, photocopied its contents and showed it to John Hansford, the pastor at Coleraine Baptist Church.

In the six-page letter, read to the court, Howell asked Stewart if it is true that she believes it is best that they never get together again.

“If it is true, ring me and say it’s true. Don’t allow me to have hope if there is none, you will kill me,” he wrote.

“I plead with you, if with your mind you’re saying no and you must destroy our future, I will not try to change your mind no matter how lonely I get.

“The pastor told me he will do everything in his power to stop us getting together.

“He is a very clever man and capable of convincing you our marriage would be a disaster.”

Howell then mentioned Stewart’s two children, Lisa and Andrew.

“I heard Lisa twice say she did not like me,” he added.

“That is hard, Trevor is gone so when I come back on the scene in a year’s time she will be in need of a father figure and the threat I used to be will be replaced by need.

“I will talk to them about Trevor.

“I will allow Andrew to cut the grass and do the manly things his father did.

“They will be so loved by me that the difficulties, which there will be, will be overcome and sorted out.”

He added that they both must take time to grieve for their dead partners as he thinks they had “underestimated this response in our hearts”.

“During this time we must not see or talk to each other,” he wrote.

“When we miss each other we must look at their things and photographs and concentrate on our grief. I miss Lesley and am sorry for all the sins I have done to her. I must grieve for that.

“Once it is gone we can give ourselves to each other.”

Howell said that if enough time passed and her family saw how much he cared for her and loved her, then they would accept them both.

“I will wait for you if you are convinced that this is correct,” he said.

Howell added: “You will lose many friends but we can walk down the street together proud of each other. We won’t lose all our friends if we take our time. I have taken a mother from her children.

“But God will provide for them.

“I hope and pray it will be you. Love Colin.”

‘I had a number of suspicions about the deaths …

I informed the police about these’

By DEBORAH McALEESE

Hazel Stuart bit her lip as one of Lesley Howell’s dearest friends took to the witness box. Margaret Topping appeared nervous as she was called by Crown Prosecutor Ciaran Murphy QC to give her evidence.

She did not look towards Stewart, who watched her carefully from the dock.

Mrs Topping told the jury that she and Lesley became good friends when the Howells first arrived in the north coast in the early 1980s and joined Coleraine Baptist Church, where she and her husband were members.

In 1990 Mrs Howell confided in Mrs Topping that her husband was having an affair with Stewart, who was married to Trevor Buchanan at the time.

“Lesley told me about it. She was very sad, embarrassed and hurt and kept asking why she was not number one? At times she was distraught. Her family and children were very important to her and she loved Colin. On one occasion she said when this is over, and I can trust Colin again, I want to renew our vows and make a fresh start’,” Mrs Topping said.

The affair was exposed in September 1990 and Howell and Stewart both claimed that it had ended. Mrs Topping said, however, that Lesley discovered that after this Howell and Stewart had gone to Bangor, Co Down, for a weekend together.

Mrs Topping said that during a visit to his house Howell took her to one side to say how sorry he was about the affair and that it would never happen again.

“He was very remorseful and apologetic to me. He said he couldn’t help it,” she said. On hearing that Mrs Howell and Mr Buchanan had been found dead, Mrs Topping said she had a number of suspicions about their deaths. She said her suspicions were aroused because of a number of incidents that Lesley had confided in her about, in particular one, not long before her murder, where Howell had almost electrocuted her in the bath.

“Before her death she told me that it was so awful that he couldn’t possibly have meant it.”

Mrs Topping said that after Mrs Howell’s father had died she told her that any money he had left was for her and the children, not Howell. She said that Howell’s business was in trouble and she was unable to get any money out of the bank machine because they had no money.

On another occasion, Mrs Howell told her friend that Howell. was giving her some tablets. Apparently the mother-of-four’s brother, Christopher Clarke, had, confronted Howell about administering her with the drugs.

“These things aroused my suspicion. After the death I told police about the incidents and the money.

I would like to say what a fine friend she was. I was very fond of her. She was generous, kind and a devoted mother, and she was a great loss.”

‘I thought it was suspicious, but I couldn’t work out how it was done’

Mrs Topping’s husband, Dr Alan Topping, also told the court that he too had his suspicions about the deaths of Mr Buchanan and Mrs Howell.

“I do not think everyone did believe it was a suicide;” said Dr Topping.

He told the court that a few days after the death he met with police officer David Green, who was also a church member, and told him he was suspicious.

“David Green and myself discussed this in our house. I thought it was suspicious but I couldn’t work out how it might have been done. I thought maybe some sedation was given, that some substance may have been injected. I thought a post-mortem would show puncture wounds, but it didn’t.”

Mr Buchanan was friendly with Dr Topping and three nights before he was murdered he called to the Toppings’ home to watch a football match.

“Trevor was a very pleasant man, very open and good company. He was good to be with. On Wednesday, May 15, 1991, Trevor called to the house to watch a football game. He told me that Hazel was considering the marriage and whether or not it should progress. The impression given was that she wanted time out to consider it. Trevor stayed over that night. He was very concerned and upset. He wanted the marriage to continue. He wasn’t depressed and did not express any intent to harm himself,” said Dr Topping.

However, retired RUC Detective Inspector Jack Hutchinson, who was the senior investigating officer in the case at the time, insisted that nobody had raised any concerns about the deaths with him.

He said as part of his investigations he visited the scene where the bodies were discovered and took statements from Howell and Stewart.

“We were seeking an explanation for two untimely deaths.

“I have no recollection of any concerns. People felt bad but nobody raised any concerns. Nobody made any categoric insinuations of criminal complicity in this matter,” he told the jury.

Mr Hutchinson also said that he did not inquire into Howell’s financial background. The morning after the double murders, Howell contacted a fellow church member, Derek McAuley, who lived close to the Buchanans and was a good friend of Trevor’s.

Mr McAuley said Howell phoned him at around 9am and asked him to come over because Lesley and Trevor “had gone off in the middle of the night and had not returned”.

“He appeared uneasy, concerned and anxious,” said Mr McAuley.

Howell asked him to go to his late father-in-law’s home in Castlerock as he thought that his wife and Trevor might be there.

Mr McAuley went to the house and searched inside but did not see anything. He then looked through the garage window and saw the car with the door open, but did not see any bodies.

Later that day another member of the church found the bodies.

A few days later, at Howell’s wife’s funeral, Howell handed Mr McAuley a letter in a sealed envelope and asked him to pass it on to Stewart.

Mr McAuley said he steamed the letter open because he felt it was wrong that Howell was still pursuing Stewart. He then photocopied the letter and showed it to John Hansford, the pastor at Coleraine Baptist Church who was offering Howell and counselling.

There was a bush in the courtroom as the contents of the love letter were read out.

In the letter Howell begged Stewart not to destroy their future together. “I have taken a mother from her children, but God will provide another for them. I only hope and pray it will be you;” he wrote.

In the letter he also said: “Do not allow me to have hope when there is none.”

He claimed the pastor who was counselling them both “had a clever mind and would do everything in his power to stop them getting together.” He said the pastor believed that if they married, the marriage would be a disaster.

He also said: “If in your heart you really decide it is over for us, then you must say it.”

He told Stewart that he could become a father figure to her children and that he would teach her son Andrew “manly things”.

Members of Mr Buchanan’s family began to weep as they listened to evidence from one of his colleagues, Lesley Clyde, who was also a police constable in Coleraine at the time.

‘He told me that he loved Hazel and wanted his marriage to work’

Mr Clyde told the court that Mr Buchanan had loved his wife and his children and had desperately wanted to make his marriage work.

“He told me that he loved Hazel and his two children and wanted his marriage to work.

“He loved his family very much.

“He was assured that the affair was over but he suspected it was still ongoing and found it very difficult to cope with. He emphasised time and time again that he loved Hazel and his children very much.

“He belonged to the Baptist Church and his Christian beliefs were that once together, always together.

“He did not believe in separation or divorce and was having difficulty coping with that.

“He felt his wife was trying to give the affair up but Colin Howell was pressurising her. That was what he wanted to believe as well,” said Mr Clyde.

Detective insists no-one questioned suicide verdict

By DEBORAH McALEESE

The detective in charge of the investigation into the deaths of Trevor Buchanan and Lesley Howell has insisted that nobody raised concerns with him over the suicide verdict.

Jack Hutchinson, who was a detective Inspector in the RUC when the bodies were found in a car filled with fumes in May, 1991, told Coleraine Crown Court yesterday that no-one suggested that the father-of-two and mother-of-four may have been killed.

“I have no recollection of any concerns. People felt bad but nobody raised any concerns. Nobody made any categoric insinuations of criminal complicity in this matter,” said Mr Hutchinson.

He also told the court that he had not made any inquiries into Colin Howell’s financial background.

It was claimed earlier that Howell’s wife Lesley had confided to a friend that his business was struggling financially and that she was going to make sure he did not receive any money that her father had left her in his will.

On Tuesday, however, David Green, an off-duty detective from another police district, who discovered the bodies, told the trial he had voiced his suspicion to Mr Hutchinson and two other officers.

“I was very unhappy having visited the scene,” he said. “I was just unhappy with the scene and really became suspicious about the whole thing.”

He added: “I believed something had happened which was not good, and obviously the suspicion fell on Mr. Howell.”

A post-mortem investigation carried out after the bodies were discovered found that Mr Buchanan and Mre Howell had died from monoxide poisoning.

An inquest into the deaths concluded that they had died in a suicide pact because they were unable to cope with Colin Howell and Hazel Stewart’s affair.

Eighteen years later, however, the investigation was reopened after Howell confessed to police that he had murdered his wife Lesley and Stewart’s husband Trevor.

He said he used a pipe attached to his car exhaust to poison his wife as she slept on the sofa and murdered Trevor using the same method as he slept in bed.

He then staged a suicide scene by leaving the bodies in a fume-filled car in a garage in Castlerock.

Earlier this week the court heard that his former lover Stewart told police during an interview that she allowed Howell into her house to kill her husband.

The mother-of-two also allegedly admitted cutting up and burning the hose pipe that was used to poison her husband and Mrs Howell.

Stewart allegedly told police that she had encouraged her husband to take a temazepam tablet before Howell arrived to kill him as they lay in bed.

After the murder she then changed the bedsheets and vacuumed the bedroom carpet.

Howell almost electrocuted his wife

By DEBORAH McALEESE

Colin Howell almost electrocuted his wife Lesley as she relaxed in the bath a short time before he murdered her, it was revealed.

Lesley’s close friend Margaret Topping told Coleraine Court yesterday that the mother-of-four had mentioned the incident after confiding in her that Howell was having an affair with playschool assistant Hazel Stewart.

Mrs Topping, who met Lesley through Coleraine Baptist Church where they were both members, said her friend told her that Howell dropped an electrical cable into the bath water and she suffered an electric shock, but she was all right.

“She told me almost laughing. She said it was so awful he could not have meant it. But she told me, so that I would know,” she said.

The incident happened after Mrs Howell had given birth to her fourth child Jonathan, who was just four months old when she was killed.

The 31-year-old confided to Mrs Topping of Howell’s affair with Hazel Stewart.

Mrs Topping said that she had been suspicious after Mrs Howell’s body was discovered in a car alongside the body of Stewart’s husband Trevor Buchanan in an apparent suicide pact.

She told the court that Mrs Howell had also confided in her that Howell had been administering drugs to her.

Mrs Howell also insisted that he would not be getting any money she had inherited from her father’s will because she feared his dental practice was in financial difficulties. She said she had been unable to get any money out of the bank because there was no money there.

“These things made me suspicious. After the deaths I told police about the incidents and the money,” said Mrs Topping.

Her husband, Dr Alan Topping, told the court that not everyone believed Mrs Howell and Mr Buchanan had committed suicide.

He said he raised his concerns with police officer and church member David Green, who had discovered the bodies in a car at the back of Mrs Howell’s father’s house in May 1991.

“A few days after the deaths I met David Green and told him I was suspicious about the deaths. David Green and myself discussed this in our house,” said Dr Topping.

On Mat 15, a few days before the deaths, Constable Buchanan came to his house to watch a football match, Dr. Topping said.

He said that night Mr Buchanan told him that Hazel “was considering the marriage and whether or not it should progress.”

Dr Topping added: “the impression given was that she wanted time out to consider it. Trevor stayed over that night. He was very concerned and upset. He wanted the marriage to continue.

“He wasn’t depressed and did not express any intent to harm himself.”

+ + +

DAY THREE OF THE DOUBLE MURDER TRIAL

BELFAST TELEGRAPH, FRIDAY FEBRUARY 11, 2011

Killer Howell ‘knocked his lover out before sex’

Court told dentist put accused to sleep with jab prior to intercourse

By PATRICE DOUGAN

Killer dentist Colin Howell regularly injected his former lover with a sedative before he had sex with her, it was revealed in court yesterday.

On the third day of Hazel Stewart’s trial, Coleraine Crown Court heart how Howell would come round to her house and inject her with something so he could “enjoy sexual gratification with her” without her feeling “guilt”.

The court also heard how on one occasion Howell “almost overdid it”, and feared she would not wake up.

Mrs Stewart (47) is accused of killing her husband Trevor Buchanan and Howell’s wife Lesley, and staging it to look like suicide.

Giving evidence, Stewart’s former boyfriend Trevor McAuley said she told him that during her relationship with Howell he would inject her using a “floppy needle”.

“She would pass out and she wouldn’t know anything about it until the next morning when she woke up,” he said.

“I remember her saying what a nice feeling it was when she drifted off.

“The purpose of it was so that he could enjoy sexual gratification with her without her feeling the guilt of it, while he was able to have pleasure.”

He also said: “One occasion he almost overdid it. He gave her too much and I think he was quite concerned that he wasn’t going to be able to get her round again”.

During the evidence Mr McAuley - who had a seven-year relationship with Mrs Stewart between 1996 and 2004 - described how Howell refused to accept his affair with Stewart was over.

The disgraced dentist, now serving 21 years for the murder of his wife and Mr Buchanan, would sit outside her house and drive off “at great speed” when Mr McAuley left, telephoned the house on several occasions, and was even discovered standing at the bottom of the garden staring into the house.

When Mr McAuley said he was going to confront Howell about his behaviour, Stewart told him “not to approach him because I had no idea what he was capable of”.

He also said Howell had offered to pay him to end the relationship with Stewart.

Other alarming details about the pair emerged throughout the day, including how they began their affair while bathing their children after a day at the beach.

With Lesley Howell pregnant, she went to bed while Stewart and Howell agreed they would bath the children.

Stewart later admitted to the pastor of the Coleraine Baptist Church during marriage counselling sessions that this was when the affair started.

Throughout the sessions, which each of the couples attended separately, Pastor John Hansford said he “found it difficult to get her to see her personal responsibility and involvement in the adulterous relationship.

“In some way I felt it was quite difficult in that Howell was not particularly forthcoming and open,” he said. “I felt that when I spoke to her about acknowledging the fact that wrong had been committed, that she always seemed to step back from that.”

He said Stewart was unhappy with her marriage to Mr Buchanan, who she felt to be unexciting and lacking in ambition, particularly with regards to his job as a police constable.

“I sensed at the time that perhaps there was some sense of transition in her life from her childhood, from her upbringing, from her schooling, to a marriage to Trevor that hadn’t brought all that she had anticipated,” he told the court.

“I remember her also saying on one occasion that she felt Trevor was not ambitious and she felt that was a negative quality, that he was quite comfortable with being a constable.”

Going into more detail, he said: “Some of the things she mentioned was that she had found Trevor to be a very ordinary guy, she reflected on her own childhood and upbringing which she felt at the time had been fairly restrictive, and that she had wished that Trevor had been a little bit more of an exciting husband.

“I said to her that Trevor was a really good guy.

“I had seen him travelling around when he was on duty, talking to members of the public animatedly, doing what in my opinion was a first rate job as a police constable.

“I can remember saying to Hazel he may not be the most exciting man you could have married, but the qualities of commitment and faithfulness that he exhibited were not to be despised, and were in fact qualities to be cherished.”

A hug for the man adulterer would murder

By PATRICE DOUGAN

Convicted killer Colin Howell apologised and embraced the husband of the woman he was having an affair with just weeks before he killed him, it was revealed in court yesterday.

The disgraced dentist later “bragged” about how clever he was to fool the police.

Coleraine Crown Court heard that both couples volunteered to undergo marriage guidance counselling from their pastor, John Hansford.

The sessions had been progressing so well, the pastor of the church believed, it was time Howell and Trevor Buchanan met face to face.

Giving his evidence, Mr Hansford described how Howell said he wanted to express his “sincere apologies” to Mr Buchanan and how he facilitated the meeting. “I felt that the counselling was making some discernable progress,” he said.

All four had agreed upon counselling with the pastor and to keep the affair as quiet as possible.

They attended counselling as couples and individually, but the four had not met together.

After about four months Mr Hansford said he felt they had “reached a point where Colin and Trevor could meet together and in special circumstances could talk to each other”.

About six weeks before Mr. Buchanan was found dead alongside Howell’s wife, the pastor arranged a meeting.

“The whole meeting was scheduled for 30 minutes, in the first five minutes I said some introductory words, and Colin said he was prepared to seek Trevor’s forgiveness and apologise with him, I was witness to that,” he said.

“Then they embraced each other and I said ‘there are private things I’m sure you want to say to each other’, and I left.”

But the court heard how Howell and Mrs Stewart were still carrying on their affair.

Giving evidence to the court. Mrs Howell’s brother Christopher Clarke yesterday described how when he was staying at the Howell’s house after his father Henry had died, he had noticed cars had been moved in the middle of the night and suspected the affair was still going on.

He also told how Howell had admitted to him he had been drugging his wife.

Having a couple of drinks in the house Mr Clarke said he was “surprised as to how quickly she (Lesley) had become very drunk”.

“At that point he (Howell) volunteered the information that he had given her a sleeping tablet,” he said. “I remonstrated with him about her combining sedatives with alcohol”.

Howell told him he had given it to her because she was so upset over her father’s death.

This was also something that Mrs Howell had told Pastor Hansford, that “Colin was giving her medicine to help her sleep”.

Howell later inherited his wife’s half of her father’s estate, worth around £14,000. He also inherited £212,466 which his wife Lesley held in a bank account.

After this had been cleared Mr Howell repaid a £10,000 loan to his friend, Dr Marshall Reilly.

Barely a flicker in the dock as most private of details were made public

By Patrice Dougan

Sitting in the dark, Hazel Stewart remained stony-faced throughout the third day of her trial for the murder of her first husband and her former lover’s wife.

Even through evidence outlining intimate details of her relationship with Howell - including how he injected her with drugs before they had sex - she sat with her eyes to the floor, brow slightly furrowed, giving away no emotion.

It was the feature identified in some of the evidence given - the court heard how she had been emotionless when told of her husband Trevor Buchanan’s death.

Elizabeth Hansford, wife of Pastor John from Coleraine Baptist Church, described to the court how she broke the news of Mr Buchanan and Lesley Howell’s deaths to Stewart.

Mr and Mrs Hansford had received a telephone call on Sunday May 19, 1991 after morning service informing them that the bodies of two of their congregation had been found in what looked like an apparent suicide pact. The pair agreed that Mr. Hansford would break the news to Collin Howell and his wife would inform Hazel Stewart (then Buchanan).

Finding Stewart was not at home, she inquired of the children where she was. They directed her to a neighbour’s house, the home of other members of the congregation, Hilary and Derek McAuley.

“I told them about the bodies being found in the car and it looked like suicide.” She said.

“I remember the look of shock on their faces, I remember them standing completely still, an almost cartoon-like version of shock - their jaws dropped open and silent.

“I went into the lounge on my own, Hazel was there. I sat down beside her on the sofa and broke the news to her that Trevor’s body had been found in a car in Castlerock, along with Lesley.

“What struck me at the time, and has remained with me, was the contrast in her reaction with Hilary and Derek. There was no shocked expression, she didn’t seem to give any emotional response at all. She seemed emotionless.

“Immediately I finished telling her the deaths she put her hands over her face and she kept them there for a considerable time.”

Mrs Hansford also gave evidence about how she felt Mr Howell’s reaction to the death of his wife had been strange.

Before the funeral she had visited Howell in his home.

“I remember him saying that he had gone out to play some sport,” she said. “And he felt hungry and went down to the local chippy to get some fish and chips. It seemed to me an unusual thing for a man to do when his wife had just died.

“There’s nothing wrong with playing sport and eating fish and chips, but it just seemed somewhat callous.” She also told the court how, during his wife’s funeral, Howell had taken one of his children to the front of the church and “touched the coffin and said ‘mummy’s in there’”.

Coleraine Crown Court heard how during her affair with Howell, before her husband’s death, Stewart had become pregnant and because she “wasn’t sure whose it was” Howell arranged and paid for her to have an abortion in a London clinic.

Stewart’s former boyfriend, Trevor McAuley, described how Stewart was “extremely upset” when she told him about the termination after Howell threatened to tell him “something that would jeopardise our relationship”.

It also came to light that Howell had organised three abortions for his first wife Lesley Howell before they were married.

During his relationship with Stewart, Trevor McAuley said they had discussed her dead husband on a few occasions, but he said: “She actually appreciated that I didn’t pry into that.”

He described one occasion when the couple were out for a walk and she asked him if he believed Mr Buchanan would be in Heaven or Hell because he had taken his own life.

“I answered her that I wasn’t a judge to decide whether someone went to Heaven or Hell, all I knew was the Bible says that no one has a right to take a life other than God,” he said.

“Hazel’s answer was that no matter what I said, she believed that Trevor was in Heaven.”

+ + +

DOUBLE MURDER TRIAL AT COLERAINE CROWN COURT

BELFAST TELEGRAPH, TUESDAY FEBRUARY 15, 2011

The Time had come for me to tell the truth

By DEBORAH McALEESE

Not a murmur was heard in the court room as Crown prosecutor Ciaran Murphy QC got to his feet and declared: “I propose to call Colin David Howell.”

The tense silence was broken by the shuffling of feet and the rattle of a door handle before the killer dentist appeared unceremoniously in the room.

Hazel Stewart seemed to shrink into the corner of the dock and did not look towards her former lover as he walked just inches away from her through the dock and across the courtroom to the witness stand.

Howell, wearing his wedding ring, sat with his back to Stewart until handed the Bible to take his oath and ordered to face the jury. Speaking softly, Howell (51) told the court that he had finally decided to confess to his crimes, which were committed almost two decades ago, because “the time had come when the truth had to be told”.

“I believed there were still scars that needed to be put right and I wanted to tell the truth,” he said.

For almost five hours in the witness stand Howell spoke coolly about his affair with Stewart, the events running up to the murders, his execution of the murders and his confession.

The mother-of-two watched from the dock as he described how their affair began. He said he was unhappy within his marriage, that his wife Lesley was “very astute and intelligent” and he often felt “secondary to her”.

“That made me more vunerable to seeing someone who approved of me,” he said.

He met Steward while leaving his daughter at the playschool where she was a child care assistant. They became friendly when they both took their children swimming as part of a group organised by the church.

“She approached me, impressed by how I was doing the front crawl. She asked me to teach her because she had a problem with breathing. I would give her some lessons.

“One day she had put on moisturiser and her skin was very slippery. I ran my hand up her tummy. She didn’t object. I said to her ‘I’m having illicit thoughts about you’, and she said ‘I’m not so innocent myself’. I saw this as validity to go ahead with an affair.”

When their affair was exposed both couples entered into marriage counselling organised by Coleraine Baptist Church. But Howell said he missed Stewart and the affair resumed a few months later.

“The cognitive decision to end the affair was done with sincerity, but I hadn’t moved on in my heart. There was a strong emotional attachment with Hazel,” he said.

Howell said that on May 13, 1991, less that a week before the murders, he came up with the idea to kill his wife and Stewart’s husband Trevor Buchanan.

He said that, after the death of her father and discovering his affair, his wife Lesley was in “a very dark place”.

“On May 13 I was in bed with Lesley. She had been grieving very heavily. It was an extremely dark, dark grief. About 3am she sat up and she said - its as if she had a premonition - ‘this is going to be over soon. I’m going to go to Heaven’. I heard a voice say ‘I can help you’. Then I had a revelation of the plan that was later enacted out.”

Howell said he arranged to meet Stewart the next day to share his plan with her and ask for her assistance.

“Her first reaction was ‘we’ll be caught’. She was afraid of being caught.”

He added that Stewart “didn’t object to the principle” of killing Mr Buchanan and Lesley.

He said that he gave her tablets to make sure Mr Buchanan fell asleep. When she put the tablets in her handbag he said he “felt it was the moment when the plan was agreed”.

Chilling testimony of a callous murderer

Dentist claims lover Stewart ‘was willing accomplice who

had no objections over plot to kill their partners’

By DEBORAH McALEESE

Killer dentist Colin Howell has told a court that his former lover Hazel Stewart did not object to his plan to kill her husband and his wife so they could be together.

Taking the stand to give evidence against Stewart, Howell said that he needed her help to make sure that his plan to murder their partners would work.

The 51-year-old said he came up with the plot as he lay in bed with his wife on May 13, 1991, just days before the murders.

Stewart (47) denies murdering her husband Trevor Buchanan and Howell’s wife Lesley in May 1991. Their bodies were discovered in a fume-filled car in Castlerock in an apparent suicide pact.

Howell has already pleaded guilty to the murders and was jailed for 21 years.

The killer told Coleraine Court that the day after he decided to murder the pair he asked Stewart to meet him so he could share his “solution” with her.

“Her first reaction was ‘we’ll be caught’. She was afraid of being caught. She said if she was caught she would slit her wrists.

“There had never been any talk before about killing Lesley and Trevor. I suspect she believed I had a plan to run away together. I wouldn’t have left Lesley because of the children,” he said.

Howell added however that Stewart “didn’t object to the principle of killing Trevor and Lesley”.

He said he told Stewart that he needed her to give her husband tablets to fall asleep before the murder.

“She took the tablets and put them in her handbag. When I gave her the tablets she understood the full plan. I felt it was the moment when the plan was agreed upon,” he said.

The court was told that on the night of the murder Howell saw a tuna sandwich on a counter in Buchanan’s kitchen with bits of blue tablet visible.

“I was annoyed that my accomplice hadn’t been careful to crunch them up finely enough. It was clumsy.”

On the night of the murder, which was the same day as his son’s birthday party, his wife was asleep in their living room. Howell said he hooked the hose pipe to his car, stretched it into the living room, placed the nozzle by his wife’s mouth and then turned on his car engine.

Once he was sure his wife was dead he opened the windows and then called Stewart to say he had “finished” with his wife.

He then placed her body in the boot of the car, freewheeled the car out of the driveway, then he drove past Coleraine police station to the Buchanan’s home.

He said Stewart opened the garage for him and he stretched the hose into Mr Buchanan’s bedroom where he was sleeping. Mr Buchanan stirred and during a struggle Howell forced the nozzle into Mr Buchanan’s mouth and he went limp after a few breaths. He then drove both bodies to his late father’s house in Castlerock where he staged a suicide scene.

Howell said his relationship with Stewart resumed about five or six years later and continued until 1996.

“We were trying to make something work which had begun with adultery then murder. We were trying to make something work that was rotten to the core,” he told the court.

Howell said he proposed to Stewart in 1995 and asked her to start a new life with him and their children in Scotland, but she turned him down.

“It changed after that. It became dark and difficult and challenging. I was relieved when she said no. It was a co-dependency linked by a dark secret. I proposed almost out of duty. I had killed her husband and left her two children fatherless. I didn’t feel I could end the relationship.”

He said the relationship continued on and off for another year but that he then discovered that Stewart was having an affair with someone else.

“It took about a year before I realised I was being two-timed. I was thinking to myself ‘I have been such a fool’. I was angry with myself. I felt so humiliated.”

Howell said that Stewart called him “in her soft, silky voice” to apologise and asked him to call to her house so they could talk.

“I have been accused of not being able to let go. But as far as I was concerned the relationship ended quite a few months before it had for Hazel,” he said.

He was the centre of attention … and loved it

It was as though Colin Howell was describing a complex dental procedure, not the murders of his wife and his lover’s husband.

Throughout his testimony to the court he used words like “the procedure”, “the process”, “the objective”, when referring to the killings.

He told the court that he would often “sanitise” his conversations with Stewart “to avoid the horror of what we were doing”.

For almost five hours the 51-year-old killer, who looks more slight and speaks more softly than imagined, coolly and methodically recalled to the court how he met his wife, the breakdown of their marriage, his affair with Stewart, how he came up with his murder plot and the execution of the killings.

There were a few brief moments when some emotion broke through. He appeared to choke back tears when his dead son Matthew was mentioned.

He again faltered briefly when he first began to describe his plan to kill his wife.

“I’m sorry. I did a terrible thing and it’s difficult,” he said, before going into detail of the murders.

Towards the end of the day he showed slight flashes of bitterness - or perhaps anger - when he spoke of how his relationship with Stewart finally ended when he discovered she was cheating on him.

Arrogant, manipulative and in need of admiration are just some of the descriptions of Howell by people who knew him.

The reason he sought out an affair in the first place, he said, was that he felt “secondary” to his wife and liked the attention he got from Stewart.

Yesterday it was clear that this was someone who clearly likes attention and being in control

He would often interrupt the Crown prosecutor if he felt he had not made his point clearly enough.

After being shunned by his church, family and friends, Howell appeared to enjoy having an audience again.

This was the Colin Howell show. He was the centre of attention and loving it.

+ + +

DAY FIVE OF THE HAZEL STEWART TRIAL IN FULL

BELFAST TELEGRAPH, WEDNESHAY FEBRUARY 16, 2011

Howell ‘trapped in a web woven by lover’

Killer admits he was mastermind but that Stewart ‘joined the waltz’

By DEBORAH McALEESE

Killer dentist Colin Howell has claimed he was trapped in a spider’s web woven by his former lover Hazel Stewart.

Taken to the witness stand to give evidence against his ex-mistress for a second day, Howell insisted that Stewart had seduced him from the start of their affair and that she was a willing participant in the murders of her husband Trevor Buchanan and his wife Lesley Howell.

“Flies go into spiders’ webs because they think there is some food for them there and I willingly went after the bait and we got caught together in the trap,” said Howell.

During four hours of evidence he also told the court:

* If forensic tests had been carried out on the body of Buchanan he may have been caught.

* He was the “mastermind” behind the murders but Stewart was happy to “join in the waltz”.

* Stewart entered into a “blood pact” with him when she had an abortion before the murders

* That everyone has the potential to kill.

Stewart (47), from Ballystrone Road, Coleraine, denies murdering her husband and Howell’s wife in May 1991.

Their bodies were discovered in a fume-filled car in Castlerock in an apparent suicide bid.

Howell pleaded guilty to the murders last year and was sentenced to 21 years in prison.

Yesterday at Coleraine Crown Court Howell said he was the mastermind behind the murders.

“I knew I was the mastermind. I had the intelligence to put the plan together. I am the major person in this plan.

“If I had been able to take all the blame I would have, but in the last two years I thought Hazel is not my responsibility,” he said.

He insisted, however, that Stewart was a willing participant in the killings and that, just as he had facilitated her abortion during their affair in 1990, she facilitated the two murders.

“Hazel initiated the desire to have it (the abortion) and I was the one with the ability. It was a joint venture. Hazel wanted it and I facilitated it. With the murders, I wanted it and Hazel facilitated it.

“We were waltzing in time. This is the perfect illustration of the harmony we had together.”

“All the side-stepping was done together. I was dragging her around the floor.

“I may have been the lead partner in that dance, but she was doing it in perfect harmony and willingly.”

Howell claimed that Stewart seduced him in 1990 and referred to their first sexual encounter when he said she invited him to her home to teach her the guitar.

“She was wearing a short denim mini skirt, a sleeveless low cut blouse and perfume and I know I was not there for guitar lessons,” he said.

However, defence lawyer Paul Ramsey QC told him: “You are, and have been the most of your adult life, a sexual predator.” Howell admitted that he was callous, merciless, devious and evil.

“Yes I was. I believe every human being has the potential to do what I did. But I did it and it sets me apart from humanity. All the adjectives put to me so far, I agree. That’s what I was, but I’m no longer that.

“What I did 20 years ago was the pinnacle of being callous and that has been hard to live with. My conscience became so crushed and all the things I had built around that, including my image, couldn’t cope with that,” he told the court.

He said that he was now ashamed, remorseful and sorrowful for what he did and wanted to help the families of his victims to get closure.

“The events of 20 years ago, the impact of that is still alive and affecting people.

“I am here because of the victims. I have set myself up to be a punch bag.

“I am here today to give people a chance for their wounds to be closed. I would not dare to ask for forgiveness.

“If anyone chooses to forgive me that is a good thing. I believe someone doesn’t truly recover from an injury unless they forgive”.

“Because of my success and status and wealth, that made me attractive to some families and I got a positive response.”

He denied that he controlled Stewart, who he at times would drug before they had sex.

Mr Ramsey said that Howell had agreed during police interviews in 2009 that Stewart was frightened of him that she was “kind and innocent” and easily led.

Howell said, however, that he had been agreeing with everything police had said, treating officers like church elders.

He said that Stewart had deceived him and that she painted herself as a victim.

“It is the thing that draws you to her, she appears to be the victim. It is like an advert for an orphanage in India.

“You want to get your wallet out. But those adverts have businessmen behind them collecting money from people,” he said.

Howell said he was within hours of opening up to police in 1998 about the murders but that he underwent a “religious conviction” after meeting a girl at a Sunday night church service where he claimed she told him his sins had “been forgiven and forgotten by God.”

He eventually confessed to police in January 2009, saying that he was overwhelmed by guilt.

This was one match the killer dentist was desperate to control

It was like a game of chess. Colin Howell spend several hours attempting to outwit his adversary, defence barrister Paul Ramsey QC.

This is a man who admits to enjoying competition and when he plays a sport he plays to win.

“In life you do not like to be a loser,” Mr Ramsey said to him.

“I don’t think anyone would,” Howell replied.

And this was one match that the killer dentist appeared desperate to be in control of.

When he was pronounced in court yesterday morning he seemed more self-assured as he walked to the witness stand.

“I’m prepared for what is coming today,” he told Mr Ramsey.

As he became more comfortable, the 51-year-old, who admitted he did not like when someone could match him intellectually, seemed to be tussling to be the barrister’s equal.

While he remained respectful, he refused to be submissive and was not reticent when he did not like the defence barrister’s line of questioning.

“I disagree with what is being inferred by you” and “you are misinterpreting what I said,” he declared on more than one occasion.

When asked if he was a controlling person he spoke at length about different types of control before adding: “It would be helpful if you could identify which control you mean.”

He also said to Mr Ramsey: “I’m maybe straying into something you don’t understand” when telling the jury of his “powerful bond” with Stewart.

Mr Ramsey used a number of adjectives to describe Howell - outgoing, ambitious, a leader, confident, competitive, callous, manipulative, merciless, evil.

“All the adjectives put to me so far, I agree. That’s what I was, but I’m no longer like that,” Howell said.

When asked if he could be described as a ladies’ man he added: “Because of my success and status and wealth, that made me attractive to some females and I got a positive response.”

On several occasions he referred to his intelligence.

“I’m totally ashamed I misused my ability of ingenuity and intelligence in the wrong way,” he added.

When talking about Stewart, he said: “If she went and did her GCSE’s and A Levels she wouldn’t do as well as me.”

He also referred to himself as the “mastermind” behind the murder plan.

“I knew I was the mastermind. I had the intelligence to put the plan together. I am the major person in this plan,” he told the jury.

Howell had clearly given deep thought to his testimony, often using colourful language to describe his relationship with Stewart.

Three times, while describing his relationship with the 47-year-old and their roles in the murders he spoke of how he and Stewart had “waltzed in perfect harmony.

“We were waltzing together in time. I may have been the lead partner in the waltz but she was doing it in perfect harmony,” he said.

He also referred to a “contract in blood” between him and Stewart when she had an abortion and often referred to their “powerful bond” which could only be broken through confession and seeking forgiveness.

Howell insisted that he had not controlled Stewart and said that she was a willing accomplice to the murders of her husband and his wife.

He denied he was psychotic, an analysis made by a psychiatrist who assessed him before his sentencing last year after he pleaded guilty to the murders.

However, some of his self-observations appear to suggest that he views himself as being beyond human.

“I believe every human being has the potential to do what I did. But I did it and it sets me apart from humanity,” he told the court.

He also described himself to the psychiatrist as a “small god who needed to be worshipped by women” - although he told the court that what he said was misunderstood.

As Howell takes the witness stand for a third day the game of chess between the shamed killer dentist and the respected QC, resumes again.

Murderer feared being caught if police ran forensic tests

Colin Howell believes that police would have caught him for murder if they had carried out forensic tests on the body of his ex-lover’s husband Trevor Buchanan.

Howell, who had studied forensics as part of an anatomy degree during a gap year from his dentistry studies, told Coleraine Crown Court yesterday he feared the murders had been discovered when he was questioned by police for a second time after the bodies of his victims were found in 1991.

“Somewhere in the middle of the interview Detective (Jack) Hutchinson said to me it would need to be the perfect murder to get away with something like that.

“And that made me wonder if something forensically had been detected. I began to realise there were imperfections.”

Howell said histology tests on wounds on Mr Buchanan’s body, sustained during a struggle with Howell, would have found he died four hours earlier than thought.

However the police investigation was closed and an inquest ruled that Mr Buchanan and Howell’s wife Lesley had died from carbon monoxide poisoning during a suicide plot.

It was almost 20 years later before Howell admitted that the pair had been murdered.

Detective Hutchinson, who was the investigating officer at the time, told the court last week that no concerns had ever been raised with him about any potential criminal wrongdoing in the case.

Howell told the court he had used his medical background when executing the murders.

“During my anatomy degree I spent time in the forensic science lab at Queens University so I picked up things there. So I had an interest in it. I have an intelligence of forensics. My understanding of forensics came easily to me.” He said.

Howell denied that he was proud of the fact he had “hood-winked” police for so long.

“I am ashamed I used my ability to have ingenuity and intelligence in the wrong way,” he said.

HOWELL

The questions and answers

‘What I did was the pinnacle of being callous’ … extracts from evidence given by killer dentist Collin Howell during cross-examination by defence QC Paul Ramsey

PAUL RAMSEY: Why are you here?

COLIN HOWELL: I am here as a witness to the events of 1991. It was only after I acknowledged to myself the truth of what happened was bigger than myself I made the decision to get rid of all the deception in my life. The events of 20 years ago, the impact of that is still alive and affecting people. I am here because of the victims. I have set myself up to be a punch-bag. … I’m prepared for what is coming today. … I am here today to give people a chance for their wounds to be closed. I would not dare to ask for forgiveness. If anyone choses to forgive me that is a good thing. I believe someone doesn’t truly recover from an injury unless they forgive.

PR: You are being noble?

CH: There’s no personal benefit to me. I’m here to bear my own disgrace.

PR: You have been described as being self-aware and very conscious of your attraction to the opposite sex. Do you agree with that description?

CH: Only in part.

PR: You were described as a ladies’ man. Would you agree you were a ladies’ man?

CH: Only in part because beneath it all, even in the most beautiful female or handsome man, there’s often insecurity. Because of my success and status and wealth that made me attractive to some females and I got a positive response.

PR: You are intelligent?

CH: Yes

PR: You rose to the top of your profession?

CH: Yes

PR: These are qualities that are largely laudatory. You have also been described as calculated.

CH: I do calculate things.

PR: Callous?

CH: What I did was the pinnacle of being callous. My conscience became so crushed I could not deal with it any longer.

PR: Manipulative?

CH: I was very manipulative.

PR: Merciless?

CH: 20 years ago I was.

PR: Psychotic?

CH: I don’t believe I am.

PR: Dr Helen Harbinson (a psychiatrist who assed Howell) in her report said you were.

CH: I don’t agree with that conclusion.

PR: Evil?

CH: Yes I was. I believe every human being has the potential to do what I dad. But I did it and it sets me apart from humanity.

PR: Devious?

CH: All of the adjectives put to me, so far I agree. That’s what I was, but I’m no longer that.

PR: Did you feel at any stage that you were quietly proud of fooling police?

CH: Absolutely not.

PR: Graham Stirling (an elder at the Barn Fellowship church) said there was an element of bravado about your endeavour to hoodwink police.

CH: I’m totally ashamed I misused my ability of ingenuity and intelligence in the wrong way.

PR: You are controlling.

CH: When you hold a dark secret you definitely have to control information … That makes you manipulative. I do not believe I am controlling. I have been in some situations.

Mr Ramsey referred to statements Howell made to police about his controlling influence

over Stewart and his wife Lesley.

CH: During my (police) interviews if I had been accused of killing JR Ewing or JFK I would have said okay I did that … I was agreeing with everything I was being told by the police rather than give my account of what was true. My state of mind - I was overwhelmed with guilt. I was agreeing with everything because I felt so guilty.

PR: The police said to you that you have committed and involved (Hazel) in double murder … and you feel you have ultimate control of Hazel now and you replied yes.

CH: I was agreeing with everything they said. I was submitting to the authorities … I am very intelligent but I completely lost my marbles after being arrested.

PR: The police asked you did you find Hazel a strong person, a weak person? Was she cold hearted or kind hearted? You said “she was kind. She was probably innocent”. You said: “She probably was easy to control if you wanted to control her and vunerable to someone like me”. Intellectually she was not on your level. Is that your view of her?

CH: Some would say wee Jonny is easily led, but he is manipulative. You have a wrong perception of being easily led. It is a disguise. A guise of being innocent. This is a deception I was under about Hazel. … At the time of the interviews I was wanting to carry a lot of the guilt for Hazel. I knew I was mastermind. I had the intelligence to put the plan together. I am the major person in this plan. If I had been able to take all the blame I would have, but in the last two years I thought Hazel is not my responsibility. When someone paints themselves as the victim, which is what Hazel did, it is the thing that draws you to her, she appears to be the victim. It is like an advert for an orphanage in India. You just want to get your wallet out. But those adverts have business men behind them collecting money from people.

PR: You told the police she was simplistic, not very bright and easy to control.

CH: I agree that if she went and did her GCSE’s and A-Levels she wouldn’t do as well as I did. But there’s different types of intelligence. There is wiliness and guise. Hazel was making her own choices and has to take responsibility for that. We were waltzing together in time, I may have been the lead partner in the waltz but she was doing it in perfect harmony.

PR: Your sexual encounters with Hazel while under the influence of drugs administered by you … This was another form of control.

CH: I do not agree with that. This has obviously to do with consent. This is something that Hazel had fun with and chose to do voluntarily because she liked it and wanted it and was cooperative with it.

Mr Ramsay then asked Howell about the abortion Stewart underwent

CH: Hazel initiated the desire to have it and I was the one with the ability. It was a joint venture. Hazel wanted it and I facilitated it. With the murders, I wanted it and Hazel facilitated it. We were waltzing in time. This is the perfect illustration of the harmony we had together. The problem today is, Hazel lied to me so much, I do not know the truth any more about Hazel.

PR: Were you a puppet-master to the woman in your life?

CH: That is a graphic way of saying controlling.

PR: Everyone has to dance to Colin Howell’s tune - your wife Lesley - before your marriage to her she had three abortions in 1982.

CH: Sadly yes.

PR: Two of those were within three months of each other. Your wife as a deeply religious person.

CH: That’s right.

PR: Her personality was, compared to Hazel Stewart, she was quicker than you verbally, more intelligent and critical. She was a match for you.

CH: She was yes.

PR: You persuaded a bright, intelligent girl from a deeply religious background to undergo three abortions.

CH: That’s not correct.

PR: Was this a joint enterprise?

CH: I have a great reluctance in telling much about Lesley. There are things that Lesley, if she was alive, would be ashamed of … I would have to portray some of her childhood which I’m not willing to do. In simple terms in was a joint enterprise. Please, for Lesley’s sake. It was not a dominance or control of Lesley.

PR: Were there opinions?

CH: In hindsight it (abortion) wasn’t the only opinion. I believe a person who kills an unborn baby is capable of killing a living human being.

PR: It is an indication of your personality to just do what you want.

CH: It is much more complicated than you realise. People have hidden secrets they are ashamed of. I reflected back on the abortions and I realised that what we had really done was murdered unborn children.

PR: The abortion made Hazel more vulnerable?

CH: It was a completely mutual decision … it was like a blood contract between Hazel and I to murder an unborn baby. A secret link that is a very strong bond. Coming to Hazel with my idea to have joint venture to kill Trevor and Lesley we had already signed a contract in blood to kill an unborn baby. It was a very powerful bond we had. The only way to break that bond is to do what we’re doing today. I’m maybe straying into something you don’t understand.

PR: Dr Harbinson said you described yourself to her as a small god who needed to be worshiped by women.

CH: I said something like that but it was misunderstood … What she wrote was an inaccurate statement of what I said.

Killer claims he almost confessed over 10 years ago

By DERIC HENDERSON AND DAVID YOUNG

Colin Howell was within hours of owning up to police in 1998 about the murders of his wife Lesley and Trevor Buchanan, he claimed in court.

After first revealing his guilt to his second wife Kyle, two years after they married, he made arrangements to bring the two families together at a hotel, make his confession and then hand himself over to the authorities.

But he told the jury at Coleraine Court yesterday that he underwent a “religious conviction” after meeting a girl at a Sunday night church service where he claimed she told him: “Colin, all your sins have been forgiven and forgotten by God”.

He married his second wife, a divorcee with two children, in May 1997. She had been through a difficult and abusive marriage in the United States before coming to live in Northern Ireland with her children.

Howell met her at a Bible study class. He had four children from his first marriage and the couple went on to have another five.

Howell said he wanted to tell Kyle about the deaths of his first wife and Mr Buchanan because he realised he had deceived her.

He said he explained to Kyle the difficulties in his first marriage and the fact that Lesley Howell had abortions. He said she was shocked by his revelations and told him: “You have to go to the police.”

He told the court Kyle promised to stand by him, visit him in prison and look after the children until he got out.

He said he also took measures to sell his dental practice in Scotland and approached two individuals. It was part of his plan to set up a financial base for his wife and children.

Kyle’s parents were due to fly in from America in September that year and he decided he would call the two families together as well as his church elders.

He made a reservation at the Burrendale Hotel in Newcastle, Co. Down, where he said he planned to make his confession before being arrested and going to jail.

Howell said he was to meet his mother and father that Saturday night, but he got a telephone call from his father telling him that he [his father] had agreed to stand in for a preacher the following night, and would be staying at home.

Howell said he went to his own church that Sunday and while he was there a girl spoke to him and said: “Colin, I just don’t know why I am telling you this but your sins are forgiven and forgotten by God.”

Howell said he spoke with Kyle and talked about the disruption it would cause to the house if he confessed. They agreed it would be best if it was left in the past.

He told the court: “I felt hugely relieved. There was no enforcement.”

+ + +

DAY SIX OF THE HAZEL STEWART TRIAL IN FULL

BELFAST TELEGRAPH, THURSDAY FEBRUARY 17, 2011

Double killer Colin Howell has been accused of murdering his wife purely for financial gain.

The one-time Christian preacher benefited to the tune of £414,000 through the death of his wife Lesley, a defence lawyer has told Coleraine Crown Court.

The former dentist has been giving evidence against his ex-lover Hazel Stewart, who denies the murders of her husband Trevor Buchanan and Lesley Howell in 1991.

Colin Howell has already admitted the killings.

During another day of cross-examination, Paul Ramsey QC said: “She (Lesley) was worth more to you dead than alive basically, wasn’t that right?”

HOWELL

The questions and answers

Extracts from day two of murdering dentist’s cross-examination by Paul Ramsey QC

PAUL RAMSEY: During your intense physical affair with Hazel you would leave the house at midnight, leave your wife sleeping heavily, and you would go to Hazel Buchanan’s house, where you would have intercourse and come back maybe at three or four in the morning.

COLIN HOWELL: Yes. Hazel would let me know when Trevor was on duty and would open the back door to let me in. That’s a joint venture.

PR: When you went out your wife was sleeping soundly. Would she have taken temazepam at that time@

CH: Yes.

PR: Were you drugging your wife when you were going on these night-time trysts?

CH: No. Lesley would have regularly taken temazepam and glasses of wine.

PR: You have a history of drugging people. You drugged Hazel for sexual purposes. You drugged patients.

CH: Yes … I know where this is going … Lesley was taking temazepam and alcohol at her own will. I had access to temazepam and Lesley would say I need more temazepam, so I would write a prescription for her.

PR: Did you give her the drugs?

CH: The word give has two meanings. You could say Colin provided temazepam but did not suggest or propose she takes temazepam.

JUDGE HART: Were you physically administering any form of drug to your wife?

CH: The answer to that is absolutely no.

Mr Ramsey referred to Lesley Howell’s attempted suicide when she first discovered Howell

had been having an affair.

PR: Do you remember in your statement to police you said: “I realised that if she died things for me might be better.” What popped into your head was murder.

CH: No.

PR: That’s what you told police.

CH: Anyone who has an affair thinks thoughts like that. Anyone who has an affair thinks it would be better off without their partner. Not everyone takes action but it is the concept that life would be better without them. I didn’t have the idea then that I would do anything about it. It’s just a thought process.

PR: Whatever your philosophy, you were thinking of killing your wife long before you told Hazel Buchanan.

CH: I have given a very clear explanation of why that is wrong.

PR: Margaret Topping (Lesley’s friend who gave evidence last week) recalled Lesley telling her that while she was in the bath you dropped an electric cable into the bath water. In July 2009 police came to interview you about the attempted murder of your wife.

CH: You mean the alleged attempted murder. I remember there was something in my heart that was wrong about that incident. I knew something had happened.

PR: What Lesley told Mrs Topping was that she got an electric shock.

CH: She didn’t.

PR: Why would you have a memory of what you first told police was an innocuous incident?

CH: There was something significant about it. (My memory) was fuzzy. If you look at a star in the sky and then you get a telescope you realise it is two stars. It was fuzzy. Something happened and I can see that incident now in focus and remember the issues going on in my heart. Lesley had wanted a curtain in the bathroom. I went to B&Q to buy a curtain track. I put in an extension lead and holes for the drill but I didn’t get the job finished. There was an extension lead from the hallway to the bathroom for the drill. Lesley thought I had been away at B&Q a long time. She believed I had made some phone contact with Hazel. I had not. At some point she got into her dressing gown to have a bath. I continued running backwards and forwards with the kids. She had seen the extension lead and brought in the cassette player and asked me to connect it for her. It was the moment it occurred to me. Just a flash of thought. When I came back in there there was some Radox (in the bath).

PR: Which is a good conductor of electricity.

CH: At one point I sat on the edge of the bath and we were arguing. I recall it going on and on and I thought if I threw it (the radio cassette) in it would kill her. The thoughts were going on but I had no intention.

PR: Like the thoughts you had when you wife went into hospital (after the overdose)?

CH: Yes, that thought came into my head. I got the loop of the cable, held it in my hands. Lesley looked at me. There was a pregnant pause. Suddenly, there was a shift of power. What I did deliberately was show Lesley I was holding the power.

PR: That you had the power?

CH: Yes, that I was in control. I flicked the loose part of the cable on her back and dropped the radio on the floor. There was no water behind her. Just her shoulders. She did not get an electric shock. It was a moment to try and shift the power from Lesley to me. That was the moment the seed was planted. I thought, I can do something about this. I think this was the early part of April (1991). It was a shift of power. I believe Lesley knew in that pregnant pause that I had the potential to kill her. In those seconds she knew I could kill her. She recognised the shift in power.

PR: Are you saying she feared for her life?

CH: There was a recognition at the time that I had the capability of killing her.

PR: This is before any conversation with the accused (Stewart). There were no plans for joint enterprise.

CH: I do not believe I shared the thought with Hazel Buchanan. It wasn’t a plot to kill. It was the moment I thought I can do something about this. It was a turning point. I saw it in that moment that there was something in me that could kill her and she was correct. I didn’t draw up a plan to kill her right away. That happened later on, what I would call the eureka moment on May 13.

PR: You wanted to take control?

CH: Yesterday I successfully demolished every suggestion I was the person in control. By telling (second wife) Kyle (about the murders), Kyle was able to chose the moment of my confession. I had given control to Kyle. I lost my control with Lesley after the affair I had. The church and control of me after the affair … it is shown I was out of control, but the women in my life controlled me. King Solomon, a very wise man, said ‘The man who commits adultery gives up his strength to the one who is cruel’. I would not want to argue with the wisest man in the world.

PR: I am going to suggest to you, you did give your wife a shock. It was an attempt to kill her. I’m going to refer to something else. What was your financial situation at the time?

CH: I had bought a dental practice in Ballymoney, the property and the equipment, and had also moved into a new house. The practice was successful but I had a lot of overheads.

PR. The practice was running at a loss?

CH: There were financial pressures but I wasn’t going to go bankrupt.

PR: You were under pressure?

CH: Yes.

PR: Your friend Marshal Reilly said he was asked by you to lend you money, £10, 000.

CH: It was £8,000.

PR: Once your wife died your financial position improved immensely.

CH: After about a year.

PR: You paid back that loan to Mr Riley six months after your wife’s death and you told him the life insurance policy had paid up.

CH: No. It was not paid out until after the inquest. I paid back the money with profits from the business. The records show that before the life insurance I was able to pay back the loan … the prosecution said there was no financial motive for the murders.

PR: You are quite right, the prosecution did say that, but I’m not the prosecution. The financial benefits - you got £212,000 from your wife’s estate.

CH: Yes.

PR: £27,000 from the estate of your father-in-law, life insurance of £120, 000 and also a life endowment of £54,000. You also benefited from your house at Knocklayde Park which became your property and you later sold it for £131,000, having bought it for £20, 000. That is what you got as a result of your wife’s death.

CH: There has been a miscalculation. The final figure is £212, 000.

PR: All your financial problems were resolved by your wife’s death. It is all about the money.

CH: That is wrong. Totally wrong.

Bible quotes and answers like sermons…

even the judge appeared to be irritated

By DEBORAH McALEESE

Colin Howell is a man obsessed with being in control. During his third day of testimony in the witness box the killer dentist admitted to the court that he considered electrocuting his wife Lesley in the bath to show her he was “holding the power”.

But he denied going through with the “thought” of dropping a radio cassette player into the water just weeks before he murdered her.

He said that Lesley had control over him ever since she discovered his affair with Hazel Stewart. Frustrated by his lack of control over his wife, Howell said he flicked her with the power cable of the cassette player to let her know there was now a shift in power.

“Suddenly there was a shift in power. What I did deliberately was show Lesley I was holding the power. That I was in control. It was a moment to try and shift the power from Lesley to me. That was the moment the seed (to murder) was planted. I thought, I can do something about this,” he said. “I believe Lesley knew in that pregnant pause that I had the potential to kill her. In those seconds she knew I could kill her. She recognised the shift in power.

“There was a recognition at the time that I had the capability of killing her.”

The 51-year-old told the court that he had lost control over the women in his life.

“By telling Kyle (his second wife) about the murders the control … shifted to her. Kyle was able to chose the moment of my confession. I had given control to Kyle.”

He said he lost his control over Lesley after she discovered his affair and that his church also had control over him after his infidelity was discovered.

“It was shown I was out of control. The women in my life controlled me,” he said.

His desire to dominate was evident by his attempts to outsmart defence barrister Paul Ramsey QC. When Mr Ramsey spoke of his unhappy relationship with Lesley after she had three abortions and suggested their children were “blessings” in the marriage, Howell said: “That’s a shallow thing to say.”

He smiled as Mr Ramsey read from a police statement that he had smiled when by detectives if he had attempted to electrocute his wife in the bath.

“Sometimes I smile at you. It is a bemused smile at being asked something so outrageous,” he said.

Although slightly distracted at times yesterday - possibly bothered by the appearance of his daughter Lauren - he still clearly enjoyed holding the full attention of the court and took the opportunity to try and exhibit his knowledge of the Bible. He referred to scripture on a number of occasions.

Explaining why he believed he had lost control of his life when wife Lesley discovered his affair with Hazel Stewart, he paraphrased Proverbs, Chapter five.

“King Solomon, considered to be the wisest man, said a man who commits adultery gives up his strength to one who is cruel,” he said.

“I wouldn’t want to argue with the wisest man in the world.”

Again, he quoted chapter and verse when recalling an incident seven years after the killings when he claims he was on the verge of confessing, only to draw back when a Christian friend read him a passage that struck a cord.

“She read a verse from the Bible that talked about judging things at the right time,” he told the jury. “I think it was 1 Corinthians, Chapter Four, Verse Four.” The passage to which Howell referred, which is actually verse five, states: “Therefore, judge nothing before the time, until the Lord comes.”

Appearing irritated by Howell’s sermon-like answers, Judge Mr Justice Hart said to him on a number of occasions: “Mr Howell, just confine yourself to what you did or did not do. Just answer the questions.”

Mr Ramsey also appeared frustrated.

“Is it possible for you to explain anything in two sentences Mr Howell” he asked him.

+ + +

DAY SEVEN OF THE HAZEL STEWART TRIAL

BELFAST TELEGRAPH, FRIDAY FEBRUARY 18, 2011

Now the strain begins to show

Four days of listening to ex-lover brandishing her a murderer takes its toll

By PATRICE DOUGAN

After four days of listening to her ex-lover describe in detail the intimacies of their relationship and details of the murder of their spouses, the strain was beginning to show on Hazel Stewart’s face.

The mother-of-two - who denies killing her husband and her former lover’s wife - was visibly drained after a week in which she has heard killer dentist Colin Howell tell the jury that they were “waltzing in time” when their partners were murdered.

She has also heard her former lover accuse her of seducing him and then being complicit in the double murder of the father of her children and subsequent plot to fool the police.

Mrs Stewart sat in the dock yesterday, as she has done all week, refusing to look at Howell as he sat in the witness box telling his horrific tale of drug-induced sex, betrayal and finally murder.

But as she left the court yesterday the stress of the nightmare appeared etched on her face as at one stage she closed her eyes, perhaps to try and shut out the horrible reality of the situation she finds herself in.

Earlier, when Howell was being taken through the dock to the holding cells, Hazel Stewart did not even glance at her former lover.

There was a brief moment when Howell, escorted by prison guards, looked over at Stewart as he was being led out the door, but she remained resolute, staring at the ground.

Her second husband, however, sat intently watching Howell while he listened to the evidence.

The atmosphere in court was tense as Howell was questioned on his decision to kill his wife and her husband Trevor Buchanan on May 18, 1991.

He was put under pressure by defence Barrister Paul Ramsey QC, who put it to Mr Howell that the decision was spontaneous and his client didn’t know about it. Something he denied.

But the crunch moment came during the second half of Howell’s evidence. There was a deafening silence in courtroom two when the killer dentist admitted he “was a monster”.

All eyes were on the defence barrister and the convicted killer as a set of quick-fire questions culminated with the seasoned QC putting to Howell that he was a liar and a monster.

Referring to Howell’s own trial, in which his defence barrister Richard Weir QC told the court he was “not a monster but had done a monstrous thing”, Mr. Ramsey said: “But you are a monster, aren’t you Mr Howell?”

“I was a monster and a killer, but not any longer.” He replied. “That’s part of my confession.”

It was a moment when the entire court room - filled to capacity with family and friends, as well as lawyers and reporters - was captivated.

Throughout the day Mr Howell had again displayed his inclination for long drawn-out answers, prompting Judge Anthony Hart to chastise him a couple of times. He was also told my Mr Ramsey that he was straying from the point on a number of occasions.

It started early in proceedings when Howell told the court he had new evidence to submit after remembering a second meeting with Mrs Stewart where they planned the murders. He began by explaining how “distant memories are like stars; at first it looks like one star but when you magnify up it’s actually two stars”.

He said he had left court the day before feeling “troubled”, and he believed there was “something missing” from his evidence. He said he had spent the night thinking about what it could be and realised that there had in fact been two meetings prior to the double murders - one in the Buchanan house and one in Stewart’s car.

He told the jury that the first meeting happened in the middle of the night when Mr Buchanan was on duty. He had gone round to the house and explained to Mrs Stewart the plan he had concocted, but she didn’t understand the details.

“I remember when I presented the plan, Hazel didn’t object in principle on that first occasion, but she didn’t understand the plan and when I left she hadn’t agreed to the plan on the basis that she was worried we would get caught,” he said.

“The night in the car five days later I realised that she had not understood how we wouldn’t get caught, so the meeting in the car was when I gave her the tablets and re-clarified the plan in simple terms.

“What I had done was converge two nights into one. I knew I was getting muddled because I knew there was something missing, and I couldn’t understand what it was. I got concerned that if I muddled, then can I tell the whole truth, that’s when I began to sit back and ponder and remember there were two nights.”

He said he wasn’t “afraid to give new evidence” because it cleared the muddle in his head.

“I was concerned that my evidence would make things worse for Hazel,” he added.

“I don’t want Hazel to get her sentencing or whatever for that. I realised I had got muddled.

“This is not changing the picture of what I had said.

“It’s not that I knew about it and held back, that’s not what I’m saying, but memories from 20 years ago are difficult to recall. Because this is an important issue. I’ve thought about it.”

Failed treasure hunt triggered my confession, claims monster

By DAVID YOUNG

Colin Howell was accused of being a “monster” who murdered his wife simply for money.

Howell is said to have benefited from his wife’s death to the tune of several hundred thousand pounds.

Defence lawyer David Ramsey yesterday again pushed the idea that Mr Howell committed the murders for financial gain.

“You’re wrong about that, my motive was not the money,” Howell said in response.

Howell, who said he only made £212,000 out of Lesley’s death, insisted love was his and Mrs Stewart’s motive.

It emerged that Howell had believed he would land £20m my ploughing his life savings into a diving project to find Japan’s war gold, but ended up with only a few silver coins worth £30, the trial of his lover heard.

The dentist invested £350,000 in the recovery dig in caves in the Philippines only to discover it was a massive scam that only recovered a few brass ammunition boxes.

He told Coleraine Crown Court the realisation he had been duped at the end of 2008 was the trigger which led to him confessing.

“I made a decision in that moment that I wanted to confess to those murders,” he said.

Howell had been persuaded to get involved in the ill-fated venture by a fellow Baptist and the man who presented him with the ammunition boxes containing the near worthless contents when he flew to Manila was a Christian.

“I looked at him and said ‘you’re lying, you’re a fraud’, and as soon as I said that it reflected back on me and I knew I was a fraud too.” He said.

Since the end of World War Two, tales have abounded that Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, commander-in-chief of the Imperial Japanese Navy, buried a multi-million pound hoard of gold bullion in bunkers in the Philippines.

The legend has prompted countless treasure hunts, but none have struck the jackpot.

Mr Ramsey QC, Hazel Stewart’s defence barrister, speculated that Howell would not have admitted to the murders had his ship come in.

“If these ammunition boxes were packed to the gunnels with Yamamoto’s gold, would you have gone to the police?” he said.

The lawyer, who claimed the murders were motivated by money and not his desire to be with Stewart, suggested his confession was also linked to his finances.

“The reason you went to police was because you had no money left,” he said.

Howell said it was not the loss of his savings, but the deception by someone who claimed to be a Christian believer that made him unburden his secret. “My conscience that had been buried deep in my own bunker covered with concrete suddenly exploded,” he said.

In the last line of his marathon 12-hour cross-examination. Mr. Ramsey declared: “I put it to you that you are a monster, Mr Howell.”

The father-of-11, who two years ago admitted to the May 1991 murders, which were at the time believed to be suicides, ended his time in the witness box as he began it, with a profession of repentance.

“I was a monster and I was a killer, but I’m not any longer and that’s part of my confession,” he said calmly.

Killer: Hazel and her kids under no threat from me

By STAFF REPORTER

Killer dentist Colin Howell threatened to kill his lover and her children if she didn’t agree to his plan to kill their spouses.

The jury heard in court yesterday that Hazel Stewart feared for her life and those of her two children, Andrew and Lisa, if she didn’t comply with her lover’s murderous demands.

Howell denied the accusations by defence barrister Paul Ramsey QC, and said it was a lie concocted my Mrs Stewart, which had developed from the fear she had that her children could inhale some of the carbon monoxide gas used to kill her husband.

“One of the ways to tell lies is to have a truth and then change it,” he said. “I’m aware that Hazel said if I don’t do it I would kill her Andrew and Lisa.

“I think she remembers the fear that Andrew and Lisa could be harmed that night.”

He said Mrs Stewart had been “worried” that the fumes being piped into her house to kill her husband would leak into her children’s bedroom and kill them too.

He said he had tried to reassure her that this couldn’t happen.

He denied the children would have been in any danger from him.

Describing Howell as “a force of nature” on the night of the murders, Mr Ramsey said “nothing and nobody was going to stop you”.

“There was nobody in the Buchanan house that would have wanted to stop me, other than Trevor,” replied Howell.

“There was nobody I was expecting to show me any conflict other than Trevor.”

After agreeing that he had “dealt with” Mr Buchanan when he awoke and attempted to fight off his murderer, Howell admitted that the possibility the children would wake up was “a big risk”.

“I think that would have been the game up for Hazel and for me.” He said.

Asked if the children would have been in any danger from him, he said: “No, they wouldn’t.”

Howell later admitted he had been “completely delusional” and his thinking “completely up the left” in the months after the killings.

Referring to the letter which he had written to Mrs Stewart (then Buchanan) and given to a friend in the Coleraine Baptist Church to pass on to her on the day of his wife’s funeral, he said he had been “horrified and shocked” when he read it in police interviews.

The letter had been photocopied and handed to police when Howell confessed to the murders.

He described it as “one of the biggest shocks” when he was shown a copy of the letter after his arrest.

+ + +

DOUBLE MURDER TRIAL AT COLERAINE CROWN COURT

BELFAST TELEGRAPH, TUESDAY 22, 2011

Hazel: I was easy prey of Howell

Accused told police she was in fear for her life

By SARAH RAINEY

Murder accused Hazel Stewart claimed she was “easy prey” for Colin Howell and he had her under his control.

Stewart said she was terrified of her former lover and feared he would kill her if she tried to end their relationship.

“My personality is soft and weak, very vulnerable, and he had full control over me,” she said.

Mrs Stewart did not take the stand yesterday, rather Coleraine Court listened to tapes of her police interviews.

She could be heard breaking down as she spoke of the murders of her husband and Howell’s wife.

The murder accused could be heard saying: “The joy went out of my life that day. Every day you just want your life to end.”

“He’s a very calculating person, a very clever guy. I’m not very bright, unfortunately, but he was a step ahead of me the whole time.”

The stony-faced demeanour slips as Police tapes played to jury

By SARAH RAINEY

For the first time in more than two weeks a flicker of emotion crossed Hazel Stewart’s face.

As she sat in the dock wearing her trademark plum coat, the double murder accused turned her head to look at her family, her eyes pleading with them to understand.

Routinely stony-faced, the mother-of-two looked less composed yesterday as she listened to her own evidence during a series of taped police interviews played to the jury.

She described herself as “weak”, “vunerable” and “soft”, in stark contrast to the “controlling” and “obsessive” nature of former lover Colin Howell.

Her daughter Lisa, a nurse at the City Hospital in Belfast, sobbed quietly as she listened to her mother speak about how she wanted to die after the murder of their father Trevor Buchanan, rather than be arrested for her crimes.

The public gallery fell silent as Stewart told police about the night Howell came to her house to murder her husband in a staged suicide plot.

Her voice cracking with emotion, Stewart could be heard stopping to catch her breath as she spoke, as if struggling to put into words what she had done.

Sergeant Geoffrey Ferris, who conducted the taped interviews, frequently had to remind Stewart about the seriousness of the allegations against her.

“You have to face reality here and there is nobody else who can deal with this situation except you.” He told her.

“I know you have lived with this now for 18 years and I’m sure it must have been difficult for you.”

Stewart said she knew Howell had come to her house in Coleraine in May 1991 to kill her husband, but had to be coaxed into admitting she knew what had happened when she saw his body in the boot of Howell’s car.

“As far as you were aware, what condition was Trevor in at this stage?,” Sergeant Ferris asked her.

“Well, I took it, dead,” she replied.

“And how do you think he died?” she was asked.

Stewart told police: “By the fumes of the car. Because he had a pipe running from the car down to the bedroom.”

The former Sunday school teacher spoke with a hushed voice as she described her affair with Howell, unable for a while to mention him by name.

She said Howell had made rules on how she could behave in her relationship with Mr Buchanan.

“You have to understand that person, unless you know him,” she said. “He has quite a grip on you psychologically, you know, mentally.

“He can work his way, he’s very good at it. At the beginning when I did meet him, yes I felt ‘this guy is great’, loved him and all that.

“But as time went on, and after the abortion, it bothered me.”

Stewart’s current husband David, daughter Lisa and her son Andrew just sat metres away from the dock as she told police in the interview of her desire to die after the murder of her first partner.

“I was so scared and I have lived every day of my life since that happened wanting to die,” she said.

“I’d rather be dead than go through this for the sake of my children.”

Yesterday’s tapes seemed to reveal a lonely, desperate, somewhat confused woman.

+ + +

TENTH DAY OF DOUBLE MURDER TRIAL

AT COLERAINE CROWN COURT

BELFAST TELEGRAPH, WEDNESDAY FEBRUARY 23, 2011

What the tapes revealed

* She wished she had driven off a cliff instead of being arrested

* She knew she should have told police about Howell’s plan

* She cut up and burned the hosepipe used to lill Trevor

* She thought Lesley Howell was “good for her children”

* She denied administering any drugs to husband Trevor

* She once “freaked out” after Howell gave her too much laughing gas

How the cracks began to show as police probed deeper in interview

By SARAH RAINEY

It was the calm before the storm.

Hazel Stewart looked composed as she sat in the dock on the 10^th day of her murder trial flanked by two police officers behind the glass partition.

Wearing a white shirt and dark-rimmed reading glasses, the accused kept her head bowed as she read through transcripts of police evidence playing aloud to the court.

After the emotional exchanges heard earlier in the week, Stewart seemed determined to remain calm as the jury heard more tapes of interviews conducted shortly after her arrest. Her expression was neutral, almost businesslike, as she entered the dock at Coleraine Crown Court yesterday with a quick squeeze of her husband’s hand.

With her familiar plum coat wrapped tightly round her, Stewart glanced up only briefly between tapes to look over towards her children, loyally sitting just inches away.

But the impressive woman sitting in the dock was a stark contrast to the confused, desperate defendant whose voice was played aloud to the jury. The public gallery fell silent as Stewart told police she would have killed herself if she’d known she was about to be arrested for murder after Howell’s confession in January 2009.

“Maybe if I’d known they (the police) were there, maybe I’d have run the car over a cliff. I don’t know,” she said.

“I always said I would do that. Maybe it’s too late for me.”

Stewart’s soft, breathy voice was often the only noise that could be heard in Court No 2, frequently pausing as she broke down during interview.

At one point in the tapes she could be heard pleading with detectives to keep her in custody overnight rather than sending her home to her family.

“I can’t go home, no,” she said.

“It’s not my call. It’s not going to go away Hazel.” Sergeant Ferris told her. “Where’s it going to leave me?” he asked.

Once again, mother-of-two Stewart spoke frequently about her children, telling police she felt she had to protect them from Colin Howell’s “controlling” ways.

But there was also a certain self-centredness to her evidence, with the murder accused claiming it was hard to cope with the guilt of knowing what Howell had done. “My life was ruined because of something he’d done in my house,” she said.

The Buchanan family, relatives of her late husband Trevor, shifted in their seats as Stewart spoke about the “tense” relationship between them after the apparent suicides.

“They came up, they did come up to the house,” she said.

“They seemed okay then, though, through the years, maybe I wasn’t so sure.” Later, as discrepancies between her evidence and Howell’s became clear, police had to coax Stewart into talking about the night of her husband’s murder. She admitted lying at the time about what had happened but became monotone in her responses, blaming “bad memory” for her confusion.

“This is a very serious offence that you have been arrested for,” Sgt. Ferris told her.

“We need to know the truth, we need to know exactly what happened from A to Z, from both you and Colin as you’re the only ones who can answer,” he said.

“Now, you’re a woman who understands the truth.”

“Yes, I do,” she replied.

“Who understands honesty, who understands being up front, who knows the difference between right and wrong - and who certainly believes there’s a God up there,” he said.

It was clear that Stewart, outwardly so well put-together, was beginning to crack under the pressure of police interview.

With four dramatic tapes still to be played in court, the full extent of her involvement in this twisted tale is ret to be revealed.

+ + +

AMAZING DAY OF EVIDENCE IN MURDER TRIAL

BELFAST TELEGRAPH, THURSDAY 24, 2011

Flanked by prison guards, Stewart wept openly as the final tapes played

By DEBORAH McALEESE

* Stewart weeps as court told she went along with Howell’s plan

* She admits killings were a joint enterprise with ex-lover

* She encouraged her husband to take sedative on night he was killed

* Accused says sorry to family of her dead husband Trevor

* Meeting Howell biggest mistake of my life, she claims

* She said she didn’t know if she loved Howell or was afraid if him

* She told detectives: It’s over for me, I’ll never have a life again

Double murder accused Hazel Stewart admitted to detectives that she could have stopped the killing of her husband and ex-lover Colin Howell’s wife.

During police interviews Stewart said she knew about Howell’s plan to murder her husband Trevor Buchanan and his wife Lesley in May 1991.

She said that she was sorry and wanted to apologise to Mr. Buchanan’s family, their two children Andrew and Lisa, and to her second husband David Stewart.

Recordings of the interviews, which were carried out in January 2009 after Howell confessed to the murders, were played to the jury at Coleraine Crown court yesterday.

The 47-year-old former Sunday school teacher’s husband and two children were in court supporting her. Members of Mr Buchanan’s family sat on the opposite side of the courtroom.

When asked during the interviews by Detective Sergeant Geoff Ferris if she accepted that on numerous opportunities before the murder she could have controlled the situation and stopped both murders, she replied: “Yes, I could have stopped it.”

She told police that she asked Howell not to go through with the murders.

“It was a horrible thing. I knew what he was coming to do. I didn’t want him to do it. But it’s done, I let it happen,” she said.

Stewart added that Howell had pressured her into going along with the murder plot.

“He arranged it for that Saturday that he would come around, and he did. I looked at the back of the car. I didn’t know it was Lesley. He told me it was Lesley. At that stage I felt like being sick, I had to run away. I didn’t want this to happen but he was there and he wanted to do this and I stood back,” she said.

Stewart told police that she had encouraged her husband to take a sleeping tablet on the night of the murders. She denied giving him the drug, but admitted that sedating him was part of Howell’s plan.

The court also heard Stewart admit that she got rid of the evidence by destroying a hosepipe that was used to gas the victims while they slept.

Stewart denied murdering her husband, RUC constable Trevor Buchanan, and Howell’s wife Lesley almost 20 years ago. Their bodies were discovered in a fume-filled garage in Castlerock in an apparent suicide bid. Howell is serving a 21-year-jail term after admitting last year to the murders.

Detective Sergeant Ferris told her during interview: “We are in no doubt it was calculated. It was vicious in relation to what you did, both of you. You showed no regard for your partners, for their families, and no regard for your own children. You made that decision that you could live with your two children, aged only nine and ten at the time, and you agreed to a plan that resulted in the father of your two children being murdered in the very house where they lay sleeping. It can’t get any colder than that Hazel.”

On day 11 Hazel Stewart finally cracked. The steely impassivity previously assumed by the former Sunday school teacher was ruptured as the court heard, in her own words, how she was terrified of losing her two children and her husband now that the murders had been uncovered.

Sitting in the dock between two prison guards, a tired looking Stewart broke down in tears as the recordings of her final interviews with police in January 2009 were played to the jury.

By the end of 15 intense interviews Stewart had admitted knowing about the plan to murder her husband and Howell’s wife, not doing anything to stop it and covering up vital evidence.

As her soft voice echoed loudly throughout the silent courtroom the 47-year-old put her head in her hands and began to weep.

“I would like to say sorry to Trevor’s family. I can’t imagine what it would be like to lose a son. To David my husband, I love him so much, and Lisa and Andrew, they were my life and I have lost it.

“The thought of losing my children and David is the hardest thing. But I destroyed their lives and the lives of Colin’s children.” she said during her interview.

Nodding her head across the courtroom towards her daughter Lisa, who was silently crying, Stewart wiped her eyes with a white handkerchief. Her husband David Stewart bit his lip and appeared to be fighting back tears. “The biggest mistake of my life was meeting Colin Howell and I have paid the price over the past 17/18 rears.

“Since that happened I lost so much of my life - all the joy, peace and contentment. It was like living in a black hole every day. I thought about it 24/7. My guilt was horrendous,” Stewart told police.

She added: “I hate him (Howell). I saw what he had done, how capable he was. I was scared for my children. I have never got over it. I’m going through all this now. Lesley was a lovely girl. Trevor was very good too.

‘I’ve destroyed many lives’

“He (Howell) is a very cold, calculated person; I was a soft, easy target. I will live with this until the day I die. I have destroyed many lives. People will be so shocked. My family, especially Lisa, Andrew and David. They are my life.”

Stewart told police that she had never wanted to marry again in case the murders were ever discovered.

“I did not want to drag them through this. I met David and I loved him.

“He was very persistent that we should get married because he was so happy. Inside, I was tormented. I thought, ‘if this ever gets out’. He could never have thought I could do something like that. Now it has come to this,” she said.

Stewart added: “I have wrecked his life and my children’s. I can only hope and pray that the church will stay close to my children. I can’t be there to look after them, and they need me. I’m scared.”

As the court adjourned after the final interview was played Stewart’s husband and two children hugged her tightly.

Their support for her throughout the trial has not wavered.

+ + +

COLERAINE CROWN COURT: HAZEL WON’T TAKE THE STAND

BELFAST TELEGRAPH, FRIDAY FEBRUARY 25, 2011

* Barrister tells murder trial he will not be presenting

any evidence in Stewart’s defence

* Judges warns accused that her decision not to take the stand

will be taken into account by the jury

* Howell writes from prison to insist his account of the murders

Was ‘accurate in essence’

* Trial adjourned until Monday when defence and prosecution

will begin closing statements

Deciding not to speak is the accused’s last throw of dice…

and her biggest gamble

By DEBORAH McALEESE

An air of expectancy spread through the courtroom as the prosecution case against Hazel Stewart drew to a close.

The 47-year-old former Sunday school teacher had been in deep discussion with her legal team moments before the judge and jury entered the court for day 12 of her murder trial.

Appearing slightly more relaxed than in previous days, she nodded and smiled slightly towards her two children Andrew and Lisa and her husband David, who were once again sitting in the front of the public gallery.

They smiled back and her daughter Lisa mouthed “okay?” to her mother.

With the prosecution case at an end it was now time to hear Stewart’s version of the horrible events that led to the murders of her husband and former lover’s wife.

Her ex-lover, killer dentist Colin Howell, had previously told the court that while he was the mastermind behind the plot, he could not have carried out the murders without her.

He insisted that Stewart had seduced him from the start of their affair and that she was a willing participant in the murders of Trevor Buchanan and Lesley Howell.

“Flies go into the spider’s web because they think there is some food for them there and I willingly went after the bait, and we got caught together in the trap,” he said.

But the air of anticipation waiting for Stewart’s defence was abruptly replaced by an air of disbelief when her lawyer Paul Ramsey QC got to his feet and told the court he was not calling any defence.

Judge Mr. Justice Hart asked Mr. Ramsey if his client was aware that her decision not to give evidence would be taken into account by the jury of three women and nine men.

“The jury may draw such inference as would appear proper from her failure to do so,” the judge said.

Mr Ramsey said Stewart was aware of the situation.

Colin Howell’s presence has hung heavily over this trial and he clearly revelled in being centre stage last week while giving evidence against Stewart.

Stewart may have hoped, as he was led from the witness box, through the court and back to HMP Maghaberry after his final day of evidence, that she would never hear from him again.

Yesterday, however, Howell made his presence known once again with a letter he penned to the judge from his prison cell that was read to the court. Howell said he wanted to clarify a few points of his evidence but insisted that his testimony to the court is true and that his account “was accurate in essence”.

Adjourning the case until Monday for both the prosecution and defence to make their closing submissions, Mr Justice Hart advised the jury to try to put the case out of their minds until then.

Glancing momentarily towards the jury members Stewart sighed, the strain again etched on her face.

Earlier this week the court had heard her tell police during interview about the murders in 2009 that her life was now over.

“It’s over for me. I’ll never have a life again,” she said at the police station.

Now that her fate is so close to being decided, that thought, should she be found guilty of murder, will no doubt be weighing heavily on her mind.

Letter from a killer … Howell writes to judge from his cell

Killer dentist Colin Howell wrote a letter from his prison cell to the judge in his former lover’s murder trial claiming that his testimony against her was “accurate in essence”.

The brief letter, addressed to Judge Hart and dated February 20, 2011, was read to the court yesterday as his former lover Hazel Stewart listened from the dock.

In the letter Howell said he wanted to clarify minor details about the timing in relation to two incidents prior to the murders - one when he dangled an electric cable over his wife in the bath and the second when he made contact with Stewart again after an enforced break in their affair ordered by church elders.

Howell said that the incident in the bath and the renewed contact with Stewart happened on two separate occasions.

He said that he is satisfied his testimony to the court last week was true and that his account was “accurate in essence”. He wrote, however, that on reflection he may have “layered the true facts” and wanted to clarify some matters.

He said it is true that when he telephoned Stewart for the first time after their enforced break she was pleased to hear from him. Howell had told the court previously that during that contact she had used the phrase “I will love you till I’m old and grey”.

In his letter, however, he said that while it is true that “on occasion” she would have used that phrase, she may not have used it on that particular day.

“I have not misrepresented the role of my co-accused in any other way,” the letter concluded.

It was signed: “Yours sincerely, Colin Howell.”

The letter was penned three days after Howell - who confessed to murdering his wife Lesley and Stewart’s husband Trevor Buchanan almost 20 years after their bodies were discovered in a car in Castlerock - gave evidence against his former lover.

During three days in the dock Howell told the court that he was the mastermind behind the murder plot, but that it could not have happened without Stewart’s co-operation.

“She didn’t say no, there was no objection to me being there,” he said.

Howell added: “I had the intelligence to put the plan together.

“I am the major person in this plan.”

But he said that he and Stewart “waltzed” together in harmony.

“We were waltzing together in time. I may have been the lead partner in the waltz, but she was doing it in perfect harmony,” he said.

He also told the court that if forensic tests had been carried out on the body of Mr Buchanan he may have been caught, that everyone has the potential to kill, and that Stewart entered into a “blood pact” with him when she had an abortion before the murders.

Howell told the jury that he was giving evidence against Stewart as he was now ashamed and sorrowful for what he did and wanted to help the families of his victims get closure.

STEWART

Sarah Rainey recounts Hazel Stewart’s trial, day by day

DAY ONE

A jury of nine men and three women were sworn in on the first day of the double murder trial. Judge Mr Justice Hart told them that Stewart (47) stands accused of killing her husband Trevor Buchanan and the wife of her former lover Colin Howell.

Howell (51) is already serving a life sentence for the murders, after confessing during police questioning in January 2009.

Stewart was joined in court by her current husband David and two children from her marriage to RUC officer Mr Buchanan, Lisa and Andrew.

Mr Buchanan’s brothers Victor, Raymond, Jackie and Gordon, and two sisters Valerie and Melva, sat facing her in the public gallery.

The former Sunday school teacher was told she would be granted continuing bail as long as she arrived on time in court.

DAY TWO

Prosecuting barrister Ciaran Murphy QC told the court there was no doubt Stewart had engaged in a joint enterprise to kill Lesley Howell and Trevor Buchanan.

He said Stewart admitted that she let Howell into her house to kill her husband with his dead wife in the boot of his car during a series of police interviews.

“She stood feet away knowing her husband was struggling for his last breaths,” he told the jury in his opening remarks.

“She showed total and utter callous disregard to her husband and endorsed and encouraged exactly what Colin Howell was doing.”

Stewart also admitted cutting up and burning the hosepipe that was used to poison her husband, Mr Murphy said.

He said the mother-of-two told police she had encouraged her husband to take a temazepam tablet before Howell arrived to kill him.

The court heard that Stewart and Howell had resumed a sexual relationship just weeks after the funerals of their partners.

DAY THREE

The detective who discovered the bodies of Lesley Howell and Trevor Buchanan told the court he had doubted it was a suicide pact. Green said he was suspicious of Colin Howell when he found the pair in the fume-filled car in Castlerock, but “couldn’t put his finger on” what had happened.

The court also heard from Margaret Topping, a friend of Lesley’s, who said Howell had once almost electrocuted his wife as she lay in the bath.

A six-page letter given by Howell to Stewart on the day of the funerals was read aloud by church member Derek McAuley.

In it, Howell told Stewart: “I have taken a mother from her children. But God will provide for them.”

Investigating officer Jack Hutchinson also read police interviews in which both Howell and Stewart made domestic abuse claims against their former partners.

DAY FOUR

Stewart’s former boyfriend Trevor McAuley told the jury that Howell had injected his former lover with drugs to knock her out while they had sex.

He said Stewart had wanted to be unconscious during intercourse so she would not experience Christian guilt.

The jury heard from John Hansford, a pastor at Coleraine Baptist Church, and his wife Elizabeth, who broke the news of Mr Buchanan’s death to Stewart. Mrs Hansford said she had found Howell’s reaction to the supposed suicide of his wife “somewhat callous”.

DAY FIVE

Killer dentist Howell took to the witness stand for the first time to give evidence against his former lover. Howell, currently serving a life sentence in Maghaberry Prison, told the court that Stewart was a “willing accomplice” in his double murder plan.

“Her first reaction was ‘we’ll be caught’. She was afraid of being caught,” he said. “She said if she was caught she would slit her wrists.”

Howell and Stewart “didn’t object to the principle” of killing their former spouses, and had taken tablets from him to give to her husband to sedate him.

When asked why he had confessed to the crimes after 18 years of fooling police, Howell said he wanted to tell the truth.

DAY SIX

On his second day in the witness stand, Howell told the court he had masterminded the murder plot but was “trapped in the spider’s web” woven by Stewart. The former dentist said his lover had seduced him from the start of their affair and the two were “waltzing in time”.

“I may have been the lead partner in that dance but she was doing it in perfect harmony and willingly,” he said

Howell said he feared police would have caught him if they had carried out forensic tests on Mr Buchanan’s body.

He said histology tests on the deceased would have found that Stewart’s husband died four hours earlier than thought.

He also told the jury he was within hours of confessing to police more than 10 years ago after telling his second wife, Kyle.

DAY SEVEN

Under cross-examination by defence lawyer Paul Ramsey QC, Howell revealed he got a £400,000 payment after the death of his wife.

Mr Ramsey said Howell’s dental practice was struggling financially at the time of the murders and claimed the payout kept it afloat.

The dentist denied killing his spouse for money, dismissing the allegation as “totally wrong”.

The killer quoted Bible passages while telling the court about sneaking out of his house to visit his lover while his wife was drugged with temazepam.

Howell also admitted that he had thought of murder as he held an electric cable over his wife in the bath.

DAY EIGHT

On Howell’s final day in the witness stand, he told the court he had tried to manipulate the legal system to get a reduced plea of manslaughter. The disgraced dentist said he knew he would receive a shorter sentence if he could trick psychiatrists into thinking the murder had been “spontaneous”.

Howell admitted that during his relationship with Stewart he had been “a monster and a killer” but said it was no longer the case.

Defence lawyer Paul Ramsey QC again pushed the idea that Howell had carried out the murders for financial gain.

It emerged that the former dentist had lost his savings after investing them in a scam to find Japan’s lost World War II gold.

DAY NINE

The court heard the first of 15 taped interviews conducted by police with Hazel Stewart shortly after her arrest in January 2009. The mother-of-two told detectives she was “easy prey” for Howell and feared he would kill her if she ended their relationship.

She said she had not known how he planned to kill her husband but knew something was up when he arrived at her house that night, Stewart said she wanted to die after the murders, saying her “life died” that day.

She told Sergeant Geoff Ferris that Howell had controlled her, threatening to claim parental rights over her baby if she did not have an abortion.

DAY TEN

During the second day of taped interviews the court heard Stewart tell police how she tried to stop Howell killing her husband. She said she had confronted him when he came to her house that night but he was “hyper” and “on a mission” to carry out his plan.

Stewart said she pleaded with her former lover not to poison her husband and later wished she had called police.

The court heard the former Sunday school teacher admit to destroying the pipe Howell used to kill Mr Buchanan. She said Howell was not affected by the murders and persuaded her to go along with them by saying that her abortion proved she could kill.

DAY ELEVEN

In the last of her police interviews, Hazel Stewart admitted she could have stopped Howell killing her husband and his wife. She said she knew about his plan to murder Trevor Buchanan and his wife Lesley and “let it happen”.

Stewart denied the money was a motive in going along with Howell’s idea, telling Police: “The biggest mistake of my life was meeting Colin Howell.”

The murder accused wept as she listened to the tapes, in which she apologised to Mr Buchanan’s family and her husband and children.

Stewart said she knew she would spend the rest of her life behind bars.

+ + +

HAZEL STEWART MURDER TRIAL: THE CLOSING ARGUMENTS

BELFAST TELEGRAPH, MARCH 1, 2011

Stewart isn’t innocent but she’s no killer, court is told

By DEBORAH McALEESE

Former Sunday school teacher Hazel Stewart is guilty of assisting a double killer, but she is not a murderer, a jury has been told.

Summing up the defence case on day 13 of her double murder trial, Paul Ramsey QC told Coleraine Crown Court yesterday that Stewart’s role was “subservient” to the role of her former lover, killer dentist Colin Howell.

“She is not innocent. She is guilty of assisting an offender, withholding information, perverting the course of justice, perjury. But she hasn’t been charged with anything other than murder,” he said. “They (the prosecution) have gone for broke. They have charged her with both murders.

“Her role was wholly subservient to Colin Howell’s. He did this for his own selfish ends,” said Mr Ramsey.

He said Stewart could not have been in a joint enterprise with Howell who regarded her as weak, vunerable and easy to control.

However, prosecution barrister Ciaran Murphy QC told the jury of nine men and three women that the mother-of-two from Macosquin, Coleraine, had agreed to carry out the murders of her husband Trevor Buchanan and Howell’s wife Lesley so that she and Howell could continue their relationship.

He said she helped execute a plan to sacrifice the life of her husband and kill her then lover’s wife with carbon monoxide fumes.

“If she had an inkling of humanity for her husband, she would have intervened, She chose not to,” he said.

Mr Murphy described the murder of her husband as a “gruesome extermination”. He said: “It is a bit like employing a hit-man to kill someone, they do the dirty work, you don’t become involved.

“That does not mean that you are not responsible. You would not watch that being done to a dog in the street if you had any grain of humanity, never mind your husband of 10 years.”

Stewart, who turned 48 today, denies murdering her husband and Mrs Howell in May 1991. Their bodies were discovered in a fume-filled car in a garage at Castlerock. It was thought they had died in a suicide pact.

Howell is currently serving a 21-year prison sentence after pleading guilty to the murders. The original police investigation into the deaths were criticised by Mr Ramsey.

“The police say this was nearly the perfect murder. They have to say that because of the inadequacies of the first investigation. It suits police to say this was a sophisticated and cunning plan. We say it is daring, but hastily put together,” he said. Mr Ramsey suggested that suspicions should have been raised about the deaths at the time because of a number of factors: (1) While this was supposedly a double suicide, both parties died alone at different ends of the car. (2) Mrs Howell was surrounded by photographs but none were of her children and the photographs were facing away from her.

(3) The pipe was not tied tightly to the exhaust and the tailgate of the car was blocking fumes getting into the vehicle.

(4) The windows of the car were open.

(5) Mrs Howell’s friend raised with police about Howell’s financial affairs.

Stewart’s defence team are due to finish summing up their case today before the judge issues guidance and direction to the jury. The jury will then be released to consider their verdict.

‘They were in it together, before, during and after’

PROSECUTION

Hazel Stewart sighed deeply as Crown Prosecutor Ciaran Murphy QC got to his feet in a final bid to convince the jury that the former Sunday school teacher was guilty of murdering her husband and former lover’s wife.

The mother-of-two, who turns 48 today, smiled weakly at her family who nodded supportively towards her in the dock.

“During the trial there is one person you have not heard from. That person was present when Trevor Buchanan was murdered. That person made, discussed and we say agreed the plan for both murders with Colin Howell and that person is Hazel Stewart,” Mr Murphy told the jury.

“She has not made a positive case or disputed the defence that we have heard. That is her right. But the reason she has not presented herself in a position to be asked questions is because, we say, she has not got any answers to suit her. You are entitled to draw inferences from her failure to give evidence,” he added.

* Stewart’s actions 20 years ago “cried out” for an explanation

but she refused to take the witness stand.

* The double murder was a joint enterprise.

“Two deaths, two spouses, one purpose - to get together.”

* Stewart failed to act to stop Howell.

“You cannot close your eyes to something like this, you cannot close your eyes and your ears.”

Mr Murphy said that the murders of Mr Buchanan and Mrs Howell were a joint enterprise between Steward and Howell.

He added: “It is a plan they were in together. The purpose was that each of them rid themselves of their respective spouses in order that they be together.

“Under that plan Hazel Stewart agreed to the death of Lesley Howell. She encouraged it by entering into the plan. She facilitated her husband’s death by ensuring the prerequisite of the plan and did nothing as her husband was exterminated by her lover Colin Howell. Her children were just feet away. Were they in it together? The answer we say is yes.”

Reminding the jury about Howell’s evidence to the court Mr Murphy said the killer dentist provided his version of events “warts and all”.

“He is a killer, a nasty piece of work, but remember, he was Hazel Stewart’s nasty piece of work at that time. He made a confession and was punished for it,” he added.

He described Howell and Stewart’s relationship as a “toxic partnership, destined to destroy the lives of others.”

“She entered into the plan. Lesley Howell’s murder would not have brought the ultimate end that was required. She had to put up for execution her own husband. She needed them both to die for her to be with her monstrous lover. We say she was up to her neck in this from day one,” Mr Murphy told the court.

He added: “This plan took time. It was formulated with time for reflection. There was time for Hazel Stewart to extricate herself from the plan, to stop it happening. What did she do? Nothing. She wanted Lesley dead. She wanted Trevor dead.

“She knew her husband was going to be gassed in a gruesome extermination in their bedroom. If you had any grain of humanity you would not do that to a dog in the street, never mind your husband. She heard the struggle. If she has any inkling of humanity she would have intervened.

“To suggest she was not involved in this is a nonsense.

“It was a joint enterprise. Two deaths, two spouses, one purpose - to be together.

“They may have been the perfect murders but it turns out they weren’t because Howell confessed. She cannot defend her actions because there is no defence. They were in it together, before, during and after.”

‘Colin Howell did this for his own selfish ends’

DEFENCE

Paul Ramsey QC swept his left arm towards the dock and pointed towards Hazel Stewart.

“The prosecution has to prove beyond all reasonable doubt that Hazel Stewart is guilty. The flip side of that is that the accused doesn’t have to prove anything. She is innocent until proven guilty beyond all reasonable doubt,” he said.

He added: “(Howell) was chomping at the bit to give evidence. He gave evidence for his own agenda. He practically vaulted into the witness box.

“She (Stewart) is not innocent. She is guilty of assisting an offender, withholding information, perverting the course of justice, perjury. But she hasn’t been charged with anything other than murder. They (the prosecution) have gone for broke. They have charged her with both murders. Her role was wholly subservient to Colin Howell’s. He did this for his own selfish ends.”

Asking how a wife could permit a man to enter her home to murder her husband, Mr Ramsey said: “But what if the man was Colin Howell? The Colin Howell we have heard about in the case?

“She said herself throughout interview: ‘I allowed it to happen. He controlled me.’”

Mr Ramsey added: “Is Colin Howell a controlling person? He told police he had a controlling influence in all his relationships. He told police if he lost control the relationship would end. He is controlling and domineering, particularly if he senses vulnerability.

“He has tried to influence clergymen, his lover, doctors, police, wives and he is now trying to influence the court. It is fairly straightforward. He is controlling.”

He told the jury that this was far from being the perfect crime.

“The police say this was nearly the perfect murder. They have to say that because of the inadequacies of the first investigation. It suits police to say this was a sophisticated and cunning plan. We say it was daring, but hastily put together.

“Here’s the big problem - Andrew and Lisa (Stewart’s children). They weren’t infants. They were nine and ten at the time. Do you seriously think if this plan was up and running there would not have been some arrangements discussed for Andrew and Lisa? This is a careful intelligent man who thinks of everything.”

He added “It is said they killed their partners so they could be together. We say there was a different motive. Colin Howell was in financial difficulties, he was building a new surgery, he borrowed money.

“Then on May 7, Lesley’s father dies suddenly. Now she has her father’s money. She told (her friend) Margaret Topping the money had been left for her and the children. Here was a woman who was independent. She maybe sees a future away from Colin Howell. Her behaviour was alarming him. She was leading a separate life.

* Stewart guilty of withholding information, and perverting the course of justice - but not guilty of murder.

* Crown case is full of inconsistencies and uncertainties. “The evidence against her has become confused … that it is not clear what the prosecution case is.”

* She was wholly subservient to Colin Howell. “He completely controlled her. He devised. He planned. He carried out these murders for his own selfish ends.”

“There was a problem for Howell. Two sudden deaths, 12 days apart, his father-in-law and then his wife. He is the sole beneficiary. The police would come knocking.

“That is when he had the eureka moment. What if she died in a suicide pact?

“That would take the spotlight away from him. That was Trevor’s fate sealed.”

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HAZEL STEWART MURDER TRIAL: JURY ASKED TO DECIDE

BELFAST TELEGRAPH WEDNESDAY MARCH 2, 2011

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HAZEL STEWART MURDER TRIAL: ‘GUILTY’

BELFAST TELEGRAPH, THURSDAY MARCH 3, 2011

The cries of her children broke the silence

as jury delivered their verdict of guilty

By DEBORAH McALEESE

A guttural, heartbreaking moan shattered the silence as the word “guilty” hung uneasily in the air. Hazel Stewart watched helplessly from the dock as an anguished cry escaped from her only son Andrew who fell forward in his chair with his hands clasped to his face, sobbing painfully.

Distraught, her daughter Lisa began crying out: “Mummy, mummy, no. It’s not fair. That’s not fair. It’s wrong. It’s wrong.”

Stewart began to cry as she looked towards her children and her distraught husband David and mouthed the words: “It’s okay. It will be okay.”

Lisa turned several times towards the jury members as if to plead with them to change their minds.

Roughly wiping tears from his face, David put his arms around Lisa to try and comfort her.

There were gasps around the courtroom as members of Stewart’s and her victims’ families choked back sobs.

The jury panel were visibly upset by the scenes of despair within the court. Some appeared to be trying not to cry.

They had taken just over two hours to reach their decision about Stewart’s involvement in the murder of her husband Trevor Buchanan and her ex-lover Colin Howell’s wife Lesley.

The tension was almost razor sharp as the court waited for the jury to return and deliver their verdict. For the first time throughout the trial not even a whisper broke the silence.

Stewart was breathing heavily, almost hyperventilating, as the jury walked in. She watched them carefully, desperate for some sign as to what her fate was to be.

It became too much for her husband who began to cry as he looked towards her in the dock.

The foreman of the jury did not look at her as he told the court that a unanimous verdict of guilty on both counts of murder had been reached.

Judge Justice Hart turned towards Stewart and said sharply: “Stand up.”

Momentarily, she seemed unsteady as she rose to her feet.

“You have been convicted of two murders and the only punishment the court can hand down is life imprisonment,” he told her. The judge then told prison staff: “Take her away.”

As she was taken shakily from the dock Stewart looked towards her two children and her husband and slightly nodded.

They were inconsolable as she was led away by prison guards.

Their cries could be heard outside the courtroom after everybody else had left.

Prison staff permitted her two children and her husband to meet with her privately and say their goodbyes before she was taken to the woman’s prison at Hydebank.

Outside, members of the public crowded round the courthouse hoping to catch a glimpse of Stewart as she was taken away in a prison van.

Several police officers had to escort Stewart’s children and husband through the crowds to their car as they left the court. Looking shattered, the three held on tightly to each other.

They drove out of the car park and past the front of the court. Moments later, the prison van drove out of the gate. Stewart sat inside, shielding her face.

Pieces of the jigsaw still missing as killer starts life behind bars

* Detectives may quiz Howell’

* Original police probe under scrutiny

* Bid to recover £130,000 inheritance

Hazel Stewart spent her first night behind bars last night after being found guilty of double murder - but her silence in court has left many questions about the case unsolved.

Stewart’s conviction for the 1991 murder of her husband Trevor Buchanan and her former lover’s wife Lesley Howell brought an end to one of the most dramatic trials in Northern Ireland’s legal history.

Her distraught son, daughter and husband wept as she was told yesterday that she will serve a life sentence, the length of which will be determined following pre-sentence reports.

The 48-year-old’s defence team are considering launching an appeal against the verdict, which took the jury just over two hours to reach

As Stewart failed to give evidence in her defence during her trial her character remains a mystery, and a number of questions about the case remain unanswered:

* What made her enter into a murder plot with Howell?

* Why did she not do anything to stop the murders?

*Did she deliberately drug her husband?

* Would she have ever confessed?

Questions are also mounting over the original police investigation and how detectives failed to spot that Mr Buchanan and Mrs Howell had been murdered.

It has emerged that police are considering flying to the US to question Colin Howell’s second wife Kyle after it was alleged in court that he had told her about the murders in 1998. Kyle Jorgensen, who has divorced Howell, is now living in Florida.

Police are to study transcripts of Howell’s evidence to the court during the trial, when he said he had told Kyle that he had murdered his wife and Trevor Buchanan several years before confessing to police.

A file has been submitted to the Public Prosecution Service.

Detective Chief Superintendent Raymond Murray, who headed up the double murder investigation following Howell’s confession in 2009, said: “Obviously we are interested in some of the material which came out in court.”

A confiscation order is to be made to the court for the money that Stewart received following her husband’s death.

She received a total of £130,000 in benefits, partly from an insurance company with whom she had an endowment policy and the rest from a police pension fund which she received up until the time she married David Stewart five years ago.

Howell’s children have spoken of their relief of finding that their mother had not in fact committed suicide.

Lauren, who was four at the time of the murders, said: “Such a significant part of my growing up was feeling that my mum had left me and I could not understand because I remembered that she loved us, it was so hard to accept.

“There was a real feeling of abandonment. When I found out that (suicide) did not happen, I felt relief and sadness that that had happened to her.”

Daniel, who was two at the time of his mother’s death, said: “I was always dealing with the fact she killed herself on my second birthday so she did not want to be around us. It put the idea in mind that our mother had abandoned us.”

Trevor Buchanan’s family said that while there was “immense satisfaction” that justice has been done, there is no cause for celebration”.

Mr Buchanan’s sister Valerie said when the family heard Trevor had died they were filled with “shock and devastation”.

“I will never forget what it did to my parents. We visited Trevor in the funeral parlour and dad just dived for the coffin. He picked him up and said ‘why did you do it? Why didn’t you come to me?’ I’ll never forget those words,” she said.

Detective Superintendent Raymond Murray said the murders were premeditated, and were “particularly chilling” by the proximity of the killers’ children to the murder scenes. He added that Mr Buchanan and Mrs Howell were “two young people with their whole lives ahead of them” and their lives were cut short in a very “calculated, cold murder”.

“The thing that really strikes me about the last three to four weeks in court is I don’t think anybody who sat in court, be it all the way through it or partially, could have missed the sheer emotional wreckage that this has left behind across all those families.

“I don’t think they have really felt such tension and emotion in a court as on the deliverance of the verdict and it shows how deeply this has scarred absolutely everybody that is involved,” he daid.

Attractive, well-dressed, seemingly loving … but still an enigma

By DEBORAH McALEESE

For 15 days her every move, facial expression or hand gesture was scrutinised.

But this attractive, well-dressed woman - who has so fascinated the public that many would stand outside the courthouse hoping to catch a glimpse of her - remains an enigma..

As I watched her in court each day she appeared to be a caring mother and devoted wife, much loved my her family whose daily support throughout the trial never once wavered.

Her first thoughts were for her distraught son and daughter as she was jailed yesterday.

Being led from the court she turned to them and mouthed the words: “It will be okay.”

Although clearly shaken, this was a much stronger woman than the one who, during her first court appearances, cowered in the public gallery, hiding under the black hood of her duffle coat, barely raising her eyes from the floor.

For almost four weeks the horrible details of how she had stood by and let Colin Howell murder her husband and his wife, and the most intimate aspects of their sexual relationship were repeatedly regurgitated before the family and strangers. But never once saw her blush.

Each day as she walked into the dock she seemed to withdraw into herself, as though she was watching proceedings but was not really listening. This appears to be the same coping mechanism she adopted on the night of the murders when she held her hands over her ears because she did not want to hear as Howell murdered her husband.

Stewart never took to the stand in her own defence, so it was difficult to build up a true picture of the shy-looking woman who told police she had been manipulated by Howell.

But the cold facts of this case speak differently. They show her to have been a woman so callously capable of entering into a double murder plot to get rid of her husband and lover’s wife.

Perhaps the only people who will ever know the real Hazel Stewart are her and her nemesis, Colin Howell.

Justice doesn’t ease pain of losing a loving mother

Lesley Howell’s daughter Lauren bit her lip as she fought back tears while describing her family’s heartbreak over the loss of their mother.

In a soft but clear voice, Lauren spoke of how she and her brother Dan and Jonny were comforted that “those involved in Lesley’s and Trevor’s murders have finally been brought to justice”.

Lauren, Dan and Jonny, along with their deceased brother Matthew, were in the house that night in May 1991 when their father Colin murdered their mother.

Colin Howell locked the children in their bedrooms while he gassed their mother before putting her body in the back of the family car and driving to the Buchanan’s house to murder RUC Constable Trevor.

For almost two decades he let his children believe that their mother had taken her own life in a suicide pact with Mr Buchanan.

In the years after the murders the children would have spent hours on end with their father, his accomplice Stewart and her two children.

Friday nights were spent in Stewart’s house watching videos and eating sweets.

Summer days after school were spent at the beach together, and both families even spent a short holiday together in Newcastle, Co Down.

The children became friends and part of that friendship even remains today. Lauren and Stewart’s daughter Lisa were seen smiling and chatting during the trial.

Relieved to finally have justice for their mother, Mrs Howell’s children still feel a heavy sadness over how she was taken from them.

“We mourn our mother Lesley and are pained at the time and the memories that we have been so denied,” Lauren said as she stood outside the court with her mother’s aunt Alice Perry and her brother Chris Clarke.

“We rejoice in the contribution our mum made to our lives in the short time we had together. We know her to have been a loving, devoted mother and we bitterly regret the horrible way in which she has been taken from us.

“Our thoughts at this time are also with the Buchanan family, who share our loss,” she said.

Mrs Howell’s brother Chris said he hoped these words reflect the feelings of Lesley’s eldest son Matthew “who loved her dearly”.

Matthew died in a tragic accident several years ago. He died still believing his mother had taken her own life.

From a life of luxury to the women’s wing in prison

By ALAN MURRAY

Hazel Stewart had become used to the finer things in life. She lived in a luxury house near Coleraine and was comfortable in her middle-class surroundings.

Ash House, the women’s wing at Hydebank Prison which will become Hazel Stewart’s new home, is a million miles away from that life.

Opened in 2004, it has a capacity for at least 56 prisoners but usually houses under 50 women in surroundings which include in-cell sanitation and shower facilities.

Among those held in the two-story complex inside the Hydebank Wood Young Offenders Centre are the notorious killers Jacqueline Crymble and Julie McGinley, both of whom, like Stewart, were convicted of murdering their husbands.

It is alongside these callous killers that Stewart will spend the next years of her life, unless she successfully appeals her convictions.

Prison Service sources say that Stewart will be subjected to round-the-clock observation because of concerns about her mental state and fears she may attempt to self harm.

That means that for the next three to six months, a prison officer will look in on her through a spy hole every 15 minutes when she is confined to her cell.

The culture shock for the former Sunday school teacher will be enormous despite the humane regime at Ash House.

Four wings at the prison each contain 14 cells and each wing contains a recreation room and a kitchen where microwave ovens and refrigerators are located.

The unit has a six-bed hospital for the women prisoners but no psychiatric facility for vunerable inmates.

In its report into Ash House published in 2007, the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission said that women prisoners continued to suffer verbal abuse from young male inmates at Hydebank Wood while being transported to and from court hearings.

That may not be a problem Stewart is likely to encounter, but if she does decide to attend the Sunday religious services held within Hydebank Wood, then she may well run the gauntlet of leering and sexually explicit remarks which young men detained there are inclined to express when they glimpse attractive women.

Stewart may find the taunts thrown her way inside Hydebank a relentless, insufferable cross she cannot bear.

We regret thy had to wait 20 years

Police say sorry for missing vital clues and vow lessons will be learned

Police last night apologised for missing the fact that Lesley Howell and Trevor Buchanan had been murdered when their bodies were discovered in 1991.

The officer in charge of the new investigation into their murders, PSNI Detective Superintendent Raymond Murray, said he regretted it had taken so long for justice.

When Mrs Howell and Mr Buchanan’s bodies were found in the fume-filled car in a garage at Castlerock, it was initially thought they had died in a suicide pact.

However, investigating officers missed a number of vital clues:

* While this was supposedly a double suicide, both parties died alone at different ends of the car.

* Mrs Howell, a devoted mother, was surrounded by family photographs, but none were of her children and the photographs were facing away from her.

* The pipe that supposedly filled the car with fumes was not tied tightly to the exhaust, and the tailgate of the car was blocking fumes getting into the vehicle.

* The windows of the car were open.

*Mr Buchanan’s leg was outside the car.

* Mrs Howell’s friend Margaret Topping raised concerns with police about Howell’s financial affairs and the fact that Lesley had received a substantial sum of money from her father, who had died 12 days previously.

* Mrs Topping also told police about an incident shortly before the murders when Mrs Howell said she had been electrocuted in the bath after Howell had “accidentally” dropped a cable into the water.

* Mrs Topping and RUC Constable David Green told a jury at Stewart’s murder trial that they had raised their suspicions about the deaths with police at the time.

However, the investigating officer at the time, Detective Jack Hutchinson, told the trial jury that no concerns had been raised with him about any potential criminal wrongdoing in the case.

The police Ombudsman is now investigating the original police inquiry after Mr Buchanan’s family lodged a complaint.

Superintendent Murray said that hindsight was always crystal clear, but that he regretted the delay in the case.

“1991 was a very different place in Northern Ireland. There were 102 terrorist murders alone and CID were a lot more stretched than they are at the minute. They did not have so many assets available to them than they would have now,” he said.

“However, the family have made a complaint to the Police Ombudsman and I look to the Ombudsman now to investigate it and come back to us. If there are lessons to be learned, we will learn them.

“Things have moved on a great deal in 20 years and we regret they had to wait 20 years.”

The truth of the murders only became known when Howell confessed to police in January 2009.

The Close-knit Christian community with difficult questions left to answer

By ADRIAN RUTHERFORD AND DAVID YOUNG

It was difficult to keep secrets in Coleraine Baptist Church, and it didn’t take long for the clandestine relationship between two of its members to be discovered.

Now, however, questions are being raised precisely how much was known, or at least suspected, about Colin Howell and Hazel Stewart within its close knit religious family.

The church was central to the trial. At least nine of the fourteen prosecution witnesses had direct links to it, including elders and the former pastor John Hansford.

A member of the church discovered the affair between Howell and Stewart when he spotted them in a car at Castle Road Forest Park in Coleraine.

Dr Allan Topping told the trial he was astonished to learn Howell continued the affair after the deaths of his wife and Mr Buchanan

He also told the court “Everyone did not believe it was a suicide.”

Sunday school teacher Jim Flanagan, an elder at the church, recalled how Howell rang him early on the morning after the crimes and told him his wife was missing.

He was asked to check the house in Castlerock owned by Mrs Howell’s late father, and was accompanied by another elder, off-duty policeman David Green, who made the grim discovery.

Mr Flanagan spoke to Howell shortly afterwards, and said: “There was no overwhelming sadness as one might have expected.”

And Mr Green told the jury he was suspicious that Howell may have been involved and alerted three detectives who were investigating the case.

Mr Hansford provided relationship counselling to both couples when the affair was discovered.

He was the first to see Howell after the news that his wife’s body had been found, and recalled how he showed little emotion.

“I felt that he was holding something back,” he recalled.

The pastor’s wife, Elizabeth, broke the news to Stewart about her husband’s death.

She also recalled a puzzling reaction from Stewart, adding: “She seemed motionless, that’s probably the best way to put it.”

Another church member, Derek McAuley, who was a friend of Mr Buchanan and Howell, was asked by the dentist to pass on a letter to Stewart on the day of funerals imploring her to stay with him.

He steamed open the letter and photocopied it.

“I opened the letter because I felt that, even after all what happened, that this guy was still pursuing Hazel,” Mr McAuley told the trial.

Lesley Clyde, also a church member and police colleague of Mr Buchanan, recalled how Trevor had confided in him that his wife was having an affair with Howell.

Mr Buchanan, he said, had Christian beliefs which meant “once together, together forever”. He did not believe in separation or divorce.

Graham Stirling was a senior member of Barn fellowship Church, which Howell joined having left Coleraine Baptist following his wife’s death.

He recalled Howell bragging about fooling police for over 18 years, and boasting about the “clever” way he poisoned the pair.

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HAZEL STEWART MURDER TRIAL:

AFTERMATH OF THE VERDICT

BELFAST TELEGRAPH FRIDAY, MARCH 4, 2011

* Stewart and Crymble: united in notoriety

* The missed clues: no-one will face sanctions

*Church’s role: the congregation closes ranks

Stewart at ‘peace with God’ as her cell door slams shut

By ALAN MURRAY

Fears were growing last night over the health of Hazel Stewart after she was heard saying that she had made her “peace with God”.

Prison sources have raised fears over how the double killer will adapt to life within Hydebank jail where she is beginning a life sentence for the murders of her husband Trevor Buchanan and Lesley Howell, her former lover’s wife.

A jury at Coleraine Crown Court took less than two hours to decide that the former Sunday school teacher had joined with Colin Howell in a murder plot which has horrified people across Northern Ireland.

Stewart is set to learn next week how long she must spend in prison. Facing the reality of living 10 to 20 years of her life within the female wing of Hydebank Wood Young Offenders Centre will have hit Hazel Stewart hard yesterday.

Coping with “first day blues”; as some prison officers refer to it, will have taken its toll on the once buoyant policeman’s wife who wore designer label clothes and carried matching bags.

The once sharply-dressed double killer will know full well the limitations placed on her daily life in Ash House by the time she appears for sentence in Belfast.

She may be able to fit in a hairdressing appointment with the visiting Ash House stylist before she appears at Belfast Crown Court, but beyond that the comfortable, privileged life she knew at Ballystrone Road in Macosquin has gone, perhaps forever.

Hazel Stewart became the seventh life sentence prisoner to join the Ash House cast on Wednesday evening, devastated by the swift verdict reached by the nine-man and three-woman jury that convicted her.

Custody staff reported hearing her mutter she had “made her peace with God”; increasing concerns that she is in an extremely vunerable mental state which will require constant monitoring for the foreseeable future.

Whether fellow inmates and murderers Julie McGinley and Jacqueline Crymble give her the peace and space to come to terms with the reality of her new situation remains to be seen, but she will not be able to shut them out of her life, or even her cell, which she cannot lock.

Seeing who can make a new inmate cry first is one of the ‘contests’ staged in both male and female sections of prisons, and Ash House is no exception.

Yesterday morning Hazel Stewart will have been roused around 7.45am and invited to come for breakfast, where she would have learned who she will rub shoulders with every day in her new home.

She will also have had a meeting with her class officer and her vocational training instructor. That will have been particularly tough because she spent no time on remand to prepare her for jail.

The wearing of a wristwatch will be permitted and perhaps a tiny amount of jewellery, like a wedding ring, provided they could not be used to inflict injury on other prisoners or staff, or used to cause self-harm.

She will have been given a menu list on Wednesday night to choose meals for breakfast, lunch and dinner yesterday. She will also have been given a prison serial number beginning with the letter A, which prison staff say denotes a life sentence prisoner.

Visit application forms will also have been provided to allow her to send out visit passes to her loved-ones for the next four weeks.

She will also have been given prison-headed notepaper to write letters on, but warned that every word she writes will be scrutinised and letters returned to her if they contain any derogatory comments about anyone or any other improper scribbling.

A prison source told the Belfast Telegraph: “The first 48 hours are the most difficult for any first-timer, especially a life sentence prisoner who has never even contemplated being in this type of environment. The culture shock is beyond huge.

“There is depression and despair in those first 48 hours which can lead people to try to take their own lives so every procedure will be followed to ensure that doesn’t happen.

“The Governor will have explained to Hazel Stewart on Wednesday night the rules of Ash House and the punishments for breaching those rules and will have reminded her formally that she has been convicted of taking other people’s lives and is a life sentence prisoner.

“That little talk from the Governor can have an impact as salutary as the jury’s verdict.”

Hazel Stewart has already become the victim of prison humour. Prison officers are texting each other with jokes about her. One text reads: “In one day Hazel Stewart has swapped a BMW 5 series for a white van, a detached house for a 6 by 10 room and red wine for a pint of milk … but at least the gym membership is free.”

Another text reads: “I am just laughing at the idea of Hazel Stewart queuing up to use the toaster in the morning. I hear she has expensive tastes, well she should fit right in as it costs £96,000 to live in Ash House per person per year”.

Their lives and personalities could not have been any more different, but now these two husband killers will share life on a jail wing

‘Stewart’s character remains a mystery. The fact she never took to the stand in her own defence makes it hard to get underneath her public persona’

By DEBORAH McALEESE

They are both notorious killer wives who plotted with their lovers to murder their husbands.

Their cruel actions have left their children without fathers and a trail of destroyed lives.

But while the case of Hazel Stewart evoked massive public intrigue, the case of Jacqueline Crymble elicited almost venomous vilification.

On the surface the characters of the two women could not be more different.

Stewart is elegant and reserved and was always immaculately dressed. She captivated the public.

Crymble is brash and foul-mouthed and was always unkempt. The public hated her.

In another world their paths would probably never have crossed. Now they are destined to live out the best part of their lives behind bars together.

Stewart’s character remains a mystery. The fact she never took to the stand in her own defence makes it hard to get underneath her public persona.

Every day in court the demurely dressed 48-year-old would almost visibly shrink into the background.

Her discreet smiles and nods to her family painted the picture of a caring mother and loving wife.

But the cold facts of her case also showed her to be a callous killer who entered into a plot with her lover Colin Howell to murder her husband Trevor Buchanan and Howell’s wife Lesley.

Howell was the mastermind behind the plot; he carried out the murders and disposed of the bodies.

But, even though she was not in the house when Mrs Howell was killed, and she sat in another room with her hands over her ears as her husband was being gassed, she had encouraged Howell and facilitated the murders.

In keeping with her demeanour throughout the trial Stewart kept silent when convicted. Although clearly upset she turned to her husband and children and told them it would be ok.

She had left behind a pampered life with a beautiful home, expensive shopping trips, family nights out and holidays abroad.

In fact, the life that Stewart had built for herself was the one that Crymble had craved.

It was greed that motivated Crymble to murder her husband Paul. She wanted the fancy house and the flash cars and so she plotted to murder her husband Paul for his insurance money.

She masterminded the murder and convinced her lover Paul Ferguson to join in.

Unlike Stewart, who cowered away from the physical act of murder, Crymble viciously kicked her husband as he lay helpless on the floor and then held a plastic bag over his head until he died.

Far from shrinking into the background during her trial, Crymble thrived on putting on a show for her audience. She would smile and whisper to her co-accused while playing flirtatiously with her hair.

She happily took the stand in her own defence, one moment playing the grieving wife crying floods of crocodile tears, the next losing her temper and shouting at the prosecution.

She refused to dress modestly, once raising eyebrows when she took to the stand dressed head to toe in virgin white.

Although opposites in many ways, both these women craved excitement in their lives and in their pursuit of that excitement they became merciless killers.

Crymble is hard, brash, manipulative and street-wise.

Stewart, in her own words, is soft, weak and easily controlled.

But there was something about Stewart’s demeanour on the day she was convicted.

It was the way she held her composure in the dock when she heard the word “guilty”.

This is a woman that may look meek, but is much stronger on the inside.

This is the woman who for two decades was able to live with a horrible secret without cracking once.

‘The partners of two lovers … found gassed to

death in a car with the windows open …

yet the police didn’t suspect a thing. Now

it emerges no-one will be called to

account for the missed clues’

By DEBORAH McALEESE

No police officer will face any sanction for the failed RUC investigation into the deaths of Trevor Buchanan and Lesley Howell.

As they have since retired, action cannot be taken against the officers who missed the fact that the father-of-two and mother-of-four had been murdered.

It is understood the findings of a Police Ombudsman investigation into the failed 1991 probe could be raised within weeks.

A spokesman for the Ombudsman said their investigation is well advanced.

“We have also been monitoring the trial to identify any additional issues and once we have considered these issues we will be in a position to finalise our report,” he added.

However, the Ombudsman will not be able to make any disciplinary recommendations as those involved are no longer serving police officers.

Police closed the original investigation - led by Detective inspector Jack Hutchinson - into the sudden deaths of Mr Buchanan and Mrs Howell saying they died in a suicide pact.

Their bodies were discovered in a car parked in a garage in Castlerock. Killer dentist Colin Howell had gassed his wife and Hazel Stewart’s husband as he slept at home and then dumped their bodies in his car before attaching a hose to the car exhaust and staging a suicide scene.

Criticism of the original police investigation was raised earlier this week during Stewart’s trial.

Her defence barrister described the investigation as “inadequate” and said a number of vital clues that should have raised suspicion had been missed.

Serious questions are continuing to mount over how such mistakes could have been made.

Factors which should have raised suspicion at the time include:

[1] It was known that the pair’s spouses had been having an affair but this failed to raise suspicions.

[2] While this was supposedly a double suicide pact, the victims did not die together. Mrs Howell was found in the boot of the car and Mr Buchanan in the driver’s seat.

[3] Mrs Howell, a devoted mother who adored her children, was surrounded by photographs, but none were of her children.

[4] The hose attached to the exhaust was loose and had become blocked by the tailgate of the car, preventing any fumes getting into the vehicle.

[5] Mr. Buchanan’s leg was outside of the car and he had a split lip.

[6] Car windows were open.

[7] Suspicions about the deaths, a friend of Mrs Howell, Margaret Topping, told police at the time of a conversation she had with the deceased a few days earlier when she confided in her that Howell had tried to electrocute her in the bath with an electric cable.

[8] Mrs Topping also raised concerns with police about Howell’s financial affairs. She advised them that Mrs Howell was to inherit a generous sum of cash from her late father which she wanted to keep away from Howell. Following her death Howell, who was on the verge of bankruptcy, had become the sole beneficiary.

[9] No police investigation was carried out into his financial affairs.

[10] Constable David Green, who discovered the bodies but was not involved in the investigation, also raised suspicions about the deaths. The investigating officer at the time, Detective Jack Hutchinson, told Stewart’s trial, however, that nobody had raised any concerns about the deaths with him.

He said that no-one had made any “categoric insinuations of criminal complicity”.

[12] Howell himself said that just a few months after the murders he feared the game was up when Detective Hutchinson said to him: “It would need to be a perfect murder to get away with something like that.”

[13] Policing Board member Jimmy Spratt said he has raised the matter with the PSNI and said there are serious questions to be answered.

“This needs a very full, frank and proper investigation. Very serious questions need to be answered for the Howell and Buchanan families,” he said.

Mr Spratt added: “It is incumbent of the police service and the Ombudsman to carry out this investigation as quickly as possible.

“I have very serious concerns about it.

“I will be meeting with the Buchanan family within the coming days to discuss this and will be asking questions at the Policing Board in due course.”

Church congregation draws a veil of silence over killings

By Lesley-Anne Henry

Twenty years ago they stayed silent about the steamy affair between Colin Howell and Hazel Stewart. And yesterday members of Coleraine Baptist Church closed ranks again when asked about their handling of the tragedy.

In spite of giving evidence during Stewart’s trial, it seems many church members are keen to forget the murders and move on.

While some locals believe the church members have serious questions to answer after court revelations about secret letters, counselling sessions and confessions, its members seem reluctant to resurrect the past.

Just as they did two decades ago, they want to keep at bay any possibility that there may have been failings on their part.

Former schoolteacher and Coleraine Baptist Church elder Jim Flanagan - a prosecution witness - said he did not believe the church’s reputation had been damaged.

“I do not think that the church is coming out looking bad at all,” he told the Belfast Telegraph at his home in Coleraine yesterday. “I have nothing more to say on the matter”.

Howell had telephoned Mr Flanagan early on Sunday morning after the crimes and told him his wife was missing.

Mr Flanagan and former RUC man David Green discovered the two bodies at The Twelve Apostles cottages in Castlerock a number of hours after that phone call.

Mr Green, who now runs an art gallery in Coleraine, was also reluctant to talk about the events of that night in May 1991.

“I have left it behind a long time ago,” he said. “I do not want to say anything more about it.”

In court, Mr Green said he passed on concerns about the apparent suicides to investigating officers. However, he declined yesterday to be drawn on the original police investigation.

On the day of his wife’s funeral, Howell asked church member Derek McAuley to give a letter to Stewart, imploring her to stay with him.

Mr McAuley steamed the letter open, photocopied it and kept a copy. In court he said he had done so because he felt Howell was still pursuing Hazel.

When asked by the Belfast Telegraph yesterday if he felt the church had questions to answer, Mr McAuley replied: “It’s not a bad question. You should maybe ask Pastor Hansford.

“We wanted the best for them. But, I suppose the world is littered with people trying their best.”

Pastor John Hansford, who now lives in Spain, counselled the Buchanans and Howells after finding out about the affair.

He said: “I suppose she (Hazel) has a sense if dissatisfaction in her life. It was not going where she wanted it to go.

“He (Trevor) struggled with it all and felt desperately wounded and alone.”

Meanwhile, Margaret and Dr Alan Topping, who were close friends of the Howells, also declined to comment on the church’s handling of events.

At the couple’s home in Coleraine yesterday, Dr Topping said they had said all they wanted to in court.

However, on a BBC Spotlight programme, aired just hours after Stewart’s conviction, Mrs Topping who had befriended Lesley Howell, said she had told police Howell dropped an electric cable into his wife’s bath.

Colin Howell had also confided about his infidelity to Willie Patterson of The Barn Fellowship - a north Antrim-based Christian organisation Howell had set up after being expelled from the Baptist Church in Coleraine.

Mr Patterson was also reluctant to speak when approached by the Belfast Telegraph yesterday.

Dressed in a purple jumper and trousers he said: “I am not prepared to say anything more. I have given my evidence and I am not prepared to say anything else.”

PHOTOGRAPHS

(FROM BELFAST TELEGRAPH THURSDAY, MARCH 3 2011.)

* * *

PART 3

[THE SECTIONS WHICH FOLLOW, SHOW WHAT THE HOLY SCRIPTURES TEACH REGARDING THE CHRISTIANS’ RESPONSIBILITY BEFORE GOD; AND THE FUTURE UNHAPPY STATE OF DISOBEDIENT BELIEVERS: BUT,- LIKE STATEMENTS MADE DURING THE POLICE INVESTIGATIONS INTO THE COLIN HOWELL / HAZEL BUCHANAN MURDERS, - THEY ARE NOT BEING “FOLLOWED UP” AND HAVE BEEN “ALLOWED TO GO COLD”!

CONSEQUENTLY, THERE MUST BE A SIMILAR “DAMMING CRITICISM” DUE FOR THE WILFUL NEGLECT OF RESPONSIBILITY TRUTHS - ESPECIALLY UPON ALL WHO FULLY UNDERSTAND THEM, BUT DOGGEDLY REFUSE TO OBEY OR DISCLOSE THESE TRUTHS TO OTHER BELIEVERS!

IS IT NOT TRUE TO SAY THAT, IN THIS WAY, MANY OF THE LORD’S GIFTED SERVANTS HAVE “CHEATED” ON THEIR BROTHERS AND SISTERS IN CHRIST! AND HAVE “CONTRIBUTED LARGELY TO THE PRESENT LETHARGY” WITHIN HIS CHURCH?

THE EXPRESSION “WALTZING IN TIME” BY “CONTROLLING IN ONE AREA” - (THAT OF SALVATION BY GRACE AND THE “FREE GIFT OF GOD”) - TO THE OBVIOUS NEGLECT OF “ANOTHER AREA” (THAT OF: “A JUST RECOMPENSE OF REWARD”) - MAY WELL BE AN APT DESCRIPTION OF THE BEHAVIOUR OF MANY BIBLE TEACHERS WITHIN THE CHURCH OF GOD TODAY!]

-------

SELECTED QUOTATIONS

1

“For the forgiveness of sins, and for life as a forgiven man in the camp neither perfection of form, nor washing at the gate of the tabernacle, nor special clothing, were demanded: but for access to God and for priestly service all these were as indispensable as the atoning blood. Imputed righteousness settles completely and for ever the judical standing of the believer as justified before the law of God; but practical righteousness must be added in order to secure many of the mighty privileges which become possible to the justified. Let him that hath ears here this also, for loss and shame must be his at last who has been content to remain deformed and imperfect in moral state, or is found to have neglected the washing, and so to be unfit to wear the noble clothing required for access to the throne of glory. Such neglect of present grace not only causes the loss of heart access to God, as the careless believer surely knows, but will assure the forfeiture of much that grace would have granted in the future. …”

“When Christians are warned that, if they walk in an evil way, they ‘shall not inherit the kingdom of God’ the meaning is equally clear that they shall forfeit sovereignty in the kingdom.

This solemn warning is stated three times in plain words (1 Cor. 6: 7-11; Gal. 5: 21; Eph. 5: 5). The first of these passages is addressed to persons who had been blessedly saved from gross sins and been justified and sanctified. The second passage shows that this special warning was a standing feature of Paul’s ministry: ‘of the which I forewarn you, even as I did forewarn you,’ i.e., while he had been among them. The Ephesian passage is addressed to such as had been ‘sons of disobedience’ but had been saved by grace through faith (2: 1-10). Had they remained sons of disobedience the wrath of God must have been their portion for gross wickedness; but being among the saved this cannot be, yet should they resume that evil life they will be disinherited. This agrees with the warning Christ gave from heaven that it is the conquerors in His battles, not the defeated, who will be crowned; enthroned, and bear the sceptre of authority (Rev. 2: 10; 3: 21; 2: 26, 27).”

- Quoted from two separate writings by G. H. LANG.

2

Gal. 5: 19. “Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are [adultery,*] fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness. 20. Idolatry, witchcraft, enmities, contentions, emulations, passionateness,

party-strifes, discords, parties. 21. Envies, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and the

like to these; of which I give you warning beforehand, as I also told you before,

that they who do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.”

* The word is omitted by some critics.

“These offences would exclude from the kingdom. Will any say that believers cannot be guilty of them? Will any deny that they are actually manifested in our own day? that they sprung up by nature, and need the taming down of the flesh to keep them under? And if [regenerate] believers can be guilty of them, and are actually guilty, will any say that the warning of exclusion from the [millennial] kingdom does not refer to them? If they were not to apply to them, what means the apostle’s solemn and repeated warning? Why did he tell them of it at his first preaching? and when writing renew the caution? If it referred only to [the unregenerate and] the ungodly, to what purpose was it, so earnestly to press it on the attention of the renewed? If the caution be universal, that all doers of the things described in this list will be excluded from the kingdom: and if it be certain too, that some saints are guilty of these things, then it is certain too, that some saints will be excluded from the kingdom. …”

‘For he that soweth into his own flesh, shall out of the flesh reap corruption: but

he that soweth unto the Spirit shall out of the Spirit reap life everlasting.’

There is a way of explaining this verse, which shall remove all its force and pressure. You may make the first half of threat, to render to the unbeliever alone; and the second half of promise, to relate to the justified [by faith] alone. Just so the prophecies used to be expounded. ‘All the promises belong to the Church; all the threats to the Jews.’ Both modes of exposition are, I suppose, equally unfair. A general truth is here propounded; and as such, it affects the believer and unbeliever alike. Whoever is embraced by its terms will share in its results, whether of good or evil. The sower to the flesh or to the Spirit, whoever he may be is the party pointed out.”

We shall best see its meaning by comparing this verse with some of the preceding chapter. ‘Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditious, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they who do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God:’ Gal. 5: 19-21. I put together, then, these two assertions, and thereby I learn, that the reaping corruption from, sowing to the flesh is the same as being shut out of the millennial kingdom. When the Lord adjudges to the sowers unto the Spirit the glory of the first resurrection, to these sowers to the flesh He will award the sentence, - that their bodies still remain under the power of death [for a further 1,000 years]. ‘Out of the flesh they shall reap corruption.” And so it is written again: “For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall [are about to] die: but if ye through the Spirit mortify the deeds of the flesh, ye shall live:’ Rom. 8: 13. What death is this? Not the present death, which is experienced by multitudes of saints; but a future one, to be received at Christ’s appearing. What is the life that is to be received? Not spiritual life; for this is spoken to believers already possessed of that. Not natural life: for the best of saints still die. Both the death and the life, then, look onward to the future [millennial] day. As the Saviour Himself puts it from another point of view, more than once, - ‘He that saveth his life shall lose it, and he that loseth his life for My sake, shall find it:’ Matt. 16: 25. Thus, then, God, by His Spirit, warns Christians - yes, true believers - against sowing to the flesh. For, alas! multitudes of Christ’s people do.

The threat of God against evil sowing, is, that such shall, ‘out of the flesh’ - the field which they have tilled - reap a fruit they will not covet. They will reap ‘corruption’. What means this? It does not refer to simple death of the body now, for that is felt my saints whose walk pleases God, as truly as by the most irregular and careless of [regenerate] believers. It is something which must harmonize with the previous threat contained in Gal. 5: 19-21 of the former chapter. There we are cautioned that the workers after the flesh should, by God’s ordination, ‘not inherit the kingdom of God’. Here it is said, they shall ‘reap corruption’. If it means they shall have no part in the bliss of Messiah’s reign of a thousand years, both are in unison; and the doctrine which has looked out upon us from so many passages appears once more. As ‘the works of the flesh’ mean the same thing as ‘sowing to the flesh’, so does the issue in each passage intend the same thing. The ‘reaping corruption’ is the being excluded from [“the First Resurrection” and] ‘inheriting the kingdom of God’. They [that is, their bodies*] will remain under the bondage of corruption during the millennial reign of Christ [upon and over this earth]. They would remain the slaves corruption for ever; but that the merits of Another come in to counteract so dread a conclusion, and to open to them the doors of eternal life.

[* We hope it is unnecessary to prove that the time in which decomposed bodies remain in the grave under “corruption,” is synonymous with the time their “souls” remain in “hades” = O.T. “sheol” - the place of the dead, “in the heart of the earth:” (Matt. 12: 40; 16: 18; Lk. 16: 23, 30, 31. cf. Gen. 37: 35; Psa. 16: 10; Acts 2: 34, R.V.): that which Death separates; Resurrection will, at “the coming of the Lord,” reunite, 1 Thess. 4: 15, 16, R.V.]

Thus, too, it falls into perfect harmony with the other part of the verse - that the sower to the Spirit shall out of the Spirit reap life eternal. The result of life to the Spirit is contrary to a life to the flesh. The issue of the fleshly life is exclusion from the kingdom. The result then of the spiritual [and obedient] life, to one who is in Christ, is the entrance into the [coming Messianic] kingdom. But why is it not so stated here? It is said, ‘shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting’. The reason of the smaller and inferior issue not being named is, I suppose, lest it should be imagined that a thousand years was the limit of the obedient saint’s joy. He receives, as reward according to his works, an entrance on the life of the thousand years. But after these are ended, there will be no break in his enjoyment, but an eternity of life begins for him at the [eternal] kingdom. ‘The Spirit,’ says the apostle, ‘is life:’ Rom. 8: 10. Already, as the gracious gift of God, the soul of the believer is alive. But this is a further and future life, the result of our works, the consequence of a spiritual living to God. How, then, can it be understood of any other than life of the body - life in [and after] resurrection? And, as this alternative intends life in resurrection, so does the close of the verse speak of the reverse - the failure of [partaking in] the first resurrection - the being counted unworthy to attain the coming age, and the resurrection [out] from amongst the dead. As the resurrection of the just is by Jesus promised to a holy beneficence (Luke 14: 14), so may the contrary be justly awarded to the contrary scheme of life and expenditure.

‘But does not this scheme of yours open the door to sin? Will not its consequence in many be, that they will reason thus? – ‘we shall have eternal life at all events. We care little about the kingdom of the thousand years. We shall therefore live after the flesh, and indulge its lusts to the full.’ Will mere exclusion from the kingdom suffice to prevent such dread consequences?” Aye, but, friend, who ever said that there was no future punishment for the guilty believer than simple exclusion from millennial bliss? There are different degrees of living after the flesh. There are also different degrees of punishment. A quiet love of the world in its decent forms, in the case of the uninstructed saint, may perhaps require at the Lord’s hands no more than a simple rejection from that scene of joy. But a deliberate choice of the works of the flesh after the present truth is presented and owned, a shocking and stumbling of the world by open breaches of morality, would demand far more. There is time in a thousand years to inflict as much of wrath on the delinquent son as the Father shall deem necessary. ‘I say unto you, my friends. … I will forewarn you whom ye shall fear. Fear him, which after he hath killed hath power to cast into hell, yea, I say unto you, Fear him.’ ‘That servant which knew his lord’s will, and prepared not himself, neither did according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes. But he that knew not, and did commit things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten with few stripes:’ Luke 12: 4, 5, 47, 48. This doctrine brings the fear of God, in all its magnitude and awe, to bear upon the disobedient child of God. And this motive is assigned as designed to perfect holiness. ‘Let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God:’ 2 Cor. 7: 1.”

- Quoted from writings by ROBERT GOVETT.

3

“The radical error in the matter has been to confound terms that differ. By both schools” - [i.e., the Arminian and Calvinist, who understand by the words ‘inheriting the kingdom’ above, understand the words to refer to the eternal kingdom, after Messiah’s reign upon David’s throne in the “Age” to come has ended, and “a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth are passed away; and the sea is no more” (Rev. 21: 1, R.V.)!] - “‘inheriting the kingdom’ has been wrongly taken to mean simply saved from hell [i.e., ‘the lake of fire’]; and so ‘not inheriting’ has been wrongly deemed synonymous with everlasting perdition. But once it has been seen that receiving [eternal] salvation from wrath is one thing, and that rising to the glory of rule in the [millennial] kingdom is another thing, and is AN ATTAINMENT that at once becomes a possibility to forfeit the kingdom by personal misconduct, (and to incur in addition abundantly severe chastisement, proportionate to the offences, and sufficient, if apprehended, to deter from carnality,) whilst yet retaining eternal life by the pure grace of God, exercised on the merit of Christ alone. …”

- Quoted from writings by G. H. LANG.

4

‘Grace! ’tis a charming sound, harmonious to the ear,

Heaven with the echo shall resound, and all the earth shall hear:

’Twas grace that wrote my name, in Life’s eternal book:

Grace taught my wandering feet to tread the heavenly road:

Grace all the work shall crown, through everlasting days.’

“Yes! no word in human vocabulary is dearer, and we can hardly over-emphasize the wonderful fact that we are saved by Grace alone through faith - free, unmerited grace with no works of our own, and that we shall never perish; but it is possible to emphasize Grace to the exclusion of God’s infinite justice, and to attribute to Him an easy generosity which would gloss over the unconfessed and un-forgiven sins of His own people, and so deprive believers of all responsibility for their walk and life and character. In view of such statements from the lips of our Lord Himself - ‘the Son of man shall come in His Glory and then shall he render to every man according to his deeds’, and, ‘Behold, I come quickly, and my reward is with me to render to each man according as his work is’ - it can hardly be denied that reward is according to our works, and will be awarded at the Coming of our Lord. …

Our Lord’s own promise is, ‘To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne.’ It will hardly be denied that all Christians are not ‘overcomers’. Even the Apostle Paul had to run, fight, and buffet his body lest that by any means after being a herald he himself should be rejected - disqualified for the Prize; and so, “forgetting those things that are behind”, he “pressed towards the mark for the Prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus”. If the chief Apostle was in danger of losing his Crown, how much more we! A gift once received from God is certain, and so eternal life: not so a prize - as the Millennial Kingdom - which can never be assured until won.”

- Quoted from writings by W. P. CLARKE.

5

“The Bible teaches two great facts. First, that near to the end of time [that is, near the end of this present age] certain forces will swiftly head up world affairs into what the Lord called the tribulation. Second, that a class of believers will escape the tribulation by flight to Him. One is recorded in Rev. 3: 10: ‘Since you have kept my command to endure patiently, I will also keep you from the hour of trial that is going to come upon the whole world to test those who live on the earth.’ The other is Luke 21: 34-36: ‘Be careful, or your hearts will be weighed down with dissipation, drunkenness, and the anxieties of life, and that day will close on you unexpectedly like a trap. For it will come upon all those who live on the face of the whole earth. Be always on the watch, and pray that you may be able to escape all that is about to happen, and that you may be able to stand before the Son of Man.’

Whatever the Song of Solomon teaches, there is a beautiful picture of a blessed event in the second chapter. ‘Arise, my darling; my beautiful one, come with me.’ If the earth is to be troubled as it never has been ‘since there was a nation’ (Daniel 12: 1, [A.V.]) during the absence of the bride, what a blessing, what a privilege and what a comfort to be the queen-bride of the King of Glory! To be delivered from the terrible tribulation of the world undergoing a just judgment for its sins should be a great cause for gratitude on the part of the faithful. See Isaiah 26: 20, 21: ‘Go, my people, enter your rooms and shut the doors behind you; hide yourselves for a little while until his wrath has passed by. See, the Lord is coming out of his dwelling to punish the people of the earth for their sins. The earth will disclose the blood shed upon her; she will conceal her slain no longer.’”

- Quoted from: “The Preparing Bride.”

6

“The essential matter that the Lord will come, and that each should be ready to face His judgment, is powerful in moral effect …

“Another harmful result to this situation is now being recognized, namely, that the so important topic of the blessed hope is dropping out of the ministry in the assemblies. This is incalculable loss, but it is inevitable unless the whole position be changed. Dogmatists are more or less conscious that they cannot now reply upon the almost obsequious acceptance once rendered to mere assertion. Moreover, some teachers are not so blissfully sure of certain points as once they thought they were, and being undecided in mind they wisely say little. Those who have definite beliefs we judge worthy of statement refrain, either by request or from the fear mentioned of precipitating strife. There seems no way open for restoring the great theme to its just place save granting liberty to every spiritually accredited teacher to express what he believes he has found in the Word, the rest judging of what he says.

A similar but yet wider result is that large portions of the Word are neglected. The more part of the instructions by the Lord Himself; the warnings of Paul as to being disinherited, given to three churches (1 Cor. 6; Gal. 5; Eph. 5); the five lengthy and weighty warnings in Hebrews; the solemn words to the seven churches (Rev. 2 & 3), are examples of these neglected passages. Under the popular scheme such scriptures have no direct message to the child of God, and their value is lost. Those who would so apply them ARE WARNED NOT TO DO SO: it will compel uncomfortable revision of cherished opinions: it will prick conscience; it will provoke strife! With such as myself it is a solemn question how much longer we shall be justified before God, in the interests of a deceptive truce, to keep back a large part of His counsel. It seems to border on dealing deceitfully with His Word to ignore wide tracts of it, for the teaching prominent in the portions just mentioned permeates the whole. By what right do teachers of any one view put this strain upon the faithfulness of teachers of some other view?

Under the same obstruction great themes on which God has been pleased to give much, if scattered, information cannot be opened up to the saints, for these also would compel some revision of accepted notions. The vast and illuminating subject of the temporal judgment of God, including the present judical administration of heaven and earth by angel rulers, is the key to many perplexing passages; the general service of angels; THE STATE AND PLACE OF SOULS BETWEEN DEATH AND RESURRECTION; the time and conditions of the judgment seat of Christ and its issues - are some themes of fascinating interest and of deep practical importance waiting fuller investigation. The prophecies of Daniel and Revelation need more exact harmonizing and will yield yet more instruction. Indeed, because the Word of God is inexhaustible, we ought not to treat it as if we had exhausted it, but ought eagerly to push enquiries forward regardless of what revision of opinions may be involved. But for most persons such research, or at least the exposition of its results, is debarred in the assemblies by influences before mentioned. Only the kingdom of the Devil is advantaged by large parts and themes of the Word being let alone by Christians. …

“Though the end days, as they are described in Scripture, are not yet come, they are nearer than they were. At any rate, the present time is perilous enough to spiritual and moral life to require a far more powerful stimulus to devotion and warning against defection than has been provided by the view of the future so long dominant. In the tranquil period some can remember it was easy enough to talk smoothly about ‘perilous times’ and ‘end days’ and ‘great tribulation,’ and for teachers to assure their souls and their hearers that there was not the least ground for personal concern, because the church entire was certain to be removed to heaven before those dread days could set in. But this complacent outlook does not stir the soul into flame, nor brace the nerves to faithfulness and suffering in a period of world upheaval. With nations full of foreboding, and of consequent suspicion against each other, with military service sternly compulsory in most lands, with governments more and more first regulating and then suppressing pure Christianity, some more powerful and deep-acting tonic is required.

What the Church of God now needs imperatively is men able to show fearlessly what the Word of God teaches as to the future that will guide life through difficulties and dangers, perplexities and perils; also how to gain strength to be faithful and holy, and what will be the heavenly recompense; and able to show also what will be the sorrowful penalties the Christian must face if unfaithful to Christ and the word of His patience. But this demands close scrutiny of the Word of truth free from the bias and fetters of preconceived schemes of interpretation. It calls for zeal and courage, and the making known of the results demands liberty of utterance, if saints are to profit by it. It is for this God-granted liberty that appeal is here made.

Readers of church history know that all too many God-wrought movements have sooner or later been paralyzed by one and the same means. The fresh light and truth gained from Scripture at the first, the walking in which brought liberty and quickening, is presently systematized into a creed or a scheme of teaching; zealous adherents of this scheme will allow no deviation from it: it becomes the test of orthodoxy in that sphere; liberty is crushed, progress ceases, movement stops, paralysis and death ensue. … The maintaining of popular orthodoxy may prove the death of spirituality. …”

- Quoted from: “The Rights of the Holy Spirit in the House of God.”

7

“In deciding to believe or reject the doctrine of a conditional millennial kingdom, it might help to remember that the majority of modern, professing Christians believe something far more dreadful and terrible than anything this book maintains! They believe that if the Christian does not keep up a certain degree of works he loses salvation and burns for trillions of years and onward into endless eternity! Others teach that the Christian must keep up this standard of works to prove he is really saved to begin with. If he falls below the quota-line (whatever that is), again, he is destined to bum for eternity in torment. In either doctrine, one must be good or burn in torment for billions of years without end. The message to the Christian in these horrible views is the same, ‘Be good or suffer for endless eternity in fire.’ On the other hand, the message this book brings to the Christian is, ‘Be good or suffer loss for 1000 years’ It is indeed dreadful, but it is not a crippling, horrendous insanity that must be upheld in self-righteous, Pharisaical delusion if it is to remain at all in the forefront of the mind.

Notice the response the Irish biographer, Joseph D’ Arcy Sirr (1794-1868) made in 1841 upon hearing about conditional entrance into the millennial kingdom:

‘With as much evidence of truth might we conclude, that martyrs only are included in the narrative of the First Resurrection. I know that such a conclusion indeed has been drawn by my Millenarian friend Mr. Burgh, from the place before us, since he restricts the sense of this passage to those who have at least had the spirit of martyrs. Now, I, for my part, believe that all the Lord’s real children possess just such a spirit, for they have the Spirit of Jesus. ... I, therefore, can discover no ground for the limitation that has been contended for, though I readily admit, nay maintain, on the general tenor of Scripture, that it is through much tribulation the way to the Kingdom lieth; and theirs is a perilous state who know nothing of it, or who court the world in order to avoid it.’*

* Joseph D’ Arcy Sirr, The Resurrection Considered In A Series Of Letters (1841).

‘In this view, Christians must still perform the good works, sacrifices, etc.! They must still suffer. They must resist temptation and possess a ‘martyr spirit.’ If they lack these things they either lose eternal salvation or they prove they have never possessed it to begin with. The end result is the same; only the loss for failing to do the required works is not 1000 years. It is not even a billion years. According to the above interpretation, all professing Christians must suffer and strive to keep (or prove) salvation in order to escape damnation in endless eternity! Such interpretations are far more dreadful and horrible than anything this book maintains. Compared to these views, this book holds the moderate position between no judgment and eternal judgment for the carnal believer.’

The answer to the objection is that we are to never stop and rest until the Day of Rest comes. We are to never assume we are already good enough. We are to fear, hope and strive until the end. On the other hand, we must also beware of doubting the provision or mercy of God in regard to the kingdom. We must not despise all that Jesus has done to provide power to run the race and win. Many Israelites missed the Promised Land for such unbelief in God’s power.

This accountability teaching does not create a special clique of Christians who think they have obtained above others. In fact, it is the very thing that guards against such attitudes by promising severe punishment for self-exaltation:

Matthew 18: 1 At the same time came the disciples unto Jesus, saying, Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven? 2 And Jesus called a little child unto him, and set him in the midst of them, 3 And said, Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.

4 Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven.

True kingdom believers do not yet think they have obtained the prize:

Philippians 3: 11 If by any means I mught attain unto the resurrection [out] of the dead.

12 Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect: but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus.

13 Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, 14 I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.

Furthermore, kingdom believers might ask others how good they have to be to think themselves saved in eternity. If Christians must look to their works for assurance of eternal salvation, how much fruit must we possess? The answer that is given is the answer the kingdom believer will give in return!

Or how good do we have to be to win a jewel on a crown at the judgment seat? Many teach that there is no punishment at the judgment seat. They teach that there is only the obtaining of various crowns. But why do they not ask how good we must be to obtain a crown? When we speak of real punishment many suddenly desire to know where the line is. Yet, they cannot tell us where the line is even in regard to their own souls in eternity. Their whole objection reveals that the idea of losing a few jewels on a crown where there is a street of gold was never that big a threat to them in the first place. Yet, when we mention 1000 years of banishment to the underworld, suddenly we have their attention! They want to know how good we must be. This alone manifests the impotent theology of those who will not believe the accountability truths of Scripture.”

- Quoted from: “The Rod: Will God Spare It?” (pp. 243, 244.)

8

“… It is said, ‘Such of the Corinthians as were guilty of these sins were not saints. The acts are such as no converted person can commit. Only a few hypocrites, that had crept in unawares, were the offenders. Such will be found in all churches.’ Now undoubtedly this is the way in which most Christians and teachers of the present day would deal with the question. They would urge that offenders to examine themselves, whether they were really believers. For it was incredible, that truly converted persons could so conduct themselves. But the Holy Spirit takes the very opposite course. He assumes throughout, and distinctly asserts in this verse [1 Cor. 6: 11], that the essentials of saintship belonged to the offenders. Were they Hypocrites, who were justified, sanctified, baptized? They had more evidence of acceptance than any believer has now: for they had the baptism of the Spirit, and the miraculous gifts which that baptism left behind it. ‘Ye came behind in no gift:’ 1 Cor. 1: 7. ‘In one Spirit were we all baptized into one body:’ 12: 13. The same ‘ye’ who are charged guilty of injustice and fraud, were justified and sanctified!

But while they were believers, and, as such, sure, on the promise of God, of attaining [receiving] eternal life; God had yet room to punish offenders. The millennial day is the day of recompense for our works, whether good or evil. A thousand years is time enough to mark God’s pleasure in our works, or his displeasure against them. As eternal life shews his pleasure in the work of Christ, and in those who by faith are one with him, so will the recompense of the millennial day, for good or for evil, display his sentiments concerning the special work of each believer.

The worldly often cry out against professors of religion, as guilty of cheating, and taking unfair advantage in business. It is doubtless too often true. Not a few converted persons offend thus. Here then is the threatened justice of God against such. If his saints [wilfully] sin, they shall not go unpunished. He hates the offence in them, as surely as the worldly. He has devised a way, whereby he will make his displeasure visible to all intelligent beings, and felt by themselves.

Let all believers then keep this first truth clearly before their eye. ‘Say ye to the righteous that it shall be well with him, for they shall eat the fruit of their doings:’ Isa. 3: 10.”

- Quoted from “Entrance Into The Kingdom,” (pp. 207).

9

“The laver stood between the altar and the house. No one could rightly wash at the laver who had not first been cleansed by blood at the altar: yet no one could safely approach the house, the place of nearness to God, who had not received the double cleansing of blood and water: ‘that ye die not’ was the warning which made washing at the laver imperative. Witness in this age Ananias and Sapphira, and see 1 Cor. 11: 29, 30; etc.

Man reverses the order and puts the water at the entrance door and the ‘altar’ as far from the guilty suppliant as possible. Thus is the gospel wholly falsified and ‘drawing near’ to God with boldness made impossible. But almost equally mischievous, at least as regards priestly access and service, is the idea of washing with blood, so creating the crippling notion that all is obtained and realized at the altar, at justification [by faith], and so the necessity and virtue of the water, the cleansing ministry of the Spirit by the Word, is unrecognized.

The force of this priestly cleansing the Lord would now impress upon His servants. They were the nucleus of that holy and royal priesthood of which Peter and John speak (1 Pet. 2: 5; Rev. 1: 5, 6). The benefit of the altar they had already received when they wrote these scriptures, for Christ had loosed them from their sins in His blood, when He had shed it on the cross; acts and walk, should be actually and perpetually kept clean. Judical cleansing by blood must be followed by actual cleansing by water. The former secures justification, without approach to the laver and the water. But priestly privilege equally demands the laver and the water. Therefore, at the Redeemer’s death, water commingled with the blood that poured from His pierced side, as John particularly specifies in his narrative and on which he comments in his epistle (John 19: 34, 35; 1 John 5: 6).

For this double cleansing David had cried to God after his fall and foul defilement: ‘Purify me with hyssop, and I shall be clean: Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow’ (Ps. 51: 7). Hyssop was the herb used for sprinkling the atoning, justifying blood (Ex. 12: 12); washing was with water to remove outward uncleanness, as in the cleansing of the leper (Lev. 14: 8, 9; etc.).”

- Quoted from ‘Pictures and Parables,’ (pp. 328, 329).

10

“An evil spirit does not swallow and destroy the word of God itself; but he can remove it from the mind of the hearer. Here arises the vast importance that the preacher, having himself first understood the message, shall present it so lucidly that the hearer may understand it. Of C. G. Finney one said: ‘He does not preach; he explains what other people preach’; and his ministry was most fruitful.”

- Quoted from ‘Pictures and Parables,’ (pp. 68).

“Let us hold fast the confession of our HOPE that we waver not; for he is faithful that promised: and let us consider one another to provoke to love and good works; not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the custom of some is, but exhorting one another; and so much the more, as ye see the DAY drawing nigh.”

“For if we sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins but A FEARFUL EXPECTATION OF JUDGMENT, and of fierceness of fire which shall devour the adversaries.”

“A man that set at nought Moses’ law dieth without compassion on the word of two or three witnesses: of how much sorer punishment, think ye, shall he be judged worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant wherewith he was sanctified an unholy thing, and hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace?”

“For we know him that said, Vengeance belongeth unto me, I WILL RECOMPENSE. And again, THE LORD SHALL JUDGE HIS PEOPLE:” (Hebrews 10: 23-30).

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EXPOSITIONS

1

THE JUDGMENT OF BELIEVERS

By G. H. PEMBER, M.A.

The Millennial Age will be a time, not only of reward for those who will have overcome by the Blood of the Lamb, but also of chastisement for such believers as will be found to have failed in their walk - through indolence, or the minding of earthly things - and will, consequently, be sentenced to remain in abodes of the dead [i.e., in ‘Hades’, (Luke 16: 23)] until the Last Day. For it will then appear, that, through their lack of earnestness and prayer for the [Holy] Spirit’s help, their sanctification was not perfected during their earth-life; and it must be so before they can dwell for ever with the Lord. They did evil in the body as well as good, and did not judge themselves and repent with bitter crying before the Lord: therefore, they must be judged by Him, and even as they did, so must they receive.

Hence the Judgment-seat of Christ will dispense temporary chastisement for trespass, as well as rewards. This is plainly indicated in the verses under our consideration, as well as in other striking passages of the First Gospel, which, as we study them in due course, will increase our knowledge of a solemn but disliked and much neglected truth. We shall, moreover, find it revealed, with equal clearness, in other parts of the New Testament.

For instance, what does Paul mean in the subjoined passage? In speaking exclusively to those who have accepted the only true foundation, he tells us, that it is possible [for regenerate believers] to build upon it either with gold, silver and costly stones, or with wood, hay and stubble, and then continues:

‘Each man’s work shall be made manifest: for the Day shall declare it, because it is revealed in fire; and the fire itself shall prove each man’s work of what sort it is. If any man’s work shall abide which he built thereon, he shall receive a reward. If any man’s work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as through fire’ (1 Cor. 3: 13).

And again:-

‘Wherefore, also, 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 in the body, according to what he hath done, whether it be good or bad. Knowing, therefore, the fear of the Lord, we persuade men, but to God we have been made manifest: and I hope that we have been made manifest also in your consciences’ (2 Cor. 5: 9).

And was not the sentiment expressed in the last verse, the fear of the Lord’s terrible judgment of His Own House, powerfully affecting the Apostle when he wrote:-

‘The Lord grant mercy unto the house of Onesiphorus: for he oft refreshed me, and was not ashamed of my chain; but, when he was in Rome, he sought me diligently, and found me - The Lord grant unto him to find mercy of the Lord at That Day - and in how many things he ministered at Ephesus, thou knowest very well.’

Surely if Paul was moved to interpose this fervent ejaculatory prayer on behalf of one who was not only called, but had also shown himself faithful by fearlessly ministering to the Lord’s servant while he was fighting with wild beasts at Ephesus, and, subsequently, at Rome, when he was in the clutches of the most unscrupulous and cruel of persecuting tyrants - surely, if the Apostle was impelled to pray for such a one, that the Lord would grant him mercy in the Day of His Judgment, there can be no [regenerate] believer who is not in need of the same mercy.

Hence the decisions issued from the Judgment-seat of Christ will have the following results:

Those servants of the Lord who shall be found to have been faithful will be judged worthy of the First Resurrection, and will be made Priests of God and of His Christ, and will reign with Him for a Thousand Years. They will thus enjoy the great Sabbath that remains for the people of God, and will themselves rest from their labours, even as He did from His.

But the unfaithful servants will be banished into the darkness without the pale of the Kingdom, where they will be detained, and dealt with according to the sentence of the Lord, until the Last Day. Then, when the time of reward has passed by, He will raise them up to everlasting life, even as He has promised to do in the case of all who have believed in Him.

2

THE JUDGMENT OF THE CHRISTIAN’S WORKS

By G. P. RAUD

God recompenses every man, whether believer or unbeliever. He recompenses every deed that man has done or will do. He pays back either good or bad. ‘For the son of man shall come in the glory of his Father with his angels; and then he shall reward every man according to his works’ (Matt. 16: 27). ‘And, behold, I come quickly; and my reward is with me, to give to every man according as his work shall be’ (Rev. 22: 12). No one escapes His judgment, Jew or Gentile, saved or unsaved.

Now we come to the believer. In Romans 6: 23 we read that the gift of God is eternal life to the one who believes. We don’t work for a gift; we don’t work to gain eternal life. We believe and we have it. And this eternal life abides forever. When a person is converted, he receives the Holy Spirit who comes to abide in him for ever.* Salvation is a free and eternal gift. ‘And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son’ (1 John 5: 1).

[* It is questionable if the Holy Spirit abides in every believer, regardless of their behaviour. I personally do not believe He does! There are many Scriptures which teach us that His indwelling is conditional: “And we are witnesses of these things; and so is the Holy Ghost, whom God hath given TO THEM THAT OBEY HIM” (Acts 5: 32). Compare with: John 15: 2, 4, 5, 6; Rom. 8: 13. See also “Power Lost and Recovered” and “The Personal Indwelling of the Holy Spirit”].

Rewards, however, are determined by the believer’s works; whatever his vocation or station in life, the works he performs after conversion settle his reward. Christians sometimes say carelessly, “Oh, I am all right. I am saved.” And then they act worse than the world, although their lives as children of God ought to be holy, worthy of the Lord, filled with the Holy Spirit to His glory.

‘What shall We Have?’

‘Then answered Peter and said unto him, Behold, we have forsaken all, and followed thee; what shall we have therefore? And Jesus said unto them, Verily, I say unto you, that ye which have followed me, in the regeneration when the Son of man shall sit in the throne of his glory, ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel’ (Matt. 19: 27, 28).

Our Lord here directs Peter’s eyes away from the present and turns them to the future glory when the Son of man will be reigning upon the earth. The twelve were now apostles, chosen leaders; and they sought to know what would be their reward because they had forsaken all for Christ. Their reward was not in the present, but in the future, and it consisted in their reigning in His kingdom. Will they be sitting just anywhere, as some believers say, ‘I’ll be satisfied if I only get to heaven’? That prospect would never have contented Peter. The apostles will sit on thrones, which are assigned only to persons who reign, who wield authority over others. To reign is to hold authority, issue commands, put down rebellions, and maintain order.

We see that the apostles will have their reward, but what are we going to have? ‘And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together’ (Rom. 8: 17). One of the hardest words in the Bible is ‘suffer’. We don’t like it. The old man rebels against it; and the new man, also, very often. A special glory [in the ‘age’ to come] awaits, however, all who suffer with Christ and for Him. This promise of Romans 8: 17 is not simply the glory of being made like Christ when He comes; it goes beyond that. ‘For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us’ (v. 18).

Most of us do not know what suffering for Christ’s sake really is. Easy-going Christian service robs us of reward. If we do not press forward and suffer for Him, we shall lose our reward. Few Christians understand that true service is always accompanied by suffering. We shall suffer too if we choose God’s best for us. His best is always difficult, although possible; and our nearest and dearest may oppose our choice. The enemy will arouse everything against us in order to turn us away from His best.

Striving for a Crown

‘Every man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a corruptible crown; but we an incorruptible. I therefore so run, not as uncertainly; so fight I, not as one that beateth the air: but I keep under my body, lest after I have preached to others, I myself, should be a castaway’ (1 Cor. 9: 25, 27), or should ‘be rejected’ (R.V.) from being awarded the crown. These familiar words ought to challenge us to examine ourselves to learn whether we run uncertainly or whether we will assuredly receive this incorruptible crown.

‘Every man’s work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man’s work of what sort it is. If any man’s work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet as by fire’ (1 Cor. 3: 13-15). The fire into which the work of the believer will be put is not for purging or cleansing; it is for testing, to prove what sort of work it is. It will manifest the quality of his work. Some Christians hold that at that day all their unworthy past will be cleansed away, with not a trace of it remaining. Not so. Their work will be tested by fire and will determine their eternal reward.

The child of God may ask, ‘Why worry about rewards? We don’t need to know about them. We shall get to heaven and then everything will be all right.’ But the Lord wants us to receive His full reward, all that He has in store for us. If at His judgment seat we get anything less, we have come that much short of glorifying Him. The more reward, the more praise and glory to His matchless name. It has been said that to-day’s toil is the measure of to-morrow’s glory. If we do not toil our loss will be great.

Rulers in the Kingdom of Christ

The kingdom of Christ when He returns to reign on earth will cover the whole world, fulfilling such prophecies as this: ‘The seventh angel sounded; and there was great voices in heaven, saying, The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdom of our Lord, and of his Christ; and he shall reign for ever and ever’ (Rev. 11: 15). For His great kingdom, Christ must have a considerable staff of administrators. Most Christians, seeing little of the future which God has planned for them, do not understand that He has called us to rule with Christ in His kingdom as His administrators. With a vague exception they look forward to an eternity where all their time is occupied with singing hallelujahs and casting their crown before the throne of God. Eternity has in store for us far more than that.

‘Behold, A king shall reign in righteousness, and princes shall rule in judgment’ (Isa. 32: 1). The Lord Jesus Christ will reign as King of all the earth, and with Him will be many reigning princes. Now God seeks and prepares the future rulers for His kingdom. When we pray “Thy kingdom come,” let us remember that we shall reign with Him ‘if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together’ (Rom. 8: 17); ‘if we suffer, we shall also reign with him’ (2 Tim. 2: 12).

The Servant Who Lost Everything

The last servant mentioned in the parable of Luke 19: 22 didn’t do anything. A lazy, indifferent follower of the Lord, he earned nothing with his pound. What happened to him in the judgment? He lost even his one pound: ‘And he saith unto him, Out of thine own mouth will I judge thee, thou wicked servant. Thou knewest that I was as austere man, taking up that I laid down, and reaping that I did not sow; Wherefore then gavest not thou my money into the bank, that at my coming I might have required mine own with usury? And he said unto them that stood by, Take from him the pound, and give it to him that hath ten pounds’ (vv. 22-25). We profit much by studying this parable and learning the lesson that we shall suffer great loss in the judgment if we do not perform faithfully what he commits to our hands.

‘I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing’; (2 Tim. 4: 7, 8). ‘Blessed is the man that endureth temptations, for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love him’ (James 1: 12).

The Word of God teaches that great, [millennial and] eternal rewards are available for believers, but that only those who work hard for them receive them. God offers us crowns and conditions stated in the Word, and He will grant them to us only if we meet the conditions. May God give every one of us grace to receive His full reward at the judgment seat of Christ.

3

[THE JUDGMENT SEAT OF CHRIST IS NO REFUGE FOR BELIEVERS WHO REJECT THE SCRIPTURAL DOCTRINE OF SELECTIVE RESURRECTION.]*

*The following is selected from writings by

G. H. LANG.

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 judgment 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 Sodom and Gomorrah; the judgments on Egypt at the time of the exodus of Israel; the destruction of the seven nations of Canaan by Israel; the overthrow of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar; and later by Titus.

Hereafter there will come the destruction of Gentile world dominion and the punishment of Antichrist. Then the judgment at Jerusalem of the living (Joel 2; Matt. 25), when the Lord has returned to Zion. And after the thousand years the final session of the court of God, the great white throne, whereat will be declared the eternal destiny of those there judged.

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 church of God. The building of His church is His present work (Matt. 16: 18): the regulating of the affairs of the house of God, over which He as Son is the appointed ruler (Heb. 3: 6), is His immediate and dear concern.

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’ (Rom. 11: 22). Nor may we abuse His goodness by making light of His severity; or if we do, it will be unto painful disillusionment.

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 [regenerate] 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 [regenerate] 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.

[* Weymouth is definite: ‘But if that man, being a bad servant’ plainly identifies the good and bad servant as one person. And see Alford.]

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 [regenerate] 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 [redeemed] 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 [eternally] saved to-day yet lose this 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 [millennial] 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 [regenerate] 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 Jerusalem ‘there to be judged of these things before me.’ Paul answered that he already stood before Caesar’s court “where I ought to be judged” (kritheenai). Both Festus and Paul meant that a final verdict should be reached and the case be determined; hence the aorist. But the history shows that Paul had been many times before the courts, twice before the Sanhedrin and several times before Felix (Acts 23 and 24). Thus this passage in Rev. 11: 18, does not forbid that believers may have been before judged by Christ, either in this life or after death, or both; what it states is that at the season indicated the decision of the Lord will be given, announcing, as we suggest, whether the person is of the ‘blessed and holy’ who are ‘accounted worthy’ of the impending resurrection [out] from among the dead and of place and reward in the kingdom then about to be inaugurated.

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.

4

THE JUSTICE OF GOD

By W. P. CLARK*

* To the judicial mind - Mr. Clark was a Resident Magistrate in Jamaica - the Scriptures dealing with our responsibility, unutterably solemn yet unutterably just - naturally make a powerful appeal. On such passages as Matt. 18: 34, 35 Sir W. Robertson Nicoll said, as strikingly as truly:- ‘The Christian Church has never fairly faced these words.’

The real reason underlying the refusal of some dear children of God to accept belief in the punishment of unfaithful believers - not eternal, but during the millennial reign of Christ - is an inadequate sense of the justice of God.

God’s justice has been described as ‘The dark line in God’s face,’ and this dark line cannot be left out. It is false to reason and to revelation, and it is degrading to God’s character to erase the line. His infinite inflexible justice declares that God has no caprice, that He will not trifle with a wrong, nor softly indulge even His Own and His dearest. It declares that God is unswervingly just and impartially righteous toward all men. We can look up at that dark line and see its beauty. We can see that justice is a nobler attribute in God than easy generosity. We can see that Mercy and Love are not to be exercised at the cost of Justice, and we are hushed and awed, and yet tranquil, because He is too just to do what our sin-excusing hearts might do – ‘clear the guilty.’ We can trust His absolute justice to weigh all the circumstances of each man’s life and do what is just. His justice is actuated by His wrath at sin and His passionate desire for holiness. ‘And reckonest thou, 0 man,’ who sins, whether thou be a saved child of God, or an unbeliever, ‘that thou shalt escape the judgment of God?’ (Rom. 2: 3).

It is the same inadequate sense of God’s justice that refuses to admit that the unprofitable ‘servant’ ‘cast into the outer darkness’ not Gehenna, the hell of fire, but somewhere, not revealed, outside the bright millennial Kingdom - is a believer, notwithstanding the fact that he is spoken of as one of His Lord’s ‘own servants” (R.V.), entrusted with His goods during His absence, and described by exactly the same term as the faithful ‘servant’; and so in the Parable of the Pounds called a ‘servant’ in contradistinction to the Lord’s ‘enemies, who would not that He should reign over them’ (Luke 19: 27). Alas, that it should be true that Christians, as stated by the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 10. and as we know by sad experience, are guilty of heinous sins. Would God’s justice be satisfied if they escaped punishment in this life, as they undoubtedly often do, and immediately afterwards be rewarded with a place in Christ’s [millennial] Kingdom? Acceptance of the belief in the temporary punishment of such Christians during the Millennial Reign safeguards the Eternal merits of Christ’s atonement on the Cross, and, at the same time, preserves the absolute Justice of God. A contrary belief might well turn a Calvinist into an Arminian, to the abandonment of the truth of the final perseverance of the saints: on the contrary, such a belief would set at rest the doubts of many a sincere Arminian in the eternal standing of Believers.

5

THE JUDGMENT OF BELIEVERS

By D. M. PANTON.

Calvin has packed into a sentence the Scripture doctrine of reward:- “There is no inconsistency in saying that God rewards good works, provided we understand that, nevertheless, men obtain eternal life gratuitously.” For one passage of Paul states reward with the limpid clearness of a crystal. ‘If any [disciple] build on the foundation [of Christ] ‘gold’ - ingots of gold - ‘silver’ - silver bullion - ‘precious stones’ - marbles, jaspers, alabasters - ‘wood, hay, stubble’ - boards, chopped hay for mortar, thatch - ‘each [disciple’s] work shall be made manifest; for the fire itself shall prove the work of each’ - not purge, for the inflammable perishes; nor punish, for the gold is equally searched; but prove, test, discriminate the structure for exactly what it is. ‘If any [disciple’s] work shall abide, he shall receive a reward’; that is, all reward is confined to work that survives judgment: ‘if any [disciple’s] work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss’ - a loss the degree and duration of which is not here defined: ‘but he himself shall be saved’ - for [eternal] salvation is through faith wholly independent of works before or after conversion; ‘yet so as through fire’ (1 Cor. 3: 12) - through burning embers and showers of failing sparks, as he flees down a corridor of flame. The sprayed fire, sweeping and searching the entire discipleship, exactly determines what can be rewarded. ‘Singed and scorched as by an escape out of a burning ruin’ (Stanley), he ‘saves nothing but his bare life’ (Lange) in the crash of his life-structure, the collapse of his whole discipleship.

Now it is exceedingly remarkable that in the heart of the great Grace chapter of the Bible, the truth that a Christian’s reward is exclusively determined by his own fidelity lies deeply embedded. “Working,” as Calvin has said, ‘is not at all opposed to grace.’ ‘For if, by the trespass of the one [Adam], death reigned through the one; much more’ - as much more as God loves to reward His servants more than He loves to reward His enemies - ‘shall they that receive’ - take constantly, take continuously; not grace, but - ‘the abundance of grace’ - its superabundance, so that the superfluity overflows (Godet) ‘reign in life’ (Rom. 5: 17) - ‘life,’ a limited phrase used in the Gospels (Mark 9: 43, 45, 47) as a synonym for the Millennial Kingdom. So far from reward undermining grace, it is the abundance of grace which alone entitles to reward: grace confers justification as a free gift; but only the abundance of grace, deliberately and continuously received, qualifies for glory with Christ, in the Life that is life indeed. Grace underlies all: in the beautiful words of Augustine, - “To whom could the righteous Judge give the crown if the merciful Father had not given grace? and how could these be paid as things due, were not things not due previously given?” For Grace, while it grants salvation solely on the merits of our Lord, cannot ignore our conduct after regeneration; and every instinct of our hearts calls for justice, after the painful controversies that have rent the Church for two thousand years, before eternal bliss shall pass an obliterating sponge over the past “in that all-reconciling world where Luther and Zwingle are well agreed.” And so Paul asserts. ‘But thou, why dost thou judge thy brother? or thou again, why dost thou set at nought thy brother? for we shall all stand before the Judgment Seat of God: let us not therefore judge one another an more’ (Rom. 14: 10); but, while rigidly adhering to all the truth we know, hand over all judgment to an august and awful Tribunal not our own.

For we now arrive at the central fact of all - the Judgment Seat. ‘Wherefore we make it our aim’ - the word means to love and seek for honour (Lange) in what Bengel calls the sole legitimate ambition in the world - ‘to be well-pleasing unto Him; for’ - as the fountain of motive in all holy ambition - ‘we must’ - as a necessity inherent in Divine justice; for the vindication of God’s holiness, and for the satisfaction of our own highest and holiest instincts – ‘all’ - no believer is exempt, not even Paul - ‘be made manifest’ - to our own consciences, to all the world, and above all to the Judge; a complete manifestation of all that has transpired within us, or in the external life (Lange) - ‘before the Judgment Seat of Christ; that each one may receive’ - the technical word for receiving wages (Dean Alford) - ‘the things done in the body’ - therefore thoughts and words as well as deeds, since the brain and the tongue are thus also involved – ‘according to the things that [plural] he hath done’ - works exactly regulating reward: not according to the things that Christ did in His body; nor according to things done out of the body, after death - “whether it [the award] be good or bad” (2 Cor. 5: 9). In the words of Lange:- Paul’s tireless aim to please Christ ‘can only be fulfilled by his being found approved at that tribunal where he and his fellow believers are shortly to appear; for every action of God’s children during their bodily life must there be judged according to the law of strict righteousness, and each believer must be rewarded according to his good or evil conduct.’ And how perfectly this ambition can be fulfilled in a child of God is seen from Jude’s doxology. ‘Now unto Him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy’ (Jude 24).

Thus it has now become obvious that, while it is the golden possibility of our lives to build all with imperishable metal outlasting even judgment fires, the collapse of our entire life-work is also no remote contingency. For even in grace, in this life, judgment can cut off a believer. ‘For this cause many among you are weak’ - or invalided ‘and sickly’ - or consumptive - ‘and not a few sleep’ (1 Cor. 11: 30): while saving faith delivers for ever from eternal judgment (John 5: 24), nevertheless the severest sentence known to human law, even in the day of grace, God is sometimes compelled to inflict upon His own. ‘But if we judged ourselves’ - so analyzed our own conduct, so dissected our own actions, as to square all to holiness; for it is possible in some degree to take the pruning knife out of the hand of the Great Husbandman - ‘we should not be judged’: self-examination, self-condemnation, a self-erected judgment seat within can deliver from all condemnation, here or hereafter. ‘But when we are judged’ - a master-revelation is now made concerning all chastisement now or before the Bema - ‘we are chastened of the Lord, that we may not be condemned with the world.’ In the words of Calvin:- ‘We either avert or mitigate impending punishment if we first call ourselves to account, and, actuated by a spirit of repentance, deprecate the anger of God - punishing ourselves instead of waiting till He puts forth His hand to do it: for believers too would rush on to everlasting destruction, were they not restrained by temporal punishment.’ Thus, so far from the judgment of believers being such an undermining of grace, or such a forfeiting of standing and privilege, as to be incredible and impossible, it is precisely one means (as here explicitly stated by the Holy Ghost) whereby that standing is made sure, safe, irrevocable, and eternal.

‘So then each one of us must give account of himself to God’ (Rom. 14: 12).* The duration and severity of an adverse judgment at the Bema only the Scriptures can foreshadow, and only the event itself exactly determine. I have purposely confined myself to the principles of judgment expressed in foundation passages, rather than launching out on the vast, though fascinating, field of the practical applications of the principle. Our Lord’s approvals or disapprovals tangibly expressed, glorious or penal, can only be proved seriatim by the Scriptures that reveal each reward with its attached conditions. Every crown named (for example) is offered conditionally on some service or suffering; so that our Lord’s exhortation runs,- ‘Hold fast that which thou hast, that no one take thy crown’ (Rev. 3: 11). So, (1) as rapture is technically the act that opens the day of the recoil of a believer’s conduct upon himself, rapture itself is graded and timed according to sanctification (Luke 21: 36; Rev. 3: 10); (2) a share in the First Resurrection, as distinct from a temporary resuscitation for the Bema, is the fruit of a peculiar beatitude and sanctity (Rev. 20: 4; Phil. 3: 11); (3) co-heirship with Christ in the Millennial Reign, as well as rank within it, is contingent upon a believer’s fidelity, service, and suffering (Eph. 5: 5; Gal. 5: 21); and (4) throughout the millennial Age, the age in which justice recoils on all, any penalty whatsoever, any utmost expression of Divine censure, is possible to a wicked or slothful servant (Matt. 18: 35; Col. 3: 25). But this Judicial era disappears with the delivery of the kingdom (1 Cor. 15: 24) to the Father. Nothing but a name written by the Godhead in the Book of life passes a soul into the Holy City for ever.

* The fact that the judgment of the wicked is by itself, separated by a thousand years (Rev. 20: 12), reveals that in 2 Cor. 5: 10, ‘it is genuine Christians of whom Paul is speaking; all whose shortcomings and failures will one day be exposed, and who therefore make it their aim to avoid such defects’ (International Critical Commentary). Individual judgment is not possible for believes as such, for in justification no believer differs from any other; but individual judgment as servants yields a variety of adjudication as infinite as the service and the sanctification.

It is obvious that this truth of a believer’s Judgment, so abundantly stated in the Scriptures, is of vast practical moment, and, once it lays its grip upon a soul, simply incalculable in its motive power. For, contrary to what is sometimes supposed, it greatly reinforces our assurance of eternal life; because, by disentangling countless conditioned promises of reward from the simple assurance of eternal life granted on bare faith, it isolates the unconditioned gift into a radiant light, while withdrawing into the sphere of reward numerous menacing passages, expressive of extreme difficulty and doubt, which have ever been the stronghold of Rome. By reassuring of eternal safety, while yet warning of tremendous Millennial peril, it frees the soul for an arrow-flight straight to God’s highest and best.* Moreover, of all Scripture truths none is now needed by the Church of Christ with more appalling urgency. Augustine, as remarkable a servant as God ever had, says that no more constant or powerful motive actuated his discipleship and service than the knowledge that he must give account; and no Christian would dare plunge into the worldliness and sin now rampant amongst multitudes of true believers had the truth our Lord expresses to Thyatira been once burnt home to his soul;- ‘All the churches shall know that I am He which searcheth the reins and hearts, and I will give unto each one of you according to your works’ (Rev. 2: 23). And finally, it brings to bear upon the redeemed heart, with thrilling power, the full impact of facts. If a literal bodily removal from coming horrors, if literal bursting from the tombs with the throbbings of immortal life, if literal thrones, and a literal authority over the nations, walking with Christ in white - if all these are contingent on holiness and suffering, it is sober truth that to attain them must become our master-passion: all other ambitions become as dust, and martyrdom itself no excessive price. So we arrive exactly at the summary of Paul:- ‘One thing I do, forgetting the things which are behind, and stretching forward to the things which are before, I press on toward the goal unto the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus’ (Phil. 3: 13).

* For it is a simple fundamental of revelation that, while eternal life is a gift, reward is a prize; and as surely as the sole way of obtaining a gift is simply to receive it, so surely no prize is possible without holy endeavour and unceasing toil (1 Cor. 9: 24-27).

But we must count the cost. For ‘we must through much tribulation enter into the Kingdom of God?’ (Acts 14: 22). A legend says that to a mother, rocking her cradle, an angel came, and said, - ‘If I touch your child, he will never know weariness or pain.’ Another angel followed, and he said, - ‘If I touch your child, he will never know poverty or want.’ A third angel came, and said, - ‘If I touch your child, his name will never be forgotten through all the ages.’ Said a fourth angel, - ‘If I touch your child, when he puts forth his hand in the deepest darkness, he will never lack a hand-clasp of answering love.’ But a last angel came, with seamed features and hollow cheeks, and he said, - ‘I cannot offer health or riches or fame or love; but if I touch your child, suffering will lie in his path, and perhaps martyrdom: but I will give him this, - that he shall reach, his own ideal, and follow Truth to the very throne of God.’ The mother looked up quickly, and said, ‘Touch my child!’ ‘Not every one that saith unto Me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father, which is in heaven.’ (Matt. 7: 21).

6

THE JUDGMENT SEAT OF CHRIST

The burning heart of all Christian responsibility looms immediately ahead - THE JUDGMENT SEAT OF CHRIST. ‘Wherefore we make it our aim’ - the word means to love and seek for honour (Lange) in what Bengel calls the sole legitimate ambition in the world - ‘to be well-pleasing unto Him; for’ - as the fountain of motive in all holy ambition - ‘we must’ - as a necessity inherent in Divine justice; for the vindication of God’s holiness, and for the satisfaction of our own highest and holiest instincts - ‘all’ - even all apostles, all prophets, all martyrs - ‘be made manifest’ - to our own consciences, to all the world, and above all to the Judge; a complete manifestation of all that has transpired within us, or in the external life (Lange) - ‘before the judgment seat of Christ; that each one may receive’ - the technical word for receiving wages (Dean Alford) - ‘the things done in the body’ - therefore thoughts and words as well as deeds, since the brain and the tongue are thus also involved – ‘according to the things that [plural] he hath done’ - works exactly regulating reward: not according to the things that Christ did in His body; nor according to things done out of the body after death – ‘whether it [the award] be good or bad’ (2 Cor. 5: 10). In the words of Lange:- Paul’s tireless aim to please Christ ‘can only be fulfilled by his being found approved at that tribunal where he and his fellow believers are shortly to appear, for every action of God’s children during their bodily life must there be judged according to the law of strict righteousness, and each believer must be rewarded according to his good or evil conduct.’

For the sweep of the decree as quoted from Isaiah is absolutely universal - ‘every knee shall bow, and every tongue shall confess to God. So then’ - since it is universal and the Church is, therefore, not exempt - ‘each one of us must give account of himself to God’ (Rom. 14: 11). Nor could it be otherwise. In view of the chaos of conflicting creed and conduct - the bitter controversies, the personal quarrels, the excommunications and anathemas - all denial of a judgment seat is inherently incredible and impossible: there must be a judgment seat, and there is. Molinos, the Quietist, when condemned as a heretic and led away to his prison cell – ‘We shall meet again,’ said the old man to his judges, ‘in the judgment day; and then it will appear on which side, on yours or mine, is truth.’ Furthermore, it rests upon the oath of God. ‘By myself have I sworn, the word is gone forth from my mouth in righteousness, and shall not return’ - the decree establishing it is as irrevocable as the life of God - ‘that unto Me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear’ (Isa. 45: 23). So then, says the Apostle (Rom. 14: 10), let us forbear to judge, for we shall be judged, and, therefore, the bedrock of all our action is to be the approval of our Divine Judge.

‘We labour’ (A.V.) - ‘we strive’ (Alford) - ‘we are eager’ (Stanley) - ‘we make it our aim’ (R.V.) - ‘we are ambitious” (R.V., margin) to be well-pleasing unto Him. For we must all be made manifest before the judgment seat of Christ’ (2 Cor. 5: 10).

The tribunal, before which disciples appear, is peculiar. (1) It is a Bema,* not a Thronos; a judgment seat for the investigation of disciples,** not a throne for the arraignment of rebels: for the Judge (2 Tim. 4: 8) is ‘a certain king, which would make a reckoning with his servants’ (Matt. 18: 23). It is the first of our Lord’s three judgments (Rom. 14: 12; Matt. 25: 31; Rev. 20: 12) on His return; and judgment begins ‘at the house of God’ (1 Pet. 4: 17). (2) Thus those examined are Christians only. ‘We all’ - i.e., ‘them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, with all that call upon the name of our Lord in every place’ (1 Cor. 1: 2): it is a final investigation of the whole Church of God. No Book of Life is produced, for it is no judgment of the lost: ‘the wicked shall not stand [or, rise] in the judgment ... of the righteous’ (Psa. 1: 5). Nor (3) is it a Judgment for life. ‘He that heareth my word and believeth on Him that sent me hath eternal life, and cometh not into judgment, but hath passed out of death into life’ (John 5: 24; Rom. 8: 1). The believer was crucified with Christ, and on Calvary exhausted the penalties of Hell: on that ground he can be judged no more. (4) The process is individual: ‘so then each one of us shall give account of himself to God’ (Rom. 14: 12). ‘We’ - it is Christian; ‘must’ - it is inevitable; ‘all’ - it is universal; ‘made manifest’ - it is public; ‘judgment seat’ - it is judical; ‘stand’ - it is in resurrection; ‘each’ - it is individual; ‘give account’ - it is responsibility: ‘to God’ - it is Divine.

* The portable tribunal carried about with him by a Roman magistrate.

** Churches are judged now (Rev. 2: 5). The Church is never judged corporately - as the Body or Bride - either here or hereafter; but disciples, apart from their collective standing, in their individual responsibility as servants, must render account. So the Church, as an entity, is never named in the Apocalypse, except once (Rev. 22: 17), where the reference is to the present Age; nor do the children of God appear as aught but “servants” throughout that book of judgment, except once (Rev. 21: 7), when the Millennial Age has passed into the Eternal. The fact that the judgment of the wicked is by itself, separated by a thousand years (Rev. 20: 17), reveals that in 2 Cor. 5: 10, ‘it is genuine Christians of whom Paul is speaking; all whose shortcomings and failures will one day be exposed, and who therefore make it their aim to avoid such defect’ (‘International Critical Commentary’). Individual judgment is not possible for believers as such, for in justification [by faith] no believer differs from any other; but individual judgment as servants yields a variety of adjudication as infinite as the service and the sanctification.

The procedure is revealed as exclusively judicial: ‘that each one may receive the things done.’ Not, that each may receive something from God, but ‘that each may receive the things’ he himself has ‘done’: it is not a general granting of glory, irrespective of service; but an exercise of the Divine Law, - ‘as he hath done, so shall it be done to him’ (Lev. 24: 19). ‘Be not deceived’ - is a word to disciples - ‘God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap’ (Gal. 6: 7). Paul puts it with exquisite clearness and twofold emphasis. ‘Whatsoever good thing’ - for a judge approves - ‘each one doeth, the same shall he receive again from the Lord, whether he be bond or free’ (Eph. 6: 8): on the other hand - ‘Ye serve the Lord Christ. For he that doeth wrong’ - for a judge censures - ‘shall receive again for the wrong that he hath done: and there is no respect of persons’ (Col. 3: 25).

The evidence wholly decides the award: ‘whether it [the award] be good or bad.’ The Greek points to the award: ‘that each may receive according to the things done, whether it’ - i.e., what he receives - ‘be good or bad.’ Reward (as distinct from [eternal] salvation, which is through faith, against deserts) is strictly defined by works. So Paul says: ‘With me’ - as an example and model to all Christians - ‘it is a very small thing’ - it is a matter of the least importance - ‘that I should be judged of you’ (1 Cor. 4: 3) - the Church of Christ. “All that are in Asia turned away” from Paul (2 Tim. 1: 15). When his priestly executioners brought Savonarola to the stake, they cried: ‘We excommunicate you from the Church militant here upon earth!’ ‘But not from the Church triumphant in heaven!’ answered the lonely hero. Men may not judge me, the Apostle says; but then neither do I judge myself: it is not because I am infallible that I rate human judgment so lightly, but because neither they nor I are competent to judge. ‘Yea, I judge not mine own self’ - I cannot pass, even on myself, the final judgment - ‘for I know NOTHING against myself’: I am conscious of no sin; ‘yet am I not hereby [for all that] justified’ - found blameless, irreproachable, a perfect steward. So Paul now administers the great heart-tonic: he takes our wrist, like a master-surgeon, and with his hypodermic syringe inserts beneath the skin perhaps as powerful a heart-strychnine as we have ever known. ‘HE THAT JUDGETH ME IS THE LORD.’ A believer’s friends may over-praise him, and his critics over-blame; the world will totally misunderstand him in any case; his own conscience may flatter: the Lord only can appraise us exactly, and judge to a nicety. ‘Wherefore judge nothing’ - pass no final sentence - ‘before the time’ - our judgment must come, but its time, its season, is not yet: ‘until the Lord come’ - to judge. If even my own conscience, knowing my motives and inner life, must be set aside as a judge, of how much less value is the praise or blame of men, whose judgment is purely external; and if an enlightened conscience ruled by Scripture does not condemn, the sharp criticisms of men need not unduly depress. Early in the last War a young man sat at a table in a London restaurant. Two young ladies, seated at another table, watched him for a few minutes, whispering together, and then, approaching him, offered him a little box. He opened it, and in it lay a white feather. ‘How strange,’ he remarked, ‘that I should receive two such gifts in one day: this morning I received the Victoria Cross at Buckingham Palace.’ If we are clear in the forum of conscience, we may have good hope that we shall be clear at the bar of God. ‘Beloved, if our heart condemn us not, we have boldness toward God’ (1 John 3: 21). ‘Let them say what they will,’ said a good man now gone to his rest; ‘they cannot hurt me: I live too near the Great White Throne for that.’

7

[A JUDGMENT OF BELIEVERS AND THEIR EXCLUSION

FROM THE MILLENNIAL KINGDOM]

“He that overcometh, and keepeth my works unto the end, to him will I give AUTHORITY OVER THE NATIONS, and he shall rule them with a rod of iron” (Rev. 2: 26, 27).

“When the King has thus distributed praise and blame, rewards and penalties, to those who stand in the more immediate relations of servants to Him, to those of His own household, He proceeds to execute vengeance on His enemies, on all who had openly cast off allegiance to Him, and denied that they belonged to His house at all” (Trench).

For as profound the punishment of sloth, so magnificent is the reward of fidelity; it cuts both ways: in exact proportion as we accept the promised enormous premium on fidelity, so we are compelled to acknowledge the gravity of the consequences of unfaithfulness. ‘In the times between the departure of their Lord and His second coming His disciples are to work with what He committed to them on His departure for Him and His cause with faithful diligence, because the most glorious reward awaits such fidelity at the hour of Christ’s return, while the heaviest punishment threatens the selfish indolence that would decline active employment of what it has received’ (Goebel).

Thus we confront our crisis. Officers are required for the administration of a kingdom: so God has deliberately interposed a prolonged period between the two advents, that our Lord might be enabled to so test His servants, in His absence, as to discover which are fitted for positions of responsibility and trust at His return. The Nobleman, before He departed, laid plans for the selection of officers to aid Him in the administration of the Kingdom; He devised a plan for bringing to light who those officers are on His return; this plan is in operation at the present moment, purposely so contrived as to reveal individual capacity for office, and personal fitness for trust; and - most impressive of all - the Long journey is now nearly over, and at any moment the investigation may begin. ‘Make haste about cultivating a Christ-like character. The harvest is great; the toil is heavy; the sun is drawing to the west; the reckoning is at hand. There is no time to lose; set about it as you have never done before, and say, ‘This one thing I do’” - (A. Maclaren).

THE MILLENNIAL KINGDOM

So the scope of our inquiry now enlarges. It has become obvious that reward and glory - the coronation of the disciple - is conditional on character and service: to what extent - as the parable [in Matt 25] we have just examined seems to imply - does this principle affect a disciple’s entrance into, or exclusion from, the Millennial Age itself? That Age has long dropt out of the vision of the Church. But the return of our Lord in person to establish a Kingdom over the whole earth was the universal faith of the Church in its purest dawn. ‘The assurance [of that return and reign] was carefully inculcated by men who had conversed with the immediate disciples of the apostles, and appears to have been the reigning sentiment of orthodox believers’ (Gibbon). ‘This prevailing opinion met with no opposition previous to the time of Origen’ (Mosheim): until Origen no Christian writer can be found who denied it. ‘No one can hesitate to consider this doctrine as universal in the Church of the first two centuries’ (Giesler). ‘The doctrine was believed and taught by the most eminent fathers in the age next after the apostles, and by none of that age opposed or condemned: it was the catholic doctrine of those times’ (Archbishop Chillingworth). ‘The idea that the perfected Kingdom of Christ is to be transferred to heaven is properly a modern notion. According to Paul and John the Kingdom of God is to be placed upon the earth, and in so far this itself has part in the universal transformation’ (Dr. Tholuck). ‘FOR THE LORD HIMSELF SHALL DESCEND FROM HEAVEN, WITH A SHOUT, WITH THE VOICE OF THE ARCHANGEL, AND WITH THE TRUMP OF GOD’ (1 Thess. 4: 16): ‘AND HE THAT OVERCOMETH, AND HE THAT KEEPETH MY WORKS UNTO THE END, TO HIM WILL I GIVE AUTHORITY OVER THE NATIONS; AND HE SHALL RULE THEM WITH A ROD OF IRON’ (Rev. 2: 26).*

* The ‘Kingdom of God,’ or ‘of the heavens,’ a phrase drawn directly from Daniel, is a Kingdom which ‘fills the whole EARTH’ (Dan. 2: 35, 44), replaces all worldly empires, and is obviously the Messianic Kingdom: when ‘the Kingdom of the world is become the Kingdom of our Lord, and of His Christ’ (Rev. 11: 15). It is foreshadowed now by the Kingdom in Mystery (Matt. 13.), or the Church, and for both regeneration is essential (Luke 17: 21, John 3: 3); but its manifestation at the Second Advent, to which all Scripture prophecies refer it, proves it to be the Millennial. It is the ‘Kingdom’ with which our Lord returns (Luke 19: 12, 15). In one aspect, however, the kingdom is now present: for in parables the kingdom is the Church: in literal passages, it is the literal kingdom; in figurative, it is the mystical. The reason seems clear. Our Lord, when personally present, spoke of the kingdom as present also, for it was present in the person of the King: ‘if I by the Spirit of God cast out demons, then is the kingdom of God come upon you’ (Matt. 12: 28). When the King withdrew from the world, so did the kingdom. But the Lord is mystically present with His Church: there is, therefore, a mystical kingdom: ‘who translated us into the kingdom of the Son of His love’ (Col. 1: 13). Concerning the Everlasting Kingdom [i.e., in and over ‘a new heaven and a new earth’ (Rev. 21: 1)], prophecy reveals but little, and that little perhaps solely in the last two chapters of the Apocalypse. IN THE ONLY PASSAGE IN WHICH THE HOLY GHOST USES THE PHRASE ‘THE KINGDOM’ (1 Cor. 15: 24), HE MEANS THE MILLENNIAL.

Moreover, the world-wide revival of ‘the Gospel of the Kingdom’ before the End [of this evil age] is certain (Matt. 24: 14): already considerable attention is being concentrated, even in sceptical quarters, on our Lord’s apocalyptic utterances. ‘In our Lord’s teaching the conception of the Kingdom is supreme. Yet it is safe to say that there is no subject upon which there exists a greater amount of division among expositors. For some the Kingdom is definitely the historical Church; for others it is altogether in the future, a great Divine supramundane order of things which is suddenly to overwhelm the temporal order; for others again it is simply the ideal social order to be realised on earth; for a fourth class the Kingdom is the rule of God in the heart of the individual. Among recent critics the tendency is more and more to lay stress on the eschatological interpretation, and to hold that in our Lord’s teaching, the Kingdom is essentially the great future and heavenly order of things which will be revealed at His coming. The Kingdom in its fulness is yet to come. It is always to be prayed for. It is the great end which is ever before us’ (Archbishop D’Arcy, University Sermon at Oxford, 1910). FOR ‘FLESH AND BLOOD CANNOT INHERIT THE KINGDOM OF GOD,* NEITHER DOTH CORRUPTION INHERIT INCORRUPTION. BEHOLD, I TELL YOU A MYSTERY: WE SHALL NOT ALL SLEEP, BUT WE SHALL ALL BE CHANGED’ (1 Cor. 15: 50).

[* Note. We understand from this negative statement that “FLESH and BONES” most certainly can ‘inherit the kingdom’ and one “day” must certainly will! (2 Pet. 3: 8. cf. Psa. 37: 9, 11, 22, 34, R.V.), “inherit the kingdom of God,” after “the First Resurrection.” “See my hands and my feet” - said our Lord Jesus Christ after His resurrection out from amongst the dead “in the heart of the earth” (Matt. 12: 40. cf. Acts 2: 31, R.V.) - “that it is I myself: handle me, and see; for a spirit” - no angelic creature or animating ‘spirit’ of man - “hath not flesh and bones, as ye behold me” – after My resurrection –“having” (Lk. 24: 39, R.V.).]

Thus it is natural that the question should now be pressed - is the Millennial Age itself in the nature of a reward? Is the possession of some one of the crowns a title to entrance into the Kingdom?* Can a disciple be excluded, and yet his name be found at last written in the Lamb’s Book of Life? (Rev. 20: 15). It is obvious that the Scriptures alone can supply an answer; nor is there anything alarming in the suggestion. All are agreed that rank in the Kingdom is regulated by service and suffering: if entry itself, or exclusion, also turns on service and suffering, it is plainly only an extension of a momentous principle already accepted and taught. But before turning to the Word of God it may be well to observe that many godly servants of Christ have understood the Scriptures to teach the possibility of a [regenerate] believer’s exclusion. Polycarp, an actual disciple of the Apostle John, says: - ‘If we please Him in this present Age, we shall also receive the Age to Come; and if we walk worth of Him, we shall also reign together with Him.’ The opinion that the Millennial Reign was even confined to the martyrs ‘prevailed, as is known, to a great extent in the early Church, and not only proved a support under martyrdom, but rendered many ambitious of that distinction. For the First Resurrection is limited to a portion of the redeemed Church; and while eternal life and the inheritance are of faith and free grace, and common to all believers merely as such, the millennial crown and the first resurrection are a Reward - the reward of suffering for and with Christ; a special glory and a special hope, designed to comfort and support believers under persecution: a need and use which I have little doubt the Church will before long be called on to experience collectively, as even now, and at all times, it has been experienced by some of its members’ (Burgh). ‘Has any child of God any warrant of Scripture to expect that he will reign with the Lord during the period of Rev. 20.? But, on the contrary, has not every child of God a promise of reigning with Christ in the perfect and final state?’ (Robert Chapman). ‘Into that glorious company of the First Resurrection it is probable that only those who have been partakers of Christ’s humiliation and suffering (either personally or throughout the present aeon) shall be received - a select portion of the redeemed, including the martyrs’ (Dr. E. R. Craven, editor of Lange’s Apocalypse). ‘To those who believe on Him, but go no further, the Lord does, indeed, give eternal life; but the fruition of it will not begin until the Last Day, until the thousand years of the Millennial reign are ended. Such persons will not, therefore, be permitted to enter the Kingdom of the Heavens’ (G. H. Pember). ‘The greatest of all the revelations about the future condition of the saints is, that they are to be identified with Jesus Christ in His reign - that is, those who ‘overcome.’ Not all saints are to be elevated to this position; this is for victorious saints’ (Dr. A. T. Pierson). ‘The gift of Eternal Life contains potentially the Prize; but that potentiality may never be developed in the present period of the believer’s probation; and if such be the case he will miss the Kingdom and its glory in the coming Age’ (S. S. Craig). ‘According to the views of some, the most disobedient child of God will have the privilege of reigning with Christ, having lost the incorruptible crown, and with ‘a terrible, irretrievable loss at the Bema.’ Can such a believer be morally fitted for reigning with Christ? “Blessed and holy is be that hath part in the first resurrection.” ’ (J. Sladen). ‘It is a matter of sad observation that every species and degree of crime is committed, and has been committed, by believers after their conversion: so that there may be positive and entire forfeiture of the Kingdom, and only the lowest position in Eternal Life after it. The native magnitude of this truth must speedily redeem it from all obscurity. Those who have the single eye will perceive its amplitude of evidence, and embrace it, in spite of the solemn awe of God which it produces, and the depth of our own responsibility which it discloses’ (R. Govett). For ‘in this exclusion from the Kingdom, which is the dominion of the good made visible at the return of our Lord, we are not to see the loss of eternal salvation: an entrance into the Kingdom is rendered impossible [in certain cases], but not by any means does it follow that salvation can be thereby prevented’ (Olshausen). ‘Oh, for a noble ambition to obtain one of the first seats in glory! Oh, for a constant, evangelical striving to have the most ‘abundant’ entrance ministered unto you into the Kingdom of God! It is not Christ’s to give those exalted thrones out of mere distinguishing grace. No, they may be forfeited, for they shall be given to those for whom they are prepared; and they are prepared for those who, evangelically speaking, are “worthy” ’ (Fletcher, of Madeley). So remarkable a consensus of opinion provides at least a prima facie case for investigation.

* ‘Receive the crown of glory, honour, and joy,’ says the Archbishop at the British Coronation: but the crown is not the glory or the kingdom, but only its proof and symbol. When Tsar Nicholas II, returning to the Winter Palace as a captive, was received by the guard with the republican salute, ‘We greet you, Colonel Romanoff,’ the loss of the actual gem-studded circlet probably never even crossed the Tsar’s mind, but only the tragedy of a lost empire: so when our Lord says, ‘He that overcometh, and he that keepeth My works unto the end, to him will I give authority over the nations, and he shall rule them with a rod of iron’ (Rev. 2: 26), it is not the symbol (the sceptre is merely of iron) that is priceless, but the enormous rank and power for which the symbol stands, and which the LORD confers on the tested and approved servant of GOD. Now no resurrected saint can be a subject in the Millennial Kingdom, for ‘they lived and reigned with Christ’ (Rev. 20: 4): all are actually enthroned (Rev. 20: 4); and neither Scripture nor the world knows anything of a crownless king. (The Sheep of Matt. 25: 34 - saved Gentiles - are the subjects in both the Millennial and Eternal Kingdoms.) The crown is an invariable accompaniment - the proof and symbol - of a kingdom: so our Lord treats the conditional offer of a crown (Rev. 3: 11) as a synonymous incentive with the conditional offer of a throne (Rev. 3: 21); and Paul illustrates the loss of the incorruptible crown (1 Cor . 9: 27) by Israel’s loss of an earthly kingdom (1 Cor. 10: 5). The two are indivisible.”

EXCLUSION FROM THE HOLY LAND

The designed type - as deliberate and elaborate as any in the Bible - solves the problem of exclusion with extraordinary clearness. For Paul labours to make clear that the ninety-fifth Psalm names a Rest which, since it has never yet occurred, is therefore open to us: for David, though himself enthroned and at rest (2 Sam. 7: 1), wrote of God’s Rest as still future; a fact which at once dissociates it both from the Divine rest after creation three thousand years earlier, and from Israel’s rest in Canaan five hundred years before David wrote. ‘There remaineth therefore a SABBATH-REST’ - a word used nowhere else in the Bible, nor ever in classical literature, but coined by the Holy Ghost to express a toil completed - ‘for the people of God’ (Heb. 4: 9). So the Rest is the Millennial Reign. For it is the sabbath rest, or seventh millennium, following on six thousand years of redemption toil: it is God’s rest in the old earth’s closing dispensation, foreshadowed by every Sabbath under the Law: it is not the Eternal Rest, for it is merely a concluding section, a closing seventh: it is, as Paul has just said, ‘THE AGE [not the Ages] TO COME, whereof we speak [of which we are speaking]’ (Heb. 2: 5). Thus Canaan is the type of the Millennial Kingdom of Christ.*

* The Rabbis so understood the Sabbath. “As the seventh year brings in a time of rest, so the millennial rest will close a period of seven thousand years”: quoted by Delitzsch.

Now we arrive at once at a question enormously emphasized by the Holy Ghost: against whom went forth the oath of exclusion? ‘For who, when they heard [the actual voice of God] did provoke?’ not Egyptians, nor the Seven Tribes of Canaan, nor Moab nor Amalek, none of whom were ever shut up to Jehovah, severed from all the world in a desert as the sole people of God: ‘nay, did not all they that came out of Egypt’ - Israel, under passover blood and through Red Sea baptism. ‘And with whom was He displeased forty years? was it not with them that sinned’ - as only [regenerate] believers can sin*; that is, against privilege and light - “whose carcases fell in the wilderness?’ The carcases were the proof of the oath: they so pampered the body, that mere bodies they became, reaping corruption. ‘And to whom sware He that they should not enter into His rest’ - against whom went forth God’s oath of exclusion - ‘but to them that were disobedient?’ a justified but an unsanctified people. In the words of Bishop Westcott:- ‘The warning is necessary; Christians have need of anxious care: for who were they who so provoked God? even those whom He had already brought from bondage.’**

[* Is there not here a direct reference to an inheritance in “the land” (Acts 7: 5); and to that sin, which the redeemed people of God can commit: the consequences of which they will bitterly regret during “the thousand years” of the “age” which is yet to come?

“I have pardoned according to thy word,” said God to Moses: “but in very deed, as I live, and as all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord; because all those men which have seen my glory, and my signs, which I wrought in Egypt and in the wilderness, yet have tempted me these ten times, and have not hearkened to by voice; surely they shall not see the land” – (i.e., after the time of “the first resurrection”) - “which I sware unto their fathers, neither shall any of them see it:” (Num. 14: 20-23, R.V.).]

** Never having left Egypt, nor ever crossed the Red Sea, the generation that entered Canaan (apart from Caleb and Joshus) form no part of the type, and so are ignored.

But what exactly was the sin which provoked the oath? We see that they were not able to enter in because of unbelief” (Heb. 3: 19 [cf. Num. 14: 11]). But unbelief in what? Israel’s whole wilderness standing was on faith: ‘BY FAITH [Moses] kept the passover, and the sprinkling of the blood; ... BY FAITH they passed through the Red Sea as by dry land’ (Heb. 11: 28). The unbelief was not in fundamentals: we are never told that Israel doubted their salvation from Egypt, and their ransom by blood: on the contrary, the exact moment and cause are revealed when God’s oath left His lips. The rejected report of the godly spies completed Israel’s unsanctification: ‘because all these men have tempted me THESE TEN TIMES, they shall not see the land’ (Num. 14: 22); ‘they despised the pleasant land, therefore He lifted up His hand [to swear]’ (Ps. 106: 24). Israel strongly revolted against God’s picture of the future, and the corresponding demands made upon them: it was the partial unbelief of the regenerate: ‘in THIS thing ye DID NOT BELIEVE the Lord your God’ (Deut. 1: 32). So Paul says:- ‘The word of hearing’ - the report drawn up by Caleb and Joshua concerning the Kingdom beyond Jordan - ‘did not profit them, because it’ - not the good news that pointed back to the blood, but the good news that pointed forward to the crown; not the gospel of the Grace, but the gospel of the Kingdom - ‘was not mixed with faith in them that heard’ - namely, the people of God. God gives us not only facts backward to believe, but facts forward: never to believe the facts backward is to be lost; not to believe the facts forward is for a child of God to drift at once into sin, and to incur the peril of the oath of exclusion.

So the Apostle closes on the clearest warning to the Church of God. ‘We which have believed do enter’ - are entering; all believers are runners with the goal ahead, without having yet breasted the tape. ‘Let us therefore’ - Paul even includes himself - ‘fear’ - for great and frequent have been the falls of eminent saints – ‘lest haply a promise’ - but conditional: for the oath of inclusion (Ex. 13: 5), on a failure in sanctity, was met by the counter-oath of exclusion* ‘being left of entering into His rest, any one OF YOU’ - three times the Spirit empties this torpedo into the breast of the Church, the holy brethren who are partakers of the heavenly calling (Heb. 3: 1) - ‘should seem to have come short of it’: the mere suspicion of failure, even though it may not be fully justified, for man’s judgment is necessarily fallible, is a thing to be earnestly dreaded (Westcott). ‘Let us therefore give diligence’ - earnestly strive (Delitzsch); literally, make haste, be in hot pursuit; because the prize is noble and the peril great (Westcott) - ‘to enter into that rest, that no man [none of you] fall after the same example of DISOBEDIENCE’ - an unholy walk springing from a secret unbelief. The Wilderness is a corridor to the palace, but we may so slip in the corridor as to miss the palace: ‘we are to fear the wrath of God, which within the sphere of even the chosen people has still displayed its judicial terrors upon all unbelievers’ (Lange).”

* The oath under the Law is paralleled by the double negative (Matt. 5: 20, etc.) under Grace.

EXCOMMUNICATION AND EXCLUSION

One New Testament passage decisively proves - though a multitude confirm - the possibility of exclusion: let us examine it. As, in the regenerate, the current of being sets towards good, and evil is a backwater; so, in the unregenerate, the current of being sets towards evil, and effort after good is a backwater: and this is always the criterion of regeneration. ‘He that doeth righteousness is righteous: he that doeth sin is of the devil’ (1 John 3: 7, 8). ‘Faith alone saves; but faith which is alone is not faith’ (Luther). Yet it is also certain that the regenerate can sin deeply, and die in such sin. For - as an example - three facts decisively establish the regenerate nature of the incestuous brother whom the Holy Ghost has made a perpetual and conclusive proof. (1) Excommunication was to deliver his flesh, but not his spirit, to Satan: Satan might touch his body, like Job’s, but not his soul: ‘that the spirit may be SAVED in the day of the Lord Jesus’ (1 Cor. 5: 5). Now the destruction, like Ananias’s, might be immediate (for aught we read to the contrary) and yet his [eternal] salvation was assured: therefore he was regenerate before excommunication. ‘When we are judged’ - even unto death (1 Cor. 11: 30) - ‘we are chastened of the Lord, that we may not be condemned with the world’ (1 Cor. 11: 32). (2) Paul sharply limits the jurisdiction of the Church to believers: ‘do not ye judge them that are within, whereas them that are without God judgeth? Put away the wicked man’ - pass sentence, for he is within - ‘from among yourselves.’* The right to judge unbelievers, Paul says, belongs solely to God: therefore the incestuous brother, judged by the Church at Paul’s command, was a believer. (3) This brother, if excommunicated at all, was promptly restored: for in his second Epistle Paul says - ‘forgive him and comfort him; confirm your love toward him’ (2 Cor. 2: 7).** This is absolutely decisive. The sharp discipline had severed him from his sin: acting under an inspired command the Church restored him to full fellowship, as a living member of Christ. Therefore a believer can so sin, and has: and - since there may be destruction of the flesh - can also die in it. Just as no natural deaths (not even of Moses and Aaron) are recorded in the Wilderness, and all who were slain for fornication, etc., were already thereby excluded from Canaan, so it is with the excommunicate committed to Satan for the destruction of the body.

* Thus the term ‘wicked’ - applied here to an immoral believer by the Holy Ghost, as by our Lord to a slothful servant (Luke 19: 22) - does not disprove conversion. Wickedness is inherent in the unsaved: it is incidental in the redeemed.

** It is blessedly certain that a disciple’s confessed and abandoned sin is immediately purged. ‘If we confess our sins’ - our specific transgressions, after conversion, confessed as they occur – ‘He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness’ (1 John 1: 9). Therefore Peter’s denial has not forfeited his throne. ‘Many shall be FIRST that are LAST’ (Matt. 19: 30).

But a fact of overwhelming decisiveness still remains. Paul states that the identical sin might permeate the whole assembly. ‘Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the WHOLE LUMP?’ Was the ‘whole lump’ all good dough, or half bad? was the assembly regenerate throughout or not? ‘Purge out the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump’ - fresh, pure dough throughout - ‘even as ye ARE unleavened.’ Those whom Paul is alone addressing (1 Cor. 1: 2) had all left the hands of God as pure, sweet dough on conversion: all were regenerate: ‘ye ARE unleavened’: now keep so, Paul says, and if any leaven returns, purge it out, to keep the lump new. For fornication - as also the other immoralities named - might spread through the entire Church: ‘know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump?’ So far from Paul regarding the incestuous brother as no [regenerate] believer, because of his fornication, he asserts exactly the reverse - that, unless drastic measures purge the Body, immoralities may contaminate the whole. No disciple is immune from peril; and Paul therefore devotes the rest of the chapter to proving how great a sin fornication is in one [who was] indwelt by the Holy Ghost. ‘Shall I then,’ - for the sin is possible even to an apostle - ‘take away THE MEMBERS OF CHRIST and make them members of a harlot?’ (1 Cor. 6: 15). If Paul has unbelievers in mind, then he warns them of a sin which they cannot commit; for to take the members of Christ, and make them members of a harlot, is an act possible only to one in Christ: that is, Paul, throughout the passage, speaks solely of the members of the Body of Christ.

Thus it is certain that believers can commit such sins: it is certain that some in Corinth did: it is certain that all such are to be excommunicated: Paul now unfolds the tremendous revelation that disciples so unclean as to be shut out of the Church, must also be shut out of the [Millennial] Kingdom; that the excommunicated will be the excluded. For what is the catalogue of excommunication? Fornicators, idolaters, covetous, drunkards, revilers, extortioners (1 Cor. 5: 11). And what is the catalogue of exclusion? ‘Ye yourselves do wrong’: at what peril? ‘Know ye not that wrong-doers [the same word, with no article] shall not inherit the kingdom of God?’* ‘Be not deceived’ - could a well-instructed Church like Corinth be in peril of imagining that unregenerate adulterers would enter the Kingdom? - ‘neither fornicators, nor idolaters, [four new sins are now added, three an expansion of fornication, one an expansion of covetousness: exclusion is a wider thing than excommunication], nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners’ - each excommunicating sin is also an excluding sin - ‘shall inherit the kingdom of God.’ It is the same list: the justly excommunicated will be the infallibly excluded.** For ‘whose soever sins ye forgive [e.g., the incestuous brother’s], they are forgiven unto them; whose soever sins ye retain’ - always assuming that it is an excommunication which God has commanded - ‘they are retained’ (John 20: 23); for ‘what things so ever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven’ (Matt. 18: 18).

* ‘The Kingdom of God is here taken in the eschatological sense’ - Godet: ‘the Kingdom of God refers here to its external appearance at a future period’ - Olshausen. That ‘the Kingdom’ is the Millennial and not the Eternal, this very Epistle declares: ‘He shall deliver UP THE KINGDOM to God, even the Father’ (1 Cor. 15: 24).

** Other passages, equally decisive, are also addressed to believers with equal clearness. ‘For this ye know of a surety, that no fornicator, nor unclean person, nor covetous man, hath any inheritance in the Kingdom of Christ and God. Let no man deceive YOU with empty words’ (Eph. 5: 5): men may grant us free passes into the Kingdom, but these certificates will not be franked at the gates. To Galatia Paul gives the most exhaustive list. ‘Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousies, wraths, factions, divisions, parties’ - Church sins - ‘envyings, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I forewarn you, even as I did forewarn you, that they which practise such things shall not inherit the Kingdom of God’ (Gal. 5: 19).

Paul closes with words finally conclusive. ‘Such were some of you; but ye were washed’ - through blood, and water - ‘but ye were sanctified’ - set apart for God as hallowed - ‘but ye were justified’ - through the accepted righteousness of Christ: these are the souls Paul is threatening with exclusion: defiled, ye were cleansed; profane, ye were hallowed; unrighteous, ye were justified. Dare any of you become foul again? Paul asks. If unbelievers only are excluded, Paul’s warning is not only pointless, but unjust. Believers are sinning; unbelievers are to be excluded: ‘ye do wrong’; therefore the world will be punished: does God reveal the sins of one set of men, to threaten punishment to another? ‘I fear lest I should find you not such as I would,’ because of ‘uncleanness and fornication and lasciviousness which they COMMITTED’ (2 Cor. 12: 20). It is the washed, the sanctified, the justified that are in peril. Are hypocrites - empty professors, false brethren, who have slipped past the Church examiners - washed, sanctified, justified? Hear what the [Holy] Spirit is saying to the churches:- ‘HE THAT DOETH WRONG SHALL RECEIVE FOR THE WRONG THAT HE HATH DONE; AND THERE IS NO RESPECT OF PERSONS” (Col. 3: 25). “Thou hast a few names in Sardis which did not defile their garments: and THEY shall walk with me in white; FOR THEY ARE WORTHY’ (Rev. 3: 4). ‘NOT EVERY ONE THAT SAITH UNTO ME, LORD, LORD’ - an utterance peculiarly characteristic of disciples (John 13: 13) – ‘SHALL ENTER INTO THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN;* but he that DOETH THE WILL of my Father which is in heaven’ (Matt. 7: 21.)

* Death-bed conversions leave no room for the works of faith it is certain that our Lord ignores the dying thief’s petition (Luke 23: 42), but comforts him with the assurance of simple salvation. Our Lord closes the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 7: 21-27) as He began it (Matt. 5: 20) by presenting the Sermon as the great. standard of righteousness for entrance into the Kingdom; for in the Sermon, together with our Lord’s other utterances and the [Holy] Spirit’s body of commands throughout the Epistles, our active righteousness is to be found: ‘for except your righteousness [your active obedience] exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees [the standard of the Mosaic Law], ye shall IN NO WISE enter into the kingdom of heaven’ (Matt. 5: 20).

For it is exceedingly remarkable that in the very heart of the great Grace chapter of the Bible, the truth that a Christian’s reward is exclusively determined by his own fidelity lies deeply embedded. “Working,” as Calvin has said, ‘is not at all opposed to grace.’ ‘For if, by the trespass of the one [Adam], death reigned through the one; much more’ - as much more as God loves to reward His servants more than He loves to reward His enemies - ‘shall they that receive’ - take constantly, take continuously; not grace, but - ‘the abundance of grace’ - its superabundance, so that the superfluity overflows (Godet) - ‘reign in life’ (Rom. 5: 17) - ‘life,’ a limited phrase used in the Gospels (Mark 9: 43, 45, 47) as a synonym for the Millennial Kingdom. So far from reward undermining grace, it is the ABUNDANCE of GRACE, which alone entitles to reward: grace confers justification as a free gift; but only the abundance of grace, deliberately and continuously received, qualifies for glory with Christ in the Life that is life indeed. Grace underlies all: in the beautiful words of Augustine, - ‘To whom could the righteous judge give the crown if the merciful Father had not given grace? and how could these be paid as things due, were not things not due previously given?’ For Grace, while it grants salvation solely on the merits of our Lord, cannot ignore our conduct after regeneration; and every instinct of our hearts calls for justice, after the painful controversies that have rent the Church for two thousand years, before eternal bliss shall pass an obliterating sponge over the past, ‘in that all-reconciling world where Luther and Zwingle are well agreed.’ And so Paul asserts. ‘But thou, why does thou judge thy brother? or thou again, why dost thou set at nought thy brother? for we shall all stand before the judgment Seat of God: let us not therefore judge one another any more’ (Rom. 14: 10); but, while rigidly adhering to all the truth we know, hand over all judgment to an august and awful Tribunal not our own.

THE FIRST RESURRECTION

Once again the Scriptures - which summon the believer to the Crown, as insistently as the unbeliever to the Cross - present this dual truth with crystal clearness. Paul opens one little masterpiece of revelation (Phil. 3: 4-15) with a supreme hopelessness. What is it? The one man who came nearest to reaching God through his own goodness proved to be the chief of sinners. Ponder Paul’s incomparable assets: no soul, before or since, ever held up to the face of God a hand filled with such exquisite pearls. Circumcised - stamped as God’s from infancy; of the stock of Israel - with a blood-right to salvation; of the tribe of Benjamin - a tribe which never broke away; a Hebrew of Hebrews - a full-blooded Jew to the furthest generation back; a Pharisee - intensely orthodox; persecuting the church - on fire for God’s Law; in the Law blameless - obedient in jot and tittle. No man ever came so near to winning life through what he was and what he did. ‘If any other man’ - of any age, or race, or clime – ‘thinketh to have confidence in the flesh, I yet more’: Paul towers over all legalists for ever. But a sudden and awful discovery blasted his prospects. “I was alive [in my own eyes] apart from law once: but when the commandment [‘thou shalt not lust’] came [home to my conscience], sin revived [sprang again into life], and I died [saw myself a dead man]; and the commandment, which was [in God’s design] unto life, this I found to be [in fact] unto death’ (Rom. 7: 9, 10). ‘If any man thinketh to have confidence in the flesh I yet more’: but what had his inward vision revealed? - a corpse before God. With Paul’s failure, the whole world lapses into hopeless despair.

There next appears a supreme righteousness. Whose? Not Paul’s; for he had discovered, with Isaiah, that ‘we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags’ (Isa. 64: 6). He now discovers that what he could not do, Christ did; that what he could not be, Christ was; and that Christ had done it, and been it, in order to take his place (2 Cor. 5: 21). He instantly drops his own righteousness, and seizes Christ’s: he exchanges his own pearls for one priceless, flawless gem. ‘I do count them but dung, that I may gain Christ, and be found in him, not having a righteousness of mine own. ... but that [righteousness] which is through faith in Christ.’ Paul never afterwards doubts his salvation (Rom. 8: 38): for Christ has kept the Law, not with head, hands, and feet only, but with heart also (Ps. 40: 8): and this righteousness is now Paul’s (Rom. 5: 19). The supreme hopelessness is replaced by a supreme salvation.

There yet remains a supreme uncertainty. Here are startling words. ‘Bretnren, I count not myself yet to have apprehended :.. but I press on.’ Not apprehended what? ‘If by any means I may attain unto the [select] resurrection from [among] the dead.’ ‘It is most evident that Paul had some special resurrection in view, even the first: and to share in that he was straining every nerve’ (J. MacNeil). Press on to what? ‘Towards the goal unto the prize of the high calling.’ ‘If’ - conditional; ‘by any means’ - hazardous - ‘I may atiain unto’ - hypothetical – ‘the out-resurrection’ - selective - ‘that which is from among the dead’ - exclusive; it would be difficult to cram a text with more uncertainty than Paul does here. In the words of Bishop Ellicott:- ‘As the context suggests, the first resurrection; any reference here to a merely ethical resurrection is wholly out of the question.’ That Paul is speaking of bodily resurrection is clear from the closing verse of this very chapter:- ‘we wait for a Saviour who shall fashion anew the body of our humiliation, that it may be conformed to the body of his glory.’ Every Passage that refers to resurrection FROM the dead (Mark 9: 10, Luke 20: 35, Rom. 1: 4, Rev. 20: 4) refers to physical resurrection. ‘Of his resurrection at the end of the world, when all without exception will surely be raised, he could have no possible doubt. What sense then can this passage have, if it represents him as labouring and suffering merely in order to attain to a resurrection, and as holding this up to view as unattainable unless he should arrive at a high degree of Christian perfection? On the other hand, let us suppose a first resurrection to be appointed as a special reward of high attainments in Christian virtue,* and all seems to be plain and easy. Of a resurrection in a figurative sense, i.e. of regeneration, Paul cannot be speaking; for he had already attained to that on the plain of Damascus’ (Moses Stuart). Salvation can never be insecure: the Prize can never be assumed until it is won. Why? (1) Because it is a prize. If the prize be given on faith without works, it is no more a prize. ‘Know ye not that they which run in a race all run, but one receiveth the Prize? Even so run, that ye may attain’ (1 Cor. 9: 24). (2) No splendour of past service can guarantee immunity from backsliding. None so renounced, so suffered, so served as Paul: yet he assumes no prize. (3) False doctrines which rob God of His glory will rob us of ours: therefore ‘let no man rob you of your Prize’ (Col. 2: 18). (4) Fleshly sins also disqualify. Therefore ‘I buffet my body, and bring it into bondage: lest by any means, after that I have preached to others, I myself should be rejected [for the crown]’ (1 Cor. 9: 24-27). The insecurity of the chief of apostles binds insecurity of reward for ever on the Church of God. ‘Not that I have already obtained, or am already made perfect; but I press on, if so be that I may apprehend’:** that is, the apprehension is indissolubly linked with the perfection.

* On the First Resurrection Dean Alford says:- ‘Those who lived next to the Apostles, and the whole Church for 300 years, understood the ‘first resurrection’ in the plain literal sense: and it is a strange sight in these days to see expositors who are among the first in reverence of antiquity complacently casting aside the most cogent instance which primitive antiquity presents.’ From such cases as that of Lazarus, who died again, it is certain that the act of resurrection is distinct from its stage: so our Lord identifies the First Resurrection with the Age to Come, - ‘they that are accounted worthy to attain that age, and the resurrection from among the dead’ (Luke 20: 35). The act of resurrection to appear before the Bema is thus distinct from participation in the First Resurrection, or the Millennial Age. It was for a share in a resurrection not temporary- a state, not an act - that ancient martyrs refused life. ‘Women received their dead by a resurrection’ - a temporary resurrection: ‘and others were tortured, not accepting their deliverance; that they might receive a better resurrection” (Heb. 11: 35, Matt. 10: 39). It is not that Paul assumes his own death, for it was not until his final hours that God revealed to him his martyrdom (2 Tim. 4: 6); but it is his aspiration, whether living or dead, to attain to the state of the risen in that Kingdom which can only be entered by incorruption (1 Cor. 15: 50). So baptism, commanded for the Kingdom (John 3: 5), pictures the seed-bed out of which Christ’s fellow-plants will spring (Rom. 6: 5) in His resurrection, the First: none unbaptized into Moses (1 Cor. 10: 10) ever entered Canaan, though most so baptized failed after baptism. Tertullan (as Dr. Seiss reminds us, The Last Times, P. 242) testifies that in his day, the era immediately following on the Apostles, it was the custom for Christians to pray that they might have part in the First Resurrection.

** Unfaltering obedience, however, and a close walk with God, can produce ‘assurance of hope,’ even as Paul in his last hours knew by revelation that he had won the Prize (2 Tim. 4: 8). ‘Having therefore boldness to enter into the holy place by the blood of Jesus, let us draw near in full assurance of FAITH’ (Heb. 10: 19). Our eternal life, based on the covering blood of the Atonement, is as sure as God. But a vast vista opens up beyond. ‘Show the same diligence unto the full assurance of HOPE even to the end: that ye be not sluggish, but imitators of them who through faith and patience inherit the promises’ (Heb. 6: 11). I am not to hope that I am saved, but to believe it: on the contrary, I am not to believe I have won the prize, but to hope that I shall win it. For only ‘the end’ can reveal how I have run. But the more battles won, and the more mileage covered, the more we can mature to the full assurance of hope. ‘WE ARE WELL ABLE TO OVERCOME’ (Num. 13: 30).

All therefore culminates in a supreme effort. ‘This one thing I do.’ Is this for Paul only? ‘Let US therefore’ - for he is our inspired example - ‘as many as be perfect, be thus minded.’ ‘SEEK ye FIRST the kingdom of God’ - (Matt. 6: 33) is our Lord’s word to disciples already in the kingdom in mystery. How? (1) ‘Forgetting the things which are behind.’ The immeasurable value of the prize may be computed by the immense sacrifices necessary to obtain it. ‘The Kingdom of Heaven has no entrance fee, but its subscription is all that a man hath.” Its cost is a crucified world. “Blessed is the man to whom the world, with all her rags of honour, is crucified, and who holds her to be worth no more than a thief on the gallows.’ Nothing makes the other world more real, or more blessed, than the renunciation of this. (2) ‘Stretching forward to the things that are before.’ It is a racer, as Professor Eadie says, in his agony of struggle and hope: every muscle is strained, every vein starting; the chest heaves, and the big drops gather on the brow; the body is bent forward, as if the racer all but touched the goal. ‘Let us therefore labour to enter into that Rest, that none [no disciple] fall after the same example of disobedience’ (Heb. 4: 11). (3) ‘This one thing I do.’ All his missionary ardour, all his thirst for souls, all his toil for the churches, are bent before this overmastering passion of his soul; because the running-tracks for the prize God has laid through these channels of holy service, and to-day’s toil is the measure of to-morrow’s glory. ‘The First Resurrection is a reward for obedience rendered after the acceptance of salvation, and Paul knew not the standard which God had fixed in His own purpose’ (G. H. Pember). ‘The Kingdom of Heaven suffereth violence, and MEN OF VIOLENCE take it by force’ (Matt. 11: 12). (4) It is a calling ‘upward,’ therefore it is God who is calling. ‘Walk worthily of God, who is calling you into His own kingdom and glory’ (1 Thess. 2: 12).* God is calling us from all earthly glories up to the Throne: ‘that ye may be COUNTED WORTHY of the Kingdom of God, for which also ye suffer’ (2 Thess. 1: 5). The Cross is ours for ever: when we have been approved, we receive the Crown (Jas. 1: 12). We honour God in proportion as we covet His immeasurable rewards. The apostle not only renounces, he forgets; he not only advances, he presses; he not only gazes, he stretches; he not only does it, but he does it only. ‘LET US, THEREFORE, AS MANY AS BE PERFECT, BE THUS MINDED.’ ‘Oh, that the thought, the hope of millennial blessedness may animate me to perfect holiness in the fear of God, that I may be accounted worthy to escape the terrible judgments which will make way for that happy state of things, and that I may have part in the first resurrection!’ (Fletcher of Madeley). For ‘blessed AND HOLY is he that hath part in the first resurrection: THEY LIVED, AND REIGNED WITH CHRIST A THOUSAND YEARS’ (Rev. 20: 4, 6).

* Paul’s distinction between the Will and the Codicil corroborates his contrast between the Gift and the Prize. “Heirs of God indeed” - no condition, save regeneration: ‘but joint-heirs with Christ, if so be that we suffer’ – ‘in case we suffer as He did’ (Olshausen); ‘provided that’ we suffer (Alford) – ‘with Him, that we may be also glorified with Him’ (Rom. 8: 17). (Si autem filii, et heredes: heredes quidem Dei, coheredes autem Christi: si tamen compatimur, ut et conglorificemur: Vulgate). Both heirships involve eternal life: but the Codicil, which bequeathes joint-heirship with Messiah in His Millennial Reign, and bequeaths it on the same condition on which our Lord receives it (Phil. 2: 9, Heb. 1: 9, Isa. 53: 12), antedates the Will by a thousand years: it is ‘the reward of the inheritance’ (Col. 3: 24), a legacy which entitles to an ‘abundant entrance’ into the Eternal Kingdom (2 Pet. 1: 11). Both heirships are in the Will; both heirships are offered to all; both Will and Codicil depend for their validity on the death of the Testator: but without the fulfilment of its condition the Codicil is inoperative. “The suffering with Him must imply a pain due to our union.” (Moule): ‘if we suffer, we shall also reign with Him’ (2 Tim. 2: 12); the Will is the unconditional bequest of free grace, the Codicil is a glory conditioned on identity to experience with Christ.

THE TWO JUSTIFICATIONS

Once more the Holy Spirit puts the dual truth afresh. For one man God has chosen to be the supreme model of all justification; and one apostle the Holy Spirit has specially selected to express justification by faith. For to Abraham, a repentant heathen idolator with his face set towards the Holy Land, God said, - ‘He that shall come forth out of thine own bowels shall be thine heir’ (Gen. 15: 4); then; leading him out under the countless stars, God said again, - ‘So shall thy seed be.’ Then we read, ‘Abraham believed in the Lord’ - that is, as Paul puts it, he believed God (Rom. 4: 3); ‘and God counted it [his faith] to him for righteousness.’ Abraham believed God - that was all: as God dimly, but really, presented Christ to him, far down the ages - the single Seed as well as the plural seed (Gal. 3: 16) - he accepted God’s Word without question or doubt; and God thereby instantly accepted him as a righteous man. No voice ratified it from Heaven; no wave of emotion (so far as we know) swept over believing Abraham: silently, mysteriously, suddenly God regenerated, and Abraham, on bare faith, was justified.

Now the apostle asks the critical question, ‘We say, To Abraham his faith was reckoned for righteousness. How then was it reckoned? when he was in circumcision, or in uncircumcision?’ (Rom. 4: 9). Had Abraham earned his justification? or obtained it by ‘sacraments’? or won it by long obedience and a holy life supplementing the mercy of God? or was it by faith alone? So vital is the reply that it is couched both negatively and positively, - ‘not in circumcision, but in uncircumcision: that he might be the father’ - the progenitor, the pattern ‘of all them that believe.’ The reply of the Holy Ghost is thus perfectly explicit. Abraham was justified before he brought forth any works at all, or submitted to any ritual; therefore he must have been justified by faith, before ever he worked for God he believed God; and until he believed, Abraham was a Chaldean idolator, a lost soul. Behold, therefore, the perfect model and the unchanging example of how God saves: ‘the father of ALL them that believe.’

But there is a reverse side to the shield of Faith. Abraham had reached the end of a radiantly holy life; God had asked of him his last great renunciation, and he had yielded it: now upon the aged patriarch, tested again and again, a second great justification falls. The moment Isaac had been (in intent) offered, the Angel of the Lord said, - ‘Because thou hast done this thing’ - that is, works - ‘and hast not withheld thy son, in blessing I will bless thee’ (Gen. 22: 16). Here was no regeneration silent, mysterious, internal: it was coronation, an open and solemn approval of God unto reward. Paul is the New Testament parallel. ‘I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith’ - all works - ‘henceforth there is laid up for me the crown’ - a special revelation made to Paul, as to Abraham, at the close of life - ‘of righteousness’ - the crown consequent on righteousness - ‘which the righteous Judge’ - awarding a second justification - ‘shall give to me at that day’ (2 Tim. 4: 7). From that moment Paul knew that of which he had been ignorant (1 Cor. 9: 27; Phil. 3: 11-14) before.

So the Holy Spirit has selected a second apostle through whom to reveal the second justification with startling emphasis. ‘Was not Abraham our father JUSTIFIED by works, in that he offered up Isaac upon the altar? … by works was faith made perfect: by works a man is justified, and not only by faith’ (Jas. 2: 21). That Abraham’s second justification was a justification before God, not men, is clear, because God alone - apart from Isaac - was present when he was so justified (Gen. 22: 16). James is not speaking of works before faith, that is, works of law: for ‘faith wrought with his works, and by works was faith made perfect’: faith was already there. The justification of James, therefore, is not justification unto eternal life. Scripture strenuously denies that works before faith can ever justify: ‘by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified’ (Rom. 3: 20). But works done after faith, works done in faith, the ‘work of faith’ (2 Thess. 1: 11) does justify for reward. ‘If any [disciple s] work shall abide, he shall receive a reward. If any [disciple’s] work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved’ (1 Cor. 3: 14) - as already possessed of the justification unto [eternal] life. ‘I know nothing against myself; yet am I not hereby justified’ - with the second justification: even a conscience void of offence in a regenerate apostle cannot ensure that: nothing can (apart from a special revelation) but [by] the Judge upon the Bema - ‘but he that judgeth me is the Lord. Wherefore judge nothing before the time’ (1 Cor. 4: 4). Therefore the Spirit bids us, - ‘So speak ye, and so do, as men that are to be judged by a law of liberty’ (Jas. 2: 12) - the law, not of Moses, but of Christ.

God called Abraham, and he believed; God proved Abraham, and he endured: the two justifications were then complete. For his justification by faith Paul points to the moment of his regeneration; for his justification by works James points to his final act of accomplished obedience. Both justifications are demanded from every human soul. First, justification by blood, then justification by obedience; first, justification by faith, then justification by works; first, justification for life, then justification for reward; first, the escape of Israel out of Egypt, then the escape of Caleb and Joshua out of the wilderness: the one is an adjudication on a transferred righteousness through the obedience of Another; the other is an adjudication on an active righteousness through obedience of our own. For blessed is ‘the man unto whom God reckoneth righteousness apart from works’ (Rom. 4: 6): blessed also is ‘the man that endureth temptation [testing] for when he hath been approved, he shall receive THE CROWN OF LIFE’ (Jas. 1: 12).

So there are also two overcomings. ‘Be of good cheer; I have overcome the world’ (John 16: 33). The ‘world’ is all the mass of temptation, allurements to sin, ungodly habits, unholy life, which make up our present environment: by steadily, unceasingly, and completely resisting its pressure, the Lord Jesus overcame. The term is most expressive, an ‘overcomer’; it implies pressure, resistance, battle, victory, over that which calls for beating down and subduing; it is constant effort carried through to a victorious issue. Never to sin, in spite of fierce and unceasing temptation, is to be an absolute overcomer; and One only ever so overcame - Jesus the Christ. Now this conquest of our Lord is the victory of all His saints: ‘God giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ’ (1 Cor. 15: 57); for ‘this is the victory that hath overcome the world, even our faith’ (1 John 5: 4). Not ‘will’ overcome, but ‘hath’ overcome (R.V.); yet not ‘Christ,’ but ‘we’: for faith transfers Christ’s conquest to me: I have overcome in Christ; for He and I are one. ‘The conflict and suffering which we now have is not the real battle, but only the celebration of the victory’ (Luther). From the first moment of faith the victory of every disciple is an assured fact: ‘whatsoever is begotten of God’ - the whole mass of the regenerate - ‘overcometh the world: and this is the victory that hath overcome the world, even our faith.’ But there is a second overcoming. Seven times our Lord invokes every member of His Churches to become an overcomer. ‘The reason why so many Christians fail,’ says Mr. Moody, ‘is just this - they under-estimate the strength of the enemy.’ We thus arrive at God’s duplex truth. Compared with the world, all believers are overcomers; compared with one another some are overcomers, and some are not: for the first overcoming is by simple faith, whereas the second is by unswerving obedience. The second overcoming, no more than the first, is a sudden act, or the victory of a moment, or a rush of holy emotion; it is a confirmed habit of goodness, - the long wind, the hard biceps, the iron muscle of the unwavering, faltering runner; it is not a victorious battle, but a victorious campaign. ‘He that overcometh, I will give to him to sit down with Me in my throne, as I also overcame’ - for the two overcomings are identical in kind though not in degree - ‘and sat down with my Father in His throne’ (Rev. 3: 21). Caleb’s cry should now ring through the Churches of Christ:- ‘WE ARE WELL ABLE TO OVERCOME’ (Num. 13: 30).

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PART FOUR

GOD’S CHASTENINGS

2 Samuel 12

“It may strike some readers as strange that … David’s forgiveness should he immediately followed by one upon his chastening: surely if God had pardoned his transgressions we would not expect to hear of His rod now being laid upon him. But there will be no difficulty if we carefully distinguish between two of the principal offices which God sustains, namely, the character of moral Ruler of the world, and that of the judge of His creatures: the one relating to His dealings with us in time, the other pertaining to His passing formal sentence upon our eternal destiny; the one concerning His governmental actions, the other His penal verdict. Unless this distinction he plainly recognized and given a constant place in our thoughts, not only will our minds he clouded with confusion, but our peace will he seriously undermined and our hearts brought into bondage; worst of all, we shall entertain erroneous ideas of God and sadly misinterpret His dealings with us in providence. How we need to pray that ‘our love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and in all judgment, that we may try things that differ’ (Phil. 1: 9, 10 margin).

‘And David said unto Nathan, I have sinned against the Lord. And Nathan said unto David, The Lord also hath put away thy sin; thou shalt not die. Howbeit, because by this deed thou hast given great occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme, the child also that is born unto thee shall surely die’ (2 Sam. 12: 13, 14). Here are the two things to which we have just called attention, and placed moreover in immediate juxtaposition. The first exhibits to us the Lord in His character as judge, declaring that David had been pardoned for his great transgression - such a word (spoken now by the Spirit in power to the conscience of a penitent believer) is anticipatory of God’s verdict at the Great Assize. The second manifests the Lord in His character of Ruler, declaring that His holiness required Him to take governmental notice of David’s wickedness, so that demonstration might be made that His laws cannot he broken with impunity. Let us proceed to follow out this double thought a little further.

‘He hath not dealt with us after our sins, nor rewarded us according to our iniquities’ (Psa. 103: 10). Here is a verse which no believer will hesitate to set to his seal that it is true, for he has abundant evidence thereof in his own personal experience, and therefore will he positively affirm, If I received my just deserts, I had been cast into hell long ago. Rightly did Spurgeon say on this passage, ‘We ought to praise the Lord for what He has not done, as well as for what He has wrought for us.’ 0 what cause has each Christian to marvel that his perverseness and sottishness have not utterly exhausted God’s patience. Alas that our hearts are so little affected by the infinite forbearance of God: 0 that His goodness may lead us to repentance.

Have we not abundant reason to conclude, because of our base ingratitude and vile behaviour, that God would withhold from us the communications of His Spirit and the blessings of His providence, cause us to find the means of grace profitless, and allow us to sink into a state of settled backsliding? Is it not a wonder that He does not so deal with us? Truly, ‘He hath not dealt with us after our sins, nor rewarded us according to our iniquities.’ And why? Because He dealt with Another ‘after our sins’ and exacted from Him full satisfaction to His justice. And payment God cannot twice demand: first at my bleeding Surety’s hand, and then again at mine. God rewarded Christ according to our iniquities, and now He rewards us according to Christ’s merits. Hallelujah. Heaven he praised for such a Gospel! May this old, old truth, come with new power and sweetness unto our souls.

‘He hath not dealt with us after our sins, nor rewarded us according to our iniquities.’ This is true penally (i.e. God’s dealings with us as Judge) and with respect to the eternal consequences of our sins. Yet this does not mean that the sins believers commit are ignored by God as the moral Ruler of this world, that He refrains from dealing with us governmentally. The whole of His dealings with His people Israel (who were in covenant relationship with Him) shows otherwise. The New Testament also forbids such a conclusion: see Galatians 6: 7; 1 Corithians 11: 29, 30! Yet it must he remembered that God exercises His sovereignty in this, as in all things: the extent to which and the manner in which God makes His people smart for their ‘inventions’ is determined by His own mere good pleasure.

Though God forgives His people their sins, yet He frequently gives them plain proof of His holy abhorrence of the same, and causes them to taste something of the bitter fruits which they bring forth. Another scripture which brings out this dual truth is, ‘Thou wast a God that forgavest them, though Thou tookest vengeance of their inventions’ (Psa. 99: 8). What could possibly he plainer than this: God pardoning His people, yet also manifesting His sore displeasure against their transgressions. A striking case in point - obviously included in Psalm 99: 6-8 - is recorded in Exodus 32. There we see Israel worshiping the golden calf in the lascivious manner of the heathen. In response to the intercession of Moses, they were forgiven: ‘The Lord repented of the evil which He thought to do unto His people’ (v. 14). Nevertheless, God took vengeance of their inventions, ‘And the Lord plagued the people, because they made the calf, which Aaron made” (v. 35).

Another example is seen in the case of the unbelief of Moses and Aaron at Meribah: though God pardoned the guilt of their anger as to eternal death, yet He took vengeance by not suffering them to conduct Israel into the promised land: see Numbers 20: 12, 24. And so it is still, as many a Christian discovers from sorrowful experience when God takes him to task for his sinful ‘inventions’ and visits upon him His governmental displeasure. Yet this in nowise clashes with the fact that ‘He hath not dealt with us after our sins, nor rewarded us according to our iniquities.’ There is mercy in our chastenings, and no matter how heavily the rod may smite, we have good cause to say, ‘And after all that is come upon us for our evil deeds, and for our great trespass, seeing that Thou our God hast punished us less than our iniquities deserve’ (Ezra 9: 13).

Ere passing on, let us anticipate the objection of some tried saints, whose case may be quite extreme. There are some who are smarting so severely beneath the chastening rod of God that to them it certainly seems that He is dealing with them ‘after their sins’ and rewarding them ‘according to their iniquities.’ The light of His countenance is withheld from them, His providential dealings wear only a dark frown, and it appears very much as though He has ‘forgotten to be gracious.’ Ah, dear friend, if your heart is in any measure truly exercised before God, then your case is far from being hopeless, and to you apply those words ‘Know therefore that God exacteth of thee less than thine iniquity deserveth’ (Job 11: 6). My brother, even your present sufferings are far, very far from being as great as your sins.

Now what we have sought to bring out above receives striking exemplification in the case of David. In a very real sense God did not deal with him after his sins, nor reward him according to his iniquities; yet in another sense, He did. God sent a prophet to faithfully rebuke him, He wrought conviction and repentance in David, He heard his cry, blotted out his transgressions, as Psalm 32 so blessedly shows. Yet though God pardoned David as to the guilt of eternal death, saved his soul, and spared his life, yet He ‘took vengeance of his inventions.’ There was a needs-be why sore afflictions came upon him: the divine holiness must be vindicated, His governmental righteousness must be manifested, a solemn warning must be given to wrong-doers, and David himself must learn that ‘the way of the transgressor is hard.’ O that writer and reader may lay this to heart and profit therefrom.

Through Nathan God said to David, ‘Wherefore hast thou despised the commandment of the Lord, to do evil in His sight? thou hast killed Uriah the Hittite with the sword, and hast taken his wife to be thy wife, and hast slain him with the sword of the children of Ammon. Now therefore the sword shall never depart from thine house; because thou hast despised Me, and hast taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be thy wife. Thus saith the Lord, Behold, I will raise up evil against thee out of thine own house, and I will take thy wives before thine eyes, and give them unto thy neighbour, and he shall lie with thy wives in the sight of this sun” (2 Sam. 12: 9-11). What a solemn exhibition or God’s governmental righteousness! David must reap as he had sown, he had caused Uriah to be slain by the sword, and now God tells him ‘the sword shall never depart from thine house’; he had committed adultery with Bath-sheba, and now he hears that his own wives shall be defiled. How true are those words ‘For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged, and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again’ (Matt. 7: 2)!

God hath declared that ‘to the froward He will show Himself froward’ (Psa. 18: 26), and frequently does He punish sin in its own kind. Upon the burning lusts of the Edomites He rained down fire and brimstone from heaven (Gen. 19: 24). Jacob deceived his father by means of the skin of a kid (Gen. 29. 16), and he in turn was thus deceived by his sons, who brought him Joseph’s coat dipped in the blood of a kid (Gen. 37: 31), saying he had been devoured by a wild beast. Because Pharaoh had cruelly ordered that the male infants of the Hebrews should be drowned (Ex. 1: 22), the Egyptian king and all his hosts were swallowed up by the Red Sea (Ex. 14: 28). Nadab and Abihu sinned grievously by offering ‘strange fire’ unto the Lord, and accordingly they were consumed by fire from heaven (Lev. 10: 1, 2). Adonibezek cut off the thumbs and toes of the kings he took in battle, and in like manner the Lord rewarded him (Judges 1: 6, 7). Agag’s sword made women childless, and so his own mother was made childless by his being torn in pieces before the Lord (1 Sam. 15: 33).

What proofs are these that ‘the eyes of the Lord are in every place, beholding the evil and the good’ (Prov. 15: 3). What evidences are these of the inflexible justice of God: none need fear but what the judge of all the earth will ‘do right.’ What solemn intimations are they that in the Day to come each one shall be judged ‘according to his works.’ What warnings are these that God is not to he mocked. But let it not he forgotten that if it is written, ‘He that soweth to the flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption’: it is also added (though not nearly so frequently quoted) that ‘he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting’ (Gal. 6: 8). The same principle of God’s granting an exact quid pro quo applies to the service of His ministers: ‘He which soweth sparingly shall reap also sparingly; and he which soweth bountifully shall reap also bountifully’ (2 Cor. 9: 6) - the harvest shall not only be answerable to the seed and the reward to the work, but it will be greater or less according to the quantity and quality of the work.

Nor does the last-quoted passage mean that God is going to reward His ministers according to the fruit and success of their work, but rather according to the labour itself, be it little or much, better or worse: ‘Every man shall receive his own reward according to his own labour’ (1 Cor. 3: 8). God in His sovereignty may set His servant over a blind and perverse people (as He did Ezekiel), who so far from profiting from his ministry, add iniquity to their iniquity; nevertheless his work is with God (Isa. 49: 4). So too with the rank and file of Christians the more bountifully they sow the seeds of good works, the more shall they reap; and the more sparingly they sow, the less will be the harvest: ‘Knowing that whatsoever good thing any man doeth, the same shall he receive of the Lord’ (Eph. 6: 8). What an incentive and stimulus should that be unto all of us: ‘Let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not’ (Gal. 6: 9).

But to return to David. ‘And Nathan departed unto his house’ (v. 15). The prophet had faithfully delivered his message, and now he withdrew from the court. It is striking and blessed to see how God honoured His servant: He moved David to name one of his sons “Nathan” (1 Chron. 3: 5) and it was from him that Christ, according to the flesh, descended (Luke 3: 31). ‘And the Lord struck the child that Uriah’s wife bare unto David, and it was very sick’ (v. 15). The prophet’s words now began to receive their tragic fulfilment. Behold here the sovereignty of God: the parents lived, the child must die. See here too God’s respect for His law: David had broken it, but He executes it, by visiting the sins of the father upon the son.

‘David therefore besought God for the child; and David fasted, and went in, and lay all night upon the earth’ (v. 16). It is touching to see this seasoned warrior so affected by the sufferings of his little one - proof of a broken heart and a contrite spirit, for the penitent are pitiful. It is true that the prophet had said, ‘The child also that is born unto thee shall surely die’ (v. 14), yet David seems to have cherished the hope that this threat was but a conditional one, as in the case of Hezekiah: his words ‘while the child was yet alive I fasted and wept: for I said, Who can tell whether God will be gracious to me, that the child may live?’ (v. 22) strongly appear to bear this out. In his fasting and lying all night upon the ground David humbled himself before the Lord, and evidenced both the sincerity of his repentance and the earnestness of his supplication. What is recorded in verse 17 illustrates the fact that the natural man is quite incapable of understanding the motives which regulate the conduct of believers.

‘And it came to pass on the seventh day, that the child died” (v. 18). No detail of Scripture is meaningless. It was on the eighth day that the male children of the Israelites were to he circumcised (Gen. 17: 12, etc.), thus in the death of his son before it could receive the sign of the covenant a further proof was given David of God’s governmental displeasure! Though it was a mercy to all concerned that the infant was removed from this world, yet inasmuch as its death had been publicly announced as a rebuke for their sin (v. 14), its decease was a manifest chastening from God upon David and Bath-sheba.

‘Then David arose from the earth, and washed, and anointed himself, and changed his apparel, and came into the house of the Lord, and worshipped: then he came to his own house; and when he required, they set bread before him, and he did eat’ (v. 20). This is beautiful, reminding us of Job’s bowing beneath God’s chastening rod and worshiping Him when he received tidings of the death of his children. How different was this from the disconsolate grief and rebellion against God which is so often displayed by worldlings when their loved ones are snatched away from them. Weeping should never hinder worshiping: ‘Is any among you afflicted? let him pray’ (James 5: 13). How the terms of this verse rebuke the personal untidiness of some who attend public worship!

‘And David comforted Bath-sheba his wife, and went in unto her, and lay with her: and she bare a son, and he called his name Solomon: and the Lord loved him’ (v. 24). Having meekly bowed before God’s rod, humbled himself beneath His mighty hand, and publicly owned Him in worship, David now received a token of God’s favour: ‘Behold, a son shall he born to thee, who shall he a man of rest; and I will give him rest from all his enemies round about: for his name shall be Solomon, and I will give peace and quietness unto Israel in his days’ (1 Chron. 22: 9). The birth and name given to Solomon was an evidence that God was reconciled to David, as it was also an earnest of the tranquillity which would obtain in Israel during his reign. Solomon was also named ‘Jedidiah’ which signifies ‘beloved of the Lord’ - signal demonstration of the sovereignty of divine grace!

The chapter closes (vv. 26-31) with a brief account of Israel’s capture of Rabbah, the royal city of the Ammonites. Further proof was this of God’s grace unto David: he prospered his arms notwithstanding his aggravated sins...”

- Quoted form ‘The Life of David’ by A. W. PINK.

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PART 5

CONCLUDING REMARKS AND SELECTED QUOTATIONS

FROM

‘JUDGMENT SEAT OF CHRIST’

By Arlen L. Chitwood

AND

‘PICTURES AND PARABLES’

By G. H. Lang.

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Why do the heathen rage, and the people imaging a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord, and against his anointed, saying, Let us break their bands asunder, and cast their cords from us. He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the Lord shall have them in derision. Then shall he speak unto them in his wrath, and vex them in his sore displeasure. Yet have I set my king upon the holy hill if Zion. I will declare the decree: the Lord hath said unto me, Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee. Ask of me, and I WILL GIVE THEE THE HEATHEN FOR THINE INHERITANCE, and THE UTTERMOST PARTS OF THE EARTH for thy possession. Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel (Psa. 2: 1-9).

1

“The scene in the second Psalm depicts the final thrust and end of Gentile power, followed by Christ’s rule over the earth. Events in Psa. 2: 1ff parallel events in Rev. 19: 11ff. There is, however, a near and a far fulfilment of Psa. 2: 1-3. The near fulfilment occurred at Christ’s first coming, in connection with His sufferings and humiliation (Acts 4: 23-28); and the far fulfilment will occur at Christ’s second coming, in connection with His glory and exaltation (Rev. 2: 26, 27; 19: 15). The final thrust of Gentile power under Satan will be against the ‘King of kings, and Lord of lords’ Himself. Gentile power will be reduced to naught, the sceptre will change hands, and God’s Son will then rule the earth with a rod of iron.”

2

“The day is near at hand when ‘he that shall come, and will not tarry.’ Christians, as they exercise ‘patience [‘patient endurance’ in the trials and testings of life during the present time], performing ‘the will of God.’ are to retain their ‘confidence’ in ‘the promise’ of a ‘great recompense of reward’ (Heb. 10: 35-37). Rewards for faithful Christians will issue from findings and determinations at the judgment seat, and these rewards will be realised in their fulness during the coming day.

Many sons will be brought ‘unto glory’ (Heb. 2: 10), and these sons will reign as ‘kings’ with the ‘King.’ They will occupy the throne with Christ and, with Him, realise the rights of the firstborn, the rights of primogeniture.”

3

“Receiving rewards or suffering loss at the judgment seat of Christ are grave issues about which most Christians seem to know very little, or, for that matter, appear to even be concerned. But such will have no bearing upon the fact that there is a day coming in the not too-distant future when every Christian MUST render an account to his Lord for ‘the things done in his body’ (2 Cor. 5: 10). Events of that day will come to pass at the end of the present [evil] age, immediately preceding the Messianic Era; Issues of that day will surround a review of the works performed by Christians in view of Christians receiving rewards or suffering loss; the purpose of that day, aside from providing a ‘just recompense,’ will be to make decisions and determinations concerning Christians occupying positions with Christ in His rule from the heavens over the earth.

Everything is moving towards that 1,000-year Messianic Era when God’s Son will reign supreme. Man’s Day, in conjunction with his rule over the earth, is about to end; and the Lord’s Day, in conjunction with His rule over the earth, is about to commence. A kingdom, such as the coming kingdom of Christ, requires a King with numerous regents and vice-regents. Christians are today being tested, tried, refined in view of that coming day.

Events of the entire present age revolve around the thought that God is today calling out the regents and vice-regents who will reign with His Son in the coming age; and the presence of the Church upon the earth will extend, at least, to that point in time when God will have acquired the necessary number of rulers to occupy the proffered positions in the kingdom under Christ. The removal of the Church and the appearance of the Christians before the judgment seat will involve the issues of two ages: This judgment will be based upon issues of a past age (the past activities of Christians), and the purpose of this judgment will have in view issues of the coming age (the positioning of regents and vice-regents in the kingdom of Christ).

Preparation occurs today; placement, based upon preparation, will occur before the judgment seat; and positions in the kingdom will be realised in the reign of Christ which follows.”

4

“The emphasis in Christian teaching today should be primarily within a millennial rather than a present or eternal framework. This is where Scripture places the emphasis; and this is where man must likewise place the emphasis.

The entire program of God has, from the beginning, been moving toward the coming Sabbath of rest, paralleling the seventh day of Gen. 2: 2, 3. The great prophecies of Scripture speak of this day, Christians are exhorted to fix their attention upon this day, and the judgment seat of Christ precedes and has to do with this day. To ignore the millennium, one must ignore great teachings of Scripture; and such will ultimately lead only to disaster in the Christian life.

A trained runner fixes his attention upon the goal; and a trained Christian, in the present race of the faith, will likewise fix his attention upon the goal.

‘I therefore so run, not as uncertainly; so fight I, not as one that beateth the air: But I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection: lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway [‘disapproved’]” (1 Cor. 9: 26, 27).”

5

“There can be no such thing as a [regenerate] Christian being victorious in this realm - [i.e., ‘Entrance into and Conquest of the land’] – who never went forth to battle. The victors (overcomers during the present age) alone will ultimately possess the land.

There was no question in the minds of Caleb and Joshua concerning the ability of the Israelites, under God, to enter in and possess the land. Their attitude, voiced in Caleb’s words, was, ‘Let us go up at once, and possess it; for we are well able to overcome it.’ And this must be the attitude expressed by Christians today, for therein alone can victory be achieved.

The Israelites would have been well able to take the land. Their ability lay completely within God’s power and provision. That which God had begun in Egypt and continued in the wilderness was to be carried through to completion in the land of Canaan. God, through His power, had removed them from Egypt, sustained them through their wilderness journey, and beyond Kadesh-Barnea He would establish them in the land. But the Israelites refused. Their unbelief, which had been building from the time God began to perform His mighty works in Egypt, caused them to look to their own inadequate ability. This then led them to turn from the land of Canaan and longingly look back to the land which they had left, the land of Egypt (Num. 14: 2-4; cf. Luke 9: 62). They suffered defeat before ever engaging the enemy in combat.

Things are no different in Christendom today. Christians are well able to take the land set before them. Their provision lies completely within God’s power and control of the matter. That which God began in the life of a Christian at the point of his salvation is to be carried through to completion in the land set before him. God, through His power, has redeemed the individual, is presently sustaining him during his pilgrim journey, and desires to establish him in the land to which he has been called. Should the Christian fail in his calling relative to the land (in the antitype of Israel’s failure at Kadesh-Barnea), he, as the faithless Israelites, places himself at the end of the line.* The goal of his calling involves entrance into and conquest of the land; and once this has been set aside, there is nothing left [to ‘attain’].** Such a Christian has rejected his calling; the purpose for his very existence has been discarded. And this is the point in the antitype where the number ‘ten’ from Num. 14: 22 comes into view. And, as with the Israelites, so with Christians: God withholds terminal judgment in one’s life relative to the land and the things of the land up to this point, but not beyond. (Note: Study Heb. 6: 4-6 in the light to understand why ‘it is impossible…’ The context [ref. chs. 3-5] relates this passage to the same material under discussion.)

[* NOTE. Undoubtedly, this is a reference to a Christian’s defeat and loss of “the reward of the inheritance” in the “Age” to come, Col. 3: 24; Lk. 20: 35, A.V.

** The word ‘attain’ means ‘to gain by effort’ - a dictionary definition. At Phil. 3: 11, in the A.V. translation we read: “If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection [out] of the dead” (Lit. Gk.); and in Acts 27: 12 the A.V. reads: “If by any means they might attain Phenice” - a destination which they failed to reach!]

There is no reason for Christians to fail in their calling. The One Who has ‘begun a good work in you [the point of our eternal salvation] will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ [that time beyond the Church Age [i.e., this ‘evil age’] when we will all appear before the judgment seat of Christ’] (Phil. 1: 6). God will continue His work in our lives in order to bring us victoriously into the land. This is the goal! But we must patiently endure in the present race of the faith. We must keep our eyes fixed upon Jesus, ‘the author and finisher of our faith’ (Heb. 12: 1, 2; cf. James 1: 2-4, 12; 1 Pet. 1: 7; 2 Pet. 1: 5-11). It is through the supernatural power of God alone - that power presently performing a work in our lives, with one main goal in view - that we can overcome the supernatural power of the enemy.”

6

“Esau was rejected immediately after his younger brother, Jacob, had received the blessing belonging to the firstborn. Prior to this time, Esau had made light of his birthright, considering it to be of little value (‘Esau despised his birthright’ [Gen. 25: 34]; The Hebrew word translated ‘despised’ means to hold in contempt, to make light of. The Septuagint Version of the Old Testament uses a word which means to consider of little value). Esau did not come into a realisation of the true value of the birthright until after Isaac had bestowed the blessing belonging to the firstborn upon Jacob. It was only then that Esau realised what he had forfeited and sought to retrieve the rights belonging to the firstborn.

Esau, at this time, ‘cried with a great and exceeding bitter cry, and said to his father, Bless me, even me also, O my father.’ But it was too late. The birthright had been forfeited, the blessing belonging to the firstborn had been bestowed upon another [member of the family], and no reversal of the forfeiture and blessing could occur. The birthright with its attendant blessing was now beyond Esau’s grasp forever, and it is recorded of Esau at this point that he ‘lifted up his voice, and wept’ (Gen. 27: 34-38).

The rejection experienced by Esau is the last of five major warnings in the Book of Hebrews, and this rejection constitutes an Old Testament type of that rejection which Paul referred to in 1 Cor. 9: 27. The reference is to Christians before the judgment seat who have forfeited the rights of primogeniture.

Many Christians are presently following the same path which Esau took (considering the birthright to be of little value), and such Christians will one day come to the end of the matter in the same position as Esau. They, although presently in line to be blessed as the firstborn (every [regenerate] Christian is a firstborn child of God), will have forfeited this right; and they will be rejected for the blessing. (The ‘weeping and gnashing of teeth’ [an Oriental expression showing deep grief] in Matt. 22: 13; 24: 51; 25: 30 points to the apparent antitype of Esau lifting up his voice and weeping in the presence of his father in Gen. 27: 38.).

The rights of the firstborn must be retained or there can be no blessing belonging to the firstborn. The ‘spiritual blessings’ associated with the heavenlies in Eph. 1: 3 cannot be appropriated by Christians who forfeit the rights of primogeniture, for those blessings are intimately connected with the inheritance belonging to the firstborn (1: 10-18). These blessings are reserved for those … as Combatants during the present age and as Sovereigns during the coming age.

Christ is presently in the process of ‘bringing many sons unto glory’ (Heb. 2: 10). He, through the things which He suffered, has become the ‘captain [‘Originator,’ ‘Founder’ of a salvation associated with sonship - the ‘so great salvation’ of Heb. 2: 3. In 1 Peter 1: 9-11, suffering with respect to Christ’s sufferings is connected with both the salvation of the soul and the glory to be revealed (‘sufferings of Christ’ [v. 11] should literally be translated, ‘sufferings with respect to [or ‘on behalf of’] Christ.’ The reference is to Christians entering into Christ’s sufferings). In 1 Peter 4: 12, 13, such sufferings are connected with the trials and testings in James, chapter one. The trying of one’s faith (working patient endurance) and the sufferings with respect to Christ’s sufferings cannot be separated one from the other. The end of the matter in both James and 1 Peter is the [future] salvation of one’s soul. It is being ‘approved’ (as in James 1: 2) and being placed in the position of a son (as in Heb. 2: 10), realising the rights of primogeniture during the coming age.”

7

“If we suffer [‘patiently endure’], we shall also reign with him …” (2 Tim. 2: 12).

“There is a day coming when every Christian will render an account to his Lord, and the present day is the time of preparation for that coming day. The present day is the time when the Lord’s servants are in possession of the various talents; and the present day is the time when a work is being performed in the lives of Christians which is connected with maturity in the faith, the proper use of the talents entrusted to them, etc. This day though will last only so long as God’s Son remains in the ‘far country.’ One day He will receive the kingdom from His Father and then return to reckon with His servants. This will be an individual reckoning - ‘… we must all appear … that every one may receive …’ - and it will be based strictly on each servant’s use of the talents entrusted to his care during the time of the Lord’s absence.

This is exactly what the Apostle Paul had in mind when he sought to warn ‘every man,’ and teach ‘every man in all wisdom,’ in order that he might present ‘every man perfect [‘mature,’ ‘complete’] in Christ Jesus’ (Col. 1: 28). The warning which Paul sounded had to do with the coming time of elevation at the judgment seat. His message along this line was really threefold: 1) a present preparation, 2) in view of a coming evaluation, 3) in future view of the kingdom to follow.

The reference to ‘the hope of glory’ in Col. 1: 27, leading into Paul’s ministry in verse twenty-eight, has to do with that hope which Christians possess of one day occupying positions as co-heirs with Christ in the [millennial] kingdom. This is referred to elsewhere in Scripture as ‘that blessed hope’ (Titus 2: 13), ‘the hope set before us’ (1 Peter 3: 15). Paul, above everything else, did not want any Christian within the scope of his ministry to appear before the judgment seat of Christ and there experience disapproval/rejection.

Issues of the judgment seat, in every instance, will result in a just recompense. Every Christian will receive exactly what he deserves - reward, or chastisement - in accordance with revealed faithfulness or unfaithfulness in carrying out or failing to carry out that portion of the Lord’s business left to his charge.”

8

A JUDGMENT OF WORKS

“At the judgment seat of Christ there will be an execution of perfect justice and righteousness. If rewards are merited, then rewards will be given; If, on the other hand, punishment is merited, then punishment will be rendered. Every Christian will be judged ‘according to his works.’

In Scripture there is a justification by faith and there is also a justification by works. Correspondingly, there is a salvation associated with each justification. Verses such as Eph. 2: 8, 9 deal with the first justification, with Eph. 2: 10 leading into the second; and verses such as James 2: 14-26 deal with the second justification.

Justification by faith is based entirely upon the finished work of Christ at Calvary and has to do with the salvation which Christians presently possess - the salvation of the spirit (‘... that which is born of the Spirit is spirit’ [John 3: 6b]). Neither the works of unredeemed man nor the works of redeemed man can enter into this salvation. That is, unredeemed man cannot do any works to be saved, and redeemed man cannot do any works to show that he has been saved. It is a justification ‘by grace through faith’ completely apart from the works of fallen man. Works enter into this justification only to the extent that Christ performed the works on man’s behalf, and man can be justified only by receiving what Christ has already done.

Justification by works, on the other hand, is based entirely upon the actions of those who have already been justified by faith, those who have been justified on the basis of Christ’s finished work. ‘Faith’ itself is not part of justification by works. There is no such thing in Scripture as a justification by faith and works. There is a justification by faith alone, and there is a justification by works alone; but there is never a mixture of the two, resulting in justification. In the former justification (justification by faith), it is the work of Another which makes possible justification on the basis of faith alone; in the latter justification (justification by works), it is faithfulness on the part of those who have already been justified by faith which makes possible justification on the basis of works alone. The type works resulting in justification by works emanate from one’s faithfulness to his calling; and works of this nature, in turn, bring faith to its proper goal. The goal of faith, brought to this point as a result of works, is the salvation of one’s soul - the salvation associated with justification by works (cf. James 2: 22; 1 Peter 1: 9).

Thus, justification by faith is based entirely upon Christ’s righteous, justifying act (Rom. 5: 16, 18), and justification by works is based entirely upon the ‘righteous acts of the saints’ (Rev. 19: 8, ASV). The word translated ‘righteous acts’ (‘righteousness,’ KJV) is plural in the Greek text (dikaiomata) and cannot refer to the imputed righteousness of Christ possessed by every Christian. Dikaiomata in this verse has to do with ‘righteous acts’ of the saints (the same word, appearing in the singular, is translated ‘justification’ and ‘righteousness’ [referring to justification by faith, made possible through Christ’s righteous, justifying act] in Rom. 5: 16, 18; and the cognate verb [from dikaioo] is translated ‘justified’ [referring to both justification by faith and justification by works in James 2: 24]). The ‘righteous acts of the saints’ - justifying acts of the saints - emanate out of faith (faithfulness to one’s calling), and these acts alone result in justification by works.

The type works possessed by every Christian will be revealed ‘by [‘in’] fire’ at the judgment seat. Works emanating out of faith will be revealed as works comparable to ‘gold, silver, precious stones.’ Works of this nature will bring about three things:

1) Justification by works.

2) Provide the Christian with a wedding garment.

3) Bring faith to its proper goal.

The unfaithful Christian, whose works are revealed as comparable to ‘wood, hay, stubble,’ will not realize any one of these three things. There will be no justification by works, there will be no wedding garment, and faith will not have been brought to its proper goal.

An individual having been justified by works will appear in the presence of Christ properly clothed. He will possess a wedding garment and will, consequently, be in a position to participate in the activities attendant the bride. Having denied himself, taken up his cross, and followed Christ, he will realize the salvation of his soul (Matt. 16: 24-27). He will be among those who will occupy positions as joint-heirs with Christ in the kingdom.

An individual having failed to be justified by works will appear in the presence of Christ improperly clothed. He will not possess a wedding garment; and consequently, he will not only be naked but also ashamed (cf. Rev. 3: 15, 17, 18; note ‘works’ [v. 15], ‘naked’ [v. 17], and ‘shame’ [v. 18]). Lacking a wedding garment, he will be in no position to participate in the activities attendant the bride. Having saved his life (soul), living for self, rather than having lost his life (soul) for Christ’s sake during the present day of trials and testings (Matt. 16: 25), he will not realize the salvation of his life (soul). Faith will not have been brought to its proper goal; and, as a result, he will not be among those who will occupy positions as joint-heirs with Christ in the kingdom.

(Saving one’s life, living for self, has to do with allowing the self-life [the soulical man] with all its fleshly desires, appetites, etc. to control oneself [in opposition to Matt. 16: 24]; losing one’s life for Christ’s sake has to do with bringing the self-life [the soulical man] with all its fleshly desires, appetites, etc. under subjection to the spiritual man [cf. Gen. 16: 9; Gal. 4: 21-31], taking up one’s cross, and following Christ [in accord with Matt. 16: 24].)”

9

TERROR OF THE LORD

“Faithfulness to one’s calling, the righteous acts of the saints (the wedding garment, the covering associated with justification by works), and the salvation of the soul are all intimately related and have to do with issues surrounding the judgment seat. Scripture deals with this subject on a far broader scale than many realize. Rom. 14: 10; 1 Cor. 3: 11-15; 2 Cor. 5: 10, 11 are only three of many passages dealing, either directly or indirectly, with the judgment seat in the New Testament. From the parables in the Gospel of Matthew (e.g. 22: 1-14; 24: 45 - 25: 30) to the opening chapters of the Book of Revelation, the New Testament is replete with information concerning the judgment seat.

According to 2 Cor. 5: 11, the judgment seat is the place where the ‘terror of the Lord’ will be manifested. The word ‘terror’ in this verse is a translation of the Greek word phobos, referring to ‘that which causes fear,’ ‘terror,’ ‘apprehension.’ This is the same word translated ‘fearful’ in Heb. 10: 31 (‘It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God’), another reference to events at the judgment seat. Actually, Heb. 10: 30, 31 forms a parallel reference to 2 Cor. 5: 10, 11, and the preceding verses (vv. 26-29) provide additional information concerning that facet of the judgment seat associated with the ‘terror of the Lord.’

Note how this entire section in Hebrews begins: ‘For if we sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins’ (v. 26). That [regenerate] Christians rather than the unredeemed are in view is evident. The verses introducing this passage (vv. 19-25) deal with Christians alone (‘Having therefore, brethren, boldness ...’ [v. 19]), and there is no change in the identity of those addressed beginning with verse twenty-six. The word ‘we,’ appearing twice in this verse, shows that the writer is talking about himself and other Christians, continuing without a break in the overall continuity of thought from the preceding verses. Further, the word ‘knowledge’ in this verse is a translation of the Greek word epignosis, showing that these individuals had acquired a mature knowledge of the truth (‘after that we have received the knowledge [‘mature knowledge’] of the truth’; gnosis refers to ‘knowledge,’ and epignosis to ‘mature knowledge’). Only redeemed individuals possess saved spirits into which the Word of God can be received; and only redeemed individuals possess the indwelling Holy Spirit Who can take the Word of God, after it has been received into their saved human spirits, and lead them into ‘all truth.’ None of this is possible for the unredeemed. They possess no means to either receive or rightly divide the Word of God.

The ‘things of the Spirit of God,’ revealed through the Word of God (John 16: 13-15), are ‘foolishness’ to the unredeemed; they cannot ‘know [gnosis]’ these things, for these things ‘are spiritually discerned’ (1 Cor. 2: 14). Note the use of the word gnosis in this passage. The unredeemed man, the soulical man, cannot even come into a rudimentary understanding of the things revealed through the Spirit of God, much less a mature understanding, referred to by the word epignosis (note also the word ‘illuminated’ in v. 32. This is from the same Greek word translated ‘enlightened’ in Heb. 6: 4). Thus, there can be no room for controversy concerning exactly who is in view in Heb. 10: 26ff. It is not possible, both textually and contextually, that the passage could be dealing with individuals other than [regenerate] Christians.

The wilful sin in verse twenty-six is one which Christians commit, and it is a sin for which there is ‘no more sacrifice.’ Christ provided Himself as the Sacrifice for sin, His blood is today on the mercy seat in heaven, and He is presently occupying the office of High Priest in the heavenly sanctuary on behalf of sinning Christians. However, Heb. 10: 26 teaches that no efficacy (relative to that which is in view) is provided through Christ’s sacrifice for Christians who ‘sin wilfully.’

To view the wilful sin in the light of the present ministry of Christ, note the context of this passage (vv. 19-25) and also 1 John 1: 6 - 2: 2. The ‘blood’ of Christ is presently on the mercy seat in the ‘holiest [Holy of Holies]’ of the heavenly sanctuary; and a ‘new and living way’ of access has been provided through the One Who shed this blood, our ‘high priest over the house of God’ (Heb. 10: 19-21). The blood of Christ, presently on the mercy seat of the heavenly sanctuary, ‘cleanseth [‘keeps on cleansing’]’ Christians who have become defiled (through sin) as they ‘walk [‘keep on walking’] in the light’ (1 John 1: 7; cf. Heb. 10: 22). It is impossible for the ones walking in the light to occupy a position other than being cleansed from sin; but, viewing the other side of the picture, it is entirely possible for Christians to not walk in the light, in which case there will be no cleansing.

To understand exactly what is meant by walking in the light, one must draw from the typology of the tabernacle. The light was provided by a seven-leafed golden candlestick inside the Holy Place where the priests carried on part of their ministry, and the only way they were permitted to enter the holy place and walk in this light was to have previously cleansed the soiled parts of their bodies at the brazen laver in the courtyard. This laver lay between the brazen altar and the Holy Place and had upper and lower basins for washing the hands and feet. The entire bodies of these priests had been washed upon their entrance into the priesthood (Ex. 29: 4; 40: 12-15) - an act never to be repeated - but in their subsequent ministry it was necessary to avail themselves of partial washings at the laver. Their hands and feet became soiled in their ministry, and these parts of the body had to be cleansed prior to entering the Holy Place (Ex. 30: 18-21; 40: 30-32).

The same thing holds true for Christians, New Testament priests, in the antitype today. Christians have received a complete washing (received at the point of the birth from above, upon their entrance into the priesthood) - an act never to be repeated - but, as the Old Testament priests, they must now avail themselves of partial washings in their ministry. This is what Jesus alluded to in John 13: 8, 10: “If I wash [Gr. nipto, referring to a part of the body (the Septuagint uses this same word in Ex. 30: 19, 21)] thee not, thou hast no part with me [note: not ‘in me’]’; and ‘He that is washed [Gr. louo, referring to the entire body (the Septuagint uses this same word in Ex. 29: 4; 40: 12)] needeth not save to wash [nipto] his feet…’ This is also exactly what is alluded to in Heb. 10: 22 and 1 John 1: 7.

Old testament priests whose hands and feet had become soiled through activity in the courtyard could not bypass the laver and proceed on to the Holy Place. Nor can New Testament priests. They must first, as the Old Testament priests, avail themselves of cleansing. Defilement in the Christians’ case comes through contact with sin; and cleansing, according to the context of 1 John 1: 7, is accomplished through confession of sin: “If we confess our sins, he [God] is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness’ (v. 9). And this cleansing is accomplished solely on the basis of Christ’s shed blood on the mercy seat in the heavenly sanctuary (1 John 2: 1, 2).

Thus, the ones walking in the light in 1 John 1: 7 are Christians who have availed themselves of the provision in 1 John 1: 9. As they continue walking in the light (continue availing themselves of this provision, allowing continued access to the Holy Place), the blood of Christ continues cleansing them from ‘all sin.’ With this in mind, it is easy to see that the individuals sinning wilfully in Heb. 10: 26 can only refer to Christians not walking in the light, not availing themselves of the present high priestly ministry of Christ. They have not come to the laver, and, consequently, remain in the courtyard outside the Holy Place. They refuse confession of sin, they refuse the cleansing provided by Christ; and for such individuals, ‘there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins.’ There is no sacrifice for those refusing the sacrifice which God provided in the person of His Son.

(For the unredeemed, ‘… there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved’ [Acts 4: 12]; and for the redeemed, ‘... there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus’ [1 Tim. 2: 5]. Christ shed His blood at Calvary for the unredeemed, and this same blood is presently on the mercy seat in the heavenly sanctuary for the redeemed.)

The only thing which Christians sinning wilfully have to look forward to is ‘a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries’ (v. 27). Such Christians, through their actions, have ‘trodden under foot the Son of God,’ considered the blood of Christ as ‘an unholy [‘a common’] thing,’ and insulted the ‘Spirit of grace’ (v. 29). Then note how verses thirty and thirty-one parallel 2 Cor. 5: 10, 11: ‘For we know him that hath said, Vengeance belongeth unto me, I will recompense, saith the Lord. And again, The Lord shall judge his people. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.’

Events of the judgment seat will be one of the most hellish times many [regenerate] Christians will ever experience, for there Christians who have refused to ‘walk in the light’ will ‘fall into the hands of the living God.’ Such Christians will find it to be a ‘fearful,’ ‘terrible’ experience, for there the ‘terror of the Lord’ will be manifested, and a just ‘recompense’ will be rendered.”

10

“…It is blessedly true for the saint, striving carefully to please God by walking by the light of his own will, that, if he fail, ‘If any man sin, we have an Advocate with the Father,’ who withstands our Accuser before God (1 John 2: 1, 2, and Hebrews). But it is ever to be remembered that the advocate is tied by the rules of the court. It is not for him to persuade the court to sanction injustice: he must show that his client’s case is according to law. And the client must appear in court to support his advocate’s statement. The widow must herself cry to the Judge with her Advocate, and their united plea must be for justice. Christ is not before God to enable a believer to sin lightly. Upon our repentance He can secure pardon for the guilt, but even so He will not always ask that the consequences of our act be averted. Job was benefited by Satan’s painful treatment. Peter was left in Satan’s sieve, though the Priest prayed that the test might be limited and Peter’s faith not collapse utterly and finally.

Yet the Lord did not introduce into the picture the Advocate; not so much because He was not yet ascended to the throne, for He did intercede for Peter; but again because He would make the picture simple and distinct and the lesson the more impressive. The saints must pray, must cry unto God day and night, that is, persistently, perseveringly, importunately, and the more because the Adversary accuses them before God day and night (Rev. 12: 10). If the prosecutor accuses and the accused do not appear the case may go against him by default. Even the Advocate will be hindered by the client’s absence. Oh the peril of the prayerless Christian!

Yet even the importunate widow must remember one thing more. If a godless judge can be moved by perseverance to deliver a widow for whom he cares not a straw, how much more shall the Righteous Judge do justice for His own chosen people, for whom He has the deepest concern. Therefore let the widow pray on with full assurance of faith; only she must be prepared for delay, on the part of even the just Judge. For good reasons, such as are for ever revealed in the case of Job, God may be long-suffering over His chosen and leave them a long while under the oppression of the adversary. The upright Job must be purified in the inner life of thought, opinion, estimate of himself, of feelings towards his maligners, and in perception of God, until he becomes a humble, holy man. ‘He disciplines us that we may be partakers of His holiness’; not here accepters of His imputed judical righteousness, but partakers of His own holiness of nature, character, practice (Heb. 12: 10).

When this goal has been gained, and Job could pray for his unkind slanderers, then the discipline was no longer required, and ‘Jehovah turned the captivity of Job when he prayed for his friends’ (Job. 42: 10). The widow may have to wait the Lord’s good time, to wait long and patiently; but when the fit hour arrives then the Judge orders, His officers at once act, the adversary is defeated, the widow is delivered, justice is done, her case is won: justice is at last executed with speed.

Such is the message for the saint in very dark and gloomy day.

‘Ye fearful saints fresh courage take.

The clouds ye so much dread

Are big with mercy, and shall break

In blessings on your head.

Blind unbelief is sure to err,

And scan his work in vain:

God is His own interpreter,

And He will make it plain.’”

- Quoted from: ‘The Widow and the Judge’ (‘Pictures and Parables’, pp.272-274).

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EXPOSITIONS

1

THE UNFAITHFUL STEWARD

Luke 16: 1-13

1. Sonship

“And He said also unto the disciples.” The “and ... also” connect this instruction with that preceding. The hired workmen, the servants, and the sons all had for use more or less of the goods of the householder; but the sons especially so: “all that is mine is thine,” said the father. Under the law the elder son, as the firstborn, had the largest share of the patrimony, double that of another heir (Deut. 21: 15-17). This younger son obtained in advance his prospective portion and wasted it. The elder remained at home, and, though his spirit was bad, the father acknowledged his dutifulness by enlarging his portion beyond the double share under the law, telling him to regard the whole property as at his disposal.

Thus did the Lord hint that the age was passing from law to grace as the governing principle, that the time was at hand when the child would become the son, would no longer be under the restrictions imposed on the bondservants of the household but would attain to the full liberty of the grown-up son (Gal. 3: 23 - 4: 7).

But while this grants larger and nobler control it thereby increases responsibility. Because he was a son it was more wicked of the young man to waste his father’s goods than it would have been for a servant or a hired workman to have done so. An unfaithful son of God is thus more wicked than a fallen angel or a worldling. The sin of all is alike, even unfaithfulness as a steward, but position heightens privilege and deepens guilt.

2. Stewardship

This principle of stewardship is strictly universal. In a sermon on stewardship Wesley well said that God is and must remain the inalienable Proprietor of everything He has made: it is a right of which He cannot divest Himself! This is the true foundation principle for regulating all use of property of whatever kind: God alone owns, the creature but holds for use on trust.

To His sons in Christ God says what the father said to the elder son: “all things are yours ... all are yours” (1 Cor. 3: 21 - 23). Yet not at all that we may do as we like with them; that was the unprincipled conduct of the younger son; but Paul at once defines the only right attitude by adding: “Let a man so account of us as of under-servants of Christ [hupo-eretees] and stewards of God’s mysteries [revealed secrets]” (1 Cor. 4: 1).

This applies and gives precision to the instruction by Christ. All men are stewards; teachers and preachers especially so, for they receive fuller light upon God’s purposes; and with them are joined in privilege and responsibility the elders of the local church, “for the overseer must be blameless as God’s steward” (Titus, 1: 7). This was exactly where the steward of the story had failed; he had dissipated (diaskorpizo), squandered his lord’s property on other objects than the advantage of the owner.

The connexion with the foregoing parable is shown by the same word being used of the younger son: “he squandered, dissipated his substance” (15: 13), which the elder justly described as “devouring” their father’s property (ver. 30). Any son of God becomes a prodigal in as far as he may expend any goods entrusted to him upon any selfish end, upon any act or course that furthers no purpose of God. All such conduct is “waste” of God’s gifts, and is a failing to be blameless as a steward should be, for “here moreover it is required in stewards that a man be found faithful” (1 Cor. 4: 2).

All that is entrusted to us falls under this head of trust property - time, strength, money, business, home, family, influence; but Paul specified the knowledge of God’s mind and plans as especially a stewardship. All men have more or less of the former kinds of property; the Christian more than other men has the truth of God as a special trust above other possessions. His heavenly knowledge is granted unto us, not for our own benefit only, but for the saving advantage of our fellows, and therefore Paul said, “I am debtor both to Greeks and Barbarians [civilized men and uncivilized], both to the wise and the foolish” (Rom. 1: 14). Upon this solemn responsibility more will be said when we deal with the parable of the pounds in Luke 19.

3. Penalty

The steward was not put to death as a criminal, but the just recompense of unfaithfulness was forfeiture of office and its privileges: “thou canst be no longer steward.” Judas had been a steward, but he fell from his apostleship (Acts 1: 25). “Look carefully lest there be any man that falleth short of the grace of God” (Heb. 12: 15). “We entreat that ye receive not the grace of God in vain” (2 Cor. 6: 1). One may reject entirely God’s grace; another may receive it, but in vain because of indolence; yet another may make some use of grace but fail to reach the full possibilities; and some may be deprived of the whole office of steward and all its possibilities. By contrast, a faithful steward will receive a full reward, as later parables will show.

Nor does it say that the steward had been misappropriating his lord’s money, but he had been misusing it, wasting it, not employing it to the advantage of his master. He is therefore put out of office. Sometimes the unfaithful believer is deprived of that which he was wasting - health, home, family, fortune, as the case may have been. Sometimes he loses influence in the house of God, and is no longer accepted by his brethren as a teacher or overseer. Thus past service may not count in his favour and future possibilities and reward be forfeited.

In all this there is an application of the parable of the Sower (Matt. 13). Some soil rejected the seed; some received it but in vain, for it soon was scorched; some grew in measure but thorns choked it, and it brought no fruit to perfection; and some arrived at full growth.

4. The Essence of Unfaithfulness

The shrewd conduct of the steward showed the real inwardness of his sin. He had not been used to field work and was not strong enough to support himself by honourable manual labour: “I have not strength to dig!” But his former dignified position made it ignominious that he should now sponge on his acquaintances: “to beg I am ashamed.” But in order that homes should be opened to him he made it light for his lord’s debtors. One who owed a hundred measures of oil or wheat was discharged on payment of fifty or eighty respectively. Thus he made friends - at the expense of his lord. Self-interest was the spring of his unfaithfulness. The disciple will certainly become unfaithful if he puts self before God.

5. The Lesson

It was not Christ who commended this shabby conduct. He merely says that the rogue’s master admitted his shrewdness and cunning. What the Lord said was that the men of the world are wiser in their realm of affairs than most sons of God’s kingdom are in His affairs. A humbling fact; and well is it if we be humbled about it and get us a heart of wisdom and rectify our ways. The path to this is now indicated by Christ. The R.V. must be noted. It simplifies and illuminates the statement:

And I say unto you, Make to yourselves friends by means of the mammon of unrighteousness, that when it shall fail they may receive you [welcome you] into the eternal tabernacles (ver. 9).

As so often, the Lord fixes upon the use of earthly treasure as a crucial point to be pressed. So very general is the evil use of money or property that it is styled “the mammon of unrighteousness,” though it is not essentially evil. If one squanders this on self one will reach the realm of the dead a poor friendless wastrel. If one uses it for the present benefit of others they will welcome one gladly into that further realm of existence.*

[* See Appendix which follows.]

That this is the meaning is clear from the words “when it shall fail” (eklipee): the singular number calls for “it,” the aorist tense speaks of a definite event. It is at death that mammon fails us. Here “money answereth all things,” as a fabulously wealthy king had found (Eccles. 10: 19). Here money had procured for him all things: food, clothes, houses, property, position, concubines; everything could be and still can be bought by money: at the moment of death it fails us, fails completely, “for we brought nothing into the world, for neither can we carry anything out” (1 Tim. 6: 7). In [the underworld of] ‘Hades’ or ‘Paradise’, money is not currency, - Christ had before taught that he who should care for the needy in this life shall be recompensed in the resurrection of the righteous (Luke 14: 13, 14). But here is a prior recompense in the world the soul reaches after death just - as that [future] resurrection of the righteous is to be secured by righteousness, so this recompense [after the time of death] is to be secured by benevolence.

That world is actual and active. It is not a boundless and tractless waste: there are “tabernacles,” dwelling-places. It is a living realm, where friends recognize and welcome friends. Therefore it is a social realm. And the powerful, and may be terrible lesson is, that our conduct in this life conditions our experience there. Therefore death is not a snap, a sudden break-off, with a new start of things: no, there is moral continuity; we arrive there as we live here, and continue to receive the due reward of our deeds, whether good or evil. The next succeeding instruction concerning Dives and Lazarus will enforce this.

Verses 10-13.

This present life in comparison is “very little,” that life is “much more.” “Unrighteous mammon” is but the foretaste of “true riches.” Here we handle that which is Another’s; there the faithful will be loaded with what God will grant to him in possession as “his own.” And all this advance will turn upon whether in this life, this preliminary training school, the man loves and serves God or mammon. He cannot do both: one he must do. Mammon is the means of gratifying self. He who would serve God, must do it out of love to Him, and therefore must hate self. If he loves self he will despise God: if he would love God he must loathe self.

It was not a new conception that our behaviour in this life directly affects our experiences in the life immediately after death. In IV Maccabees 13: 15, the seven brothers being tortured unto death by Antiochus Epiphanes encouraged each other to endure, saying, “Let us arm ourselves [cmp. 1 Pet. 4: 1, where the same word is used in Greek], therefore, in the self-renunciation of the divine wisdom. Suffering thus, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob will welcome us and all the fathers will commend us.” The Lord showed that this welcome could be secured by benevolence as well as by martyrdom. Both involve the same principle of self-abnegation.

2

THE NOBLEMAN AND THE POUNDS

Luke 19: 11-28

“A homeless Stranger amongst us came

To this land of death and mourning;

He walked in a path of sorrow and shame,

Through insult and hate and scorning:

A Man of sorrows, of toil and tears,

An outcast Man and a lonely;

But He looked on me, and through endless years

Him must I love, Him only.”

(G. Tersteegen.)

The poet’s “homeless Stranger” has now reached the last stage of His lonely path. This heavenly Pilgrim has pursued unfalteringly the road appointed by His God. Since that day when He steadfastly set His face to go to Jerusalem (Luke 9: 51), He has twice been there and twice withdrawn: now He will go thither for the last time. His instructed mind is concentrated upon that of which all the prophets had spoken of Him, even the sufferings which must come to Him as Messiah, and the glories that should follow.

1

The estrangement and rejection long developing was about to intensify into murderous fury, and He sought again to prepare for this explosion of malice the small band of disciples still following Him. They had an affectionately mournful readiness to die with Him (John 11: 16), yet did not really grasp that the coming hour was to see not merely another spasm of local religious resentment, such as they had before witnessed, but nothing less than the complete accomplishment of all that dread programme of which all the prophets had spoken.

Hence, as they drew nigh to Jericho and the last stretch of the journey to Jerusalem, and as they saw the surging crowd, and miracles stirring them to enthusiasm, these disciples rose above their melancholy and “supposed that the kingdom of God was immediately to appear” (ver. 11).

This unwarranted hope it was necessary to dispel, if possible, which brought this present parable. The instruction which ought to have dispelled in their minds that mistaken notion ought equally to have forbidden the later equally mistaken idea that the absent Lord might return “at any moment.” When after Pentecost the apostles went forth enlightened by the Spirit of truth they were fully persuaded to the contrary, as is shown in Preliminary Dissertation II of my treatise on the Revelation, “Did the Apostles expect the Return of Christ in their Time?” For they recognized, among other considerations, that a considerable time was required for the “nobleman to go into a far country, to receive for Himself a kingdom, and to return” (Matt. 25: 19).

There were three stages in the absence:

(1) The outward journey to a distant land, itself under then conditions of travel, requiring a great and indefinite time.

(2) The commonly protracted negotiations regarding so weighty a matter as the appointment of a king by the Emperor.

(3) The equally long and uncertain return journey. To the unavoidable inference that the nobleman’s absence would be lengthy the apostles had also the Lord’s explicit statement, of but a few days later, that it would be only “after a long time” that the lord of the servants could return (Matt. 25: 19).

When Christ was but an infant in Egypt Herod the Great died. Directly thereafter two of his sons set off to Rome each seeking to induce the Emperor to give to him their father’s throne. The Jews wished to have no more Herods over them - one such monster had been more than enough; and they sent to the Emperor an ambassage begging that a Roman Governor might be appointed.

At length the Emperor divided the former dominions and Archelaus received Judea (Matt. 2: 22). Upon his return he took fearful vengeance upon those who had supported the appeal against him.

2

This historical background is suggestive.

1. It shows once more that in a parable it is the essential comparison that matters, not exact correspondence in details. Here a shockingly bad man represents the Divinely perfect Man, but only in the one particular that he went to secure a kingdom.

2. History repeats itself because the human factor does not change. The hatred of Christ by the Jews caused them to hound Him to death, and the subsequent murder of His witness, Stephen, was the plainest of declarations that they were determined not to bow to Stephen’s Master and Lord. Here again it is the one point of comparison that alone counts, even the objection to the king. Actually the citizens rejected a wicked ruler, the Jews the Righteous One, but that contrast does not enter the parable.

3. What a world of suggestion, as to one aspect of the present business of Christ in heaven, lies in the hint that He has gone to secure His kingdom. Psalm 2: 8 shows Him making to His God formal application for the sovereignty of the earth: “Ask of Me and I will give Thee the nations for Thine inheritance.” Thus did Archelaus apply to the Emperor. Ps. 110: 1 is the answer of God to Messiah, deferring the matter till a suitable and foreseen situation shall arise: “Sit Thou at My right hand, Until I make Thine enemies Thy footstool,” Dan. 7: 13, 14 with Rev. 5: 1-9 picture the future formal investiture of the Son by the Father with the afore-mentioned dignity, which precipitates the overthrow of Satan’s princedom over the world, the destruction of the enemies of God, and the establishment of the kingdom of God on [this] earth.

3

The Lord went on to explain to His own servants the precise and highest aspect of their life during the whole period of His coming absence. The personal slaves of the nobleman were entrusted with his personal property to be used in his interests while he should be away. Each of these men would have some private concerns, such as family and friends. To these affairs he would be expected to attend worthily of his noble master’s honour; yet such matters were so comparatively insignificant as not to be mentioned; all interest was concentrated upon the responsible and honourable duty of representing the absent nobleman, of safeguarding his rights, of increasing his revenue.

The lesson for disciples is obvious and searching. Each of us also has personal affairs, God-appointed, in which we are to behave worthily of our high calling as servants of God. But our supreme duty and honour is that we are sent into the world, as Christ was sent (John 17: 18). He was sent as the representative of His Father; to glorify God in the private life at Nazareth; to exhibit before men the character of Him Whom He represented; to stand for God’s rights among His foes; to add to the revenue of worship and service that God ought to receive on earth.

And we in turn are sent thus to represent Christ and to secure His rights and interests. “William Reynolds’ business is to serve the Lord Jesus Christ, and he packs pork to pay expenses.” “Father” Vassar of Boston accosted a lady in the street and spoke to her about her soul. At dinner that evening she told her husband, who said, “If I had been there I should have told him to mind his own business.” “But if you had been there,” she replied, “you would have thought that that was what he was doing!”

W. P. Lockhart of Liverpool similarly accosted a gentleman upon the sea front at Rhyl, offered a booklet and inquired if his soul was saved. The tart reply was: “My soul’s salvation is my own business.” The merchant-preacher replied: “Yes, sir, that is true; but permit me to remind you that it is the most important business to which you can attend.” The person accosted was the leading agnostic of that time, the very inventor of the term.

“For me to live is Christ,” said His most faithful ambassador Paul (Phil. 1: 21), and he enforced the vital message of our parable in the words that “Christ died for all, to the end that they who live should no longer live unto themselves, but unto Him, Who for their sakes died and rose again” (2 Cor. 5: 15). It was thus that the nobleman’s servants were to live unto him in his prolonged absence.

4

What do the “pounds” represent? Essentially the same as the “talents” of the later parable in Matt. 25. Most certainly these do not point to our native gifts of mind and body, or to property, for in ver. 15 these are expressly distinguished from the talents by the statement that the master gave the latter “to each according to his particular (Darby) ability.” The ability to use the talent is not the talent.

The features to be noted are:

1. The nobleman or lord was the Owner of the money.

2. He held and used it himself until he went from home.

3. It was only then that he entrusted it to his servants.

4. Even then it remained his property, not theirs. They were but stewards in his interests.

5. The pound retained its intrinsic value even though wrapped in a napkin and unused:

“lo, thou hast thine own” (ver. 25).

6. But if put in circulation it increased in the hands of the user.

7. When the master returns the successful user is not deprived of it; but

8. It can be taken from one servant and be added to the store of another.

The clue to this is given in the phrase of Jude “the faith once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 3). “The faith” is a certain body of truth which the saints believe. That it was “delivered to them” shows that someone held it before them and handed it to them as a deposit on trust. The form of the verb points to one definite transaction. That this deposit was made “once for all” indicates that nothing new can be added thereto: “the faith” was complete when handed to the saints. When Jude wrote, “the saints” had become a well-recognized title of Christian believers (Acts 9: 13; Rom. 8: 27; 1 Cor. 6: 1; Eph. 2: 19; etc.).

Yet this deposit of truth having been thus entrusted to Christians will not point to truths already known in Old Testament times, for such truths were already a general possession. “The faith” in question will rather be that particular line of teaching which the Son of God set before men, in expansion of or addition to that which the godly found in the Old Testament. Such truths may be seen in the emphasis upon the relation of God to believers as Father to child, with the confidence and sense of security thus created; in the opening up of the purpose concerning the new society, the church; and in the stress put upon the prospect of a portion in the heavens, rather than now on earth, this being enlargement of the promise to Abraham of the heavenly inheritance. The details and amplification of these parts of His teaching the Lord gave through the apostles whom His Spirit instructed. By the Spirit the Lord continued to do and to teach what He had begun to do and to teach when here (Acts 1: 1).

This deposit of truth answers to all the eight features above outlined.

(1) (2) It was held, introduced, and used by Christ while He was here, the disciples learning it from Him.

(3) It was upon or consequent upon His return to the Father that it was entrusted to the care and use of His servants.

(4) Yet truth remains still His property, His servants being but “stewards of the mysteries of God” (1 Cor. 4: 1).

(5) Truth remains truth, of its full intrinsic value, even if a servant hide and neglect it. It is incorruptible (1 Pet. 1: 23).

(6) But so long as a believer “trades” with truth, by passing it on to others to enjoy and use, he finds a perpetual increase in his own knowledge and so in his capacity to trade.

(7) When Christ returns the faithful steward will not be deprived of that measure of truth he had acquired, rather will more be added to him who had the fidelity to use all he had before.

(8) On the other hand, neglect of knowledge, by not imparting it, presently brings forgetfulness and loss. This is so even now, and in due time the process will be judicially enforced, and further opportunity of service be forfeited. Age may become infancy. Those addressed in Hebrews were experiencing this: “When by reason of the time [since your conversion] ye ought to be teachers, ye have need again that some one teach you the rudiments of the first principles of the oracles of God” (Heb. 5: 12). They had forgotten their A.B.C.

When an employer finds that a man is idle and neglectful he will take from him the materials he will not use and hand them to a man competent and diligent.

Therefore when the Lord inquires into our conduct in this age the chief matter will be the use or non-use of what knowledge of His truth we were granted. Other affairs will be looked into, but this will be the main point. Have I been a faithful steward of truth, imparting it to others, or have I closed my mouth and not been a witness to the truth? Did I perchance screen myself behind the half truth that actions speak louder than words? The fact is that actions enforce words, but not words that are not spoken.

The Son of God could say that the very object for which He was born, and for which He came into the world, was that He “should bear witness to the truth” (John 18: 37). Let each disciple be diligent to this end, able to avow with His Lord

I delight to do Thy will, 0 My God;

Yea, Thy law is within My heart.

I have published righteousness in the great congregation;

Lo, I will not refrain My lips, 0 Lord, Thou knowest.

I have not hid Thy righteousness within My heart;

I have declared Thy faithfulness and Thy salvation:

I have not concealed Thy lovingkindness and Thy truth from the great congregation (Ps. 40: 8-10).

Then will he be able to present with confidence the added petition

(ver. 11) Withhold not Thou Thy tender mercies from Me, 0 Lord:

Let Thy lovingkindness and Thy truth continually preserve Me.

5

THE KING’S RETURN

1. The nobleman “reireived the kingdom,” i.e. was appointed king, given the right to rule. The sense is clear, and equally clear in Dan. 7: 18, 22, 27, “the saints ... shall receive the kingdom, and possess the kingdom,” and in Heb. 12: 28, “receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken.” In one sense Archelaus inherited the kingdom from his father; in another sense he received it from the Emperor, the over-lord. When Christians are warned that, if they walk in an evil way, they “shall not inherit the kingdom of God” the meaning is equally clear that they shall forfeit sovereignty in the [millennial] kingdom.

This solemn warning is stated three times in plain words (1 Cor. 6: 7-11; Gal. 5: 21; Eph. 5: 5). The first of these passages is addressed to persons who had been blessedly saved from gross sins and been justified and sanctified. The second passage shows that this special warning was a standing feature of Paul’s ministry: “of the which I forewarn you, even as I did forewarn you,” i.e. while he had been among them. The Ephesian passage is addressed to such as had been “sons of disobedience” but had been saved by grace through faith (2: 1-10). Had they remained sons of disobedience the wrath of God must have been their portion for gross wickedness; but being among the saved this cannot be, yet should they resume that evil life they will be disinherited. This agrees with the warning Christ gave from heaven that it is the conquerors in His battles, not the defeated, who will be crowned, enthroned, and bear the sceptre of authority (Rev. 2: 10; 3: 21; 2: 26, 77).

2. The nobleman returned in person. He did not come back in some vague “spiritual” sense, or at the death of one or another of his household; he returned in person, actually and literally, to the same place that he had left. Thus will Christ return. “I go ... I come again” (John 14: 2, 3). “This Jesus shall so come in like manner as ye beheld Him going” (Acts 1: 11).

3. He called his servants to account. Upon his return he dealt with his own servants in regard to their use of the trust money. The exact question was what each had gained by trading. He looked for increase, not simply that the capital was intact. The apostles were deeply concerned for growth in knowledge in their converts, for their increase in spiritual life (2 Thess. 1: 3; Heb. 6: 1; 1 Pet. 2: 1-3; 2 Pet. 3: 18; Gal. 4: 19).

4. The reward of faithfulness was authority in the kingdom: “have thou authority.” One who could rule himself could rule others. He who could control money could control other affairs. The present is our preparation for the future. The future service will be inconceivably greater than the present: “have thou authority over ten cities,” not merely ten pounds. The Oriental would rightly gauge the force of this. Early in this century a certain Pasha in Egypt was inconveniently poor. He secured the appointment of Mayor in a large city, and was presently very rich, as well as important and powerful.

But sweeter to the devoted servant was the praise of his lord: “Well done thou good slave ... thou was faithful in a very little.” Our Lord appreciates the little things done for Him. Yet, from another point of view our present service is great and noble. It is much to stand for the rights of the absent king; to care for His interests; to safeguard His truth, to spread it among men, to win them from disloyalty and death unto salvation. What then shall future service be if all this is but “little”?

This magnificent reward shall be strictly proportionate to present faithfulness and success in trading with the truth. Ten pounds gained secured ten cities to rule; five pounds five cities. Eternal life is a free gift; reward is for works of faith and is proportionate to them.

5. Unfaithfulness punished. The unfaithful servant stood in precisely the same relationship to the master as the faithful; he was one of the nobleman’s household slaves. He was neither a foe crept into the household privily, nor merely a hired servant, but one of the nobleman’s own people. It is wholly unwarranted to regard him as type of a false professor or one deceived as to relationship with Christ.

He himself acknowledged his position as a slave, the property of his master: he styled him “Lord”! The trouble with him is that he misjudged his master and thought him severe and exacting. This should have incited him to the more diligence in service, but it did not. Has no genuine child of God ever thought Him hard when a dear one was taken away, or health or means were reduced? Do not true Christians sometimes think the Father’s discipline severe?

Moreover, this man did not reject or squander his lord’s money; he duly guarded it: but he did not secure any increase, for he did not use it. He does not represent one who comes to repudiate the faith of the gospel and renounce profession of Christ; nor of one who misuses a knowledge of the letter of the Word to bolster false teaching and mislead men. His wickedness lay not in misuse but disuse of the truth. He held it, he valued it, he hid it for safety, he preserved it intact; he would possibly have fought for it, like the many Christians who fight for their interpretation of Scripture: but he did not trade with it, he did not entrust it to others (“the bank”) from whom some return would have been secured. And there being no increase he was deprived of his trust and lost all opportunity of advance in his master’s service.

This conduct the lord characterized as “wicked” (poneros, essentially wicked, wicked in nature), and such it certainly is. Neglect in trusteeship can be criminal in law, though the delinquent may be satisfactory in morals and in home life. Nothing is said against this man in character or life: he was simply unfaithful to the trust reposed in him as to the pound. It is not enough that a disciple shall be moral, amiable, upright in business, kind at home: all this is good, but at the judgment scat of Christ the vital question will be, Was he faithful in trading with the truth he knew by passing it on to others?

6. The Enemies. The contrast between the fearful and negligent servant and the positive enemies is distinct. He acknowledged his lord: they would not that he should reign over them. He lost promotion and reward; they were executed as rebels and lost their lives. This fixes beyond question the status of the servant. The fulfilment of the judgment on the enemies of Christ is shown in the many and copious scriptures that declare the destruction of the rebellious at the return of the Lord Jesus as Judge and King.

It is to be remarked that this parable is no revelation of the manner in which the servants or the enemies of Christ who die before His return will be dealt with by Him. The principles of justice will be the same for all, but details as to the judgment of the dead, whether servants or enemies, must be sought elsewhere than in parables or other passages which deal with the Lord’s return to the earth. The urgent matter is that the supreme test will be the same for all believers, dead or living, even fidelity in trading with truth known. This is as much a question of private activity as of public service in the gospel. Each has some knowledge of God and is responsible to spread it.

3

THE WEDDING BREAKFAST

Matt. 22: 1-14

The plot of the indignant Pharisees to destroy Him the Lord met by this further attack and warning. The parable resembles that spoken earlier (Luke 14: 15-24), but has important differences. Both set forth phases of the kingdom of God or heaven, but

(1) that was a deipnon, the closing meal of the day, which suggested that the hearers were faced with the last opportunity they would have of sharing in the kingdom. This is a breakfast (ariston), the first meal of the day, suggesting the opening of some new era.

(2) That supper was provided by a great man who would favour his friends; this feast is made by a king in honour of the marriage of his own son, the heir apparent. This gives the clue as to the event here pictured. For the “marriage” of God’s Son is declared in Rev. 19: 1-9. It is to take place at the opening of the next age, the commencement of the Millennial kingdom, so that the occasion is properly regarded here as a breakfast.

As noted earlier, John the Baptist had designated Christ as a bridegroom (John 3: 29) and the Lord had confirmed this allusion to His future status; but He hinted that before that great day could arrive He would have left this earth, and the consummation of His purpose and desire must wait (Matt. 9: 15). The present parable leads on to that sublime hour but does not complete the picture by any mention of the bride. But when in Rev. 19 the thrilling announcement rings out in heaven, “Hallelujah, for the Lord our God, the Almighty, reigneth,” this makes plain at what epoch the marriage is to take place.

Yet in the passage in Revelation the occasion is called a marriage supper (to deipnon tou gamou), which does not contradict the distinction just noted; for as coming at the dose of this age, the crowning privilege of all the benefits that led up to it, it may rightly be termed a supper, whereas viewed as ushering in the new age it is a breakfast. It is a question of aspect and emphasis.

The main point on which the parables unite is that they present those invited as guests, and guests at a feast. Now the guests at a supper are not the family of the host, nor are they the bride at a wedding breakfast: they are guests. That is to say, the persons contemplated in these parables, though regenerate, are not presented in that character, nor as members of the heavenly company, the wife of the Lamb.

Nor is a feast a permanent affair. It is indeed a time of pleasure, and it is truly an honour to be invited to a royal wedding; but it is only a temporary matter. Therefore the message of God as set forth in these parables is not to be expanded to the full width of the offer of eternal salvation in Christ. Eternity is not here brought into view, nor the eternal status of the individuals in question, nor the eternal doom of the rejector of Christ, whatever in fact these may be.

The Lord’s hearers on these occasions were expecting a kingdom of glory to be set up on earth as announced by the prophets, and they counted rightly that “blessed is he that shall eat bread in the kingdom of God” (Luke 14: 15). It is to this anticipation that the parables are directed and should be limited. Many scriptures reveal the eternal aspect and prospect of men, but this is not here. The heart attitude of a hearer towards this coming kingdom of God may indeed indicate his heart attitude to God, His Son, and things eternal, but this is not the aspect dealt with in these parables.

The Old Testament had already set in relief the guests in contrast to the king and his spouse. Ahasuerus and Esther were distinct from the princes and servants invited to the marriage feast (Esther 2: 18). The mighty King of Psalm 45, Messiah, had companions and a Queen, and she also had her personal retinue, “the virgins her companions” (vers. 7, 9, 14). So also in Rev. 19. Immediately after the announcement concerning the Bride and the marriage, the angel proclaims “Blessed are they who are bidden to the marriage supper” (ver. 9), and the same feature is seen in the parable of the ten Virgins, as we shall presently observe.

The interpretation of these passages, and others, has been confused and frustrated by the contracted vision which can see in the Word of God only “saved” and “unsaved,” “heaven” or “hell,” time or eternity, intermediate conditions or stages being unperceived. Thus the precious good news as to eternal salvation has been - it cannot be said drawn out of these parables, but thrust upon them.

The present parable deals with two classes who receive the king’s invitation; the former class, who are the first to be invited and who make light of the matter; the latter, who accept the welcome.

We have seen that the last preceding parable, that of the wicked husbandmen, was directed against the leaders of Israel, rather than the whole people. It is not to be overlooked that the Lord is still dealing with these leaders in particular: “And Jesus answered [their hostility] and spake again unto them” (ver. 1). They received two notices that the kingdom of heaven was open to them: (1) that through Christ and His messengers of His day, the twelve (Matt. 10) and the seventy (Luke 10). His and their call was the same: “the kingdom of heaven (or of God) has drawn nigh unto you”; and (2) the renewed call from Pentecost and onward. The leaders led the way in spurning both appeals, and after the second some of them maltreated and killed the King’s messengers, as they had treated His Son. This aggravated hostility provoked the King to destroy those murderers and to burn their city, in A.D. 70.

The reason why the city also was destroyed was that the populace in general took sides with their rulers in rejecting the call and in persecuting the messengers. The number of those who accepted the gospel [of the kingdom] was comparatively so few that they are not here noticed.

Upon Israel as such having scorned the call of grace the other class comes into view; the royal invitation goes out beyond them into all the world. As many as are found, bad as well as good, are gathered in. Let it be noted that, though all these when called are equally outside of the kingdom, yet even so God distinguishes as to their moral state; some are bad, some good. This made no difference as to their welcome, but justification apart from works ought not to be so preached as to give an impression that God does not mind whether men are moral or immoral (Acts 10: 34, 35).

It is to be observed that the picture as drawn does not take account of the vast majority of the countryside who could not have been reached by the servants with the invitation to the feast, and for whom it is not to be supposed there would have been space at the one feast. The un-evangelized myriads are not here contemplated. That they miss the feast does not imply that they are treated like the rejectors and murderers.

When the Lord talked with Nicodemus (John 3) He spoke of the kingdom of God in its widest aspect and with eternity in view, for it was a life that is eternal which He offered through His coming death. In this parable the kingdom is presented under a limited aspect, that of an invitation to a special and privileged occasion of a temporary nature.

This same distinction can be seen in the teaching of the apostles.

John repeats the Lord’s assurances to all men that eternal life, with freedom from eternal judgment, is guaranteed to every believer (John 3: 35, 36; 5: 24; 10: 27, 29). He also recalls the Lord’s pointed warning that the privilege of enjoying personal fellowship with Himself depends upon holiness of walk (John 13: 8). The one is a general benefit, the other a special privilege.

Paul declares to all men the present justification from all sins through faith (Acts 13: 38, 39). But to such as had accepted this message, he speaks of the kingdom of God and that the path into it involves many tribulations (Acts 14: 22). He states positively that we are justified on the principle of grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, and freely (without conditions attached, dorean, Rom. 3: 24); he is equally definite that sharing the glory of Christ is conditional upon sharing His sufferings (Rom. 8: 17; 2 Tim. 2: 11-13; etc.).

Peter is clear that our redemption has been effected by the blood of Christ (1 Pet. 1: 18, 19). He writes to those who have thus obtained a precious faith in the righteousness of God (2 Pet. 1: 1). Such have also been called unto God’s eternal glory, which obviously is a special privilege and far higher than being accounted righteous before His law (1 Pet. 5: 10). But this calling and choice of God to share His glory the justified man must “make sure” by all diligence. As justified by faith he is in God’s kingdom in its widest sense, but only by the “more diligence” will he gain a rich entrance into the kingdom in its eternal development.

Thus the message of God as proclaimed by Christ and the apostles contained a general offer to all men of life eternal, but included a call to special privilege. We take it that the marriage feast of the parable belongs to the special class of benefits, and is another instance of the feature that germinal sayings by Christ are the basis of apostolic teaching.

That this dual character of the message has been generally overlooked has impoverished preaching and weakened its appeal and warning. It has caused serious misapplication and misuse of our Lord’s parables, with embarrassment to the theologian and perplexity to the general student and hearer.

It is not until the wedding is filled with guests that the King enters to see them. This carries on the foreview to the end of this age, when the marriage of the Lamb shall have come. The King is God the Father, for He it is Who arranges the feast for His Son.

As a guest can be cast out of the feast the scene is not laid in the realm of resurrection glory, for all who will share in the resurrection, the first, at this time, are to reign with Christ, and none of these can be cast out of the King’s house and presence (Rev. 20: 4, 6). It would therefore seem that the marriage feast as here pictured is on earth and the guests are alive when the King comes in.* As before remarked, this is a feature of all our Lord’s parables. Those who heard the message, both accepters and rejectors, and had died, will be dealt with appropriately and on the same principles, but they are not introduced into the parable.

* This and cognate themes I have discussed in The Revelation of Jesus Christ, 322-324.

Have theologians pondered what is implied in this statement of God’s Son that His Father will come in to see the guests? How can it have any sort of fulfilment if the Father is necessarily and eternally invisible, as theologians commonly affirm? The alternative will be that this feature of the parable, and the case of the man not suitably attired, have no meaning.*

* The above theological question is discussed in the author’s The Epistle to the Hebrews, PP. 30, 33-35, which please see.

Outer Darkness. Few expressions have been treated with more laxity and liberty than this, though, seeing its solemnity, it should have received very exact study.

It cannot point to the world of the dead, Hades, for there Dives and Abraham could see one another. Nor can a lake burning with fire be a place of darkness, and moreover that most dreadful of all regions is visible to the eye, for its torment is “in the presence of” [under the eye of, emopion] holy angels and the Lamb (Rev. 14: 10; 19: 20; 20: 10).

With its too common inexactness the A.V. gives simply “outer darkness,” ignoring the two definite articles of the Greek. The R.V. gives “the outer darkness.” English does not readily allow “the darkness the outer” of the original language, which is a pity, because the repetition of the article throws emphasis upon the second noun: it is not just any darkness but darkness outside some region of light.

Only our Lord used the term; and only Matthew records it (Matt. 8: 12; 22: 13; 25: 30). Christ repeated the statement of Matthew 8: 12, as reported by Luke (13: 24-30), when “outer darkness” became simply “without.” This somewhat reduces the severity of the thought. Nor is the change without significance. The region is simply outside some other region, contiguous to it.

On each occasion those cast into outer darkness weep and gnash their teeth. The only other place where this sign of grief and rage is mentioned is Matt. 13: 42, 50, when the angel reapers cast the wicked into “the furnace of fire.” This is not set by the Lord as at the final judgment, the great white throne, but at the “consummation of the age,” that is, in connexion with the clearing of the wicked from off this earth when His millennial kingdom is about to be established. But, as remarked above, darkness and flaming fire are incompatibles. Such impotent chagrin and rage can mark both spheres and therefore do not identify them. Moreover such distress is possible in this life, and does not require death to induce it: “I am faint and sore bruised: I have roared by reason of the disquietness of my heart ... my groaning is not hid from Thee” (Ps. 38: 8, 9).

A too little considered feature of the three references to “outer darkness” is that each pictures a house of feasting. In Matt. 8 and Luke 13 Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are represented as reclining at table and others from all quarters joining them, while the “sons of the kingdom,” those to whom the house and its pleasures more naturally belonged, see this feasting but are driven away from it into outer darkness.

In our present passage it is the same. The King comes in to see the guests, that is, into the banqueting hall. It is thence that the man is cast out.

In Matt. 25 the lord of the house has returned thither from his journey, which is to be celebrated as a time of joy, implying a feast; it is to share this joy of their lord that the faithful servants are welcomed, whereas the unfaithful man is cast into outer darkness. In the second instance the man is bound hand and foot.

This element of the one picture really gives the clue to the interpretation, when it is remembered that in the East such a festivity usually took place at night. Staying in a native quarter in Alexandria I was the other side of the road from a large Oriental mansion. One night the whole house was brilliantly lit, a blaze of light from every room, evidently for some special affair. By contrast the street outside and the garden around were in black darkness, and nothing further was required to correspond to the term “the darkness the outer,” which term equals the darkness which is without, outside the house.

It were but an event to be expected that an Oriental despot, of royal or lesser rank, if offended with one of the slaves, should order that he be bound and thrown into the garden. There the unfortunate man, with the common Eastern emotionalism, would bewail the dark and the cold, and the danger from hungry dogs and jackals, and would gnash his teeth at being deprived of the pleasures forfeited.

This is the picture; and, whatever may be the reality, it is not the same as the enemies of the king being slain in public, as in the parable of the pounds (Luke 19: 27), nor as the tares, the very “sons of the Evil One,” being cast into the furnace of fire, as in Matt. 13. Such obviously distinct pictures must be viewed as distinct, and distinct meanings be sought. To blur the picture and confound the lessons can be only confusing and misleading, as, has commonly been the case in the treatment of this parable.

In relation to things future and unseen, wisdom would lead each to say with the village idiot, when asked if he knew anything, “Some things I know, some things I don’t know” - a much wiser state of mind than when a preacher speaks dogmatically on such a theme, as if he knows everything.

Of ‘Hades’, the ‘Abyss’, the “Lake of fire” - of these some definite knowledge is imparted, though much is left unrevealed. Of “the darkness which is outside” much less is revealed; and it is not for us to speculate, least of all to be positive.

It is outside the kingdom of heaven when pictured as the temporary festivity at the return of the lord of the house or as the wedding feast of the son of the house. It is marked by loss of liberty (bound hand and foot), by forfeiture of privilege (the “joy of the lord”), by decrease of knowledge (the pound withdrawn), by deprivation of service and reward (“have thou authority”). It will be healthful that these solemn elements weigh upon our minds and warn and stimulate, though where and how the realities they picture will be experienced may not be known.

In the interests of sound interpretation as well as of moral effect, it is vital to recognize that it is not utter strangers to God that are warned as to this outer darkness. No, it is “sons of the kingdom,” those to whom by calling it naturally belonged; it is the “friend” who had accepted the invitation and taken his place; it is the personal slaves of the house, of the lord of the house, who are bidden to value their rich privileges lest they lose them and fall under his displeasure. The apostles regularly describe themselves as slaves.

It was “his own bondservants” to whom the lord of the house entrusted the talents. What relationship this term indicates is not questioned when it is used of the shepherd calling “his own” sheep and going before them (John 10: 3, 4). To avoid this meaning in the former case is to deal deceitfully with Scripture as well as with one’s own soul and that of the hearer. The blessed Lord who loved and redeemed them, made it abundantly plain that one of His own servants* may render himself obnoxious to this intensely solemn penalty of being bound and cast forth from the grand reality of the marriage supper, of the joy of the Lord. Nor is the spiritual reality at all unknown now. There are [regenerate] children of God, servants of Christ, who through misconduct have forfeited the once-enjoyed liberty of sons, no more share the joy of their lord, and are in distressing darkness of soul. Experimentally they are outside the kingdom of God, which is righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit (Rom. 14: 17).

[* See ‘Judas was a Regenerate Believer’ on the website: www.themillennialkingdom.org.uk ]

But the very fact that this is possible to one of “Hs own” itself proves that the penalty cannot be eternal, for all such have eternal life and can never perish. No one grasping the illustration used would suppose that the unhappy slave would be left in the garden to starve to death, or that the dark night would last for ever. Day would dawn, his bands would be loosed, life would be resumed, but he would have missed the joyous festival for ever, for the wedding feast would never be repeated. That is to say, the special pleasures, honours, splendours which are to accompany the return of the Lord from heaven and the setting up of His [millennial] kingdom at the consummation of this age, are to be a reward for fidelity, for righteous and dutiful conduct in His absence, and without this manner of life they may be forfeited.

Note. The verb used in Matt. 25: 21, 23, eis-erchomai, means either to come into or to go into. It offers here the picture of the lord and the servant being in a court or office where the reckoning takes place, and to the faithful slaves the lord of the mansion says, “Go into the inner banqueting hall,” where the welcome home festivities will be held. This in sharp contrast to the command that the unfaithful slave shall be thrust in the opposite direction, outside the house into the darkness.

THE WEDDING GARMENT

What then is this indispensable garment? The answer is to be found by inquiring, for what is it indispensable? The answer is, for sharing a wedding feast. The common interpretation is that the garment points to that righteousness of God which is imputed by grace to the believer in Christ, by virtue of which he stands acquitted before the bar of God. But this at once, and wholly without warrant, changes the Lord’s picture, and instead of a King, a royal palace, and a wedding feast it substitutes a Judge and a criminal court of law. It is as if one looking at Buckingham Palace thought he saw the Old Bailey, and supposed that a man evicted from the Palace was of course to be taken to Newgate to be hanged!

Now if we look at the passage in the Old Testament (Isa. 61: 10) where righteousness is compared to a robe, we see that the connexion is not that of a criminal being accounted righteous but that of a bridegroom and bride decking themselves for the wedding, which is the counterpart of the parable. For here also it is not a question of a person escaping penalty in a court of law, but of being suitably attired for a wedding.

And if we look on to the passage in the New Testament (Rev. 19: 6-9) which deals with the marriage of the Lamb and the wedding feast to celebrate it, we find the following exact and full description of the attire of the Bride for that great day:

Let us rejoice and be exceeding glad, and let us give the glory unto Him: for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and His wife hath made herself ready.

And it was given unto her that she should array herself in fine linen, bright and pure: for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints.

It is here made very plain that the robe of the bride is not the righteousness of God, made available for the guilty by that one act of righteousness which the Son of God rendered on the cross (Rom. 5: 18); no, it is called specifically “the righteous acts of the saints.” The word is plural (ta dikaiomata), and its meaning is fixed by its application to the many deeds of judgment which God will work at the End of this age: “Thy righteous acts have been made manifest” (Rev. 15: 4). This practical righteousness, the habitual doing of righteous deeds, is the fine linen with which the bride is clothed for her marriage. She has herself woven the robe.

It is true that no one can so live who has not first had God’s righteousness reckoned to him judicially; nor can even such a justified person live righteously save by the power supplied by God through His Holy Spirit. Therefore it is of grace through faith and obedience that the bride can weave her trousseau; but she must do this, or it will not be granted to her to array herself in the fine linen, for the linen will not be there. All Queen Esther’s clothes and ornaments were made out of the king’s treasures, but Esther had to put them on, or she would not have been fit to be presented to Ahasuerus.

It has been commonly supposed that the guests at the wedding of the parable were supplied with a suitable garment out of the monarch’s store, such, we are told, being the general custom. But even if this be taken for granted, the fact is not altered that each guest had himself to put on his white robe. This does not correspond to the imputed righteousness that justifies [by faith]. The sinner does not reckon this to himself; it is God that reckons it to the sinner’s account.

Moreover, once that righteousness has been imputed, and the judicial standing of the sinner rectified, this reckoning is irreversible in law, nor can the justified be later ejected from that status. From that hour it becomes possible that the [regenerate] believer shall walk in practical righteousness, doing by the [power of the Holy] Spirit only right acts.* Upon this habitual walk will depend his enjoyment of the privileges now open to him in Christ by faith. And if he does not thus array himself he may be denied that share in the wedding feast to which he has been called in Christ. This is common experience now. The disobedient believer ceases, while disobedient, to enjoy those firstfruits of the great harvest day which the [Holy] Spirit imparts to the sanctified. If this “earnest” be forfeited how shall the [promised millennial] inheritance be gained?

[* Acts 5: 32. See also ‘The Personal Indwelling of the Holy Spirit’ and ‘The Rights of the Holy Spirit in the House of God’.]

Obviously the principle here involved must apply to guests at least as much as to the bride. Thus the lesson of this parable is not how guilty sinners may escape eternal damnation, but how invited guests may gain or forfeit the kingdom of heaven viewed as a feast at the opening of the Millennial era. It illuminates and enforces our Lord’s early instruction to His disciples concerning breaking or keeping even the least of God’s commandments, and so teaching others; instruction emphasized by His explicit assurance “For I say unto you, that except your righteousness shall exceed that of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of the heavens” (Matt. 5: 19, 20).

Convicted but resolute the Lord’s adversaries resort to deceit and sophistry, but are exposed and baffled. The war of words ends and Jesus holds the field: “no one was able to answer Him a word, neither durst any man from that day ask Him any more questions.” After most devastating denunciations of the hypocrites who had resisted the truth, and heartfelt lamentation over their now doomed city, the Lord of the temple abandoned it to them and to destruction, never more to enter it until He shall return in heavenly glory and be welcomed where He was rejected.

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4

DIVES AND LAZARUS

[CHRIST’S TEACHINGS ON THE INTERMEDIATE PLACE AND STATE OF THE DEAD]

Luke 16: 14-31

Such searching, challenging teachings as the foregoing could not but have diverse effects upon hearers. Those with an ear to hear would be strengthened in the determination to obey, whereas others would be stiffened in their opposition.*

[* NOTE. An example of this stiff-necked opposition is shown at the conclusion of this exposition from a letter, written on 26^th August, 1986 by Michael Browns to the late Mr. E. B. Howarth. See footnote

The question begging to be asked is: -

What Christ’s reaction will be when He passes judgment on brother Brown’s assessment of what he has described as ‘spiritual poison’; and of what he thinks is ‘suitable’ and ‘profitable’ reading material for warning regenerate believers against the loss of the inheritance; and what other reading material should be given, to encourage them in a pursuit for the ‘Prize’ and the ‘Crown’?

Constant experience proves that in pressing responsibility truths upon Christians, we are not arguing with the intelligent at all, but with desires, prejudices, dislikes against which arguments are powerless; and any, who wishes to do so, can always find abundant reasons for disobedience.]

1. There were Pharisees listening to these unpopular views and counsels, men who were money-lovers, and they “screwed up their noses at Him,” “they scoffed at Him.” Upon these He turned with drastic, condemnatory warnings. He announced.

1. ver. 15. Their false and fatal principle of life: they justified themselves in the sight of men. They wished to be deemed righteous, but were content with human judgment as their standard. The “ye” is emphatic: ye to whom I am speaking justify yourselves;

2. ver.15. A fact in the Divine judgment. The heart-knowing God holds in abomination what man exalts. His thoughts are not our thoughts, for the mind of man is perverted and blinded by the god of this age (Isa. 55: 8, 9; 2 Cor. 4: 3, 4). These very men who were held in esteem by man were therefore abominable to God. It is a strong word, meaning loathsome, abhorrent;

3. ver. 16. The old order was yielding to the new, and they who clung to the old must perish with it. “The law and the prophets were until John: from that time the good news of the kingdom of God is preached, and every man entereth violently into it.”

It is regrettable that this explicit statement by the Lord has been greatly avoided. The new era did not commence at Calvary, Pentecost, or with Paul’s captivity at Rome; it began with John the Baptist. Peter accepted this, as is seen in Acts 1: 21, 22; Mark acknowledged it (1: 1-4), for “the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God” is that “John came” baptizing and preaching.* Paul taught that the message of salvation through Jesus was ushered in by the preaching of John, according to the promise and as taught by John himself (Acts 13: 23, ff).

* This is the gospel of the church of God, for this truth that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, is the very basis on which the church is built. See Matt. 16: 16-18.

For those Pharisees this meant that the opportunity of securing a place in the new era, the kingdom of God, was upon them, to be seized or rejected. If they were to avail themselves of the golden hour, they must address themselves to this with the utmost zeal and determination. For there were stern enemies to oppose and destroy them, and severe obstacles to be confronted and overcome, and only the “violent” would force their way into that holy kingdom. (The word here used biazo, to force one’s way, is found in the LXX at Ex. 19: 24, where the people were ordered not to “break through” into the precincts of the Holy One.) This spirit is still indispensable for that situation still exists: it is “through many tribulations that we must enter into the kingdom of God” (Acts 14: 22).

4. Yet they were on no account to imagine that the advance from the old age to the new set them free to please themselves. Christ had not come to annul the law but to fulfil it. Not the smallest of its precepts should cease to have authority until the need for the precept ceased (Matt. 5: 17), and therefore

5. Every one of them that had put away a wife (except for unfaithfulness on her part, Matt. 5: 31, 32; 19: 9), and had married another, was living in adultery, as likewise each who had married such a divorced woman.

Such keen sword-thrusts of truth could not but further anger the proud and obstinate opponents. They were resolved not to yield to such searching and condemning utterances, wherefore the Lord proceeded to expose yet further their real moral condition, as proud, rich, luxurious, self-indulgent, and hard-hearted.

2. Life’s Contrasts

The history of Dives and Lazarus is not called a parable, but stated as fact: “A certain man was rich”: “a certain poor man named Lazarus.” Were it a parable there would have been no occasion to give his name. Moreover, Abraham and Hades are realities, not figures of speech.

The one was rich. Because of this the Latin word for a rich man, Dives, has been given to him by later generations, but the Lord graciously refrained from stigmatizing him, and paining his relatives, by revealing his identity. But he was rich, and employed his wealth to honour and gratify himself. His clothing was of fine texture (byssus) and royal colour, purple; he passed away his time in mirth and splendour. He was a living example of those whom Butler reproves by saying that the very name of their amusements condemns their manner of life; for they call them pastimes, as if to pass time away were their only concern, instead of employing it usefully.

At the gate of his mansion lay an unhappy mortal; too frail to walk, so that others had to carry him to the gate; sick, diseased; so feeble that the dogs could lick his sores with impunity, which was probably the only dressing they received.

Here then is that ancient, present, universal contrast between selfish luxury and neglected misery. Around Nero’s marble palace crowd the wretched hovels of the submerged. Is there then a God of right and truth? Or has he retired into His own private bliss, leaving His creatures to prey ruthlessly on one another? In which case is He not as ruthless as they, or more so, seeing that He could redress these bitter wrongs, yet seemingly is indifferent? So reasons misguided man.

A thousand years before our Lord’s day a keen observer had pondered this problem and had been almost stumbled as to faith and piety. In Psalm 73 Asaph had described Dives in advance.

Surely God is good to Israel, even to such as are pure in heart.

But as for me my feet were almost gone; my steps had well nigh slipped.

For I was envious at the arrogant, when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.

For there are no bands in their death: but their strength is firm.

They are not in trouble as other men; neither are they plagued like other men.

Therefore pride is as a chain about their neck; violence covereth them as a garment.

Their eyes stand out with fatness: they have more than heart could wish.

They scoff, and in wickedness utter oppression: they speak loftily.

They have set their mouth in the heavens, and their tongue walketh through the earth.

Therefore his people return hither: and waters of a full cup are wrung out of them.

And they say, How doth God know? And is there knowledge in the Most High?

Behold, these are the wicked; and, being always at ease, they increase in riches.

3. Death Levels all

“The beggar died,” and, lo, immediately angels attend and take charge of him: “He was carried away by the angels into Abraham’s bosom” (22). In older English “carry” did not always imply an actual bearing of an object, but to escort one. A magistrate, before whom a crowd had forced Wesley, said: “Carry him back, carry him back, and let him convert all the scolds in the town.”

Angels care for little children (Matt. 18: 10); in various ways they serve in life the heirs of salvation (Heb. 1: 14); here we learn that they guide and protect them after death. How shall the saint know the route to Abraham’s bosom? Who shall protect him on the way from attack by evil spirits?

“The rich man also died and was buried,” doubtless with pomp corresponding to his social status, that is, to his wealth. What happened to the body of the beggar is not stated. Perchance it was with him as with Tom Hood’s pauper:

Rattle his bones over the stones,

He’s only a pauper whom nobody owns.

But they both died and the luxury of the one ended and the misery of the other. Riches cannot stay the swinging scythe of the King of Terrors. And what then? Then:

4. Hades Reverses all

1. Hades is a known locality. It is mentioned in nine other passages in the New Testament.* It is the place to which our Lord went at death: “Thou wilt not abandon my soul in Hades” (Acts 2: 27). Here it is the Greek rendering of the Hebrew Sheol as used in the psalm quoted (16: 10). This word comes some sixty-five times in the Old Testament, from which passages much can be learned. Its location is shown. Eph. 4: 9 tells us that it was from “the lower parts of the earth” that Christ ascended by resurrection. It includes the Paradise to which the Lord and the repentant thief went at death (Luke 23: 43). A current pictorial description was adopted by Christ; it was known as “the bosom of Abraham.” To lie in another’s bosom pictured restful, honoured intercourse (John 1: 18; 13: 23).

* Matt. 11: 23; 16: 18; Luke 10: 15; Acts 2: 27, 31; Rev. 1: 18; 6: 8; 20: 13, 14.

2. Hades is a dual region, a place of torment as well as of bliss, and the two parts are separated by a chasm that is impassable. The soul is restricted in movement, as well as the body. It has its Divinely imposed limits. Yet its faculties persist: “He seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom” (23). His tongue can cry out, his ears can hear, his memory is active (“Son, remember”), his feelings are acute. He is the same person, simply disembodied.

3. The ancients, followed by the modern spiritist, conceived of the disembodied soul as clothed with a body, far rarer in texture than the material earth body, yet corresponding to it in form and function. This is justified by Scripture, and is one of the points on which the Word of God warrants the ancient idea. As shown above, Dives in that region and condition has eyes, ears, tongue, and sensations. Similarly, when Samuel was permitted to return to warn Saul, his mantle and appearance, as described by the medium, were readily recognizable by Saul, and the prophet could speak words audible to the king and hear what the latter said (1 Sam. 28: 13 ff.).

Thus in that dread place there is a “flame”; its victim is scorched and parched; Lazarus has a “finger,” and there is “water” that could alleviate the torment, were this permitted, but it is not. The terms are strong: basanos, torture, anguish; odunao, agony as of birth pangs.

However fiercely the modern sinner may resent and reject such conceptions they are neither unphilosophical nor were they new when the Lord accepted them. The soul after death being still an entity must be somewhere, in some locality; and being conscious must be susceptible of sensations appropriate to its condition and surroundings.

This instinct as to the reality of that world [of the dead] led to the notion that the person would benefit there by physical counterparts of the utensils and persons that had served it here, which were thereupon buried with the body of the deceased, sometimes including his wives and slaves. The application was often foolish and cruel, but the fundamental idea that the world beyond was real was true.

The inquirer cannot but be struck by the fact that even remote and uncivilized men have retained from of old some basic ideas as here declared by the Son of God. Wandering over the extensive uplands of the Nilgiri Hills, South India, is the wild and degraded tribe of Todas. I saw something of them. They say that at death the soul takes its journey to the distant region of the Hills which is their Paradise. On the way it must cross a vast chasm, the bridge over which is a single hair. If it has been a good Toda it will cross safely; if a bad person it will slip from the hair into the deep and dreadful abyss of torment far beneath, where it must suffer for its misdeeds. Thus does the conscience of even uncivilized men enforce the essential thought that just reward or just retribution follows directly upon death, and dim tradition, has retained the notions of Paradise and Tartarus, a great chasm figuring in the now confused picture, even as in that drawn by Christ.

4. Though co-operation between those two regions is denied, intercourse is not. Dives and Abraham can converse. The former makes two appeals:

(a) For personal alleviation. But this is declared impossible. Lazarus cannot reach Dives. This denies the basic allegation of spiritism that the pious dead of the higher realms of that world live to help forward and upward the less fortunate, and that existence there is a progressive ascent. Dives entertained no such fallacy. He does not ask for a release, for transference to Abraham’s bosom, but only for temporary mitigation of his misery.

(b) He then pleads that his brethren be warned, “lest they also come into this place of torment” (ver. 28). It has been suggested that this request arose only lest his own wretchedness be aggravated by their company and reproaches. The narrative does not suggest this, and a base motive ought not to be imputed. The love that thinketh no evil would rather hope that genuine pity stirred the once hard heart and he who could not himself escape desired that others should do so.

Abraham replies to each request.

(a) Dives must remember the relationship between the past and the present. In his life on earth he received in full (apolam-banomai) his good things. He gained what he sought and misused it. He lived for the approbation of men, “and men praise thee when thou doest well for thyself.” Thus “while he lived he blessed his soul” (Ps. 49: 18); “he received his good things,” and he exhausted them. Now he has nothing, not even a friend to welcome him into that tabernacle of misery. It was with him as it is to be with that richer and more majestic being than he, who is yet to reach that dread region, at whom those already there shall be astonished and shall have no words of grateful welcome (Isa. 14: 3-15).

In like manner Lazarus on earth had endured much evil; “but,” said Abraham, as he pressed the sharp contrast, “now, here, he is comforted and thou art tormented” (ver. 25). “Then” and “now,” “there” and “here” - up to the hour of death one condition; from that hour an entirely reversed condition.

(b) As to his brethren, they must use their existing opportunities and advantages. More they do not need, nor will more be granted. “They have Moses and the prophets: let them hear them.” The Spirit of truth speaks in them; the voice of a spook cannot be so impressive or authoritative: “If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded if one rise from the dead” (ver. 31).

In due time One who is the greatest of the sons of men rose [out] from the dead, but in conformity with the principle He had here stated, He did not [after 40 days] in that form present Himself to men of the world, but continues to speak by His convicting Spirit in the Scriptures. Moses and the prophets had warned against the worship of Mammon; the later apostles and prophets have continued and emphasized the warning: therefore how much heavier is the guilt, and how much darker the prospects, of those who now turn away, not only from Moses and the prophets, but from Him Who by His Spirit warns us from heaven.

And this solemn warning is addressed to some who have accepted the faith and been led astray from it, not only to those who never have professed faith. For “they that desire to be rich,” that is, as the context shows, who are not content with things indispensable, with food and coverings, but determine to get more than these - they “fall into a temptation and a snare and many foolish and hurtful lusts, such as drown men in destruction and perdition. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil: which some reaching after have been led astray from the faith, and have pierced themselves through with many sorrows” (1 Tim. 6: 9, 10).

A Christian, as yet trustful toward God and tender towards men, may become self-dependent and callous. “Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall” (1 Cor. 10: 12); for if he fall into the temptation and snare of loving money he must reap the full harvest of his sowing as certainly as must the open worldling.

It is on Christians that this certainty is pressed, in order that we may not be weary in communicating of our substance, in doing well, by working that which is good toward all men. “Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. For he that soweth unto his own flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth unto Spirit shall of the Spirit reap eternal [age-lasting]* life” (Gal. 6: 7, 8). A Dives may be a degenerate believer. Scripture and fact assert it. Who dare deny it? Christ had already applied to His own followers His exhortation, “Take heed and keep yourselves from all covetousness” (Luke 12: 15, with 22 “therefore”).

[* See Footnote.]

5. The state of death and the place called Hades are not the lake of fire, for ultimately the two former are to be cast into the latter (Rev. 20: 13, 14). The scene described is immediately after death, for the five brothers are still alive in the family home on earth. Incidentally, that their number is given implies the literality of the circumstances. Therefore Hades is not eternal; and the eternal destiny of its inmates ought not to be assumed. There will be eternal death and eternal torment (Matt. 25: 41, 46; Rev. 14: 9-11; 20: 10, 14, 15), but what persons are to suffer that doom can not be declared save by the Righteous Judge alone (Matt. 25: 41), and as to the more part of the lost it appears that He will not declare it until the last judgment at the great white throne. It is not warranted to preach eternal destiny from what Scripture here says of Hades. Dives may be an utterly lost soul, but no one can rightly assert this. If his concern for his brothers was sincere, he was not yet utterly hardened. Nor does he make complaint as to his sufferings, like those who blaspheme God because of their pains (Rev. 16: 9, 11). And Abraham acknowledges relationship with Dives by answering his appeal “Father” with the term “Child.”

6. The Lord leaves untouched some deep and interesting matters. What constituted the fitness of Lazarus for Paradise? He is not said to have been godly; and if he was so, why was he reduced to such poverty and misery? It is not said that the rich man was irreligious and impious, but only that he was callous. Does this alone assure so severe a punishment? The Speaker left His hearers to solve such problems by the Scriptures, as can be done. He was too skilful a Teacher to weaken the appeal and warning by diverting the minds of hearers to but subordinate topics. Rather would He force upon them the one solemn lesson that life here determines experience there; that immediately after death conditions are drastically reversed, a just balance is reached, and present inequalities are redressed. There all can see what faith asserts here, that

The ROCK, His work is perfect;

For all His ways are judgment:

A God of faithfulness and without iniquity,

Just and right is He. (Deut. 32: 4)

Various common assumptions are here rebuked.

That death introduces a complete break in moral state and experience is refuted. On the contrary, moral condition persists and governs experience. The law of sowing and reaping operates rigidly and fully. Eternal consequences have indeed been cancelled for the repentant by the sufferings of Christ on the cross; but temporal consequences prevail in the period between death and resurrection.

It is also denied that at death the saved go to heaven and the lost to hell [i.e., the ‘Lake of Fire’]. They all alike go to the realm of the dead, where Christ went, but some to the portion called of old, “Abraham’s bosom” and now given the nobler description “with Christ” (Phil. 1: 23), for now He fills, or occupies, all things (Eph. 4: 9, 10; [cf. Psa. 139: 7, 8]).

When the A.V. was made “hell” meant what the Greek Hades means, a vast covered region out of ken of our bodily senses, reached after death. To-day “hell” has come to mean the place of final judgment, the “lake of fire,” which misleads the present reader of the A.V.

A result has been that the great facts revealed as to the state intermediate between death and resurrection have been deleted from most Christian thought and preaching, so that both the solace and the solemnity of such knowledge have been lost. Believers have been buoyed up with the fictitious notion that they go from their death-bed to the glory of heaven, and the salutary warning has been lost that their unrepented misdeeds must be faced directly after death. In particular, how lamentable has been the growth in Christians of covetousness, riches, and self-indulgence. Let us rather take to our hearts the facts presented by our Lord, and order our ways accordingly. Then shall we be able honestly and forcefully to press them upon the worldling.

The invigorating, inspiring effect of this view is shown in IV Maccabees 13: 16. As mentioned before, in the second century B.C., pious Jews being cruelly tortured to death by Antiochus Epiphanes, encouraged one another to endure unto the end by the words, “Thus suffering, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob will welcome us and all the fathers will commend us.” In this wise they rejoiced at the prospect of being welcomed into the eternal tabernacles.

O GOD, TO US MAY GRACE BE GIVEN

TO FOLLOW IN THEIR TRAIN.

* FOOTNOTES

ETERNAL SALVATION, OBEDIENCE

“…He [Christ Jesus] became unto all them that obey him the author (Gk. cause) of eternal salvation …” (Heb. 5: 9, R.V.)

The word “eternal” in the English text is misleading. Those for whom Christ is the source of salvation (Christians) already possess eternal salvation; and, beyond that, this salvation was not acquired through obedience to Christ, as in the text. Rather, it was acquired through believing on the Lord Jesus Christ (John 3: 16).

Obedience to Christ, resulting from suffering, can come into view only following belief, never before. Only the saved have “passed from death unto life” and are in a position to suffer and subsequently obey. The unsaved are still “dead in trespasses and sins” (John 5: 24; Eph. 2: 1).

1. ETERNAL

The Greek language, from which our English versions have been translated, does not contain a word for “eternal.” A person using the Greek language thinks in the sense of “ages”; and the way this language is normally used in the New Testament to express “eternal,” apart from textual considerations, is through the use of the Greek words eis tons aionas ton aionon, meaning, “unto [or, ‘with respect to’] the ages of the ages” (ref. Heb. 13: 21; Rev. 1: 6; 4: 9, 10, R.V. for some examples of places where these words are used, translated “forever and ever” in most versions).

Another less frequently used way to express “eternal” in the Greek New Testament, apart from textual considerations, is through the use of a shortened form of the preceding - eis tons aionas, meaning “unto [or, ‘with respect to’ the ages” (ref. Rom. 9: 5; 11: 36; II Cor. 11: 31; Heb. 13: 8 for several examples of places where these words are used, translated “forever” in most versions).

The word from the Greek text translated “eternal” in Heb. 5: 9 is aionios. This is the adjective equivalent of the noun aion, referred to in the preceding paragraph in its plural form to express “eternal.” Aion means “an aeon [the word ‘aeon’ is derived from “aion” or “an era,” usually understood throughout the Greek New Testament as an “age.”

Aionios, the adjective equivalent of aion, is used seventy-one times in the Greek New Testament and has been indiscriminately translated “eternal” or “everlasting” in almost every instance in the various English versions. This word though should be understood about thirty of these seventy-one times in the sense of “age-lasting” rather than “eternal”; and the occurrence in Heb. 5: 9 forms a case in point.

Aionios should be translated and understood as “age-lasting” in Titus 1: 2; 3: 7. These Passages have to do with running the present race of ‘the faith’ in view of one day realizing an ‘inheritance’ in the coming messianic ‘kingdom’ of our Lord, which is the hope set before Christians. 2 Tim. 4: 7; Gal. 5: 21; Eph. 5: 5, R.V.

On the other hand, aionios can be understood in the sense of “eternal” if the text so indicates. Several good examples of places where aionios should be so translated and understood are John 3: 15, 16, 36. These passages have to do with life derived through faith in Christ because of His finished work at Calvary (cf. v. 14), and the only type life which can possibly be in view is “eternal life.”

Textual considerations must always be taken into account when properly translating and understanding aionios, for this is a word which can be used to imply either ‘age-lasting’ or “eternal”; and it is used both ways numerous times in the New Testament.

Textual considerations in Heb. 5: 9 leave no room to question exactly how aionios should be understood and translated in this verse. Life during the coming age, occupying a position as co-heir with Christ in that coming “day” (Rom. 8: 17b; 2 Pet. 3: 8), is what the Book of Hebrews is all about.

2. SUFFERING, REIGNING

Suffering with or on behalf of Christ must precede reigning with Christ. The latter cannot be realized apart from the former. Such suffering is inseparably linked with obedience to His precepts: and the text clearly states that Christ is the source of that future salvation “unto all them that [presently] obey him,” in the same respect that Christ is the source of the presently possessed eternal salvation for all those who have (in the past) “believed” on Him.

1 Peter 1: 11, relative to the saving of the soul (vv. 9, 10) states: “Searching what, or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify when it [He] testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ [lit., ‘the sufferings with respect to Christ’], and the glory that should follow.” The thought, contextually, is not at all that of Christ suffering. Rather, it has everything to do with suffering “for righteousness’ sake” Matt. 5: 10, by His redeemed people: and subsequently - at the time of His return and the Resurrection of the holy dead, 1 Thess. 4: 16; Lk. 20: 35, R.V. - their realizing an “inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God” Eph. 5: 5. cf. 2 Tim. 2: 12, 18; Phil. 3: 10, 11; I Thess. 2: 12; II Thess. 1: 4, 5; Heb. 11: 35b, R.V. etc. “While we do not attempt to be wise above that which is written, we should attempt with great earnestness to be wise in that which has been written.” - W. E. Best.

This is the underlying thought behind the whole book of 1 Peter, expressed in so many words by the writer in 4: 12, 13: “Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened to you: But rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ’s sufferings; that, when his glory shall be revealed, ye may be glad also with exceeding joy.”

This is the “eternal” that is, age-lasting “glory” to which Christians have been called and in which Christians will be established after they have suffered a while, with obedience to Christ emanating from the sufferings (1 Peter 5: 10).

- Edited from writings by A. L. CHITWOOD.

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LETTER TO BROTHER HOWARTH

A GOOD EXAMPLE OF THE STIFF-NECKED OPPOSITION EXPECTED TO ALL THE ABOVE INTERPRETATIONS AND EXPOSITIONS

Dear brother Howarth,

During the first week of June a young believer from Long Kong, ... stayed with us for some days before returning to Hong Kong. He had just come over from Belfast where he had been very kindly entertained in your home. Whilst staying with you he had been given a number of books which he showed me and which he finally left with me as I suggested to him they were not suitable or profitable to take back to Hong Kong. It is about these books I wish to complain to you now. Actually I tried to get in touch with you at that time but apparently you were on holiday, and as I had to leave then for meetings in Belgium and Yugoslavia and only returned recently, this matter has been unavoidably delayed.

The books which this brother received in your home are of an extreme or controversial doctrinal nature and by authors who adopt ultra positions, but some of them are patently unorthodox and teach positive error which would be harmful to a young believer and could be devastating in an assembly where their teaching was taken seriously. The authors are William Barclay whose liberalism, modernism, and unbelief have stumbled many; A.W. Pink who sadly pursues certain truth to its most extreme or hyper position; Jessie Penn-Lewis who believes in a second-blessing “baptism of the Holy Spirit” and in the book to hand “All Things New” has an exotic teaching regarding the Cross of Christ and human sickness; then there is a book on Watchman Nee whose teaching has brought division and confusion among the saints in Hong Kong and who taught that apostles are for today, female apostles are acceptable, who held as do his assemblies still today a selective or partial Rapture and the city-church theory; D. M. Panton and one Arlen L. Chitwood who echoes Panton's teaching. It is these latter two and the books authored by them and given to young brother ... that I am particularly worried about.

The books are “The Judgment Seat of Christ” by D.M. Panton, and “Jude” and “By Faith” by Arlen L. Chitwood. Dear brother may I ask you if you know what teaching these books contain? Have you read them and are you in agreement with them? If you have never read them then you must surely understand how unwise it is to let such unread literature get into other hands, but if the content of these books is known then the act of spreading such teaching becomes plainly subversive. It is a serious matter indeed and so I am writing to bring it to your attention now.

D. M. Panton’s book “The Judgment Seat of Christ” is deeply offensive and doctrinally dangerous. He espouses the Partial Rapture position very strongly and dogmatically, brings in Tribulationism and the First-Resurrection theory, believes in two Justifications, the need for and reality of a Purgatory and also a death after resurrection for some saints. He teaches that many saints of this church age will be excluded from a co-reign with Christ during the millennial Kingdom during which time they will (1) be in a lower region from where they can see but not enter into Kingdom blessings (2) some be in Hades having returned to ‘temporary corruption’ and will be ‘saved inmates issuing from Hades Rev 20: 13’ etc. (3) Some are in ‘outer darkness’ (4) Some are in Gehenna - these are the saints of the Church guilty of ‘the very gravest offences’. And if we expostulate against this line of shocking teaching we read. “The denial of these solemn truths paralyses and destroys some of the most powerful stimulants God has supplied to His Church in its deadening struggle with the world, the flesh, and the devil...” Panton appeals to such writers as G.H. Lang and G. H. Pember for support of his teachings. It is a desperate mixture of twisted and corrupted doctrine which emerges in these books - it is spiritual poison dear brother!

Furthermore, the other author, Arlen Chitwood, whom I take to be an American, follows just the same line as Panton and quotes from him, and among other things has a repugnant interpretation of “nakedness” as applied to the believer whom he supposes is meant by the man without a wedding garment in Mt. 22 and who thus “sets forth the fate awaiting, not unsaved individuals, but certain saved individuals. This man typifies those Christians who, in that coming day following their removal from earth, seek admittance to the festivities surrounding the marriage of God’s Son without being clothed in the proper attire - the -wedding garment”. He explains such only have one justification, that of faith, but lack the second justification, that of works. He further teaches that our forgiveness from God is not inclusive of past, present, and future sins judically. He teaches believers will be disinherited and disqualified for positions as joint-heirs with Christ; strongly emphasises a selective (partial) Rapture, and denies present sonship for believers.

Now all this and more was placed in the hands of a young and very impressionable Christian, who was given it to take back to his home country. Will you not agree the potential for error and harm in God’s assembly contained in the teaching of these books, which came from your house, is enormous and fully justifies the concern it has aroused in my own heart?

Furthermore it seems more than coincidental that some of the other authors already mentioned above also hold this partial-Rapture or ‘overcomer’ teaching. Jessie Penn-Lewis who is published by the Overcomer Trust and Watchman Nee who was also greatly influenced by T. Austin-Sparks of the Honour Oak Fellowship whose main platform was the higher life and selective Rapture. Did you know that a number of former assembly-commended missionaries have embraced this teaching through these authors and have been stumbled as a result? The error is undergoing something of a revival again and the literature to hand is further evidence of this. Incidentally, not only the Watchman Nee groups in China and Hong Kong and Taiwan etc. hold this teaching which we have had to strongly refute over the years of our missionary service: there but also the Balkht Singh groups in India also hold it – and through our frequent visits to that land over the past number of years have been confronted with the same error there as it seeks to infiltrate the assemblies. You can surely imagine therefore the sinking feeling in my heart when I found the same pernicious teaching in young … possession when he came from your home.

Dear brother I am not a witch-hunter neither is there anything personal intended in this letter – as far as I know I have never met you or talked with you – but I am concerned for the Truth’s sake and must warn against the spread of error. Therefore I shall look for your reply to this letter and its questions with deep interest, and trust to hear that if any such books remain which you know of you will destroy them, and undertake to see they are never again passed on to others.

I send you sincere greetings in the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

In Christ who is the Truth and our Life, …*

[* Jesus said: “Let them alone: they are blind guides. And if the blind guide the blind, both shall fall into the pit” (Matt. 15: 14). To my knowledge, no reply to this letter was ever made.]

THE FINAL APPEAL AND ENCOURAGEMENT

In the above writings, we have (hopefully) re-awakened the believers’ faith and hope in the great truth of our Saviour’s Second Coming and Kingdom; and we have (hopefully) proved that the theory of those who may say, - “No regenerate believer is capable of committing such gross sins, or of losing an ‘Inheritance’ in the ‘Age to come’” – is gravely mistaken and his teachings are scripturally flawed! No proof to the contrary can be found from Holy Scripture!

“If anyone can prove to me that one sentence of our Declaration is not in accord with the Holy Scriptures and the Word of God, I am absolutely ready to sign a statement that I will keep silence as regards that sentence. But as regards whatever is in accord with the Word of God, I cannot pledge myself to keep silence, for by so doing I should be denying God and His Word, and I should thereby cease to be an Evangelical preacher and message of the Holy Gospel.”

- From ‘The Truth in Prison,’ (THE DAWN, vol. 15. No 9 (No. 177) December 15^th, 1938.)

But, on the other hand, we have given numerous convincing Scriptural evidences, which clearly and undisputedly show, that God’s warnings toward His regenerate people are written for their admonition:-

“For whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom He receiveth:” (Heb. 12: 6).

“When we are judged we are chastened of the Lord, that we should not be condemned with the world:” (1 Cor. 11: 32).

“I charge thee in the sight of God, and of Christ Jesus, WHO SHALL JUDGE the quick and the dead, and by HIS APPEARING and HIS KINGDOM; preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching. For the time will come when THEY SHALL NOT ENDURE THE SOUND DOCTRINE; but, having itching ears, will heap to themselves teachers after their own lusts; and will turn away their ears FROM THE TRUTH, and turn aside UNTO FABLES:” (2 Tim. 4: 1-4, R.V.).

“Many Christians who have happily sung:- ‘when by His grace I shall look on His face, that will be glory, be glory for me,’ are due for a terrible shock when they stand before the judgment seat of Christ and find it is not glory for them.

When we see Jesus it will be at His Judgment Seat, not at the Mercy Seat, and then ‘Each (disciple’s) work shall be made manifest; for the day shall declare it, because it is revealed by FIRE.’ And every Christian will be rewarded according to his works.

Carnal Christians have often be heard to say, ‘I am not bothering about rewards; I will be happy anyway.’ The boy who has been disobedient is REWARDED according to his works. Perhaps he would not want to be bothered about rewards either but is rewarded nevertheless.”

“And why even of yourselves judge ye not what is right? For as thou art going with thine adversary before the magistrate, on the way give diligence to be quit of him; lest haply he drag thee unto the judge, and the judge shall deliver thee to the officer, and the officer shall cast thee into prison.

I say unto thee, Thou shalt by no means come out thence, till thou have paid the very last mite” (Luke 12: 57-59, R.V.).

“Cast not away therefore your boldness, which hath great recompense of REWARD. For ye have need of patience [perseverance], that, having DONE the will of God, ye may receive the promise” (Heb. 10: 36, 36, R.V.).

“Or think ye that the Scripture speaketh in vain”? (Jas. 4: 5, R.V.)

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“Because thou sayest, I am rich, and have gotten riches, and have need of nothing; and KNOWEST NOT THAT THOU ART THE WRETCHED ONE AND MISERABLE AND POOR AND BLIND AND NAKED: I counsel thee to buy of me gold refined by fire, that thou mayest become rich; and white garments, that thou mayest clothe thyself, and that the shame of thy nakedness be not made manifest, and eyesalve to anoint thine eyes, that thou mayest see. As many as I love I rebuke and chasten; be zealous therefore, and repent:” (Rev. 3: 17-19, R.V.).

“The Laodicean, the backslider, who will wake himself from his slumber, who will drop the earthly gold for the heavenly, who will rouse himself to holy and happy and unwavering service - even the Laodicean can attain the incomparable dignity, the incredible wonder, the coming Glory - actually sharing the Throne of Christ.

So at this moment the words are true:- ‘I stand at the door and knock’. He stands at our door knocking, in deep concern, in unbroken love, in wonderful patience. Who knocks? The Son of God, the Prince of Peace, the Lord of Glory, the Almighty to save, the All-sufficient to satisfy: on every backslider’s threshold there stands One who can turn him into a magnificent Christian; and, more wonderful still, on the door of the worst [regenerate] and unregenerate criminal.”

- From ‘The Overcomer And The Throne’ by D. M. PANTON.