THE DIVINE PROGRAM
VIII--THE JUDGMENT SCENE BEFORE THE GREAT WHITE
THRONE
BY C. T. RUSSELL
PASTOR BROOKLYN TABERNACLE
ST. PAUL DECLARES
that Christian believers, when they receive the Holy Spirit, "Receive not the spirit
of bondage and fear, but the spirit of a sound mind." For the long centuries of the
dark ages, however, Christianity was merely a nominal affair, except with the very few.
Instead of the Holy Spirit, instead of the spirit of love and of a sound mind, the world
was at that time dominated by a spirit of fear. To some extent this is still true.
Nevertheless, increase of knowledge is taking some of the shackles of fear from off of the
intellects and permitting us to look at everything more honestly, more logically, more
with the spirit of a sound mind than ever before. We are glad of this, and purpose now to
examine our subject in the light of the Scriptures and with the spirit of a sound mind,
divesting ourselves, so far as possible, of the "fear which bringeth a snare."
The Day of Judgment, or, as it once was
called, Doomsday, had an awful significance to our forefathers. To them it brought
pictures of Christ upon his throne of judgment surrounded by myriads of holy angels intent
upon executing his decrees, good or bad, and to the vast majority of those decrees were
supposed to mean eternal torment. A once famous preacher of this famous city of churches
pictured the Judgment scene most grotesquely as represented in the public prints of about
thirty years ago.
He pictured the Second Coming of the Lord
Jesus in his power and great glory, seated upon a cloud in mid-heaven, surrounded by
angelic hosts. Before him appeared the world of mankind, brought back from heaven and hell
and the dust of the earth. In grandiloquent language he pictured the earth turning upon
its axis during a period of twenty-four hours, so that the entire worldful of people could
see the Judge on his cloud-throne. The Judgment picture was a mere farce, for the Judge
merely said to those who had come from heaven, Go back. Resume your crowns and harps. And
he said to those who had come from hell, Go back to your eternal torment.
This and other very similar
misrepresentations of the Day of Judgment have so repulsed the intelligence of many as to
turn their minds away from the Bible toward Agnosticism. It is our purpose on this
occasion to, if possible, set forth the Bible presentation of Divine Truth on the subject
of God's Judgments so clearly, so self-evidently, that none possessed of a sound balance
of mind could possibly object thereto.
A
Judgment Day in Eden.
A totally wrong thought seems to have gotten possession of
all of our minds in respect to the meaning of the Day of Judgment. It is generally
understood to signify a day of condemnation. However, the expression in the Scriptures
really signifies a day of crisis, a time of decision, a period of trial;--not a day of
inflicting punishments for crimes previously adjudicated. The Greek word crisis translated judgment has been so
frequently used in our English language that it has become an English word as well. Hence
its meaning, the same in the Greek as in the English, is well known to us all. For
instance, if in our home we have a patient who has taken the fever and a doctor calls,
we may inquire how soon recovery may be expected. The doctor asks the date the fever
began, and answers that its crisis will come on the seventh, fourteenth, twenty-first,
twenty-eighth, or some other day a multiple of the seventh day from its commencement. His
meaning is, that then the testing will come, the trial, the determination whether the
person will sink into death or recover from the fever. This gives us the proper thought
connected with this word crisis or judgment;
the proper thought, therefore, connected with the expression, Day of Judgment. For
instance, there was such a Day of Judgment in Eden when God forbade our first parents to
eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. At that moment their testing, their
trial, their judgment, began--to demonstrate their obedience or disobedience, and thus in
turn to determine their worthiness or unworthiness of life eternal. In that Judgment Day,
as we have already seen, our first parents were disobedient and a death condemnation came
upon them, which has been inherited by all of their children in a natural way. Partaking
of their flesh and blood, we partook also of their weaknesses, mental, moral and physical;
hence we are a dying race--dying because our first parents failed in the first Day of
Judgment or trial.
The
Jewish Judgment Day.
While God foreknew that the Law Covenant made with the nation
of Israel through Moses would not effect a deliverance of the nation from the effects of
original sin, he nevertheless, for good reasons, gave that nation a trial or judgment or
testing under the provisions of that Law Covenant. It was a life or death agreement. Any
who could keep the requirements of that Law Covenant might under it claim eternal life.
Whoever failed of keeping the requirements of that Law Covenant would die. This trial or
test came upon that nation at the time of its deliverance from Egypt, when they passed
through the Red Sea and were baptised into Moses in the sea and in the cloud--the sea on
the one hand and the cloud overhead. They were baptized or buried into Moses. For nearly
fifteen centuries that nation was on trial or judgment, yet the results of the judgment
were not decreed until our Lord's Second Advent, when he was declared of the Father to be
the One, and the only One born under the Law Covenant who inherited its blessings of
eternal life by absolute obedience to its every requirement. Not only so, but the
remainder of that nation were all adjudged unworthy of any further trial, as our Lord
himself expressed the sentiment, saying: "Your house is left unto you desolate. For I
say unto you, Ye shall not see me henceforth, till ye shall say, Blessed is he that cometh
in the name of the Lord--at his Second Advent.--Matt. 23:38,39.
The Apostle Paul, reviewing the results of
those fifteen centuries of their judgment or trial, tells us that the Law Covenant made
nothing perfect; that it merely showed to be perfect the Perfect One who had left the
heavenly Courts and become a man, in order to redeem Adam and his race. St. Paul, however,
shows us also that, throughout that Jewish Age of trial some were found possessed of faith
far beyond their fellows. He enumerates many of these, and then calls attention to the
fact that they died without having received the things promised to them, but that they did
receive Divine approval in that the Lord declared that they pleased him--not by perfection
of works and obedience to the Law Covenant, but that he was pleased with their faith: they
demonstrated that if they had been free from the blemishes of the fallen condition,
blessed with perfect bodies and minds, they would have delighted to have kept the Law
perfectly.
Spiritual
Israel's Judgment.
The Gospel Age is represented as an epoch of trial or testing
or judgment for the Church of Christ--the Body of Christ --those to be joint-heirs with
Christ in his nature and his throne--"the Bride, the Lamb's Wife."
The Scriptures point out to us that during
this epoch God is drawing and calling from the world of mankind a "little
flock," and that he is permitting the way of response to his call to be made a narrow
one and a very difficult one. This is to the intent that the class that will hear,
obey and walk in the footsteps of Jesus in this narrow way may be a very special class, a
"little flock," each one of them copies of God's dear Son, the dear Redeemer. It
will be seen, then, that in a very special sense there is a trial, a testing, a judgment,
in progress--not a judgment in respect to the world, but of those who have accepted the
"call" and made living sacrifices of themselves in the Lord's service, to the
knowing and doing of the Lord's will. These are required to make their calling and
election sure by demonstrating their loyalty to the Lord and his Word and the brethren,
under various trying conditions, of which the Apostle Peter says, "Beloved, think it
not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing
happened unto you." (1 Pet. 4:12.) The trials are necessary for the development of
character and for the proving of the faithful ones; hence the overcomers in this trial
must be found faithful, not only in reaching the mark of perfect love, but in maintaining
their stand there, resisting the various attacks of the flesh and of the Adversary. Such
"conquerors" will be granted "the crown of life," which God has in
reservation for them that thus love him.
With the end of this age, the trial or
judgment will be completed, finished. The "little flock" of overcomers will
receive the reward of joint heirship with their Lord and participation in Divine nature;
while those not counted worthy of this glory, yet faithful in many respects, will receive
blessings of spiritual nature without the "crown." Others still, failing
entirely in the trial, will be accounted unworthy of eternal life on any plane, and will
die the Second Death, as says the Apostle: "For it is impossible for those who were
once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the
Holy Spirit, and have tasted the good Word of God, and the powers of the world to come, if
they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to
themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame." (Heb. 6:4-6.)
Again, "For if we sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of the
Truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful looking for of
judgment, and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries."--Heb. 10:26-27.
The
World's Judgment Day.
The Apostle declares: "God hath appointed a day, in
which he will judge the world in
righteousness, by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all
men, in that he hath raised him from the dead."--Acts 17:31.
It will be noticed that this cannot apply to
the original Judgment Day, in which our first parents failed in Eden; neither can the
words apply to the judgment or trial which came to Israel under the Law Covenant, nor to
the church on trial during this Gospel Age; because it is put in the future tense. The
Apostle used these words in the beginning of this Gospel Age and the words apply beyond
this Gospel Age to an appointed day or epoch future. The day referred to is "the day
of Christ"--the Millennial Age --the thousand year day of the reign of righteousness,
when Messiah shall be King over all the earth, to rescue it from the reign of sin and
death and to bless all the captives of sin and death--the entire human family, already
redeemed by the precious blood. The Apostle's words clearly state that he refers, not to
the church's trial period, but to the world's. Certain things are necessary to a righteous
judgment or trial of the world.
1. They must all come to a knowledge of
the Truth. (1 Tim. 2:4-6.) They cannot be saved in ignorance and superstition and
vice. They must all be brought to a knowledge of the redemption accomplished by the
sacrifice of Christ; to a knowledge of God's willingness to receive them back again into
his fellowship. They must all be proffered assistance out of the degradation which came
upon them through the disobedience and fall of our first parents, in the first trial or
judgment.
2. They cannot be on trial for life
everlasting without first having been judicially set free from the original condemnation
--the original death sentence pronounced upon our first parents in Eden and inherited by
all of their children.
These conditions have not yet been met, and
hence the world is not yet experiencing this trial or judgment or testing which, the
Apostle tells us, God has appointed for them. It will come to them, however, in the time
appointed of the father, called in the Scriptures "God's due time." Furthermore,
the time for the world's judgment or testing cannot come until the trial or testing of the
church shall have been completed and the worthy ones been found, because it is the Church
that is now on trial, and that is to furnish the judges for the world's trial day. Mark
the Apostle's words to this effect: "Know ye not that the saints shall judge the world?" (1 Cor. 6:2.) Nor is this thought out of
harmony with the other text, "God hath appointed a day in the which he will judge the
world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained." On the contrary, we have
already seen that "the mystery" of this Gospel Age lies in the fact that Jesus,
the Redeemer of the world, is the Head of the Church, which is his Body, and which is now
being selected or tried or judged for its position in glory, only the faithful receiving
the reward, or membership, in the glorious Prophet, Priest, King, Messiah, beyond the
veil.
The wrong thought respecting the Day of
Judgment has made of it the day of terrors to the Church and to the world-- all who have
heard of it. It has been supposed to seal the doom of humanity: that thenceforth the Lord
will have no pity and show no mercy. But the Scriptures, consistent with themselves, point
out that the coming Judgment Day of the world signifies, to it, a great day of judgment,
trial and blessing; just as the Church's judgment day signifies a great blessing to us;
the privilege of becoming heirs of God and joint heirs with the Redeemer in his Kingdom
glory. As to these facts, notice the words of inspiration by the Prophet David.
Prophetically looking down beyond this time to the Millennial Age, the Prophet declares:
"Let the heavens be glad,
And let the earth rejoice;
And let men say among the nations,
Jehovah reigneth.
Let the sea roar, and the fulness thereof;
Let the fields rejoice, and all that are therein.
Then shall the trees of the wood sing aloud
At the presence of Jehovah;
BECAUSE HE COMETH
TO JUDGE THE EARTH.
O give thanks unto Jehovah, for he is good;
For his mercy endureth forever."
To the same day the Apostle also points,
assuring us that it will be a glorious and desirable day, and that for it the whole
creation is groaning and travailing in pain together--waiting for the great Judge to
deliver and to bless the world as well as to exalt and glorify the church.-- Rom.
8:21,22.
In John 5:28,29, a precious promise for
the world of a coming judgment-trial for life everlasting is, by a mistranslation, turned
into a fearful imprecation. According to the Greek text, however, they that have done
evil--that have failed of Divine approval--will come forth unto resurrection (raising up
to perfection) by judgments, "stripes," testings, disciplines. --See the Revised
Version.
The Great
White Throne.
The Book of Revelation is recognized by God's people to be a
book of symbols. One of its beautiful pictures relates to the Judgment Day. We read,
"And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth
and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small
and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which
is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in
the books, according to their works."--Rev. 20:11-13.
This is one of a series of pen pictures of the
Millennial Kingdom of Christ and the blessings it will bring to mankind-- the blessed
privilege of a fresh judgment or trial for everlasting life. The first judgment of the
race in Adam resulted in failure and condemnation of our first parents, and we were merely
included in its losses, its disasters. By Divine arrangement, our Redeemer has died, the
Just for the unjust. The application of his merit to father Adam will extend a
blessing eventually to every member of his race, securing to them all a full release from
the original condemnation or sentence and from all of the blight which came upon our race
as a result. Setting aside the original penalty does not give either Adam or his children
eternal life, but merely provides for all a new judgment or fresh trial for eternal life.
Adam had perfection of life and held it tentatively on condition of his obedience. The
redeemed race will come back again to Adam's position of trial and testing, as respects
worthiness of life everlasting.
However, instead of bringing mankind back by
instantaneous process from the tomb and from our present fallen condition of mind and body
to the full perfection of human nature, which Adam enjoyed, God proposes a still better
way. He will give his fallen creatures through Christ an opportunity to climb up out of
the sin and death conditions into which Adam's transgressions brought all. Some are more
fallen; some less so. None could be recovered except by the Redeemer, whose death provides
the ladder, so to speak, by which mankind can be raised up to full human perfection and
Divine favor and all that was lost in Adam. The opportunity for thus rising up by their
own exertions and by the assistance of the glorified Redeemer and his glorified Church
will be during the Millennial Age. That opportunity will constitute the world's trial or
judgment.
Various offices are attributed to our
Lord, in connection with his great work for the world of mankind. Thus we read that he is
to be the great Prophet, the great Priest, the great Mediator and the great Judge. We have
already seen that the foundation for this great Kingdom and Judgship was laid in our
Redeemer's sacrifice of himself; but the execution of the great Plan of God, the Divine
Program, was delayed to permit the selection of the Church, the "little flock,"
the Judge and associate judges.
A gradual testing of the world by
uplifting processes, by the binding of Satan and the making of the knowledge of the Lord
to fill the whole earth, etc., will be much better for all concerned than if they were
instantly made perfect and then put on trial as Adam was. The thousand years of uplifting
influences and the striving against sin and the forming of character according to the
Divine will will be helpful to the world and enable them to overcome, in the trial which
will come to them in this gradual way. Help at each step and assistance out of every
unintentional blunder is provided until at last all the willing and obedient shall have
reached the full perfection of human nature--all that was lost by Adam and redeemed by
Jesus or, refusing it, will have been destroyed in the Second Death.
The "great white throne"
represents the powers of the Government and the purity or fairness of the trial which will
be granted to the world of mankind. When we read that heaven and earth fled away from the
presence of him upon the throne, it identifies that throne with the end of this age, and
the opening of the Millennial Age. Present institutions are represented thus: the heavens,
the church, etc., and the earth the political and social interests of "this present
evil world." As St. Peter tells us, present institutions shall "pass away with a
great noise," and instead the Lord will reveal a new heavens and a new earth--that is
to say, new spiritual powers, the Church in glory; and new earthly powers, the new
political and social conditions--along better lines than those which now control: along
lines of Justice and Love.
The judgment or trial is before God in the
sense that it will be along the lines of the Divine Law, though the Law Giver in this
trial will be represented by the glorified Mediator. The judgment will not be along new
lines, but along old lines, as our Lord Jesus declared: "My Word shall judge you in
the last days."
However, so far as the world is concerned,
our Lord's words are as yet hidden mysteries, words not understood. Only the Church,
enlightened by the Holy Spirit, has been able to appreciate the Divine Word clearly. But
when the world's judgment or trial will be on, during the Millennium, the books will be
opened--the books of the Bible--and the dead will be judged, will be tried, will be tested
along the lines of teaching found in those books of the Bible. Those who give heed to
the message of the Lord, its doctrines, its precepts, will make progress from grace to
grace, from knowledge to knowledge, from strength to strength. Their Restitution or
Resurrection will gradually progress as the Truth tries or judges them and finds them responsive, obedient to the voice which
speaketh from heaven. St. Peter tells us that it shall come to pass that the soul that
will not obey that Prophet, that Teacher, that King, will be destroyed from amongst his
people. (Acts 3:23.) On the contrary, all who do obey the Lord's Word will, by the close
of that Millennial period, have reached a full human perfection, mental, moral and
physical. They will be as perfect as was Adam, and additionally possess a wider range of
knowledge, and many of them, we trust, a firm texture of developed character. Still,
however, at the close of the Millennial Judgment Day a great final test will be provided,
which will thoroughly demonstrate the heart loyalty or disloyalty of each one. And all the
disloyal will be utterly destroyed in the Second Death, without hope of recovery of any
kind.
The Sheep
and the Goats.
Our Lord gave one of his parables to illustrate the world's
judgment during the Millennium, the parable of the sheep and the goats. Its location is
definitely fixed by the context, which shows that it will find its fulfillment during the
Millennial Age--after the present age shall have closed. We read, "When the Son of
Man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the
throne of his glory: and before him shall be gathered all nations; and he shall separate
them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats." (Matt.
25:31,32.) This parable corresponds exactly to the "great white throne" picture
of Revelation. It shows all nations, all peoples gathered before that throne, which will
be established in power and great glory. The Son of man who will come in his glory and who
will sit upon the throne has given us numerous assurances that the elect church shall sit
with him in his throne. The church will not be amongst those sheep and goats before that
throne, but, glorified as the Lamb's Wife, the Church will be with her Bridegroom in his
throne judging all nations--judging them, proving them; which are of the sheep nature and
which are of the goat nature. The former will be blessed. The latter will be destroyed.
At the end of the thousand years of the
Judgment Day, the sheep found at the right hand of favor will receive the blessing:
"Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the
foundation of the world"--an earthly kingdom, different decidedly from the heavenly
kingdom, which will have previously been given to the church in association with her Lord.
Then the unworthy will also be dealt with.
As we read, He who sat upon the throne
said to the goat class, "Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared
for the devil and his angels"-- his fellows, all who are of his character likeness,
and who are in sympathy with him. These will include all of Adam's restored race who,
after enjoying the knowledge and favor of God, shall maintain any sympathy for sin and
discord.
The everlasting punishment, be it
remembered, will be administered; but this does not signify everlasting torments, because
the punishment for sin is not torment, but death--everlasting death will therefore be the
punishment of the goat class with Satan the great adversary. From this death there will be
no redemption, no resurrection, no recovery of any kind. As St. Peter declares, "They
shall be like brute beasts, made to be taken and destroyed." The everlasting fire is
as symbolical, as parabolic, as the sheep and the goats. Fire is a symbol of destruction,
and everlasting fire a symbol of everlasting destruction. An everlasting fire is one not
quenched, one which burns until it shall have accomplished its purpose of complete
destruction.
More
and Less Tolerable.
Our Lord had considerable to say about this great Day of
Judgment, by and through which, in the Father's Plan, he was to extend the blessings of
his sacrifice to the entire race. Jesus upbraided the people of Bethsaida and Chorazin,
declaring that Sodom and Gomorrah would have represented with contrition in sackcloth and ashes,
if they had enjoyed their opportunities. He assured them that, in the Day of Judgment, the
day of trial, the day of testing, the Millennial Judgment Day, matters would be more
favorable for the Sodomites than for the people of Chorazin and Bethsaida.-- Matthew
11:21-24.
This may give a new thought to some-- that the
Divine arrangement for dealing with the Sodomites during the Millennium will be quite
tolerable--less severe, less of an ordeal than for some of the Jews who lived in our
Lord's day. Nor are we to think of those Jews as being specially wicked and reprehensible,
because they crucified the Lord of Glory. St. Peter declares, "I wot that through
ignorance ye did it, as did also your rulers." (Acts 3:17.) Of those same Jews we
read that the Lord will "pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of
Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications; and they shall look upon me whom they
have pierced, and they shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for his only son."--Zech.
12:10.
But glance at the case of the Sodomites. Our
Lord shows that he had reference to those persons who lived in the days of Lot. He says,
"But the same day that Lot went out of Sodom, it rained fire and brimstone from
heaven and destroyed them all." (Luke 17:29.) Those Sodomites had no share in any
day of judgment, except in the sense that they were children of Adam, and by heredity they
were condemned in him and shared in his death sentence. They sinned, doubtless, against a
measure of light, yet not against full light, because the Gospel lamp was not lighted and
did not shine upon any until Jesus' day. Thus it is written that Christ "brought life
and immortality to light through the Gospel;" and, again, that this great salvation
"began to be preached by our Lord." (2 Tim. 1:10; Heb. 2:3.) The death of the
Sodomites, therefore, was merely the Adamic death, hastened; not the Second Death. They
would have died anyway. They were taken in a manner which furnished an example for those
who afterwards should live in extreme ungodliness, as they did; whether with or without
the Gospel light.
If we turn to Ezekiel 16:46-63, we see how
the Lord reproved Israel for unfaithfulness, under great privileges and blessings. He
reminds them of how, in the days of their prosperity and pride, they disdained their
sister nations, the Sodomites and Samaritans. After telling them that they were worse than
either of these, he further informs them that when he fulfills his promise to them to
regather Israel, to restore to Israel his favor and the light of his countenance and to
make with them the New Covenant, he then will also bless the Samaritans and the Sodomites.
We read, "When I shall bring in their captivity, the captivity of Sodom and her
daughters, and the captivity of Samaria and her daughters, then will I bring again the
captivity of thy captives in the midst of them....When thy sisters, Sodom and her
daughters, shall return to their former estate, and Samaria and
her daughters shall return to their former estate, then thou and
thy daughters shall return to their former estate.
...Nevertheless, I will remember my Covenant with thee in the days of thy youth, and I
will establish unto thee an everlasting Covenant."--See Jer. 31:31; Rom. 11:27-32.
We see, then, that a Divine Program, which has
provided that the world shall have a Judgment Day or Epoch, as the result of Christ's
redemptive work, has set apart for it the Millennial Age, with amplest provisions that
each member of Adam's race may have a full, fair and impartial trial for eternal life or
eternal death. The Divine Program is surely a good one--ten thousand times better than the
miserably confused and confusing ideas of the Judgment Day which came down to us from
"the dark ages," filling us with fear and dread as respects God and his gracious
arrangements for the blessing of all the families of the earth through The Christ, Head
and Body.
