Chapter XXIX: Part VIII: Eschatology, or the Doctrine of Final Things (5)

Ice, the flowing stream, the waterfall with the rainbow upon it,
steam with its power to draw the railway train or to burst the
boiler of the locomotive, are all the same element in varied
forms, and they are all _material_. Wundt regards physical
development, not as the cause, but as the effect, of psychical
development. Aristotle defines the soul as “the prime entelechy of
the living body.” Swedenborg regarded each soul here as fashioning
its own spiritual body, either hideous or lovely. Spenser, A Hymne
to Beautie: “For of the soul the body form doth take, For soul is
form, and doth the body make.” Wordsworth, Sonnet 36,
Afterthought: “Far backward, Duddon, as I cast my eyes, I see what
was, and is, and will abide; Still glides the stream, and shall
not cease to glide; The Form remains, the Function never dies”;
The Primrose of the Rock: “Sin‐blighted as we are, we too, The
reasoning sons of men, From one oblivious winter called, Shall
rise and breathe again, And in eternal summer lose Our three‐score
years and ten. To humbleness of heart descends This prescience
from on high. The faith that elevates the just Before and when
they die, And makes each soul a separate heaven, A court for
Deity.” Robert Browning, Asolando: “One who never turned his back,
but marched breastforward; Never doubted clouds would break; Never
dreamed, though right were worsted, Wrong would triumph; Held we
fall to rise, are baffled to fight better, Sleep to wake.” Mrs.
Browning: “God keeps a niche In heaven to hold our idols, and
albeit He broke them to our faces and denied That our close kisses
should impair their white, I know we shall behold them raised,
complete, The dust shook off, their beauty glorified.”

On the spiritual body as possibly evolved by will, see Harris,
Philos. Basis of Theism, 386. On the nature of the resurrection‐
body, see Burnet, State of the Departed, chaps. 3 and 8; Cudworth,
Intell. System, 3:310 _sq._; Splittgerber, Tod, Fortleben and
Auferstehung. On the doctrine of the Resurrection among the
Egyptians, see Dr. Howard Osgood, in Hebrew Student, Feb. 1885;
among the Jews, see Gröbler, in Studien und Kritiken, 1879: Heft
4; DeWünsche, in Jahrbuch f. prot. Theol., 1880: Heft 2 and 4;
Revue Théologique, 1881:1‐17. For the view that the resurrection
is wholly spiritual and takes place at death, see Willmarth, in
Bap. Quar., October, 1868, and April, 1870; Ladd, in New
Englander, April, 1874; Crosby, Second Advent.

On the whole subject, see Hase, Hutterus Redivivus, 280; Herzog,
Encyclop., art.; Auferstehung; Goulburn, Bampton Lectures for
1850, on the Resurrection; Cox, The Resurrection; Neander,
Planting and Training, 479‐487, 524‐526; Naville, La Vie
Éternelle, 253, 254; Delitzsch, Bib. Psychologie, 453‐463;
Moorhouse, Nature and Revelation, 87‐112; Unseen Universe, 33;
Hovey, in Baptist Quarterly, Oct. 1867; Westcott, Revelation of
the Risen Lord, and in Contemporary Review, vol. 30; R. W. Macan,
Resurrection of Christ; Cremer, Beyond the Grave.

V. The Last Judgment.

While the Scriptures represent all punishment of individual transgressors and all manifestations of God’s vindicatory justice in the history of nations as acts or processes of judgment, they also intimate that these temporal judgments are only partial and imperfect, and that they are therefore to be concluded with a final and complete vindication of God’s righteousness. This will be accomplished by making known to the universe the characters of all men, and by awarding to them corresponding destinies.

Passages describing temporal or spiritual judgment are: _Ps.
9:7_—“_He hath prepared his throne for judgment_”; _Is.
26:9_—“_when thy judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of
the world learn righteousness_”; _Mat. 16:27, 28_—“_For the Son of
man shall come in the glory of his Father with his angels; and
then shall he render unto every man according to his deeds. Verily
I say unto you, There be some of them that stand here, who shall
in no wise taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in
his kingdom_”; _John 3:18, 19_—“_he that believeth not hath been
judged already, because he hath not believed on the name of the
only begotten Son of God. And this is the judgment, that the light
is come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the
light; for their works were evil_”; _9:39_—“_For judgment came I
into this world, that they that see not may see; and that they
that see may become blind_”; _12:31_—“_Now is the judgment of this
world: now shall the prince of this world be cast out._”

Passages describing the final judgment are: _Mat. 25:31‐46_—“_But
when the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the angels
with him, then shall he sit on the throne of his glory: and before
him shall be gathered all the nations: and he shall separate them
one from another, as the shepherd separateth the sheep from the
goats...._” _Acts 17:31_—“_he hath appointed a day, in which he
will judge the world in righteousness by the man whom he hath
ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he
hath raised him from the dead_”; _Rom. 2:16_—“_in the day when God
shall judge the secrets of men, according to my gospel, by Jesus
Christ_”; _2 Cor. 5:10_—“_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_”; _Heb. 9:27, 28_—“_And inasmuch as it is appointed
unto men once to die, and after this cometh judgment; so Christ
also, having been once offered to bear the sins of many, shall
appear a second time, apart from sin, to them that wait for him,
unto salvation_”; _Rev. 20:12_—“_And I saw the dead, the great and
the small, standing before the throne; and books were opened: and
another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead
were judged out of the things which were written in the books,
according to their works._”

Delitzsch: “The fall of Jerusalem was the day of the Lord, the
bloody and fiery dawn of the last great day—the day of days, the
ending‐day of all days, the settling day of all days, the day of
the promotion of time into eternity, the day which for the church
breaks through and breaks off the night of this present world.” E.
G. Robinson: “Judgment begins here. The callousing of conscience
in this life is a penal infliction. Punishment begins in this life
and is carried on in the next. We have no right to assert that
there are no positive inflictions, but, if there are none, still
every word of Scripture threatening would stand. There is no _day_
of judgment or of resurrection all at one time. Judgment is an
eternal process. The angels in _2 Pet. 2:4_—‘_cast ... down to
hell_’—suffer the self‐perpetuating consequences of
transgression..... Man is being judged every day. Every man honest
with himself knows where he is going to. Those who are not honest
with themselves are playing a trick, and, if they are not careful,
they will get a trick played on them.”

1. The nature of the final judgment.

The final judgment is not a spiritual, invisible, endless process, identical with God’s providence in history, but is an outward and visible event, occurring at a definite period in the future. This we argue from the following considerations:

(_a_) The judgment is something for which the evil are “reserved ” (2 Peter 2:4, 9); something to be expected in the future (Acts 24:25; Heb. 10:27); something after death (Heb. 9:27); something for which the resurrection is a preparation (John 5:29).

_2 Pet. 2:4, 9_—“_God spared not angels when they sinned, but cast
them down to hell ... reserved unto judgment ... the lord knoweth
how ... to keep the unrighteous unto punishment unto the day of
judgment_”; _Acts 24:25_—“_as he reasoned of righteousness, and
self‐control, and the judgment to come, Felix was terrified_”;
_Heb. 10:27_—“_a certain fearful expectation of judgment_”;
_9:27_—“_it is appointed unto men once to die, and after this
cometh judgment_”; _John 5:29_—“_the resurrection of judgment._”

(_b_) The accompaniments of the judgment, such as the second coming of Christ, the resurrection, and the outward changes of the earth, are events which have an outward and visible, as well as an inward and spiritual, aspect. We are compelled to interpret the predictions of the last judgment upon the same principle.

_John 5:28, 29_—“_Marvel not at this: for the hour cometh, in
which all that are in the tombs shall hear his voice, and shall
come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of
life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of
judgment_”; _2 Pet. 3:7, 10_—“_the day of judgment ... the day of
the Lord ... in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great
noise, and the elements shall be dissolved with fervent heat_”; _2
Thess. 1:7, 8, 2:10_—“_the revelation of the Lord Jesus from
heaven with the angels of his power in flaming fire, rendering
vengeance to them that know not God ... when he shall come ... in
that day._”

(_c_) God’s justice, in the historical and imperfect work of judgment, needs a final outward judgment as its vindication. “A perfect justice must judge, not only moral units, but moral aggregates; not only the particulars of life, but the life as a whole.” The crime that is hidden and triumphant here, and the goodness that is here maligned and oppressed, must be brought to light and fitly recompensed. “Otherwise man is a Tantalus—longing but never satisfied”; and God’s justice, of which his outward administration is the expression, can only be regarded as approximate.

Renouf, Hibbert Lectures, 194—“The Egyptian Book of the Dead
represents the deceased person as standing in the presence of the
goddess Maāt , who is distinguished by the ostrich‐feather on her
head; she holds the sceptre in one hand and the symbol of life in
the other. The man’s heart, which represents his entire moral
nature, is being weighed in the balance in the presence of Osiris,
seated upon his throne as judge of the dead.” Rationalism believes
in only present and temporal judgment; and this it regards as but
the reaction of natural law: “Die Weltgeschichte ist das
Weltgericht,—the world’s history is the world’s judgment”
(Schiller, Resignation). But there is an inner connection between
present, temporal, spiritual judgments, and the final, outward,
complete judgment of God. Nero’s murder of his mother was not the
only penalty of his murder of Germanicus.

Dorner: “With Christ’s appearance, faith sees that the beginning
of the judgment and of the end has come. Christians are a
prophetic race. Without judgment, Christianity would involve a
sort of dualism: evil and good would be of equal might and worth.
Christianity cannot always remain a historic principle _alongside_
of the contrary principle of evil. It is the only reality.” God
will show or make known his righteousness with regard to: (1) the
disparity of lots among men; (2) the prosperity of the wicked; (3)
the permission of moral evil in general; (4) the consistency of
atonement with justice. “The συντέλεια τοῦ αἰῶνος (‘_end of the
world_,’ _Mat. 13:39_) = stripping hostile powers of their usurped
might, revelation of their falsity and impotence, consigning them
to the past. Evil shall be utterly cut off, given over to its own
nothingness, or made a subordinate element.”

A great statesman said that what he dreaded for his country was
not the day of judgment, but the day of no judgment. “Jove strikes
the Titans down, Not when they first begin their mountain‐piling,
But when another rock would crown their work.” R. W. Emerson: “God
said: I am tired of kings, I suffer them no more; Up to my ears
the morning brings The outrage of the poor.” Royce, The World and
the Individual, 2:384 _sq._—“If God’s life is given to free
individual souls, then God’s life can be given also to free
nations and to a free race of men. There may be an apostasy of a
family, nation, race, and a judgment of each according to their
deeds.”

The Expositor, March, 1898—“It is claimed that we are being judged
now, that laws execute themselves, that the system of the universe
is automatic, that there is no need for future retribution. But
all ages have agreed that there is not here and now any sufficient
vindication of the principle of eternal justice. The mills of the
gods grind slowly. Physical immorality is not proportionately
punished. Deterioration is not an adequate penalty. Telling a
second lie does not recompense the first. Punishment includes
pain, and here is no pain. That there is not punishment here is
due, not to law, but to grace.”

Denney, Studies in Theology, 240, 241—“The dualistic conception of
an endless suspense, in which good and evil permanently balance
each other and contest with each other the right to inherit the
earth, is virtually atheistic, and the whole Bible is a protest
against it.... It is impossible to overestimate the power of the
final judgment, as a motive, in the primitive church. On almost
every page of St. Paul, for instance, we see that he lives in the
presence of it; he lets the awe of it descend into his heart to
keep his conscience quick.”

2. The object of the final judgment.

The object of the final judgment is not the ascertainment, but the manifestation, of character, and the assignment of outward condition corresponding to it.

(_a_) To the omniscient Judge, the condition of all moral creatures is already and fully known. The last day will be only “the _revelation_ of the righteous judgment of God.”

They are inwardly judged when they die, and before they die; they
are outwardly judged at the last day: _Rom. 2:5, 6_—“_treasurest
up for thyself wrath in the day of wrath and revelation of the
righteous judgment of God; who will render to every man according
to his works_”—see Meyer on this passage; not “against the day of
wrath,” but “_in the day of wrath_”—wrath existing beforehand, but
breaking out on that day. _1 Tim. 5:24, 25_—“_Some men’s sins are
evident, going before unto judgment; and some men also they follow
after. In like manner also there are good works that are evident;
and such as are otherwise cannot be hid_”; _Rev. 14:13_—“_for
their works follow with them_”—as close companions, into God’s
presence and judgment (Ann. Par. Bible).

Epitaph: “Hic jacet in expectatione diei supremi.... Qualis erat,
dies iste indicabit”—“Here lies, in expectation of the last
day.... Of what sort he was, that day will show.” Shakespeare,
Hamlet, 3:3—“In the corrupted currents of this world Offence’s
glided hand may shove by justice. But ’tis not so above. There is
no shuffling, there the action lies In his true nature; and we
ourselves compelled, Even to the teeth and forehead of our faults.
To give in evidence”; King John, 4:2—“Oh, when the last account
’twixt heaven and earth Is to be made, then shall this hand and
seal [the warrant for the murder of Prince Arthur] Witness against
us to damnation.” “Not all your piety nor wit Can lure it
[justice] back to cancel half a line, Nor all your tears wash out
one word of it.”

(_b_) In the nature of man, there are evidences and preparations for this final disclosure. Among these may be mentioned the law of memory, by which the soul preserves the records of its acts, both good and evil (Luke 16:25); the law of conscience, by which men involuntarily anticipate punishment for their own sins (Rom. 2:15, 16; Heb. 10:27); the law of character, by which every thought and deed makes indelible impress upon the moral nature (Heb. 3:8, 15).

The law of memory.—_Luke 16:25_—“_Son, remember!_” See Maclaren,
Sermons, 1:109‐122—Memory (1) will embrace all the events of the
past life; (2) will embrace them all at the same moment; (3) will
embrace them continuously and continually. Memory is a process of
self‐registry. As every business house keeps a copy of all letters
sent or orders issued, so every man retains in memory the record
of his sins. The mind is a palimpsest; though the original writing
has been erased, the ink has penetrated the whole thickness of the
parchment, and God’s chemistry is able to revive it. Hudson, Dem.
of Future Life, 212, 213—“Subjective memory is the retention of
all ideas, however superficially they may have been impressed upon
the objective mind, and it admits of no variation in different
individuals. Recollection is the power of recalling ideas to the
mind. This varies greatly. Sir William Hamilton calls the former
‘mental latency.’ ”

The law of conscience.—_Rom. 2:15, 16_—“_they show the work of the
law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness
therewith, and their thoughts one with another accusing or else
excusing them; in the day when God shall judge the secrets of men,
according to my gospel, by Jesus Christ_”; _Heb. 10:27_—“_a
certain fearful expectation of judgment, and a fierceness of fire
which shall devour the adversaries._” Goethe said that his
writings, taken together, constituted a great confession.
Wordsworth, Excursion, III:579—“For, like a plague will memory
break out. And, in the blank and solitude of things, Upon his
spirit, with a fever’s strength, Will conscience prey.” A man who
afterwards became a Methodist preacher was converted in
Whitefield’s time by a vision of the judgment, in which he saw all
men gathered before the throne, and each one coming up to the book
of God’s law, tearing open his heart before it “as one would tear
open the bosom of his shirt,” comparing his heart with the things
written in the book, and, according as they agreed or disagreed
with that standard, either passing triumphant to the company of
the blest, or going with howling to the company of the damned. No
word was spoken; the Judge sat silent; the judgment was one of
self‐revelation and self‐condemnation. See Autobiography of John
Nelson (quoted in the Diary of Mrs. Kitty Trevylyan, 207, by Mrs.
E. Charles, the author of The Schönberg‐Cotta Family).

The law of character.—_Heb. 3:8, 15_—“_Harden not your hearts, as
in the provocation, Like as in the day of the trial in the
wilderness.... Today, if ye shall hear his voice, Harden not your
hearts, as in the provocation._” Sin leaves its marks upon the
soul; men become “_past feeling_” (_Eph. 4:19_). In England,
churchmen claim to tell a dissenter by his walk—not a bad sign by
which to know a man. God needs only to hold up our characters to
show what have been our lives. Sin leaves its scars upon the soul,
as truly as lust and hatred leave their marks upon the body. So
with the manifestation of the good—“the chivalry that does the
right, and disregards The yea and nay of the world.... Expect nor
question nor reply At what we figure as God’s judgment‐bar”
(Robert Browning, Ring and Book, 178, 202). Mr. Edison says: “In a
few years the world will be just like one big ear; it will be
unsafe to speak in a house till one has examined the walls and the
furniture for concealed phonographs.” But the world even now is
“one big ear”, and we ourselves in our characters are writing the
books of the judgment. Brooks, Foundations of Zoölogy, 134,
135—“Every part of the material universe contains a permanent
record of every change that has taken place therein, and there is
also no limit to the power of minds like ours to read and
interpret the record.”

Draper, Conflict of Science and Religion: “If on a cold polished
metal, as a new razor, any object, such as a wafer, be laid, and
the metal breathed upon, and when the moisture has had time to
disappear, the wafer be thrown off, though now the most critical
inspection of the polished surface can discern no trace of any
form, if we breathe once more upon it, a spectral image of the
wafer comes plainly into view; and this may be done again and
again. Nay, more; if the polished metal be carefully put aside
where nothing can injure its surface, and be kept so for many
months, on breathing upon it again, the shadowy form emerges. A
shadow never falls upon a wall without leaving thereon a permanent
trace, a trace which might be made visible by resorting to proper
processes. Upon the walls of our most private apartments, where we
think the eye of intrusion is altogether shut out, and our
retirement can never be profaned, there exist the vestiges of all
our acts.”

Babbage, Ninth Bridgewater Treatise, 113‐115—“If we had power to
follow and detect the minutest effects of any disturbance, each
particle of existing matter would furnish a register of all that
has happened. The track of every canoe, of every vessel that has
yet disturbed the surface of the ocean, whether impelled by manual
force or elemental power, remains forever registered in the future
movement of all succeeding particles which may occupy its place.
The furrow which it left is indeed filled up by the closing
waters, but they draw after them other and larger portions of the
surrounding element, and these again, once moved, communicate
motion to others in endless succession. The air itself is one vast
library, in whose pages are forever written all that man has said
or even whispered. There, in their mutable but unerring
characters, mixed with the earliest as well as the latest sighs of
mortality, stand forever recorded vows unredeemed, promises
unfulfilled, perpetuating in the united movements of each particle
the testimony of man’s changeful will.”

(_c_) Single acts and words, therefore, are to be brought into the judgment only as indications of the moral condition of the soul. This manifestation of all hearts will vindicate not only God’s past dealings, but his determination of future destinies.

_Mat. 12:36_—“_And I say unto you, that every idle word that man
shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of
judgment_”; _Luke 12:2, 8, 9_—“_there is nothing covered up, that
shall not be revealed; and hid, that shall not be known.... Every
one who shall confess me before men, him shall the Son of man also
confess before the angels of God: but he that denieth me in the
presence of men shall be denied in the presence of the angels of
God_”; _John 3:18_—“_He that believeth on him is not judged: he
that believeth not hath been judged already, because he hath not
believed on the name of the only begotten Son of God_”; _2 Cor.
5:10_—“_For we must all be made manifest_ [not: ‘must all appear,’
as in A. Vers.] _before the judgment‐seat of Christ_.”

Even the human judge, in passing sentence, commonly endeavors so
to set forth the guilt of the criminal that he shall see his doom
to be just. So God will awaken the consciences of the lost, and
lead them to pass judgment on themselves. Each lost soul can say
as Byron’s Manfred said to the fiend that tortured his closing
hour: “I have not been thy dupe, nor am thy prey, But was my own
destroyer.” Thus God’s final judgment will be only the culmination
of a process of natural selection, by which the unfit are
eliminated, and the fit are caused to survive.

O. J. Smith, The Essential Verity of Religion: “Belief in the
immortality of the soul and belief in the accountability of the
soul are fundamental beliefs in all religion. The origin of the
belief in immortality is found in the fact that justice can be
established in human affairs only upon the theory that the soul of
man is immortal, and the belief that man is accountable for his
actions eternally is based upon the conviction that justice should
and will be enforced. The central verity in religion therefore is
eternal justice. The sense of justice makes us men. Religion has
no miraculous origin,—it is born with the awakening of man’s moral
sense. Friendship and love are based on reciprocity, which is
justice. ‘Universal justice,’ says Aristotle, ‘includes all
virtues.’ ” If by justice here is meant the divine justice,
implied in the awakening of man’s moral sense, we can agree with
the above. As we have previously intimated, we regard the belief
in immortality as an inference from the intuition of God’s
existence, and every new proof that God is just strengthens our
conviction of immortality.

3. The Judge in the final judgment.

God, in the person of Jesus Christ, is to be the judge. Though God is the judge of all (Heb. 12:23), yet this judicial activity is exercised through Christ, at the last day, as well as in the present state (John 5:22, 27).

_Heb. 12:23_—“_to God the judge of all_”; _John 5:22, 27_—“_For
neither doth the Father judge any man, but he hath given all
judgment unto the Son ... and he gave him authority to execute
judgment, because he is a son of man._” Stevens, Johannine
Theology, 349—“Jesus says that he judges no man (_John 8:15_). He
does not personally judge men. His attitude toward men is solely
that of Savior. It is rather his work, his word, his truth, which
pronounces condemnation against them both here and hereafter. The
judgment is that light is come; men’s attitude toward the light
involves their judgment; the light judges them, or, they judge
themselves.... The Savior does not come to judge but to save them;
but, by their rejection of salvation, they turn the saving message
itself into a judgment.”

This, for three reasons:

(_a_) Christ’s human nature enables men to understand both the law and the love of God, and so makes intelligible the grounds on which judgment is passed.

Whoever says that God is too distant and great to be understood
may be pointed to Christ, in whose human life the divine “law
appears, drawn out in living characters,” and the divine love is
manifest, as suffering upon the cross to save men from their sins.

(_b_) The perfect human nature of Christ, united as it is to the divine, ensures all that is needful in true judgment, _viz._: that it be both merciful and just.

_Acts 17:31_—“_he will judge the world in righteousness by the man
whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all
men, in that he hath raised him from the dead._”

As F. W. Robertson has shown in his sermon on “The Sympathy of
Christ” (vol. 1: sermon vii), it is not sin that most sympathizes
with sin. Sin blinds and hardens. Only the pure can appreciate the
needs of the impure, and feel for them.

(_c_) Human nature, sitting upon the throne of judgment, will afford convincing proof that Christ has received the reward of his sufferings, and that humanity has been perfectly redeemed. The saints shall “judge the world” only as they are one with Christ.

The lowly Son of man shall sit upon the throne of judgment. And
with himself he will join all believers. _Mat. 19:28_—“_ye who
have followed me, in the regeneration when the Son of man shall
sit on the throne of his glory, ye also shall sit upon twelve
thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel_”; _Luke
22:28‐30_—“_But ye are they that have continued with me in my
temptations; and I appoint unto you a kingdom, even as my Father
appointed unto me, that ye may eat and drink at my table in my
kingdom; and ye shall sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of
Israel_”; _1 Cor. 6:2, 3_—“_know ye not that the saints shall
judge the world?... Know ye not that we shall judge angels?_”
_Rev. 3:21_—“_He that overcometh, I will give to him to sit down
with me in my throne, as I also overcame, and sat down with my
Father in his throne._”

4. The subjects of the final judgment.

The persons upon whose characters and conduct this judgment shall be passed are of two great classes:

(_a_) All men—each possessed of body as well as soul,—the dead having been raised, and the living having been changed.

_1 Cor. 15:51, 52_—“_We all shall not sleep, but we shall all be
changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last
trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised
incorruptible, and we shall be changed_”; _1 Thess. 4:16,
17_—“_For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven, with a
shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trump of God:
and the dead in Christ shall rise first; then we that are alive,
that are left, shall together with them be caught up in the
clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with
the Lord._”

(_b_) All evil angels,—good angels appearing only as attendants and ministers of the Judge.

Evil angels: _2 Pet. 2:4_—“_For if God spared not angels when they
sinned, but cast them down to hell, and committed them to pits of
darkness, to be reserved unto judgment_”; _Jude 6_—“_And angels
that kept not their own principality, but left their proper
habitation, he hath kept in everlasting bonds under darkness unto
the judgment of the great day_”; Good angels: _Mat. 13:41,
42_—“_The Son of man shall send forth his angels, and they shall
gather out of his kingdom all things that cause stumbling, and
them that do iniquity, and shall cast them into the furnace of
fire: there shall be the weeping and the gnashing of teeth_”;
_25:31_—“_But when the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all
the angels with him, then shall he sit on the throne of his glory:
and before him shall be gathered all the nations._”

5. The grounds of the final judgment.

These will be two in number:

(_a_) The law of God,—as made known in conscience and in Scripture.

_John 12:48_—“_He that rejecteth me, and receiveth not my sayings,
hath one that judgeth him: the word that I spake, the same shall
judge him in the last day_”; _Rom. 2:12_—“_For as many as have
sinned without the law shall also perish without the law: and as
many as have sinned under the law shall be judged by the law._” On
the self‐registry and disclosure of sin, see F. A. Noble, Our
Redemption, 59‐76. Dr. Noble quotes Daniel Webster in the Knapp
case at Salem: “There is no refuge from confession but suicide,
and suicide is confession.” Thomas Carlyle said to Lord Houghton:
“Richard Milnes! in the day of judgment, when the Lord asks you
why you did not get that pension for Alfred Tennyson, it will not
do to lay the blame on your constituents,—it is you that will be
damned.”

(_b_) The grace of Christ (Rev. 20:12),—those whose names are found “written in the book of life” being approved, simply because of their union with Christ and participation in his righteousness. Their good works shall be brought into judgment only as proofs of this relation to the Redeemer. Those not found “written in the book of life” will be judged by the law of God, as God has made it known to each individual.

_Rev. 20:12_—“_And I saw the dead, the great and the small,
standing before the throne; and books were opened: and another
book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were
judged out of the things which were written in the books,
according to their works._” The “_book of life_” = the book of
justification, in which are written the names of those who are
united to Christ by faith; as the “book of death” would = the book
of condemnation, in which are written the names of those who stand
in their sins, as unrepentant and unforgiven transgressors of
God’s law.

Ferries, in Hastings’ Bible Dictionary, 2:821—“The judgment, in
one aspect or stage of it, is a present act. For judgment Christ
is come into this world (_John 9:39_). There is an actual
separation of men in progress here and now.... This judgment which
is in progress now, is destined to be perfected.... In the last
assize, Christ will be the Judge as before.... It may be said that
men will hereafter judge themselves. Those who are unlike Christ
will find themselves as such to be separate from him. The two
classes of people are parted because they have acquired distinct
natures like the sheep and the goat.... The character of each
person is a ‘_book_’ or record, preserving, in moral and spiritual
effects, all that he has been and done and loved, and in the
judgment these books will be ‘_opened_,’ or each man’s character
will be manifested as the light of Christ’s character falls upon
it.... The people of Christ themselves receive different rewards,
according as their life has been.”

Dr. H. E. Robins, in his Restatement, holds that only under the
grace‐system can the deeds done in the body be the ground of
judgment. These deeds will be repentance and faith, not words of
external morality. They will be fruits of the Spirit, such as
spring from the broken and contrite heart. Christ, as head of the
mediatorial kingdom, will fitly be the Judge. So Judgment will be
an unmixed blessing to the righteous. To them the words “_prepare
to meet thy God_” (_Amos 4:12_) should have no terror; for to meet
God is to meet their deliverance and their reward. “Teach me to
live that I may dread The grave as little as my bed: Teach me to
die, that so I may Rise glorious at the judgment day.” On the
whole subject, see Hodge, Outlines of Theology, 456, 457;
Martensen, Christian Dogmatics, 465, 466; Neander, Planting and
Training, 524‐526; Jonathan Edwards, Works, 2:499, 500; 4:202‐225;
Fox, in Lutheran Rev., 1887:206‐226.

VI. The Final States of the Righteous and of the Wicked.

1. Of the righteous.

The final state of the righteous is described as eternal life (Mat. 25:46), glory (2 Cor. 4:17), rest (Heb. 4:9), knowledge (1 Cor. 13:8‐10), holiness (Rev. 21:27), service (Rev. 22:3), worship (Rev. 19:1), society (Heb. 12:23), communion with God (Rev. 21:3).

_Mat. 25:46_—“_And these shall go away into eternal punishment:
but the righteous into eternal life_”; _2 Cor. 4:17_—“_For our
light affliction, which is for the moment, worketh for us more and
more exceedingly an eternal weight of glory_”; _Heb. 4:9_—“_There
remaineth therefore a sabbath rest for the people of God_”; _1
Cor. 13:8‐10_—“_Love never faileth: but whether there be
prophecies, they shall be done away; whether there be tongues,
they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall be done
away. For we know in part, and we prophesy in part: but when that
which is perfect is come, that which is in part shall be done
away_”; _Rev. 21:27_—“_and there shall in no wise enter into it
anything unclean, or he that maketh an abomination and a lie: but
only they that are written in the Lamb’s book of life_”;
_22:3_—“_and his servants shall serve him_”; _19:1, 2_—“_After
these things I heard as it were a great voice of a great multitude
in heaven, saying, Hallelujah; Salvation, and glory, and power,
belong to our God; for true and righteous are his judgments_”;
_Heb. 12:23_—“_to the general assembly and church of the firstborn
who are enrolled in heaven_”; _Rev. 21:3_—“_And I heard a great
voice out of the throne saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is
with men, and he shall dwell with them, and they shall be his
peoples, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God._”

_Is. 35:7_—“_The mirage shall become a pool_” = aspiration shall
become reality; _Hos. 2:15_—“_I will give her ... the valley of
Achor_ [that is, _Troubling_] _for a door of hope._” Victor Hugo:
“If you persuade Lazarus that there is no Abraham’s bosom awaiting
him, he will not lie at Dives’ door, to be fed with his crumbs,—he
will make his way into the house and fling Dives out of the
window.” It was the preaching of the Methodists that saved England
from the general crash of the French Revolution. It brought the
common people to look for the redress of the inequalities and
injustices of this life in a future life—a world of less friction
than this (S. S. Times). In the Alps one has no idea of the upper
valleys until he enters them. He may long to ascend, but only
actual ascending can show him their beauty. And then, “beyond the
Alps lies Italy,” and the revelation of heaven will be like the
outburst of the sunny landscape after going through the darkness
of the St. Gothard tunnel.

Robert Hall, who for years had suffered acute bodily pain, said to
Wilberforce: “My chief conception of heaven is _rest_.” “Mine,”
replied Wilberforce, “is _love_—love to God and to every bright
inhabitant of that glorious place.” Wilberforce enjoyed society.
Heaven is not all rest. On the door is inscribed: “No admission
except on business.” “_His servants shall serve him_” (_Rev.
21:3_). Butler, Things Old and New, 143—“We know not; but if life
be there The outcome and the crown of this: What else can make
their perfect bliss Than in their Master’s work to share? Resting,
but not in slumberous ease, Working, but not in wild unrest, Still
ever blessing, ever blest, They see us as the Father sees.”
Tennyson, Crossing the Bar: “Sunset and evening star, And one
clear call for me; And may there be no moaning of the bar When I
put out to sea! But such a tide as moving seems asleep, Too full
for sound and foam, When that which drew from out the boundless
deep Turns again home. Twilight and evening bell, And after that
the dark; And may there be no sadness of farewell, When I embark.
For though from out our bourne of time and place The flood may
bear me far, I hope to see my Pilot face to face, When I have
crossed the bar.”

_Mat. 6:20_—“_lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven_” = there
are no permanent investments except in heaven. A man at death is
worth only what he has sent on before him. Christ prepares a place
for us (_John 14:3_) by gathering our friends to himself. Louise
Chandler Moulton: “Some day or other I shall surely come Where
true hearts wait for me; Then let me learn the language of that
home, While here on earth I be; Lest my poor lips for want of
words be dumb In that high company.” Bronson Alcott: “Heaven will
be to me a place where I can get a little conversation.” Some of
his friends thought it would be a place where he could hear
himself talk. A pious Scotchman, when asked whether he ever
expected to reach heaven, replied: “Why, mon, I live there noo!”

Summing up all these, we may say that it is the fulness and perfection of holy life, in communion with God and with sanctified spirits. Although there will be degrees of blessedness and honor, proportioned to the capacity and fidelity of each soul (Luke 19:17, 19; 1 Cor. 3:14, 15), each will receive as great a measure of reward as it can contain (1 Cor. 2:9), and this final state, once entered upon, will be unchanging in kind and endless in duration (Rev. 3:12; 22:15).

_Luke 19:17, 19_—“_Well done, thou good servant: because thou wast
found faithful in a very little, have thou authority over ten
cities.... Be thou also over five cities_”; _1 Cor. 3:14, 15_—“_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_”; _2:9_—“_Things which eye saw not, and ear heard not, And
which entered not into the heart of man, Whatsoever things God
prepared for them that love him_”; _Rev. 3:12_—“_He that
overcometh, I will make __ him a pillar in the temple of my God,
and he shall go out thence no more_”; _22:15_—“_Without are the
dogs, and the sorcerers, and the fornicators, and the murderers,
and the idolaters, and every one that loveth and maketh a lie._”

In the parable of the laborers (_Mat. 20:1‐16_), each receives a
penny. Rewards in heaven will be equal, in the sense that each
saved soul will be filled with good. But rewards will vary, in the
sense that the capacity of one will be greater than that of
another; and this capacity will be in part the result of our
improvement of God’s gifts in the present life. The relative value
of the penny may in this way vary from a single unit to a number
indefinitely great, according to the work and spirit of the
recipient. The penny is good only for what it will buy. For the
eleventh hour man, who has done but little work, it will not buy
so sweet rest as it buys for him who has “_borne the burden of the
day and the scorching heat_.” It will not buy appetite, nor will
it buy joy of conscience.

E. G. Robinson: “Heaven is not to be compared to a grasshopper on
a shingle floating down stream. Heaven is a place where men are
taken up, as they leave this world, and are carried forward. No
sinners will be there, though there may be incompleteness of
character. There is no intimation in Scripture of that sudden
transformation in the hour of dissolution which is often
supposed.” _Ps. 84:7_—“_They go from strength to strength; Every
one of them appeareth before God in Zion_”—it is not possible that
progress should cease with our entrance into heaven; rather is it
true that uninterrupted progress will then begin. _1 Cor.
13:12_—“_now we see in a mirror, darkly; but then face to face._”
There, progress is not _towards_, but _within_, the sphere of the
infinite. In this world we are like men living in a cave, and
priding themselves on the rushlights with which they explore it,
unwilling to believe that there is a region of sunlight where
rushlights are needless.

Heaven will involve deliverance from defective physical
organization and surroundings, as well as from the remains of evil
in our hearts. Rest, in heaven, will be consistent with service,
an activity without weariness, a service which is perfect freedom.
We shall be perfect when we enter heaven, in the sense of being
free from sin; but we shall grow to greater perfection thereafter,
in the sense of a larger and completer being. The fruit tree shows
perfection at each stage of its growth—the perfect bud, the
perfect blossom, and finally the perfect fruit; yet the bud and
the blossom are preparatory and prophetic; neither one is a
finality. So “_when that which is perfect is come, that which is
in part shall be done away_” (_1 Cor. 13:10_). A broadshouldered
convert at the Rescue Mission said: “I’m the happiest man in the
room to‐night. I couldn’t be any happier unless I were larger.” A
little pail can be as full of water as is a big tub, but the tub
will hold much more than the pail. To be “_filled unto all the
fulness of God_” (_Eph. 3:19_) will mean much more in heaven than
it means here, because we shall then “_be strong to apprehend with
all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and
depth, and to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge_.”
In the book of Revelation, John seems to have mistaken an angel
for the Lord himself, and to have fallen down to worship (_Rev.
22:8_). The time may come in eternity when we shall be equal to
what we now conceive God to be (_1 Cor. 2:9_).

Plato’s Republic and More’s Utopia are only earthly adumbrations
of St. John’s City of God. The representation of heaven as a city
seems intended to suggest security from every foe, provision for
every want, intensity of life, variety of occupation, and
closeness of relation to others; or, as Hastings’ Bible
Dictionary, 1:446, puts it: “Safety, Security, Service.” Here, the
greatest degradation and sin are found in the great cities. There,
the life of the city will help holiness, as the life of the city
here helps wickedness. Brotherly love in the next world implies
knowing those we love, and loving those we know. We certainly
shall not know less there than here. If we know our friends here,
we shall know them there. And, as love to Christ here draws us
nearer to each other, so there we shall love friends, not less but
more, because of our greater nearness to Christ.

_Zech. 8:5_—“_And the streets of the city shall be full of boys
and girls playing in the streets thereof._” Newman Smyth, Through
Science to Faith, 125—“As of the higher animals, so even more of
men and women it may be true, that those who play best may succeed
best and thrive best.” Horace Bushnell, in his essay, Work and
Play, holds that ideal work is work performed so heartily and
joyfully, and with such a surplus of energy, that it becomes play.
This is the activity of heaven: _John 10:10_—“_I came that they
may have life, and may have it abundantly._” We enter into the
life of God: _John 5:17_—“_My Father worketh even until now, and I
work._” A nurse who had been ill for sixteen years, said: “If I
were well, I would be at the small‐pox hospital. I’m not going to
heaven to do nothing.” Savage, Life after Death, 129, 292—“In
Dante’s universe, the only reason for any one’s wanting to get to
heaven is for the sake of getting out of the other place. There is
nothing in heaven for him to do, nothing human for him to engage
in.... A good deacon in his depression thought he was going to
hell; but when asked what he would do there, he replied that he
would try to start a prayer meeting.”

With regard to heaven, two questions present themselves, namely:

(a) Is heaven a place, as well as a state?

We answer that this is probable, for the reason that the presence of Christ’s human body is essential to heaven, and that this body must be confined to place. Since deity and humanity are indissolubly united in Christ’s single person, we cannot regard Christ’s human soul as limited to place without vacating his person of its divinity. But we cannot conceive of his human body as thus omnipresent. As the new bodies of the saints are confined to place, so, it would seem, must be the body of their Lord. But, though heaven be the place where Christ manifests his glory through the human body which he assumed in the incarnation, our ruling conception of heaven must be something higher even than this, namely, that of a state of holy communion with God.

_John 14:2, 3_—“_In my Father’s house are many mansions; if it
were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place
for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I come again,
and will receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be
also_”; _Heb. 12:14_—“_follow after peace with all men, and the
sanctification without which no man shall see the Lord._”

Although heaven is probably a place, we are by no means to allow
this conception to become the preponderant one in our minds.
Milton: “The mind is its own place, and in itself Can make a
heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.” As he goes through the gates of
death, every Christian can say, as Cæsar said when he crossed the
Rubicon: “Omnia mea mecum porto.” The hymn “O sing to me of
heaven, when I am called to die” is not true to Christian
experience. In that hour the soul sings, not of heaven, but of
Jesus and his cross. As houses on river‐flats, accessible in time
of flood by boats, keep safe only goods in the upper story, so
only the treasure laid up above escapes the destroying floods of
the last day. Dorner: “The soul will possess true freedom, in that
it can no more become unfree; and that through the indestructible
love‐energy springing from union with God.”

Milton: “What if earth be But the shadow of heaven, and things
therein Each to the other like, more than on earth is thought?”
Omar Khayyám, Rubáiyát, stanzas 66, 67—“I sent my soul through the
Invisible, Some letter of that After‐life to spell: And by and by
my soul returned to me, And answered ‘I myself am Heaven and Hell’
... Heaven but the vision of fulfilled desire, And Hell the shadow
of a soul on fire.” In other words, not the kind of place, but the
kind of people in it, makes Heaven or Hell. Crane, Religion of To‐
morrow, 341—“The earth is but a breeding‐ground from which God
intends to populate the whole universe. After death, the soul goes
to that place which God has prepared as its home. In the
resurrection they ‘_neither marry nor are given in marriage_’
(_Mat. 22:30_) = ours is the only generative planet. There is no
reproduction hereafter. To incorporate himself into the race, the
Father must come to the reproductive planet.”

Dean Stanley: “_Till death us part!_ So speaks the heart When each
repeats to each the words of doom; Through blessing and through
curse, For better and for worse, We will be one till that dread
hour shall come. Life, with its myriad grasp, Our yearning souls
shall clasp, By ceaseless love and still expectant wonder, In
bonds that shall endure, Indissolubly sure, Till God in death
shall part our paths asunder. _Till death us join!_ O voice yet
more divine, That to the broken heart breathes hope sublime;
Through lonely hours and shattered powers, We still are one
despite of change or time. Death, with his healing hand, Shall
once more knit the band, Which needs but that one link which none
may sever; Till through the only Good, Heard, felt and understood,
Our life in God shall make us one forever.”

(b) Is this earth to be the heaven of the saints?

We answer:

First,—that the earth is to be purified by fire, and perhaps prepared to be the abode of the saints,—although this last is not rendered certain by the Scriptures.

_Rom. 8:19‐23_—“_For the earnest expectation of the creation
waiteth for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was
subjected to vanity, not of its own will, but by reason of him who
subjected it, in hope that the creation itself also shall be
delivered from the bondage of corruption into the liberty of the
glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation
groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. And not only
so, but ourselves also, who have the first‐fruits of the Spirit,
even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for our
adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body_”; _2 Pet. 3:12,
13_—“_looking for and earnestly desiring the coming of the day of
God, by reason of which the heavens being on fire shall be
dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat. But,
according to his promise, we look for new heavens and a new earth,
wherein dwelleth righteousness_”; _Rev. 21:1_—“_And I saw a new
heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth
are passed away; and the sea is no more._” Dorner: “Without loss
of substantiality, matter will have exchanged its darkness,
hardness, heaviness, inertia, and impenetrableness, for clearness,
radiance, elasticity, and transparency. A new stadium will
begin—God’s advance to new creations, with the coöperation of
perfected mankind.”

Is the earth a molten mass, with a thin solid crust? Lord Kelvin
says no,—it is more rigid and solid than steel. The interior may
be intensely hot, yet pressure may render it solid to the very
centre. The wrinkling of the surface may be due to contraction, or
“solid flow,” like the wrinkling in the skin of a baked apple that
has cooled. See article on The Interior of the Earth, by G. F.
Becker, in N. American Rev., April, 1893. Edward S. Holden,
Director of the Lick Observatory, in The Forum, Oct. 1893:211‐220,
tells us that “the star Nova Aurigæ, which doubtless resembled our
sun, within two days increased in brilliancy sixteen fold. Three
months after its discovery it had become invisible. After four
months again it reappeared and was comparatively bright. But it
was no longer a star but a nebula. In other words it had developed
changes of light and heat which, if repeated in the case of our
own sun, would mean a quick end of the human race, and the utter
annihilation of every vestige of animal and other life upon this
earth.... This catastrophe occured in December, 1891, or was
announced to us by light which reached us then. But this light
must have left the star twenty, perhaps fifty, years earlier.”

Secondly,—that this fitting‐up of the earth for man’s abode, even if it were declared in Scripture, would not render it certain that the saints are to be confined to these narrow limits (John 14:2). It seems rather to be intimated that the effect of Christ’s work will be to bring the redeemed into union and intercourse with other orders of intelligence, from communion with whom they are now shut out by sin (Eph. 1:20; Col. 1:20).