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470
PRESENT-DAY PAMPHLETS.—VII.

itsr-cLe6

The
Judgment Seat
of Christ
BY

D. M. PANTON.

SECOND EDITION.

LONDON :

CHAS. J. THYNNE,
Whitefriars Street, E.C. 4.
And way be ordered of any Bookseller. •
1921.

net.
Also in Paper Boards, 1 /6 net.
 PRESS NOTICES.

THE JUDGMENT SEAT OF CHRIST.

"THE CHRISTIAN" says:—
" Is a solemnizing study of a subject of grave practical importance to the
believer. Coming in a series of ' Present-Day Pamphlets,' it makes an appeal that
is timely and direct ; and being written by one who is held in high esteem as a
Gospel stalwart, it is sure to command the attention of such as are looking for the
Lord's appearing."

"TRUSTING AND TOILING" t3EtYs 1—

" we can with sincerity say that our dear friend argues for the doctrine that
admission into the Kingdom is dependent upon a holy and watchful walk, with his
usual ability and close adherence to Scripture, and that his argument has brought
us into full conviction.'

"NEWNESS OF LIFE says:—

" This is the work of a thinker, who deals with great ability, competent
scholarship, and spirituality with some of the deep things of God.-- Spiritual
believers will find great help from its perusal."

"THE FRIENDS' WITNESS" says

This in a most interesting book --clear and, for the most part, convincing. The
whole book is an intensely solemn warning to ChriStian people."
PRESENT.DAY PAMPHLETS.—VII.

The
Judgment Seat
of Christ
BY

D. M. PANTON.

SECOND EDITION.

LONDON:
CHAS. J. THYNNE,
Whitefriars Street, B.C. 4.
And may be ordered of any Bookseller.

1921.
0
 The Judgment Seat of Christ.

T is the joy and wonder of God's Grace that all saving

I merit in our Lord's life and death becomes ours on
simple faith : " for by grace have ye been saved
THROUGH FAITH ; and that not of yourselves : it is the
gift of God ; not of works, that no man should glory "
(Eph. ii. 8). A sinner's works, so far from saving him,
have actually to be repented of—" REPENTANCE from dead
WORKS " (Heb. vi. T) :—for " the FREE GIFT of God "—
unfettered therefore by any obligation on the part of the
Giver, and thus completely severed from our merit—" is
eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Rom. vi. 23). The
saving efficacy of simple, vital faith ha been beautifully
expressed in the moving words of Hooker. " Christ hath
merited righteousness for as many as are found in Him
and God findeth us in Him, for by faith we are incorporated
into Him. Then, although we be in ourselves altogether
sinful and unrighteous, yet even the man who is in himself
impious, full of sin, full of iniquity ;—him, being found in
Christ through faith, and having his sin in hatred through
repentance, him God beholdeth with a gracious eye ;
putteth away his sin by not imputing it ; taketh quite
away the punishment due thereto, by pardoning it ; and
accepteth him in Christ Jesus, as perfectly righteous as if
he had fulfilled all that is commanded him in the Law ;
shall I say more perfectly righteous than if himself had
fulfilled the whole law ? Such are we in the sight of -jod
the Father, as in the very Son of God Himself. Let it
 4
be counted folly, or frenzy, or fury, or whatsoever, it is
our wisdom, and our comfort : we care for no knowledge
in the world but this,—that man hath sinned, and God
hath suffered : that God hath made Himself the sin of
man, and that men are made the righteousness of God."
We thus draw eternal life solely from the Son of God.
" God gave unto us eternal life, and this life is in His Son.
He that hath the Son HATH THE LIFE ; he that hath not
the Son of God hath not the life " (I John v. ii). Eternal
life thus rests for ever on simple, saving faith, which
produces immediate regeneration, incorporation into Christ,
the indwelling of the Holy Ghost, and indefectible life.
" He that believelft on the Son hath EVERLASTING life "
(John iii. 36). ft
REWARD.
But even a casual study of the Word of God reveals that
a new horizon now opens on the redeemed soul. If life is
by faith, reward is consequent on works done after faith.
For Scripture regards each saved soul as a runner racing, an
athlete wrestling, a warrior fighting, a farmer sowing, a
mason building, a fugitive flying, a besieger storming ; and
all this strenuous intensity rests on a fundamental of revela-
tion—" that God ais, and that He is a Rewarder " (Heb. xi. 6).
" With many disciples the eyes are yet blinded to this
mystery of rewards, which is an open mystery of the Word.
It must be an imputed righteousness whereby we enter ; but
having thus entered by faith, our works determine our
relative rank, place, reward " (Dr. A. T. Pierson). Calvin,
though seeing this truth but dimly, 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."
Nor is there any doubt that this is a truth for the Church
of God. " Behold, I come quickly ; and my reward is
with me, to render to each [disciple] according as his work
is " (Rev. xxii. 12). To whom is this said ? " I, Jesus,
have sent mine angel to testify into you these things
for the churches." Too often, as Dr. A. J. Gordon says,
" just as the Legalist resents the doctrine that good works
 5

can have no part in effecting our forgiveness, so the Evan-

gelical recoils from the idea that they can constitute any
ground for our recompense." But Paul says :--" He that
planteth and he that watereth are one "—in standing and
redemption—" but each shall receive his own reward
according to his own labour " (i Cor. iii. 8). So also he
balances the double-edged recompense. " Servants, obey :1
. . . knowing that from the Lord ye shall receive the
recompense of Me inheritance : ye serve the Lord Christ.
For "—on the other hand—" he that doeth wrong shall
receive again for the wrong that he hath done : and there is
no respect of persons " (Col. iii. 24). It is thus a truth
that concerns us. In the words of Dr. Eadie :—" The
Christian doctrine of reward is too often lost sight of or
kept in abeyance, as if it were not perfectly consistent
with the freest bestowment of heavenly glory."
All honest difficulty concerning Reward vanishes, I think,
when we examine what God rewards ; and, first of all,
God's recompense rests supremely on godlikeness, and god-
like conduct. " Love your enemies, and do them good,
and lend, never despairing ; and your reward shall be great,
and ye shall be sons of the Most High : for He is kind
toward the unthankful and evil " (Luke vi. 35). Here
reward turns upon likeness in character and conduct to
our Father in heaven. Secret devotion, also, will be
rewarded. " Pray to thy Father which is in secret, and
thy Father which seeth in secret shall recompense thee "
(Matt, vi. 6) : not only will the prayer be answered, but
the praying will be recompensed. Moreover, our attitude
of heart will help to sway the Lord's adjudication on our
service : " Condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned :
forgive, and ye shall be forgiven - (Luke vi. 37). Our
life is putting, word by word, the sentence upon ourselves
into Christ's lips : we are manufacturing, as servants,
our own adjudication, For goodness and glory are but
two halves of one whole : goodness is the suffering side
of glory, and glory is the shining side of goodness.
I Space forbids the quotation of all Scriptures in full ; nor is
to be regretted if the reader is (in a sense) compelled to verify and
study both text and context for himself. He will find that the
abbreviations are not mutilations.
 6
So all labour, also, will be exactly recompensed. " Who-
soever shall give to drink unto one of these little ones a cup
of cold water only "—the minimum of gift—" in the name
of a disciple, verily I say unto you, he shall in no wise lose
his reward " (Matt. x. 42). For what is reward I " To
him that worketh, the reward is not reckoned as of grace,
but as of debt" (Rom. iv. 4) : so, as requital for services
He graciously owns, God is pleased to bestow tangible
and equivalent evidences of His approval. Its measure
will be exactly graded. " He that receiveth a prophet in
the name of a prophet shall receive a _prophet's reward ;
and he that receiveth a righteous man in the name of a
righteous man shall receive a righteous man's reward "
x. 41) : " for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he
also reap " (Gal. vi. 7).
But, most searching truth of all, God rewards supremely
the why that underlies the service. " Take heed that ye do
not your righteousness "—conduct really good in itself—
" before men, to be seen of them : else ye have NO REWARD
with your Father which is in heaven " (Matt. vi. r). Motive
is thus revealed as decisively crucial. " The Lord will
bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and make
manifest the counsel of the hearts ; and then shall each have
his braise from God " (r Car. iv. 5). God gives unmerited
salvation, but He never gives unmerited praise. So
exaltation in the Age to Come is in inverse ratio to low-
liness of service in the present Age. " For whosoever
would [wishes to] become•great among you, shall be your
sernmt : and whosoever would be first among you, shall
be slave ❑ all " (Mark x. 43) : for greatness, service ; for
actual primacy, slavery.
eward is also reserved for al suffering undergone for
Christ. " Blessed are ye, when men shall hate you, and
when they shall separate you from their company, and
reproach you, and cast out your name as evil, for the Son
of man's sake. Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy : for
behold, your reward is great in heaven " (Luke vi. 22).
Suffering generally ensures purity of motive ; and the Lord
counterbalances the fear of man, not only by the more
tremendous fear of God (Rev. ii. ii, 16), but also by the
magnitude of His rewards. " Every reward suggested is
 7
a prize of a value inconceivable by us at present, and can
only be appreciated at the Judgment Seat " (J. H. Lowe)
So Moses accounted " the reproach of Christ greater riches
than the treasures of Egypt : for he looked unto the recom-
pense of reward " (Heb. xi. 26). He who of all mankind
best knew the value of the Prize, and who perhaps, after
our Lord, laid down the costliest price for it ever paid,
said, " This one thing I do." For reward is merely the
tangible expression of the approval of GOD, and we may
no more deny Him the pleasure of expressing that approval
than we need abjure it for ourselves. He who despises a
throne despises Him Who confers the throne. It was one
of our LORD'S rebukes of the Pharisees,—" The glory that
ometh from the only God ye seek not " (John v. 44).
Thus Reward not only supplies a motive in itself legiti-
mate it is a motive to which our Lord and His Apostles
make frequent and direct appeal :—e.g., Christ (Matt. vi. I),
Paul (I Cor. ix. 24), Peter (I Pet. i. 17), James (Jas. i. 12),
and John (2 John 8). " I believe for my part," says Dr.
Alexander Maclaren, " that we suffer terribly by the corn
parative neglect into which this side of Christian truth has
fallen. Do you not think that it would make a difference
to you if you really believed, and carried away with you in
your th9ughts, the thrilling consciousness that every act of
the present was registered, and would tell, on the far side
beyond ? " A concordance at once reveals that no one so
emphasised reward as the Son of God Himself, who, as
Maker of the soul, knows best what stimulants it is wise
and right to apply.
Three facts are of importance :—that Sadoc, the founder
of the Sadducees, started his career of unbelief by denying
the doctrine of reward : also, that this principle took full
effect even upon our Lord—" who for the joy that was set
before Him endured " (Heb. xii. 2) : moreover, that no wise
disciple can afford to neglect so great a mass of Scripture,
or to throw away so mighty an incentive to holiness. Our
discovery of this truth at the judgment Seat will be too late.
Every seed we drop into the soil—every thought and word
and act—is banked in God, and will one day spring up in
lovely, or alarming, harvest,—as we sowed, what we sowed,
as much as we sowed, and why we sowed. Therefore " LOOK
 8
TO YOURSELVES, THAT YE LOSE NOT THE THINGS THAT YE
HAVE WROUGHT, BUT THAT YE RECEIVE A FULL REWARD "
(2 John 8).

THE BLOOD AND THE LEAVEN.

An Old Testament type, of exquisite clearness and beauty,
now reveals God's dual truth on the very threshold of all
Redemption. A zoologist, it is said, if he be given but a
single bone of an animal, can reconstruct the entire anatomy
to which the bone belongs : so one sure clue is sufficient to
explain a type : and, in the Blood and the Leaven, three
explicit clues are given by the Holy Spirit, so as to put all
beyond doubt. " Our passover also hath been sacrificed,
even Christ "—therefore the lamb's blood typifies Christ's
blood : " wherefore let us keep the feast "—therefore the
Church age, the Seven Days between. Advent and Advent,
is the antitype of the Feast of Unleavened Bread : " not
with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and
wickedness "—the leaven, therefore, is sin—" but with the
unleavened bread of sincerity and truth " (1 Cor, v. 8).
No type could be clearer or surer.
Jehovah's first command was the putting of the Blood
upon the House. " They shall take of the blood, and put it
on the two side posts and on the lintel, ufion the houses
wherein they shall eat " the lamb (Ex. xii. 7). The
Destroying Angel sought out every house, for every house
held sinners ; but he lowered his sword, and passed,
wherever he saw the blood. " When I see the blood,
I will Mass over you." Why ? Because death had already
crossed the threshold : the lamb had perished in the place
of the firstborn. But into every other house the Angel
entered. The moment Christ's blood rises up between my
soul and Jehovah, it is " the beginning of months " to my
soul : it is regeneration, the begetting of a new and divine
life : in that moment, when I have consciously appropriated
Calvary, I leave the world, in spirit, and start travelling
home to God. " Even the selfsame day all the hosts of the
Lord went out from the land of Egypt. It is a night to be
much observed unto the Lord for bringing them out of
the land of Egypt." The fiilgrim life starts with the _putting
 9
on of the blood.
Jehovah's second command was the putting forth of the
Leaven from the House. " Seven days shall ye eat
unleavened bread ; even the first day "—that ig; from the
moment of conversion—" ye shall put away leaven out of
your houses." Israel started the pilgrim life with sufficient
sweet dough to last them the whole Seven Days : the old,
sour dough—all discoverable sin—was to be left in Egypt :
and so urgent is Jehovah that He nine times commands
the putting forth of the leaven. Paul is no less urgent.
" It is actually reported that there is fornication, among you.
Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump ?
Purge out the old leaven " (1 Cor. v. 1, 7).
Here then is God's dual truth exquisitely revealed. The
putting on of the Blood—Justification ; the putting out of
the Leaven—Sanctification : the putting on of the Blood
—Christ's work for us ; the putting out of the Leaven—
the Spirit's work in us. Now observe. There is no com-
mand to put out the Leaven before putting on the Blood. The
Lamb, it is true, must be eaten with unleavened bread
(ver. 8) ; the heart must turn from all sin in the act of
appropriating Christ : but we are not to attempt to cleanse
the House from Leaven before it is presented to God for the
Blood.
0 just as I am, without ono plea,
But that Thy blood was shed for me,
And that Thou bidd'st me come to Thee,
0 Lamb of God, I come.

" Being now justified by His blood, we shall be saved from

the wrath of God through Him " (Rom. v. 9).
But the completed work of Justification immediately
introduces the complementary work of Sanctification ; and
only when the Blood is on the door have we power to put
forth the Leaven. " Work out your own salvation "—the
Leaven put forth—" with fear and trembling ; for it is God
which worketh in you " (Phil. ii. 12)—the Holy Spirit is now
in the House. Jehovah does not say that the presence of
Leaven in the House proves that there is no Blood on the
door : on the contrary, the constant peril of known or
discoverable, but unexpelled., leaven is assumed as the
peril of every house. We cannot be too passive under the
 10
Blood : we cannot be too active in purging out the Leaven.
" My sins slew my Saviour : now I must slay my sins."
Both these Divine commands involve grave consequences.
The Israelite or Egyptian who refused or neglected to apply
the Blood, perished : he perished at the hand of God : he
perished in Egypt : he perished lost. " We all "—that
remain in Egypt—" be dead men" (Ex. xii. 33). Even if
his house were comparatively pure of leaven, the Destroying
Angel destroyed. Nor can the disobedient disciple escape
unscathed. The Israelite under the Blood who refused or
neglected to expel the Leaven, was cut off (ver. 15) : not,
it is true, in Egypt : nor was he cut off by the Angel : nor was
he cut off from God, but from Israel: that is, he fell an
exommunicated pilgrim, on the right side of the Blood, and on
his way to Gad. It is not eternal destruction. So, for
excommunication, Paul quotes the actual terms of severance
from Israel :—" put away the wicked man from among
yourselves " Cor. v. 13 ; Deut. xxiv. 7), to be handed
over to Satan " for the destruction of the flesh," but for
ultimate salvation—" that his spirit may be saved." His
salvation is assured. But the disciple who. (like the
incestuous Corinthian) stretches privilege so as to cloak
sin must meet a stern disillusionment at the Judgment
Seat of Christ : no appeal then to the Blood will deliver the
Leaven-eater from his judgment.
Put on the Blood : 0 my soul, purge out the Leaven !
A traveller once watched a carpenter in Nazareth search
his house for leaven. Girding himself up, he turned every
board, opened every drawer, swept every cupboard ; till
suddenly, with a cry of horror, he started back. A work-
man had left some o'd bread in a small canvas bag.
Solemnly and anxiously the carpenter laid hold of it with
two pieces of wood—not with his fingers—and, carrying it
to the fire, dropt bag and all into the flames. " LET US
CLEANSE OURSELVES FROM ALL DEFILEMENT OF FLESH AND
SPIRIT, PERFECTING HOLINESS IN THE FEAR OF GOD "
(2 Cor. vii. 1).
THE DAY OF JUSTICE.

We now observe a fact of critical importance. The

strictly judicial nature of the Age to Come is the decisive
 11
revelation of reward. For " that Day " is revealed, in
contradistinction to this Age, as an era, not of grace, but of
justice : " the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous
JUDGMENT of God ; who will render to EVERY MAN according
to his works " (Rom. ii. 5). Therefore within the sphere of
the coming Age all judgment falls, and by its triple tribunal
it exhausts judgment. For (r) at the Bema the Lord's
reckoning with His servants (Matt. xxv. Dy) inaugurates the
process of judgment (i Pet. iv. 17) ; (2) the Throne of
Messiah's glory sifts the nations alive on earth at His
return (Matt. xxv. 31, 32) ; and (3) the great white Throne
(Rev. xx. II) accomplishes the m ghty assize of the dead.
Thus all judgment falls within the Age to Come ; and though
eternal judgment (Heb. vi. 2) rests upon Hell (Rev. xiv.
no acts of judgment appear to take place in the Eternal
State. Nor is this all. The Day of God (2 Pet. iii. 12),
opening immediately on rapture, the signal for the closing
(not of all grace, but) of the day of grace, embraces the
Day of the Lord, or the Great Tribulation (2 Thess. ii. 2,
R.V.), during which judgments rain upon an earth in open
revolt against God ; and also includes the Day of Christ
ii. 16), or the Millennial Reign, which continues
throughout as a dispensation, not of mercy, but of justice.
For of the saint who reigns with Christ it is written—" He
shall rule them with a ROD OF IRON, as the vessels of the
potter are broken to shiver " (Rev. ii. 27) ; and judgment,
given to the co-heirs of Christ on the threshold of the King-
dom (Rev. xx. 4), continues throughout to cut off sinners
(Is. lxv. 2o), and too afflict 1 hole nations (Zech. xiv. 18).
The epoch is solely judicial. Thus the close of man's
day, the Day of Grace, is the signal for a prolonged Day of
Justice ; within the scope of which all judgment falls ;
in which appears the harvest of all previous sowing ; and
the essential characteristic of which, throughout, is the
recoil of conduct upon destiny.
Now it is this return and reign of Justice which inherently
and of necessity provokes reward. Mercy postpones the
recompense of the righteous because it is prolonging grace
to the sinner : it is grace which, for the world's sake,
involves the disciple in suffering, and blocks reward. But
the moment the Throne of Grace (Heb. iv. 16) is replaced
 12
by the Throne of Judgment (Rev. iv. 2), Justice must visit
the wicked, and reward the righteous. So the Apostles
said to our Lord :—" Lo, we have left all, and followed
Thee ; what then shall we have ? And Jesus said, IN THE
REGENERATD5N when the Son of Man shall sit on the
Throne of His glory, ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones "
(Matt. xix. 27) ; for " the time of the dead to be judged "
is also " the time to give their REWARD to Thy servants "
(Rev. xi. i8). Judgment over the nations is the signal for
the enthronement of God's saints. " I saw thrones, and
they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them "
(Rev. xx. 4). For God's children to be enthroned now, to
be crowned with the wealth and splendour with which
God ultimately intends to endow them, is evil : " ye have
reigned without us," is Paul's gentle reproof to the mer-
chant princes in the Church of Corinth ; " yea and I would
that ye did reign, that we also might reign with you "—the
Kingdom would have come : whereas " we apostles are made
as the filth of the world, the offscouring of all things "
(i Cor. iv. 8). Since, therefore, Justice reigns from end to
end of the coming Age, all appeal to the principles of
Grace as dominating that Age falls to the ground : " 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 " (Matt. xvi. 27 ; 2 Thess. i. 6) :
" and thou shalt be RECOMPENSED at the resurrection of
the just " (Luke xiv. 14).
!so into the Apocalypse (the Book of Judgment) our Lord
has inserted, with exquisite appropriateness, a photograph
of Church judgment, which, though in progress now—for
Churches are judged in this age, disciples mainly in the
age to come—yet displays action peculiarly characteristic of
the Bema, for it is consistently judicial. Thus the Seven
Epistles—letters of extraordinary value, not only as our
Lord's last words to us, but as samples, given beforehand
in the Day of Grace, of our share in judgment—reveal the
kind of investigation we must meet at His Judgment Seat.
WORKS alone appear on a foundation of faith which is
assumed—" I know thy works" ; each angel's conduct, in
its component parts, good and bad, is exactly diagnosed ;
each assembly is divided into overcomers and overcome,
 13

with appropriate promises for the overcomers, and solemn

warnings for the overcome ; and all these issues at the
Advent, woven into a mosaic of universal Church truth, are
pressed home on all—" he that hath an ear, let him hear
what the Spirit saith TO THE CHURCHES." For the rewards
and perils on which our Lord casts all the emphasis belong
wholly to another Day. He makes it no question of praise
or blame, glory or disgrace, in the present Age ; it is no
matter of unbroken communion or perfected grace or
endangered sanctification or spiritual dry rot ; it is not
loss of usefulness, or eclipse of testimony, or an uneasy
conscience, or even present chastisement, however truly all
these are involved :—all the issues named by our Lord are
made contingent on His return and judgment. Every
promise and every warning is set to strike at the crisis of
His return. " BEHOLD, I COME QUICKLY " : (Rev. xxii. 7) :
" and 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. ii. 23).
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" (t Cor. xi. 30) : while saving faith delivers
for ever from eternal judgment ( John v. 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 our-
selves to account, and, actuated by a spirit of repentance,
deprecate the anger of God—punishing ourselves instead of
 4
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 forefeiting 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.

THE JUDGMENT SEAT.

We now arrive at the burning heart of this entire revela-
tion as it concerns the Church—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 "—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 manifesta-
tion 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 a, e 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 " Cor. v. To). 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."
 15

!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. xiv, ii). Nor
could it be otherwise. In view of the chaos of conflicting
creed and conduct—the bitter controve sies, 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 establish-
ing it is as irrevocable as the life of God—" that unto Me
every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear " (Isa.
xlv. 23). So then, says the Apostle, (Rom. xiv. io),
let us forbear to judge, for we shall be judged, and, there-
fore, 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 scat of Christ " (2 Cor. v. io).
The tribunal, before which disciples appear, is peculiar.
(x) It is a Bema,1 not a Thronos ; a judgment seat for the
investigation of disciples,1 not a throne for the arraignment
The portable tribunal carried about with him by a Roman
magistrate.
2 Churchs are judged now (Rev, ii. 5). The Church is never
judged corporately—as the Body or Bride—either here or hereafter ;
but disciples, apart train their collective standing, in thpir individual
responsibility as servants, must render account. So the Church,
as an entity, is never named in the Apocalypse, except once (Rev.
xxii. 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. xxi. 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. xx. 17),
reveals that in 2 Car, v. io, " it is genuine Christians of whom Paul
 16
of rebels : for the Judge (2 Tim. iv. 8) is " a certain king,
which would make a reckoning with his servants " (Matt.
xviii. 23). It is the first of our Lord's three judgments
(Rom. xiv. 12 ; Matt. xxv. 31 ; Rev. xx. 12) on His
return ; and judgment begins " at the house of God "
(r Pet. iv. 17). (2) Thus those examined are Christians
only. " We all " them that are sanctified in
Christ Jesus, called to be saints, with all that call upon the
name of our Lord in every place " (I Cor. i. 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 " (Ps. i. 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 v. 24 ;
Rom. viii. I). 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. xiv. 12). " We "—it is Christian ; " must "—
it is inevitable ; " all "—it is universal ; " made manifest "
—it is public ; " judgment seat "—it is judicial ; " stand "
—it is in resurrection ; " each "—it is individual ; " give
account "—it is responsibility ; " to God "—it is Divine.
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. xxiv. 19). " Be not deceived "—is a
word to disciples—" God is not mocked : for whatsoever
a man soweth, that shall he also reap " (Gal. vi. 7). Paul
puts it with exquisite clearness, and twofold emphasis.
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 believers es 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.
 17

" 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. vi. 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. iii. 25).
Our works and conduct are put in as the evidence :
" things done by means of the body." We must all " ap-
pear in our true light " (Afford) : as the fossil imprint of
a bird's claw, made ages earlier by a momentary alighting
when the stone was soft, now records that act in solid
rock, so our actions are the unerring imprint of our char-
acters ; the things done reveal what the body was. Like
a palimpsest, when the heat of fire (1 Cor. iii. 13) passes
over it, so our life silently steals forth in lines every one of
which we ourselves wrote : so that what our eyes looked on,
what our ears listened to, what our hearts loved, what our
minds believed, what our lips said, what our hands wrought,
where our feet walked :—these are the unimpeachable
evidences of the Judgment Seat. Secrets (x Cor. iv. 5),
motives (Matt. vi. x), soul-attitudes (Luke vi. 36-38),
and just Church decisions (Matt. xviii. 18), also sway the
adjudication.i
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 salvation, which is
through faith, against deserts) is strictly defined by works.
So somewhere there exists a draft by the hand of God of what
our life might have been, and still can be : some have lived
Even the lovely modifications of our Lord's attitude foretold in
such passages as Matt. v. 7—" blessed are the merciful : for they
shall obtain mercy "—and Luke vi. 37—" condemn not, and ye
shall not be condemned "—are still fundamentally judicial,—that
is, the recoil of a disciple's conduct upon himself. But no lovelier
revelation could be conceived of how we may deal with our forgotten
sin. " In MANY things we ALL stumble " ( Jas. hi. 2) : but " if
ye forgive men their trespasses, YOUR HEAVENLY FATHER WILL
ALSO FORGIVE YOU " (Matt. vi. 14) ; " for with what measure ye
mete, it shall be measured to you again " (Luke vi. 38).
 18
wonderfully near God's thought for them : let us find and
follow that Divine original.
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 " Cor. iv. 3)—the Church of Christ. When " all
that are in Asia turned away " from Paul (2 Tim. i. r5),
there must have been personal attacks, solemn denuncia-
tions, ecclesiastical censures, even excommunication of the
Apostle : in wide areas of the Church his name had be-
come a bye-word : even Paul. When his priestly execu-
tioners brough Savonarola to the stake, they cried :—
" We excommunicate you from the Church militant here
upon earth " " But not from the Church triumphant in
heaven I " 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 I, for
one, have ever known. " HE THAT JUDGETH ME IS THE
LORD." A believer's friends may overpraise him, and his
critics overblame ; 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 Great War
a young man sat at a table in a London restaurant. Two
 19
young ladies, seated at another table, watched him for a
few minutes, whispering together ; and then, approachhig
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 iii. 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."

WORKS TESTED BY FIRE.

Scripture next unfolds to us the Judgment Seat in actual
operation. It is a judgment for those already on the rock.
" Other foundation can no man lay than that which is
laid, which is Jesus Christ," or, that Jesus is the Christ
Cor. iii. ii). God laid the foundation in fact : every wise
master-builder lays it in doctrine. " Behold, I lay in Zion
for a foundation a stone, a tried stone, a precious corner
stone of sure foundation " (Isa. xxviii. T6). Every re-
generate soul is planted upon that Rock as upon adamant.
" Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is begotten
of God" (i John v. r). " Jesus Christ "—the personal
Rock ; " Jesus is the Christ "—the doctrinal rock ; upon
this foundation rests all revelation, all regeneration, and
all the millions of the saved.
But once again a new sphere opens before the redeemed
soul. " But let each [disciple] take heed how he buildeth
thereon." Works emerge into God's sight only after the
foundation of faith is laid i works before faith are sins to be
repented of (Heb. vi. r). " But " implies one foundation,
but many superstructures : " take heed " implies that
grave consequences attach to how a disciple builds after
conversion. Slowly, surely, imperceptibly a house of
works—and, for the Christian teacher, a house of doctrine
—is rising round each disciple's life : costly granite and
marble, silver columns, and cornices of gold ; or else
wooden doorways, hay mixed with mud for the walls,
 20
and straw thatching for the roof. The supreme fact is
this : one set of materials stands fire, the other feeds fire ;
and, since he fire is coming, " let each take heed how he
buildeth thereon."
Paul here states reward with the limpid clearness of a
crystal. " If any [disciple] building 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 struc-
ture 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 salvation
is through faith wholly independent of works before or after
conversion ; " yet so as through fire " (1 Cor. iii. 12)—
through burning embers and showers of falling 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.
The selection of the material lies within the choice of the
disciple. " If any buildeth on the foundation gold, silver,
costly stones, wood, hay, stubble." Every disciple has
abso We control over the materials with which he builds : he
selects which he chooses. Contending motives sway the
choice : popularity, social prestige, wealth, pleasure ; love
to Christ, fidelity, a sense of truth, the fear of God. What is
the precious stonework ? Material that matches the founda-
tion. There are a thousand voices in the world to-day : to
the wise man there is but One. " Heaven and earth shall
pass away [in fire : 2 Pet. iii. 7], but My words shall not
pass away " (Matt. xxiv. 35) : that is, the divine Word will
survive the judgment fires. Every thought, every word, every
 21
act is to be built out of the quarries of Scripture. No higher
level is possible to a Christian teacher than to frame a not
altogether inadequate setting for the jewels of revelation ;
no higher level is possible to a Christian disciple than to
translate into life the mind of God as revealed in the Word
of God. : the one transmits the Book into the soul, the other
translates the Book into the life.
An exposure of the disciple's work follows at the Judg-
ment Seat. " Each [disciple's] work shall be made mani-
fest : for the day shall declare it, because it is revealed
in fire." The believer's life is a palimpsest, the invisible
lines of which steal forth into sight as it nears God's fires.
The foundation is not tested ; it is, as Isaiah says, already
a tried Stone : it is the superstructure which the fire searches.
No believer will be put on trial for his standing, but for his
walk ; not for his faith, but for his works ; not for his life,
but for his living ; not for his foundation, but for his super-
structure. " The fire itself shall prove each [disciple's]
work of what sort it is." The kind of material is infallibly
revealed by the fire : it is searched through and through
by the eyes of Christ (Rev. i. 14). The fire does not cleanse,
it tries : and, if trying the inflammable, it destroys : Christ
does not purge our works, but searches them judicially.
" These things saith the Son of God, who hath His eyes
like a flame "—here is the fire ; " I know thy works "—
the fire plays into the heart of the material ; " and thy
love and faith and ministry and patience "—the fire tests
the quality, and finds gold ; " and that thy last works
are more than the first "—the fire tests the quantity, and
finds much fine gold (Rev. ii. 19). The fire proves.
The Judgment Seat now adjudicates. " If any [dis-
ciple's] work shall abide which he built thereon, he shall
receive a reward." Salvation stands upon the foundation,
reward rests upon the superstructure.' " If the work shall
" Out of Christ there are no good works at all : entrance into
Christ is not won nor merited by them. In Christ, every work
done of faith is good and is pleasing to God. The doing of such
works is the working of the life of Christ in us : they are its sign,
they are its fruits : they are not of us, but of it and of Him. They
are the measure of our Christian life ; according to their abundance,
so is our access to God, so is our reward from God for they are the
steps of our likeness to God. So that no degree of efficacy attributed
 22:
abide—reward " : reward is utterly conditional on works.
" If any [disciple's] work shall be burned, he shall suffer
loss : but he himself shall be saved ; yet so as through
fire." Our Lord also stated the possibility of a bare
salvation, and no more ; " else ye have NO reward
(Matt. vi. I) : himself saved—for no soul can ever be
swept off the foundation of Christ ; his work burned—for
a discipleship may end in piteous conflagration. As fire-
balls descend upon a laboriously-constructed dwelling,
and the inmate within, overwhelmed by a sudden burst
of flame, escapes for his life through a blazing corridor
of fire—" he himself shall be saved ; yet so as through fire."
THEREFORE " LET EACH (DISCIPLE] PROVE HIS OWN WORK "
NOW (Gal. vi. 4). " 0 could I always live for eternity,
preach for eternity, pray for eternity, and speak for
eternity I want to see only God " (Whitfield). " Blessed
is that servant whom his Lord when he cometh shall find
SO DOING. Of a truth I say unto you, that He will set
him OVer ALL THAT HE HATH " (Luke xii. 43).

CROWNS.
The judicial character of the Judgment Seat has thus
become thoroughly obvious : we next pass to the objective
consequences of the investigation ; and it at once trans-
pires that crowns are conditional on approved service.
A crown is a chaplet wreathed about a brow to signalize
that brow from others, a symbol of rank, a seal of inherited
or achieved distinction, valued quite apart from its own
intrinsic worth. Sometimes it is of great value. The
crown of the Sultan of Jahore is worth two million sterling ;
the British crown, originally valued at a quarter of a
million, is now enormously richer by the addition of the
Cullinan diamond, far the largest diamond in the world.
He Who builds the very foundations of their palace with
precious stones is not likely to give His kings worthless insignia.
On the other hand, a crown may be of little or no value in
itself, like the Iron Crown of Lombardy, or the oaken crown
to the good works of the child of God need surprise us : it is God
recognizing, God vindicating, God multiplying, God glorifying.
His own word in us." Dean Alford, on x John iii. 22.
 23

of Scotland. The Isthmian crown, for which the finest

manhood of Greece struggled—a handful of bay-leaves
or of olive—was of no value at all ; it was not the leaves
they ran for, but the glory which the leaves conferred.
So a crown of small intrinsic value—and this is a vital
point for elucidating the Scriptures—may be of all crowns
the most priceless because of its associations. No pro-
phetic student can forget the thrill with which he gazed
on the crown of Charlemagne in the Louvre in Paris ; the
oldest and most regal crown in the world, yet exceedingly
plain and dimmed with age ; a crown which, doubtless,
will one day rest on the brow of Antichrist. A crown is of
value for what it implies rather than for what it is. " Know
ye not that they which run in a race all run, but one
receiveth the prize ? " Of what prize is Paul speaking ?
" Now they do it to receive a corruptible crown ; but we an
incorruptible." And to whom is Paul speaking ? " Unto
the church of God which is at Corinth, even them that are
sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, with all that
call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ in every place,
their Lord and ours " (r Cor. i. 2). That is, the Church is
invoked to race for the crown. The sanctified by blood are
exhorted to achieve rank in glory. Second Advent crowns
are granted, not on the ground of birth, but on the ground
of achievement : the word the Spirit uses for " crown "
means a chaplet granted for personal victory. Paul makes
it peculiarly clear by fastening it all upon himself. Paul
was a converted soul. He had worshipped the risen Lord.
He possessed the indwelling Spirit consequent on the new
birth. He held in his grasp God's irrevocable gift of
everlasting life. Nevertheless the apost'e expresses him-
self as uncertain of the crown. " 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]." The crown worn by King George at his father's
coronation in 19oz bears a tuft of feathers of the feriwah,
the rarest species of the bird of paradise. The bird has
to be caught and plucked alive, for the feathers lose their
lustre immediately after death ; as it frequents the haunts
of tigers its capture involves great danger ; and the Prince
of Wales's crown took twenty years to collect, is worth
 24
I43,000, and cost the lives of a dozen hunters. What a
wonderful parable of the martyrs' crowns ! " Be thou
faithful unto death, and I will give thee THE CROWN of
life " (Rev. ii. to).
Paul therefore reveals the conditions of the coronation to
which he summons the whole Church. (1) Sell-mastery
is an essential for crown-winning. " Every man that
striveth in the games is temperate in all things. . . . I
therefore . . buffet my body, and bring it into bondage."
The foe the believer fights is inside. As God saves only
the wounded soul, so He crowns only the bruised body.
" Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth ;
fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and covetous-
ness " (Col. iii. 5). The athlete, in training, not only cuts off
poisons ; he abstains from things doubtful. " Let us also
. . . lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so
easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race "
(Heb. xii. x). (2) The glory of the crown is to be the
conscious incentive of the soul. The ten months' agonising
of Corinthian athletes won a chaplet of parsley, or a crown
of wild olive : the glory was as fading as the crown. " Now
they do it to receive a corruptible crown ; but we an incor-
ruptible." Ours is the crown " that fadeth not away "
(I Pet. v. 4), which all eternity cannot dim, nor any hand
pluck from our brows. It is ensured to him who contends
lawfully. " I therefore run, as not uncertainly : so fight
I, as not beating the air." If this stated Paul's certainty of
the crown, it would only mean that he already knew by
revelation (as he did later, 2 Tim. iv. 8) that he was a
prize-winner, as distinct from the " many " (ver. 24) who
fail : but this is not the meaning ; for immediately after
(ver. 27) he asserts his own insecurity : what he indicates
is that for all who fulfil the conditions no accident or
umpire's partiality or any conceivable miscarriage can
rob them of the prize. An athlete, no matter how perfect
his training, might be outstript in the Isthmian games ;
but crowns sufficient exist for all who pass the standard of
God. (3) Disobedience forfeits the crown. " Hold fast
that which thou hast, that no one take thy crown " (Rev.
iii. u). This incentive held Paul's soul as in a grip of
iron : " lest by any means, after I have acted the herald
 25
'[for the lists], I myself should be disapproved [for the
prize]."
Thus it is certain that all crowns are conditional on works
done after faith, and all are attainable by achievement.
Our Lord Himself comes back crowned with many crowns :
therefore that cannot be a senseless adornment, or an
improper distinction, which clothes the Son of God, and
which God regards as the final seal set upon His suffering,
His character, and His royalty. Exactly as we approach
our Lord in grace, so shall we approach Him, and so should
we aim to approach Him, in glory. For " upon His head
are MANY DIADEMS," or crowns (Rev. xix. 12) ; a tiara,
of which the Papal tiara is a counterfeit ; a composite
crown, tier above tier, consolidated of many crowns.
Four crowns are used at the British Coronation of a king
and queen—the crowns of St. Edward and St. Edgitha,
and the two crowns of State ; the two latter, as the per-
sonal property of the sovereign, may be re-made for each
coronation. (I) The crown of incorruption :—" In a
race all run, but one receiveth the prize. Now they do it to
receive a corruptible crown ; but we an incorruptible "
(i Cor. ix. 24, 25). Can that racer be crowned who failed in
the running ? " Even so run, that ye may attain." (2) The
crown of rejoicing :—" What is our hope, or joy, or crown
of rejoicing ? Are not even ye, before our Lord Jesus
at His coming ? " (1 Thess. ii. is). Can he be crowned for
turning many to righteousness (Dan. xii. 3) who never
turned one ? (3) The crown of glory :—" The elders there-
fore among you I exhort . . . Tend the flock of God, . . .
and when the chief Shepherd shall be manifested, ye shall
receive the crown of glory " (I Pet. v. I-4). Can a
disciple be rewarded for shepherding the flock of God
who never did 11 ? (4) The crown of righteousness :—" I have
kept the faith : henceforth there is laid up for me the crown
of righteousness, . . . and not only to me, but also to all
them that have loved His appearing " (2 Tim. iv. 7, 8).
Can the crown for watchfulness be given to him who never
watched ? (5) The crown of life :—" Blessed is the man
that endureth temptation : for when he hath been approved,
he shall receive the crown of life " (Jas. i. 12). Can he
be crowned for resisting temptation who succumbed to it ?
 26
That a crown may be lost to a believer is as certain as'
any truth in Holy Scripture. " Hold fast that which
thou hast, that no one take thy crown " (Rev. iii. u). For
crowns are rewards, not given unless the conditions are
fulfilled. " If also a man contend in the games, he is
NOT CROWNED, except he have contended lawfully " (2 Tim.
ii 5). As God has made holiness the passport to. the
crown, so the crown is only the manifestation of the holi-
ness. A crown is given, not at the beginning of a race,
but at the end ; it is a circlet of glory granted only to the
successful runner ; and a successful runner is an athlete
who has carefully observed the regulations of the race.
" If I can be thus crowned, can I be otherwise than a fool
if I am not prepared to sacrifice all to win it ? " (Preb.
Webb-Peploe). When Roumania became a kingdom in.
1881, King Charles, as there was no crown, said,—" Send
to the arsenal, and melt an iron crown out of the captured
cannon, in token. that it was won upon the field of battle,
and bought and paid for with our lives."

OUR CROWN IN JEOPARDY.

Paul now immediately reinforces, with a momentous and
upreme type, God's dual truth thus foreshadowed again
and again from the very dawn of Redemption. Israel in
the Wilderness, says Paul, are a type, real and actual, of us.
" In these things they became FIGURES OF US : these things
happened unto them by way of figure" (1 Cor. x. 6, u).
Their experiences God has selected, not as exceptional, but
as permanent, revelations of His character : all human
experiences, ours as theirs, must flow out of the one unalter-
able character of God. Moreover God so wrought, and so
wrote, purposely for the Church. " In these things they
became figures of us, to the intent that we should not lust, as
they also lusted " : " these things were written for our
admonition." The inspired r cord exists to prove the parallel:
God so wrought, that we might know His character ; He
so wrote, that we might know it for ever. Moreover the
parallel points specifically to the acts of judgment. " They
were overthrown in the wilderness. Now these things " —
the repeated overthrows—" were our examples." The
 27

judgments are embedded in the Word as in rock for ever,

that the Wilderness should become the kindergarten of the
Church. To deny the parallel is to overthrow inspiration :
to ignore the parallel is to silence the Scripture : to admit
the parallel is to disclose a momentous peril to the believer
in Christ.
The apostle lays down, in figure, the ample bedrock of
our own spiritual standing. " Our fathers were all under
the cloud "—redeemed by the blood of the Lamb—" and all
passed through the sea "—separated from a godless world—
" and were all baptised unto Moses in the cloud and in the
sea "—a people buried to sin—" and did all eat the same
spiritual meat "—at the Lord's Table—" and did all drink
the same spiritual drink "—the Spirit from the smitten
Lord—" for they drank of a spiritual rock that followed
them : and the rock was Christ." Standing in grace
could hardly be stated, in so few words, more exhaustively :
if privilege could render immune, Israel was beyond fall.
Now observe the startling and studied contrast. " How-
beit with most of them God was not well pleased : for they
were overthrown in the wilderness." All under—ald
through—all immersed—all eating—all drinking : MOST
OVERTHROWN. For " they which run in a race all run
but one receiveth the prize." All—all Israel : ntost—all
Israel minus two : " wherefore let hint that thinketh he
standeth take heed lest he fall." 1
God's sharp dilemma impales us on its one horn or on
the other. Overthrown Israel are a type, either of the
believer's eternal destiuction, or of his forfeited reward : if
it is not lost glory, it is lost life. But the passage itself
decides. " Know ye not that they which run in a race
all run, but one receiveth THE PRIZE ? Even so run, that
ye may attain. . . . Fore I would not, brethren, have
you ignorant, how that our fathers," so privileged, " were
overthrown." It is a prize, not the gift of eternal life,
which is in peril. God never put us under the Blood to
is
I The fourfold (Luke xiii. 24) inheritance of the Kingdomtwo
remarkably embodied in two living—Caleb and Joshua, andbones
dead—Jacob (Gem xlix, 29) and Joseph (Josh. xxiv. 32), whose
were carried into the Land.
2 See R.V. and Critical Editions.
 28
withdraw us from its blessed efficacy (Rom. viii. i ; John x.
27-29 ; Rom. xi. 29 ; Heb. ix. 12) : neither has He ever
presented the Prize as an irrevocable gift. As fivefold was
the privilege and fivefold the overthrow, so even the best
saints need cautioning against the worst sins. " He is
not crowned, except he have contended lawfully " (2 Tim. ii.
5). The blessed reality of the election of God can prove no
shelter for the sins of the elect : remember Moses.' " Now
THESE THINGS HAPPENED UNTO THEM BY WAY OF EXAMPLE ;
AND THEY WERE WRITTEN FOR OUR ADMONITION, UPON
WHOMk THE ENDS OF THE AGES ARE COME." Dean Farrar
tells us that Queen Victoria was once speaking with her
chaplain—probably himself—on the Second Coming.
" How I wish," she said, " the LORD would come in my
life-time 1" " Why, your Majesty " he asked. " Be-
cause," she replied with quivering lips, " I should so love
to lay my crown at His feet." According solely to our
achievements in sanctified service will be the glory that we shall
cast at His feet in that day.

CHRISTIAN RESPONSIBILITY.
It is in the nature of a trust that a day must come for
a report.of the trust to be put in ; and so, after a prolonged
period during which His servants trade with the talents
he had entrusted to them, Jesus says that " the lord of
those servants cometh, and maketh a reckoning with them "
(Matt. xxv. I9). The parable covers the entire period
from the Nobleman's departure to his return—that is,
from our Lord's Ascension to the Second Advent ; and
so embraces all who have conducted His business on earth
for nearly two thousand years : it covers the period, and
the only period, in which the Church of Christ exists, and

1 In another aspect of his typical life Moses, in his unique burial

and appearance on the Mount of Transfiguration fourteen hundred
years later—for, with all the prophets (Luke xiii, 28), he is as
personally sure of the Kingdom as earlier he was typically among
the excluded—stood forth on the Mount the solitary representative
of dead saints; for he was "faithful in all His [God's, Num. xfi, 7]
house AS A SERVANT " (Heb. iii, 5).
 29
k and judgment
so is a comprehensive history of the wor small, but the
of the Church. The goo ds entr uste d are
s. To the very
returns possible on the outlay are enormou ten, our Lord
highest serv ant, who turn s one poun d into
little " (Luke xix.
says, " Thou wast found faithful in a verysometimes home-
17) ; obsc ure, nam eless , often land less,
er, nevertheless
less, even friendless, without rank or pow tly used, can
we hold in our han ds a trus t whi ch, righ
er in the day of
change into incalculable wealth and pow
Messiah's King dom .
s on the third
Now our Lord casts the main emphasi ant who was
seve n vers es are devo ted to the serv
servant— essful servants :
a failure, and only three each to the succnds Christ's main
therefore, on this servant's identity depe understand that
teaching in the parable ; and unless we ealed peril, like
he may be ourselves, ours will be a concFor every truth,
.
a man-trap hidden under forest-leaves electric shock ;
appropri ated , falls on the soul like an
who denies the
whereas it is obvious that the believerwhile he may be
applicati on of the pass age to him self,
third servant can
committing every offence of which the steel that God's
be guilty, so enca ses him self in a coat of
less. It is of vital
sword falls on him blunted and harm the third servant.
import to know the spiritual standing ofGod by the follow-
Now this servant is proved a child of
r servants he is
ing facts. (1) Equally with the othe ascension ; but
entrusted with our Lord 's goo ds on His
does entrust, His
Christ has never entrusted, and never e this is a saved
work on earth to the unsa ved ther efor
all " His own
soul equally with the rest. Jesus calls themtheir Master's
servants " ; literally, " slav es," boug ht with
take a journey,
money, and owned by Him. " About tothis property of
the Nobleman is obliged to hand over
onally as before,
his, which he is unable to manage persof his absence. He
to other faithful hands duri ng the time
his own servants,
therefore calls, not strange labourers, but as their master,
belonging to him as his serv ants ; and
rd his interest as
since he may expect that they will rega s the property
their own, entrusts to them and their hand
differ greatly
he leaves behind " (Goebel). The servantsone ; but they
eme s, as five to
in capacity—in the extr
 30
differ not at all in the possession of a common trust.
(2) The three servants are judged together, at one spot
and at one time ; but the wicked dead are not judged
until the Great White Throne (Rev. xx. 5, 12), a thousand
years after the judgment of the redeemed. So also the
slothful servant is judged last of the three, as last risen
and last rapt ; for he is " the servant which knew his
Lord's will, and made not ready, nor did according to his
will " (Luke xii. 47). As judged together, all three servants
are the redeemed, judged in the one and only judgment
in which the Church, and the Church alone, appears
(2 Cor. v. ro) ; and as this judgment is in the Parousia,
the only access to which is by rapture, all the unsaved
are of necessity physically excluded. None can reach the
judgment Seat except the saved.1 (3) All three are judged,
like the Sev n Churches, solely on the ground of their
works : their faith in, and love for, the absent King are
implied and assumed : their standing is never challenged.
If the third servant were an unsaved soul, his works could
in no way, and' on no ground, be accepted : between the
two Advents, it is the redeemed alone who are judged
according to their works ; for only those who have received
from Christ can work for Him. Every servant of God has
a personal service for Christ in the world, a sacred trust
to fufil ; it is that mission, that trust, which constitutes
him a ' servant '—the title by which the Apostles most
loved to describe themselves (Rom. i. i ; 2 Pet. i. z ; Jas.
; Jude r) : the salvation a believer receives is the sole
ground on which he can trade at all, and it is the Church
alone which is the market where God's trade is for ever
going on. " It is evident that the design is not to describe
a man entirely fallen from faith, an apostate ; but one
who, although he has not dissolved his connexion as a
servant, or squandered his talent, yet has not used it to
At a meeting in Toronto a Christian lady came up to the speaker
and said,—" You alarm me 1 I thought I was not coming into any
kind of judgment. How then am I to know that I am saved ? "
" Madam," he said, " the answer is very simple. The moment
you stand before the Judgment Seat you will know you are saved,
for none but the saved will ever stand there." The lost from among
the dead are not judged until the great White Throne appears, a
thousand years later.
r

31

his Lord's advantage, one who has not done his duty "
(Olshausen). (4) Overwhelming is the final proof. In
the twin parable of the Pounds, the unsaved are placed
in careful contrast with the saved, as Citizens and as
Servants, the only two classes in the world, sharply sunder-
ing mankind : the Servants our Lord entrusts with His all
on earth, the Citizens send the message after the ascended
Christ,—" We will not have this Man to reign over us "
a message which, as Archbishop Trench says, will have its
full and final fulfilment in the great apostasy of the last
days. All three Servants have accepted Jesus as Lord,
and have entered vitally into the service of God ; " His
,own Servants, i.e., who have become His in faith, in contra-
distinction to the Citizens who would not " (Steir), and who
arc slain without mercy before His face (Luke xix. 27).
" Whilst the one Servant represents an inactive member
of the body of Christ, the Church, who failed to perform
his duty, these Citizens are open rebels, and hence their
Lord orders them to be killed : it is evident that this penal
proceeding is essentially distinguished from the reproof
administered to the one Servant" (Olshausen).
Now therefore we see the danger to us all which our
Lord flashes out like a red light upon the line—a danger
which, remarkably enough, is greatest to the lowliest
disciple. What is the peril ? Undervaluing what God
has given us. Christ gives to each servant what He sees
he can wisely use ; as much as he can handle and profit
by ; no servant can say, Lord, Thou gayest me nothing :
no servan is expected by Christ to produce results greater
than his abilities or his opportunities ; the poorest, the
most unlettered, the most obscure have the very little'
which yet can coin enormous future wealth. " A talent
is entrusted also to the idle servant according to his
own ability' : he is therefore just as able, and for this
reason just as bound, to work spontaneously with his
gifts, as all other servants with theirs " (Goebel). But he
so undervalues his opportunity as to bury it in the earth
—in earthliness ; his carnality is his shame because he is
a child of God, and as such betrays his trust : " the cir-
cumstance rendering him guilty is, that h, to whom the
money belonged was no stranger to him, but his master,
 32
to whom he was bound as a servant " (Goebel). For it is
not the possession of the talents that determines our reward,
but solely our use of them : it is the second five and the
second two, not the first five and the first two, on which
reward alone is given. So Jesus describes the third servant
as the exact opposite of the first two : instead of " good "
and " faithful," He says he is " wicked " and " slothful " :
not " good " in the general sense, but a good servant :
and so not bad (or wicked) in a general sense, but a bad
servant ' the goodness of the one consisted in his faithful-
ness, the badness of the other in his sloth. " This distinctive
name comprehends all his guilt, Thou slothful servant "
(Steir) ; unprofitable (Matt. xxv. 3o), but not unregenerate,
or apostate ; he did not misemploy, nor embezzle, nor
squander, but simply hid his money. So what exactly
does our Lord charge him with ? Unbelief, unregeneration,
rebellion, apostasy, adultery, theft, murder ? Nay : it is
simply a servant of God who has made nothing of his life ;
all he has done wrong is merely to withhold his powers
from serving God ; he hoarded, when he ought to have
-expended ; he had no sacred sense of responsibility.
" The parable is not for gross sinners : the warning is
for those who, being equipped of God for a sphere of activity
in His kingdom, hide their talent " (Trench). He says,
As I cannot be so holy as God requires, I give up the
attempt to satisfy such strictness : I object profoundly
to the doctrine of reward according to works, and deny all
responsibility in a servant of Christ beyond his responsibility
to maintain the gift of grace with which he was entrusted
at his conversion. But his answer (as his Lord says)
implies that he knew the truth. The Judge answers—
Your very consciousness of the severity of the principle ought
to have made you more careful, not less, to meet its require-
ments. " Thereby must the evil servant bear testimony
with his own mouth to the innermost truth, and the most
perfect right, according to which the Lord requires fruit
from what He sows or gives—that God demands fruits
and works " (Steir). For the believer to have at his judg-
ment only what he had at his conversion will be his condemna-
tion. As his like had been negative, so is his punishment :
he is cast into the darkness outside the brilliantly lit festal
 33
hment
halls : " nothing is said here of any further punis om
of the servant ; enoug h that he has no part in the kingd
wasted
of the Lord " (Goebel). Over lost opportunities, is
graces, slighted privileges, a sold birthright, there
weeping and gnashing of teeth." 2
of
Both the faithful servants are remarkable examples : both
" (i John iv. 17)
" boldness in the day of judgment their hands
come joyfully forward, for they have facts in
—the talents doubled ; and both are invite d at once into
Lord —ou r Lord 's joy in His King dom,
the joy of their ' the
sing the sham e,
for which He endured the cross, despi comi ng
authority God will confe r on Him on His secon d
glory to estab lish the
from heaven in kingly power and
the third
Messianic Kingdom " (Goebel).3 So also would share in
servant had he been found faithful. " He has no
him
the kingdom of his lord, and therefore he who is likebel).
will have no share in the King dom of Chris t " (Goe
ties
Both faithful servants had exercised all their facul long
and powers in the interests of their Mast er ; the
ent,
delay in His return had not made them slothful or neglig for
but, on the contrary, had affor ded them longe r time
ch,
greater gains ; and what they had gained in the Churrred
they reap in the Kingdom. The " well done " is confe
" The
for no reason but one—because they have done well.of the
period is not given them for idle waiti ng. It is
se it is
most critical importance for themselves, becau h their
appointed them as a test-time, on the use of whic
posi-
own participation in the Kingdom of Christ and their ce
tion in it will depend " (Goebel). For the way to advan
gained
our own interests is to advance our Lord's : each
(Ps. xviii. 9),
Since the Parousia is a place of thick darkness to be cast forth
indwelt by the Sheki nah Glory (Matt . xvi. 27),
ring of light on the thresh old of the Kingd om is to
from the inner
into the extern al dark of the Pavilio n of Cloud (Ps. xviii.
be expelled
I). professor, then
" If the servant is not a believer, but a mere Christian who
in the parab le nothin g to repres ent the
we have
fails in faithfulness " (C. G. Trumbull).
3 It must be the Millennial
Kingdom, for our Lord's everlasting
Kingdom as the Son of God— as distinct from the kingdom the
Nobleman goes away to obtain (Luke xix. 12J—is inherently His,
without beginn ing or end, never confer red : " of the Son He s iith,
, 0 God, is FOR EVER AND EVER " (Heb. i. 8).
Thy throne
 34

cent. per cent. for their Lord, and for each pound (Luke
xix. 17) the reward is a city : the more devoted the life,
the more blazing the glory. No servant had more than
one pound : no servant was without one pound : every
servant had an equal opportunity of making ten pounds :
yet ONLY ONE (so far as we know) did so. " It is an experi-
ment of the future King, in the course of which His servants
first prove their fidelity in a little sum of money, and then
for their reward take part in managing His Kingdom "
(Goebel). For while the ten cities and the five cities are
figurative, because every phrase in a parable is ipso facto
figurative, nevertheless our Lord reveals that the " many
things " over which He puts the faithful servant will be
no less than royalty. " 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. ii. z6, 27). Then follows the judgment
on the wicked among Israel and the Gentiles. " 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 house-
hold, 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).
So " the Coming One remains the Lord of all these
servants, of the unfaithful as well as the faithful ; and in
the case of the latter will show Himself as Lord in the
reckoning " (Steir). 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 unfaith-
fulness. Tn 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
The Judgment Seat. ro.
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).
 35

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 Christlike 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 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 opposi-
tion 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
 36
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. Ac-
cording 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). " Fait
THE LORD HIMSELF SHALL DESCEND FROM HEAVEN, WITH
A SHOUT, WITH THE VOICE OF THE ARCHANGEL, AND WITII
THE TRUMP OF GOD " (I Thess. iv. 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. ii.
Moreover, the world-wide revival of the Gospel of the
Kingdom before the End is certain (Matt. xxiv. x4) :
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
The " Kingdom of God," or " of the heavens," a phrase drawn
directly from Daniel, is a Kingdom which " fills the whole EARTH ".
(Dan. ii. 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. xi. 15). It is
foreshadowed now by the Kingdom in Mystery (Matt. xiii.), or the
Church, and for both regeneration is essential (Luke xvii. 21,
John iii. 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 xix. 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 king-
dom ; 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. xii. 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. i. 13). Concerning
the Everlasting Kingdom, 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 PH ASE
`, THE KINGDOM " (I COI. XV. 24), HE MEANS THE MILLENNIAL.
 37
division
upon which there exists a greater amount of
g expo sitors . For some the King dom is definitely
amon
in the.
the historical Church ; for others it is altogether which
, a great Divin e supra mund ane order of thing s
future
for others
is suddenly to overwhelm the temporal order ; ed on
again it is simp ly the ideal socia l order to be realis
the King dom is the rule of God
earth ; for a fourth class
of the indiv idual . Amon g recen t critics the
in the heart tological
tendency is more and more to lay stress on the escha
n, and to hold that, in our Lord' s teaching, the
interpretatio
heavenly
Kingdom is essentially the great future and
of thing s which will be revea led at His comin g. The
order to be
is yet to come . It is alway s
Kingdom in its fulness e us "
praye d for. It is the great end whic h is ever befor
rd, 19I0).
(Archbishop D'Arcy, University Sermon at Oxfo
" FLESH AND BLOO D CANN OT INHER IT THE KINGDOM
FOR
RRUP-
OF GOD, NEITHER DOTH CORRUPTION INHERIT INCO NOT
. BEHO LD, I TELL YOU A MYST ERY : WE SHAL L
TION
COL XV.
ALL SLEEP, BUT WE SHALL ALL BE CHANGED " (I
50). be
Thus it is natural that the question should nowof a
ed —is the Mille nnial Age itself in the natur e
press
crowns a
reward ? Is the possession of some one of thea disciple
entra nce into the King dom ? 1 Can
title to

1 " Receive the crown of glory, honou

r, and joy," says the Arch-
is not the glory
bishop at the British Coronation : but the crown ol. When Tsar
or the kingdom, but only its proof and symb a captive, was
Nicholas H., returning to the Winter Palace as , " We greet you,
received by the guard with the republican salute tudded circlet
Colonel Romanoff," the loss of the actual gem-s but only the tragedy
probably never even crossed the Tsar's mind, that overcomoth,
of a lost empire : so when our Lord says, " Heto him will I give
and he that keepeth My works unto the end, them with a rod. of
authority over the nations, and he shall rule sceptre is merely of
iron " (Rev. ii. 26), it is not the symbol (theand power for which
iron) that is priceless, but the enormous rank s on the tested and
the symbol stands, and which the LORD confer
approved servant of GOD. Now no resurr ected saint can be a
and reigned
subject in the Millennial Kingdom, for " they lived ned (Rev. xx. 4) ;
with Christ " (Rev. XX. 4) : all are actually enthro ng of a crownless
and neither Scripture nor the world knows anythi es—are the subjects
king. (The Sheep of Matt. xxv. 34—saved Gentil The crown is an
in both the Millennial and Eternal Kingdoms.) l—of a kingdom ;
invariable accompaniment—the proof and symbo
 38

be excluded, and yet his name be found at last written

in the Lamb's Book of Life ? (Rev. xx. 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 believer's exclusion.
Polycarp, an actual disciple of the Apostle John, says :
—" If we please Thin in this present Age, we shall also
receive the Age to Come ; and if we walk worthy 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. xx. ? But, on the contrary, has not every
child of God a promise of reigning with Christ in the
perfect and final stp.te ? " (Robert Chapman). " Into that
glorious company of the First Resurrection it is probable
that only those who have been partakers of Christ's
so our Lord treats the conditional offer of a crown (Rev. iii. II) as a
synonymous incentive with the conditional offer of a throne (Rev.
in. 21) ; and Paul illustrates the loss of the incorruptible crown (i Cor.
ix. 27) by Israel's loss of an earthly kingdom (r Cor. x. 5). The
two are indivisible.
 39

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 vic-
torious 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
disobed ient child of God will have the privilege of reign-
ing with Christ, having lost the incorruptible crown, and
with a terrible, iri'etrievable loss at the Bema.' Can such
a believer be morally fitted for reigning with Christ ?
Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resur-
rection ' " (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 " (01shausen). " Oh,
for a noble ambition to obtain one of the first seats in
 40
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.

EXCLUSION FROM THE HOLY LAND.

The designed type—as deliberate and elaborate as any
in the Bible—solves the problem of exclusion with extra-
ordinary 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 (z Sam. vii.
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. iv. g). 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. ii. 5). Thus Canaan is the type of
the Millennial Kingdom of Christ.'
Now we arrive at once at a question enormously empha-
sized by the Holy Ghost : against whom went forth the
oath of exclusion ? " For who, when they heard [the
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.
 41
tians, nor
actual voice of God] did provoke ? " not Egyp Ama lek, none
the Seven Tribes of Cana an, nor Moa b nor
who m were ever shut up to Jeho vah, seve red from all
of God : " nay,
the world in a desert as the sole people of rael, under
did not all they that came out of Egyp t "—Is
ism. " And
passover blood and through Red Sea bapt
whom was He displ eased forty years ? was it not with
with sin ; that is,
them that sinned "—as only believers can ses fell in the
against privilege and light—" who se carca
of the oath :
wilderness ? " The carcases were the proosfthey became,
they so pampered the body, that mere bodie
e He that they
reaping corruption. " And to whom swar whom went
should not enter into His rest "—a gain st
that were
forth God's oath of exclusion—" but to them ied people.
disobedient ? " a justified but an unsa nctif
Bish op Wes tcott :—" The warn ing is
In the words of ous care : for
necessary ; Christians have need of anxi
so prov oked God ? even those whom
who were they who
He had already brought from bondage." 1 the oath ?
But what exactly was the sin which provoked use of
to ente r in beca
" We see that they were not able what ? Israel's
'unbelief " (Heb . iii. Iv). But unbe lief in
: " BY FAITH
whole wilderness standing was on faith of the blood ;
[Moses] kept the passo ver, and the sprin kling
Sea as by
. . . BY FAITH they passed through the Red in funda-
. xi. 28). The unbe lief was not
dry land " (Heb ted their
mentals : we are never told that Israel doub by bloo d : on
salvation from Egyp t, and their rans om
ent and caus e are reve aled
the contrary, the exact mom ted repo rt of the
when God's oath left His lips. The rejec
on : " because
godly spies completed Israel's unsanctificati TIMES, they
have temp ted me THES E TEN
all these men despised
shall not see the land " (Num. xiv. 22) ; " they His hand [to
the pleasant land , there fore He lifte d up
l stron gly revo lted agai nst
swear] " (Ps. cvi. 24). Israe
ding demands
God's picture of the future, and the correspon lief of the
the parti al unbe
made upon them : it was the Lord
regenerate : " in THIS thing ye DID NOT BELIEVE
ed the Red Sea, the
Never having left Egypt, nor ever cross Caleb and Joshua)
that entered Cana an (apar t from
generation ed.
form no part of the type, and so are ignor
 42
your God " (Deut. i. 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 t®
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. xiii. 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. iii. i)—" 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

(Math v. 20, etc,) under Grace.
 43

EXCOMMUNICATION AND EXCLUSION.

ough
One New Testament passage decisively proves—th : let us
a multitude confirm—the possibility of exclusion being
examine it. As, in the regenerate, the current of in the
sets towards good, and evil is a backwater ; so, and
unregenerate, the current of being sets towards evil,s the
effort after good is a backwater : and this is alway ousness
criterion of regeneration. " He that doeth righte (i John iii.
is righteous : he that doeth sin is of the devil "
alone save s ; but faith whic h is alone
7, 8). " Faith the
is not faith " (Luther). Yet it is also certain thatas an
regenerate can sin deepl y, and die in such sin. For—
erate
example—three facts decisively establish the regen t has
nature of the inces tuous broth er whom the Holy Ghos
nica-
made a perpetual and conclusive proof. (1) Excommu to Satan :
tion was to deliv er his flesh, but not his spirit ,
Job's , but not his soul
Satan might touch his body, like
of the Lord
" that the spirit may be SAVED in the day Ananias's,
Jesus " (i Cor. v. 5). Now the destru ction , like
might be immediate (for aught we read to the contr ary) and
theref ore he was regen erate
yet his salvation was assured : d "—ev en
before excommunic ation . " When we are judge
are chast ened of the Lord;
unto death (i Cor. xi. 30)—" we xi. 32).
that we may not be condemned with the world " (i Cor. ch to
(2) Paul sharply limits the jurisd iction of the Chur
, whereas
believers : " do not ye judge them that are within wicked
them that are without God judge th ? Put away the
among your-
man "—pass sentence, for he is within—" from belongs
ievers , Paul says,
selves." 1 The right to judge unbel judge d by
solely to God : theref ore the inces tuous broth er,
was a belie ver. (3) This
the Church at Paul's command, ed :
brother, if excommunicated at all, was promptly restor him and
says— " forgiv e
for in his second Epistle Paul
" (2 Cor.
comfort him ; confirm your love toward him discipline
7).2 This is absolutely decis ive. The sharp
Thus the term " wicked "—applied here to an immoral believer
, as by our Lord to a slothfu l servan t (Luke xix.
by the Holy Ghost is inhere nt in the
22)--does not dispro ve conve rsion. Wicke dness
unsaved : it is incidental in the redeemed.
sed and abandoned
It is blessedly certain that a disciple's confessins
immed iately purged . " If we confes s our "—our specific
sin is
 'Wr

44
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 excom-
municate committed to Satan for the destruction of the
body.
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 -(r
Cor. i. 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 fornica-
tion—as also tie other immoralities named—might spread
through the entire Church : " know ye not that a little
leaven leaveneth the whole ittnap ?" So far from Pant
regarding the incestuous brother as no believer, because of
his fornication, be as,serts exactly the reverse—that, unless
drastic measures purge the Body, itnmoralities may con-
taminate 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 indwell by
the Holy Glu3st. " 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 ? " (r Cur. vi. 15).
If Paul has unbelievers in mind, then he warns them of a
sin which they cannot commit ; for to take the members of
transgressions, after conversion, confessed as they occur—" He is
faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from
all nnrighteousness " (r John i. 9). Therefore Peter's denial has
not forfeited his throne. " Many shall be FIRST that are LAST
(Matt. 7CIX. 30).
 45
t, is an act possible
Christ, and make them members of a harloghout the passage,
only to one in Chri st : that is, Paul , throu
speaks solely of the members of the Bodycom of Christ.
in that belie vers can mit such sins :
Thus it is certa it is certa in that all
it is certain that some in Corinth did :
exco mm unic ated : Paul now unfo lds the
such are to be uncl ean as to be
tremendous revelation that disc iples so
rch, mus t also be shut out of the King -
shut out of the Chu .
ated will be the excl uded
dom ; that the excommunic ation ? For-
For what is the cata logu e of exco mm unic
revilers, extor-
nicators, idolaters, covetous, drunkards, logue of exclu-
tioners (r Cor. v. ii). And wha t is the cata
at what peril ?
sion ? " Ye yourselves do wrong " : e word, with no
that wron g-doe rs [the sam
" Know ye not ? 1 Be not
article] shall not inherit the kingdom of God rch like Corinth
deceived "— coul d a well -inst ructe d Chu
unre gene rate adult erers would
be in peril of imagining that rs, nor idola ters,
enter the King dom ?—" neith er forn icato
three an expa nsion of forni ca-
[four new sins are now added, : excl usio n is a
tion, one an expa nsio n of cove tous ness
covetous, nor
wider thing than excommunication], nor"—each excom-
drunkards, nor revi lers, nor exto rtion ers
" shall inherit
municating sin is also an excluding sin— list : the justly
the kingdom of God." It is the same excluded. 2 For
excommunicated will be the infa llibl y
The Kingdom of God is here taken in the to eschatological sense "
1" its external appear-
—Godet : " the Kingdom of God refers here
lshau sen. That " the Kingdom " is
ance at a future period "—O this very Epistle declares :—
the Millennial and not the Eternal, to God, even the Father "
" He shall deliver up THE KINGDOM
(r Cor. xv. 24).
2 Other passages, equally
decisive, are also addressed to believers
with equal clear ness . " For this ye know of a surety, that no
n, nor covetous man, bath any inher it-
fornicator, nor uncle an perso
of Chris t and God. Let no man decei ve YOH
ance in the Kingdom
with empty words " v. 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 mani fest, which are these, fornication, un-
cleanness, lasciv iousn ess, idola try, sorcery, enmities, strife, jeal-
ns, divis ions, partie s "—distinctively Church
ousies, wraths, factio lings , and such like : of the
sins—" envyings, drun kenn ess, revel
you, even as I did forew arn you, that they which
which I forewarn Kingd om of God " (Gal. v. io).
practise such things shall not inher it the
 46
whose soever sins ye fm-give [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 xx. 23) ;
for " what things so ever ye shall bind on earth shall be
bo nd in heaven ' (Matt. xviii. r8).
Paul closes with words finally conclusive. " Such were
some of yciu ; 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 threaten-
ing 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 he
punished : does God reveal the sins of one set of men,
-to threaten punishment to another " I fear lest
should find you not such as I would," because of " unclean-
ness and fornication and lasciviousness which they com-
mri-TED " (2 Cor. xii. 20). It is the washed, the sanctified,
the justified that are in peril. Are hypocrites—empty
professors, false brethren, who have slipt past the Church
examiners—washed, sanctified, justified ? Hear what
the 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. iii.
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. iii. 4). " NOT
EVERY ONE THAT SAITH UNTO ME, LORD, LORD "—an
utterance peculiarly characteristic of disciples (John xiii.
r3)—" SHALL ENTER INTO THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN ;
1 Death-bed conversions leave no room for " the works of faith "
it is certain that our Lord ignores the dying thief's petition (Luke
xx-iii. 42), but comforts him with the assurance of simple salvation.
Our Lord closes the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. vii. 21-27)
as He began it (Matt. v. 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
Spirit's body of commands throughout the Epistles, our active
 47
er which is in
but he that DOETH THE WILL of my Fath
heaven " (Matt. vii. 21.) very heart
For it is exceedingly remarkable that in the that a
ter of the Bibl e, the truth
of the great Grace chap d by his own
mine
Christian's. reward is exclusively deter ing," as Calvin
fidelity lies deeply emb edde d. " Work
e." " For if, by
has said, " is not at all opposed to grac ed through the
the trespass of the one [Ada m], death reign
loves to reward
one ; much more "—as much more as Godrd His enemies--
His servants more than He loves to rewa
y, take continu-
" shall they that receive "—take constantl of grace "—its
ously ; not grace, but— " the abun dance
lows (Godet)
superabundance, so that the superfluity overf ed phrase
(Ram . v. 17)— " life," a limit
—" reign in life" a syno nym for
used in the Gospels (Mark ix. 43, 45, 47) as
dom . So far from rewa rd under-
the Millennial King whic h alone
mining grace, it is the ABUNDANC E of G -'ACE ,
rd : grac e conf ers justi ficat ion as a free
entitles to rewa erate ly and
gift ; but only the abundance of grac e, delib
recei ved, quali fies for glory with Chris t in the
continuously in the beau ti-,
rlies all :
Life that is life indeed. Grace unde the right eous
ful words of Augu stine ,—" To whom could
not given
Judge give the crown if the merciful Father had s due, were
grace ? and how coul d these be paid as thing
give n ? " For Grac e, whil e
not things not due previously Lord , cann ot
it grants salva tion solel y on the meri ts of our
instinct
ignore our conduct after regeneration ; and every oversies
calls for justic e, after the painf ul contr
of our hearts years, before
that have rent the Church for two thousand ge over the
eternal bliss shall pass an oblit erati ng spon
Luther and
past, " in that all-reconciling world where asse rts. " But
Zwingle are well agre ed." And so Paul
thy broth er ? or thou again,
thou, why does thou judge for we shall all
why dost thou set at noug ht thy broth er ?
not therefore
stand before the Judgment Seat of God : let us ; but, while
judge one anoth er any more " (Rom . xiv. 1o)
, hand over all
✓igidly adhering to all the truth we know not our own.
judgmen t to an augu st and awfu l Trib unal
except your right eousness
✓ Tteousness is to be found : " for ousness of the scribes and
[your active obedience] exceed the righte
Law], ye shall IN NO WfSE.
•Pharisees [the standard of the Mosaic v. 20).
enter into the kingdom of heaven " (Math
 48

THE FIRST RESURRECTION.

mon the believer to
Once again the Scriptures—which sum elie ver to the Cross—
the Crown, as insisten tly as the unb
clea rness. Paul opens
present this dual truth with crystal n (Ph il. iii. 4-45) with a
one little masterpiece of reve latio
it ? The one man who
supreme hopelessness. What is his own goodness proved
came nearest to reaching God through
der Paul's incomparable
to be the chief of sinners. Ponever held up to the face of
assets : no soul, before or since,
te pearls. Circumcised
God a hand filled with such exquisiof the stock of Israel—
—stamped as God 's from infa ncy ;
tribe of Benjamin—.
with a blood-right to salvation ; of the Heb rew of Hebrews—a
a tribe which nev er brok e awa y ; 'a
gene ratio n back ; a Pharisee
full-blooded Jew to the furthest chu rch—on fire for
odo x ; pers ecut ing the
—intensely orth obe dien t in jot and
God's Law ; in the Law blam eles s—
ever cam e so nea r to win ning life through
tittle. No man " If any othe r man "—of
what he was and what he did. keth to have confidence
any age, or race, or clime—" thin ers over all legalists for
l tow
in the flesh, I yet more" : Pau ul discovery blasted his
ever. But a. sud den and awf
prospects. " I was alive [in my dme own eyes] apart from
whe n the com man nt [" thou shalt not
law once : but , sin revived [sprang
lust " ] came [home to my con scie nce]
elf a dead man] ; and
again into life], and I died [saw mys 's design] unto life,
the commandment, which was [in God
th " (Rom. vii. 9, ro).
this I found to be [in fact] unto dea fidence in the flesh,
" If any man thinketh to hav e con
I yet more " : but what had Pau his inward vision revealed ?—
h l's failure, the whole world
a corpse before God. Wit
lapses into hopeless despair. teousness. Whose ?
There next appears a supreme righ
with Isaiah, that " we
Not Paul's ; for he had discovered,our righteousnesses are
g, and all
are all as an unclean thin He now discovers that what
as filthy' rags " (Isa. lxiv. 6). ; that what he could not be,
he could not do, Christ did
e it, and been it, in
Christ was ; and that Christ had don He instantly drops his
Cor . v. 21).
order to take his place : he exchanges his own
own righteousness, and seizes Christ's . " I do count them
pearls for one priceles s, flaw less gem
be found in him, not
but dung, that I may gain Christ, and
 49

having a righteousness of mine own, . . . but that [righteous-

ness] which is through faith in Christ." Paul never after-
wards doubts his salvation (Rom. viii. 38) : for Christ
haS kept the Law, not with head, hands, and feet only,
but with heart also (Ps. xl. 8) : and this righteousness is
now Paul's (Rom. v. 19). The supreme hopelessness is
replaced by a supreme salvation.
There yet remains a supreme uncertainty. Here are
startling words. " Brethren, I count not myself yet to have
apprehended : . . . but I press on." Not apprehendet] d
[selec
what ? " If by any means I may attain unto the evident
resurrection from [among] the dead." " It is most
that Paul had some special resurrection in view, even the
"
first : and to share in that he was straining every nerve goal
(J. MacNeil). Press on to what ? " Towa rds the
;
unto the prize of the high calling." " If "—conditional -
"by any means "—hazardous—" I may attain 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 ques-
tion." 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
xx. 35, Rom. i. 4, Rev. xx. 4)
the dead (Mark ix. 1o, Luke the
refers to physic al resurr ection. " Of his resurre ction at
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.
On the First Resurrection Dean Alford says :—" Those who
next to the Apostl es, and the whole Church for 30o years,
lived
 50
of regeneration,
Of a resurrection in a figurative sense, i.e.
attained
Paul cannot be speaking ; for he had already
of Dama scus " (Mose s Stuart ). Salva-
to that on the plain
assumed
tion can never be insecure : the Prize can never be
. If the
until it is won., Why ? (r) Because it is a prize
, it is no more a prize.
prize be given on faith without works
that they whic h run in a race all run,
' Know ye not
that ye may
but one receiveth the prize ? Even so run,
service
attain " (1 Cor. ix. 24). (2) No splendour of past
back slidin g. None so
can guarantee immunity from
so suffer ed, so serve d as Paul : yet he assum es
renounced,
rob God of His glory
no prize. (3) False doctrines which
rob you of
will rob us of ours : therefore " let no man
x8). (4) Flesh ly sins also disqu alify.
your prize"
" I buffe t my body, and bring it into bonda ge :
Therefore s,
I have preac hed to other
lest by any means, after that
d be reject ed [for the crown ] " (r Cor. ix. 24-
I myself shoul
binds insecurity
27). The insecurity of the chief of apostles
literal sense : and
understood the first resurrection' in the plain
strang e sight in these days to see exposi tors who are among
it is a
first in revere nce of antiqu ity compl acentl y casting aside the
the
ity presents." From
most cogent instance which primitive antiqu
cases as that of Lazaru s, who died again, it is certain that the
such
of resurre ction is distinc t from its state : so our Lord identifies
act
,—" they that are
the First Resurrection with the Age to Come resurrection from
nted worth y to attain that age, and the
accou
of resurrection to appear
emone the dead" (Luke xx. 33). The act
the Remy is thus distinc t from partic ipation in the Pirst
before
ection , or the Millen nial Age. It was for a share in a resur-
Resurr
not tempo rary— a state, not an act—t hat ancient martyrs
rection
a resurrection "—a
refused life. " Women received their dead by d, not accepting
tempo rary resurre ction : " and others were torture
delive rance ; that they might receiv e a better resurrection "
their
assumes his own
(Heb. xi. 35, Matt. x. 39). It is not that Paul
God revealed to him
death, for it was not until his final hours that
aspiration, whether
his martyrdom (2 Tim. iv. 6) ; but it is his
or dead, to attain to the state of the risen in that Kingdom
living
(1 Cor. xv. 5o). So
which can only be entered by incorruption
m, comm anded for the Kingd om (John iii. 5), pictures the
baptis
spring (Rom. vi. 5)
seed-bed out of which Christ's fellow-plants will
resurre ction, the First : none unbap tized into Moses (i Cor.
in His baptized failed after
x. i) ever entere d Canaa n, thoug h most so
The Last Times, p.
baptism. Tertullian (as Dr. Seiss reminds us,
following on the
242) testifies that in his day, the era immediately
les, it was the custom for Christ ians to pray that they might
Apost
have part in the First Resurrection,
 51
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 " : n that is, the
apprehension is indissolubly linked with the perfection.
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 Ems'''. the kingdom of God "
(Matt. vi. 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 : dvery 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, iv. II).
(3) " This one thing I do." All his missionary ardour, all

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. iv. 8). " Hav-
ing therefore boldness to enter into the holy place by The blood of
Jesus, let us draw near in full assurance of FAITH " (Heb. x. r9).
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. vi. i 1). 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. xiii. 30).
 52
his thirst for souls, all his toil for the churches,becau are bent
e this overm asteri ng passi on of his soul ; se the
befor these chann els
running-tracks for the prize God has laid throu gh
e ; and to-da y's toil is the meas ure of to-
of holy servic a reward for
morrow's glory. " The First Resurrection isof salvation,
obedience rendered after the acceptance fixed in His
and Paul knew not the stand ard which God had
se " (G. H. Pemb er). " The King dom of Heaven
own purpo it by force "
suffereth violence, and MEN OF VIOLENCE taketheref ore it is
(Matt. xi. 12). (4) It is a calling " upwa rd,"
Walk worth ily of God, who is calling
God who is calling. " . ii. 12). 1 God
you into His own kingdom and glory " Thess
all earth ly glori es up to the Thro ne :
is calling us from om of God,
" that ye may be COUNTED WORTHY of the Kingd
for which also ye suffer " (2 Thess. i. 5). The Cross is
appro ved, we receiv e the
ours for ever : when we have been in propo rtion as we
Crown (Jas. i. 12). We hono ur God
The apos tle not only
covet His immeasurable rewards. he presses ;
renounces, he forgets ; he not only advances, does it, but
he not only gazes, he stretches ; he not only
LET US, THER EFOR E, AS MAN Y AS BE
he does it Oily. " Oh, that the thoug ht, the
PERFECT, BE THUS MINDED." "

1 Paul's distinction between the Will

and the Codicil corroborates
his contrast between the Gift and the Prize. " Heirs of God
regeneration : " but (80
indeed " (1/1v) — no condition, save "—" in case we suffer
joint-heirs with Christ , if so be that we suffer
as He did " (01sh ausen ) • " provid ed. that " we suffer (Alford).—
Him, that we may be also glorifi ed with Him " (Rota. viii. 17).
" with n Dei, cober edes autent
(Si autem filii, et hered es : hered es guido
tamen comp atimu r, ut et, congl orifice rnur : Vulgate).
Christi : si Codicil, which bequeathes
Both heirships involve eternal life : but the nial Reign, and bequeaths
joint-h eirship with Messi ah in His Millen
on the same condi tion on which our Lord receiv es it (Phil. ii, 9,
it by a thous and years :
Heb. i. g, Isa. liii. 12), anted ates the Will
reward of the inheri tance " (Col. iii. 24), a legacy which
it is " the the Eternal Kingdom
entitles to an " abundant entrance " into Will ; both heirships arc
(2 Pet. i. i r). Bath heirsh ips are in the
offere d to all ; both Will and Codic il depen d for their validity on
death of the Testa tor : but witho ut the fulfilm ent of its condi-
the ing with Him must
tion the Codic il is inope rative . " The suffer
due to our union " (Moul e) : " if we suffer, we shall also
imply a pain unconditional
reign with Him " (2. Tim. ii. 12) ; the Will is the on identity
bequest of free grace, the Codicil is a glory conditioned
fo experi ence -with Christ .
 53
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. xx. 4, 6).1
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. xv.
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. iv. 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. iii. r6)—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. iv. 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,-
1 See also the thirteenth Present Day Paper, The First
Rerecurs-
lion (2d., Thynne).
 54
" 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. Abra-
ham 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 patharch, 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. xxii. 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"—award-
ing a second justification—" shall give to me at that day "
(2 Tim. iv. 7). From that moment Paul knew that of
which he had been ignorant (1 Cor. ix. 27 ; Phil. iii. xi—r4)
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. ii. 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. xxii.
 55
i6). 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. iii. 20). But works
done after faith, works done in faith, the ' work of faith '
(2 Thess. i. II) does justify for reward. " If any [disciple's]
work shall abide, he shall receive a reward. If any [dis-
ciple's] work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss : but he
himself shall be savid " Cor. iii. 14)—as already possessed
of the justification unto 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 the Judge upon the
Bema—" but he that judgeth me is the Lord. Wherefore
judge nothing before the time " Cor. iv. 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. ii. 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 obedi-
ence. Both justifications are demanded from every
human soul. First, justification by blood, then justification
by obedience ; first, justification by faith, then justifica-
tion 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 adjudica-
tion on an active righteousness through obedience of our
own. For blessed is " the man unto whom God reckoneth
righteousness apart from works " (Rom. iv. 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),
 56
So there are also two overcomings. " Be of good cheer ;
I have overcome the world " (John xvi. 33). The " world "
is all the mass of temptation, allurements to sin, ungodly
habits, unholy life, which make up our present environ-
ment : 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 al/solute 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 "
(x Cor. xv. 57) ; for " this is the victory that hath overcome
the world, even our faith" (1 John v. 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 dis-
ciple is an assured fact : " whatsoever is begotten of God "
--the whole mass of the regenerate—" overcometh the
world : and this is the victory that halls overcome the ,t
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 good-
ness,—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
 57
also overcame " —for the two overcomings are identical in
kind though not in degree—" and sat down with my Father
in His throne " (Rev. iii. 21). Caleb's cry should now ring
through the Churches of Christ :—" WE ARE WELL ABLE
TO OVERCOME " (Num. xiii. 30).
THE PRIZE OF OUR CALLING.
We are now in a position to summarise our conclusions
concerning entry into the Millennial Kingdom. Is the
Kingdom—as well as rank in it—the Prize for which the
Christian is to run, and which may be forfeited, unless a
standard of holiness be attained known only to God ?
It is so—
r. Because our Lord states it in the Gospels,—the Holy
Spirit repeats it in nearly every Epistle,—it is the basis of
the promises and threats to the Seven Churches,—and it is
foretold as an actual experience in the prophecies of the
Apocalypse.
(x) Matt. vii. 21 ; Luke xx. 35, etc.
(2) Eph. v. 5, 6 ; Gal. v. 19-21.
(3) Rev. ii. and
(4) Rev. xi. r8, xx. 6.
2. Because the Types of the Old Testament, largely an
unquarried mine, strikingly corroborate it, thus confirming
our understanding of the literal passages of the New
Testament, and weaving all into an exquisite mosaic of
revelation.
r Cor. ix. 24—x. 12 ; Ex. xii. 15 ; Luke xvii. 32 ;
Heb. iv. II.
3. Because the Age to Come—as distinct from the
Eternal State, which is based on grace alone (Rev. xx. 15)—
is revealed as " one last day of a thousand years, a full and .
perfect judicial aeon," in which all seed sown in this Age
reaps its exactly corresponding harvest, and to which all
adverse consequences of works done after faith are con-
fined.
Rom. ii. 5—ii ; r Pet. iv. 17 ; I John iv. 17 ;
Gal. vi. 7-9.
4. Because it safeguards the infinite merits of our Lord's
,imputed righteousness and divine sacrifice by establishing
the spotless and eternal standing of every believer in Him
 58

while it also safeguards human responsibility and divine

justice by making every believer accountable for his walk
under pain of a possible forfeiture of coming glory.1
(r) Heb, x. 14 ; Rom. viii. 33. (2) Phil. ii. 12 ;
Rev. iii.
5. Because—'since God's dealings with His people must
always rest on the character of God, and God's character
is not mercy only, but justice also—it is inconceivable
that a disciple's life, if unholy, 2 should have no profounder
effect on his destiny than mere gradation in glory.
Heb. x. 30, 3r ; Rev. xxii. 12 ; r CM iii. 15 ;
Luke xx. 35.
6. Because, if we acknowledge any judgment of a
believer's works at all, and that before a tribunal which is
a judgment seat and not a mercy seat, we are thereby com-
pelled to acknowledge, further, that the investigation must

The unique plateau of grace and ultimate glory to which our

Lord has for cvcr exalted His Church, so far from making her
immune from responsibility, deepens it. " And that servant,
which knew his lord's will, and made not ready, nor did according
to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes ; but he that knew
not, and did things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten with 'few
stripes. And to whomsoever mush is given, of him shall much be
required, and to whom they commit mush, of him Will they ask the
more " (Luke xii. 47). " Those who believe that from the evangelical
position One cannot properly speak of any punishment in the
judicial sense, but only affectionate chastisements for the moral
amendment of the misled, can hardly measure aright the fearful
earnestness of declarations such as these " (Lange.)

,L It is not only gross sin, or deeply defective service, that excludes :

it is of the utmost importance to learn that what I am, equally with
what I do, must decide the issue. Harsh tempers (Matt. v. 3),
haughty spirits (Matt. v. 5), unforgiving dispositions (Math vi. 14),
purse-proud hearts (Mark x. 24), unmellowed characters (Matt. xx.
22) are not only unfit for co-royalty with the Lord, but would
quickly reduce the Kingdom to the chaos to which they have
reduced the Church. Except ye "—apostles—" turn, AND
BECOME AS LITTLE CHILDREN —trustful, pure, lowly, loving—
" ye shall in no wise enter into the Kingdom of heaven " (Matt.
xviii. 3) • " for of sue" is the Kingdom of heaven " (Math xix.
Moreover, truth rejected becomes very stern. " Whosoever shall
not receive the kingdom of God as a Mk child, he shall in no wise
enter therein " (Mark x. 15).
 59
be strictly judicial, and that it will therefore be as exactly
graded in censure as it is in praise.1
2 Cor. V. TO ; Rom. xiv. 10-12 ; Col. iii. 24, 25 ;
2 Tim. ii. 3.
7. Because it vindicates the holiness and justice of God
from the charge of compounding with His people's sins, and
makes the highest glory given by God to rest only on the
active righteousness of the disciple co-operating, consist-
ently and ceaselessly, with the imputed righteousness of
his Lord,—obedience being the only proof of love.
I Car. iii. 17 ; x Thess. iv. 6 ; Matt. v. zo ;
Rev. xx. 6.
8. Because it is the supreme reconciliation between Paul
and James,—that is, between justification through faith
unto Eternal Life and justification through works unto
Millennial Reward ; for into an Everlasting Kingdom,
which is granted as a gift, an abundant entrance can only
be a prior one, and it is built upon a sevenfold foundation
of Works (z Pet, i. 3-11).
(1) Before works—Rom. iv. zo ; Gen. xv. 6.
(2) After works—Jas. ii. 21 ; Gen. xxii. 16.
9. Because it is perhaps as near an approximation as

Present chastisement—even bodily, as Miriam struck with

leprosy by God's own hand (Num. xii. ro), or Church members
afflicted and cut off for sin (1 Cor. xi. 3o)—all acknowledge ; but
most assume that all chastisement is sharply confined to this life.
The Judgment Seat is thereby shorn of all judicial function, and made
totally unreal. Scripture, on the contrary, asserts that judgment
which falls now (r Tim, v. 24) is exceptional ; and, apart from the
present chastisement of all sons (Heb. xii. 8), it is the Age to Come
which is supremely judicial. Death works no magic upon character.
How grave is the ultimate logic of a denial of the Judgment Seat
it is needless to emphasise. " The reasons why chastisement must
end with this life will be very hard to find, very hard to establish.
Those then who will be quit of this doctrine at all hazards will
scarcely feel any position a safe one, but that which asserts (r) that
there is no precept given to the elect of God ; and, by consequence,
(2) that they never sin, nor ever receive chastisement. This awful
position of unbelief I shall not here assail " (Govett). If the back-
slider, even the worst, is instantly and miraculously cleansed and
perfected at death, and by the act of death, there would neither
be need for the prolonged process of sanctification through a lifetime
of suffering, nor justice to those countless sufferers who have achieved
holiness through agony.
 60
has yet been reached to a solution of the perennial controv-
ersy between the Calvinist and the Arminian : for it
establishes all the passages of glorious certainty, while
it leaves ample scope for the most solemn warnings : it
takes both sets of Scripture as it finds them.'
John x. 27, 28 ; ROM vi. 23 ; Rom. xi. 29 ;
John xv. 6 ; Heb. x. 26 ; Matt. v. 22.
ro. Because it gives the natural and unforced inter-
pretation to the facts of Church life, as it does also to the
simple statements of Holy Writ, and reveals how exactly
the one squares with the other, both in present character
and in just recompense ; and whether as selective rapture,
or exclusive resurrection, or forfeiture of crowns, or failure
of the prize, or conflagration of works, or limited coheir-
ship, or even penal consequences,—the argument is cumu-
lative, and overwhelming in its accumulation.
2 Car. xii. 20, 21 ; Jas. ii. 5 ; Matt. xviii. 18 ;
Rom. viii. 12, 13.
ii. Because large sections of the Church of God are
purged, and can duly be purged, by seeing the drastic con-
sequences of a carnal life ; and because, for want of a frank
and fearless statement of these consequences, multitudes of
disciples are now wrapt in a profound slumber.2
I The Arminian groups—the High Church, the Wesleyan, and the
Salvation Army—affirm that a believer may suffer eternal destruction ;
the Calvinistic groups—the Low Church, the puritan Nonconformist,
and the Brethren—deny all adverse judgment on a believer beyond
negative loss : the understanding of Scripture here maintained
affirms that a believer may suffer anything short of eternal destruc-
tion, but only within the Millennial epoch. It is at least a balanced
mean between two sharp extremes. Too long the leaders of the
Churches have burked the menacing words God directs against
the wicked and slothful servant, and theirs therefore must be the
ultimate responsibility for the slow and painful reluctance with which
souls loyal to the whole Word of God are now being compelled to
readjust their perspective. But all teaching which deepens holiness
and lowliness, and transforms us into a closer image of the Lord,
can hardly be from the Pit ; again and again I have seen it trans-
figure lives ; and a large measure of any grace or blessing that has
entered my own life these thirty years I owe to these stern truths
which are so fiercely contested.
2 It is astounding that disciples should deny penal effects at the
Judgment Seat (Matt. xxv. 30) which the Holy Ghost is working
before our eyes. Missionaries wrote of the Chinese Revival (rgto)
 61
Cor. v. 5, zi, vi. 9 ; Matt. xxiv. 48-51 ;
Luke xii. 47, 48 ; Rev. iii. r6, 21,
12. Because it purges every motive with the awful
vision of the Judgment Seat of Christ, and supplies an
incentive second only to love in its motive power for
alienating the disciple from the world and filling him with
a passion for the Kingdom of God ; and because it is the
golden possibility for every child for God to share Messiah's
Throne.
r Pet. i. 17 ; Rev. ii. 21-23 ; Phil. iii. 11-14 ;
Rev. ii. 26, 27.
THE GREAT ESCAPE.
One last application of the principle, and the most imme-
diate and urgent, still remains:—it is the peril of unwatchful-
ness on the near approach of the last judgments. " All
these things that shall come to pass " (Luke xxi. 36) :
what things ? Crowding and disastrous miracles :—
tenors from heaven (ver. rr) ; signs in sun and moon and
stars (ver. 25) ; the powers of the heaven shaken (ver. 26) :
for these will be the days of vengeance (ver. 22), of perse-
cution (ver. 17), of distress of nations, men fainting for
fear (ver. 25). " Then shall be great tribulation, such as
hath not been from the beginning of the world until now,
no, nor ever shall be " (Matt. xxiv. 21). No peril so awful
has ever demanded an escape so, great.
Escape is possible : " to escape all these things." Now
since the distress is universal it can only be an escape into
the heavens ; " for it shall come upon all them that dwell
on the face of all the earth." No foothold of safety will
exist in the whole 'inhabited world. It is an escape to " the
Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory " :
for " He bowed the heavens also, and came down ; . . . He

—" Confessions were made by Christians of all ranks—pastors,

elders, deacons, evangelists, Biblewomen, church members—of
sins which included all forms mentioned in the Pauline Epistles,—
idolatry, adultery, gambling, theft, fraud, hatred, divisions ; sins
covering every one of the Ten Commandments, one of the most
frequent being the breach of the Seventh. One reason they gave
for confession was lest, if they did not confess now upon earth,
they might be forced to confess hereafter in heaven. I have seen
 62
. . . He sent from on high, He took me" (Ps. xviii. 9).
Therefore this cannot be the deliverance of the elect
Jewish remnant : for (i) the escape of the Jew is into the
wilderness, never into the heavens (Rev. xii. 6). The
earthly escape was typed by Noah passing through the
Flood, the heavenly by Enoch who escaped it altogether ;
and this is an escape which sets " before the Son of Man."-
(z) The Jewish escape is active : this escape is passive.
The faithful Jew is to " flee to the mountains " (Matt.
xxiv. t6) : the faithful disciple here is to pray to be re-
moved—" to be set [' by angels,' Alford] before the Son
of Man." • (3) The Jewish escape is on purely physical
grounds,—if he instantly sets his face to the mountains,
whatever his exact moral condition, he escapes : this deliver-
ance turns critically on moral acceptability—" accounted
worthy to escape."
Other Scriptures are conclusive that this escape is ,
Christian. (i) To the chief officer of a Christian church is
our Lord's promise :—" Because thou didst keep the word
of my patience, I also will keep thee from the hour of
trial, that hour which is to come upon the whole world "
(Rev. iii. ro). (z) To the chief officer of a Christian church
is also our Lord's warning :—" If therefore thou shalt not
watch, I will come as a thief, and thou shalt not know what
hour I will arrive over [see Greek] thee " (Rev. iii. 3).
Thus if, on the ground of r Thess. v. 4, it should be said
that the Parousia cannot overtake a believer as a thief,
this word of our Lord at 'once negatives the inference, for
the threat of a thief-like descent, accompanied by total
ignorance of the arrival, is addressed to a Christian pastor.'

them beat their heads with their hands. I have seen them beat
their heads on the ground. I have seen them beat their heads on
the forms before them IN A GREAT PHYSICAL AGONY. It seemed al
times that we were witnessing a part of the great judgment scene." The
Holy Ghost can so act even in the Day of Grace. " I shudder at
the thought of positive infliction : nevertheless what saith the
Scripture (R. Govett). " So SHALL ALSO MY HEAVENLY FATHER
DO UNTO YOU, IF YE FORGIVE NOT EVERY ONE HIS BROTHER FROM
YOUR HEARTS " (Matt. xviii. 35),
This fact decisively proves that Thessalonian disciples (r Thess.
iv. 15) stand, not for the whole Church, but for the -watchful only
even as the promise of escape is addressed to the Philadelphian
 63
(3) The Type exquisitely confirms it. The Field is the
world ; the Wheat is the church ; the Reapers are angels
(Matt. xiii. 39) :—the Reapers first of all gather the First-
fruits, then garner the Harvest, and finally glean the Corners
of the Field which had been deliberately left unreaped (Lev.
xxiii. 10-22). S❑ first-fruits are found in the Heavenlies
before the harvest (Rev. xiv. 4) : and after the harvest
(Rev. xvi. r5) the warning to watchfulness still goes forth
(Rev. xiv, 15). " Only those who are devoutly looking
and waiting for the Saviour's return shall be taken at
first " (Seiss).
The moral crisis of the escape lies in the condition :
watch ye at every season, making supplication, that ye
may prevail to escape" (Luke xxi. 36). These Divine
words, if they have any meaning at all, must mean that
without the worthiness the escape is impossible : and
without the prayerful vigil the worthiness is impossible :
" watch and pray always." " No command is more
frequent, none more solemnly impressed " (Dean Alford) :
for the escape is no privilege attached to faith, but a reward
attached to a standard of holiness known only to God. " Then
shall two men be in the field ; one is taken, and one is left :
two women shall be grinding at the mill ; one is taken,
and one is left. Watch therefore : for ye know not on
what day your Lord cometh (Matt. xxiv. 40). " Our
Lord assumes that some of His beloved Church will con-
tinue to be cared for as His sheep upon earth, until He
destroy ' that wicked ' with the breath of His mouth "
(Tregelles).
" Watch " is one of the great comprehensive words of the
Bible. Watch oneself : watch the advances of the world:
crisis : watch for the King : watch for the highest interests
of Christ : watch for flying opportunities : watch for dying
souls : watch Satan : watch God. Watchfulness is acute
alertness exercising every faculty for God. But it must be
accompanied by specific prayer :—" pray that ye may be

Angel, and only indirectly to all in Philadelphia who also had

" kept the word of My patience." To Thessalonian disciples
there will be no thief-like suddenness : therefore the Thessalonians
stand for souls never surprised (i Thess. v. 4) because never
unready.
 64
accounted worthy "• " that ye may prevail to escape."
Watchfulness invokes all our powers for God,—prayer
invokes all God's powers for us : but more than that,—
watchfulness devotes our works to God,—prayer devotes
ourselves. Of carnal believers Hudson Taylor, than whom
none didavaster work for Christ in the nineteenth century,
and few (I imagine) walked closer to God, says : " They have
forgotten the warning of our Lord in Luke xxi. 34-36, and
hence are not accounted worthy to escape : they have not
' counted all things but loss,' and hence do not attain unto
that resurrection, which Paul felt he might miss. We wish
to place on record our solemn conviction that not all who
are Christians will attain to that resurrection, or thus meet
the Lord in the air." How much safer to strive than to
assume !
Thus the cry of urgency should now ring through the
whole Church of God. Why ? Because (r) " if my faith
is wrong, I am bound to change it : if my faith is right,
I am bound to propagate it " (Dr. Whately). To withhold
the warning is to rob the Church of the very truth which
is to deliver from the peril. Because (2) no more powerful
lever can be imagined for overturning our natural sluggish-
ness. Facts are more moving than a whole library of
exhortation. For the corning judgment of believers is a
revelation levelled specifically at the flesh in the believer,
and therefore can never be popular : the very bitterness
with which it is assailed is an extraordinarily subtle and
convincing proof of its truth. Caleb and Joshua witnessed
to the approaching Kingdom, and to the necessity for
obedience as well as faith to enter it, at the peril of their
lives (Num. xiv. ro) ; and the Lord foretells that the
servant who disqualifies for reward is also the servant whose
intolerance starts persecution (Matt. xxiv. 49). It is little
wonder if those who belittle responsibility, themselves fail
to achieve it. Because (3) the peril, however imminent,
has not yet fallen. " Lukewarm Laodiceans can be roused
before it is too late : Christ is standing at the door " (G. H.
Pember). Fulfilment of its conditions involves a golden
certainty of attaining the Kingdom. " Perilous times
are upon us : may it be mine to watch and pray always
that I may be counted worthy to escape all these things
 65

that are coming to pass, and to stand before the Son of

Man " (John Wilkinson). " WHAT I SAY UNTO YOU
I SAY UNTO ALL, WATCH " (Mark xiii. 37).1
ETERNAL JUDGMENT.
The Day of Justice closes with the final judgment. The
Kingdom is over (1 Cor. xv. 24) : the old heavens and earth
have fled away : in all God's universe no object remains
save one great, glittering white Throne, before which the
dead, both small and great, stand. " And books were
opened : and another book was opened, which is the book
of life : and the dead were judged " (Rev. xx. 12). Books
of works—one book of names : books of works, that all
condemnation may be exactly adjusted to guilt ; a book
of names, for the saved have nothing in the Book of Life but a
name. Works, whether before or after faith, disappear= ; it
is the Lamb's Book, and the names, enrolled from before the
foundation of the world, as blood-washed at Calvary, are
set there by sovereign, electing Grace ; and thus the merits
on which we stand for eternity are solely the merits of
Christ. Therefore all believers of the Patriarchal, Legal,
and Christian dispensations reign in the Eternal Kingdom.
" And if any was not found written in the book of life,
he was cast into the lake of fire." Calvary is the measure
of God's love to the world ; Hell is the measure of His
love to Christ : for God so loved the world as to give up
His Son to Calvary ; and He so loves His Son that whoso-
ever rejects Him must be given up to Hell. All reformative
chastisement now ceases : punishment purges no more, and
becomes punitive for ever. But the saved are saved with
an astounding salvation. " There shall be no curse any
more " (Rev. xxii. 3)—eternal sinlessness : " and the
Throne shall be therein "—eternal communion : " and
For fuller treatment see the tenth Present Day Pamphlet,
Rapture (6d., Thynne).
Nevertheless " those rewards, or crowns, conferred upon the
overcoming ones by the Lord Jesus at His appearing shall never
wax old, or fade away ; for the Kingdom only comes to an end in
the sense of there remaining no more enemies to subdue, and of
nothing further of disorder requiring intervention and cure " (W.
Lincoln).
 66
His servants shall serve Him "—eternal service : "and
they shall see His face "—eternal joy : " and His name
shall be on their foreheads "—eternal security : " and
there shall be night no more " eternal energy : " and
the Lord God shall give them light "—eternal knowledge :
" AND THEY "—all the risen, of all dispensations1—" SHALL
REIGN FOR EVER AND EVER "—eternal glory.

1 The nations outside the City (Rev. xxi. 3)—saved Gentiles,

the Sheep of Matt. xxv.—are transferred bodily from the old earth
to the new, and constitute the subjects in both the Millennial and
Eternal Kingdoms : though under the redemption of Christ, and
therefore saved, they are nowhere said to reign, and appear to
increase throughout eternity—" unto all the generations of the age
of the ages " (Eph. iii. 2x).
 67

1.-NOTE ON PURGATORY.

It is obvious that the 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 condi-
tioned promises of reward from the simple assurance of
eternal life granted on bare faith, it isolates the uncondi-
tioned gift into a radiant light, while withdrawing into
the sphere of reward numerous menacing passages, expres-
sive of extreme difficulty and doubt, which have ever
been the strongholds of Rome. By reassuring of eternal
safety, while yet warning of Millennial peril, it frees the
soul for an arrow-flight straight to God's highest and best.
Moreover, of all Scripture truths none is more needed by
the Church of Christ. Augustine, as remarkable a servant
as God ever had, says that no more constant or powerful
motive actuated his discipleship than the knowledge that
he must give account ; and no Christian would dare plunge
into the worldliness and sin now rampant amongst multi-
tudes of true believers had the truth our Lord expresses
to Thyatira been once burnt home to the 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. ii. 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 throb-
bings 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, all
other ambitions become as dust, and martyrdom itself
no excessive price.
 68
But not the least of its advantages is the light it casts
on Roman error, and how that error arose ; and, above
all, on the Roman doctrine of purgatory. For (we first
observe) it is a supreme peculiarity of our Lord's love to
His own that it can never stop short of the perfection of
the person loved. " As many as I love, I reprove and
chasten " (Rev. iii. 19) : " He chastens us for our profit,
that we may become partakers of His holiness " (Heb. xii.
to). His holiness is perfection ; so that our discipline,
however drastic or prolonged, is never a proof of His
enmity, but of His love ; and is never a sign—either now,
or at the Judgment Seat—of a disciple's ultimate destruc-
tion, but of his ultimate perfection. Where others show
their love by indulgence, Christ shows His by chastisement.
" Every branch in Me that beareth fruit, He PURGETH it "
( John xv. 2). Thus if the judgment of believers, and the
Scripture so calls it (I Cor. xi. 32), is in full operation (as
all admit) in the day of grace itself, it is obvious that such
judgment, even to the infliction of death here (i Cor. xi.
3o) or hereafter (Luke xii. 46), can be no contravention of
the principles of grace : our chastisement is our highway
to perfection.
Now our Lord, in insisting on forgiveness among the
servants of God, has pictured what may happen after this
life with a force so appalling, in terms so irresistibly clear
and convincing, and yet in words so little accepted or taught,
that it may well be—as Sir Robertson Nicoll has said—that
" the Christian Church has never fairly faced these words."
For the regenerate nature of the Merciless Servant (Matt.
xviii. 24) is decisively revealed : the unforgiving servant
is himself a forgiven man. The King says,—" I forgave
thee all that debt, because thou besoughtest me." Has
any unbeliever sought and obtained forgiveness, and yet
is an unbeliever and unregenerate still ? No sin has ever
been forgiven, or ever will be, save through the blood of
the Cross : is such forgiveness ever unaccompanied by salva-
tion ? This Servant, says Mr. Kelly, " represents the
Jew " ; " it is the hatred of the Jew towards the Gentile " :
or, as Dr. Bullinger puts it, the ten-thousand-talent debt
is the Crucifixion. But the Jew has never repented,
never confessed, never sought pardon, never obtained it,
 69
and for eighteen centuries unmingled justice has rested
on Israel. This man confessed his sin—" all that debt " :
he asked forgiveness—" thou besoughtest me " : he
obtained pardon—" I forgave thee " : he was raised to
responsibility and trust—" thy fellow-servants." More-
over the King bases his censure wholly on the fact that
the offender is a forgiven man : " shouldest thou not also
have had mercy on thy fellow-servant, even as I had mercy
on thee ?"
Even if he were a regenerate Jew, of a remnant belonging
partly to our Lord's day and partly to the Great Tribula-
tion, the truth is affected, not in principle, but only in
application : FOR HE IS A SAVED (BECAUSE A FORGIVEN)
MAN : therefore our Lord can so act towards the saved. So
sore a judgment on a regenerate man would thus be a
corning fad : all objections, therefore, to the principle
behind the fact must fall to the ground. But the context
carries no statement that he is a Jew, saved or unsaved.
It is the resurrection of an old and (one had thought)
obsolete assumption that all curses are for the Jew, and
all blessings are for the Church. Such a thought assumes
that more privilege means less responsibility ; it assumes
that Jewish disciples with far less light will, if they sin,
incur far severer punishment : whereas the exact reverse
is ever Paul's warning cry—How much more, how much
more ! (Heb. xii. 25, Rom. xi. 24). Moreover, our Lord
identifies the Servant with the Kingdom of heaven (ver. 23),
which has been taken from the Jew (Matt. xxi. 43) and
given to the Holy Nation, the Church (x Pet. ii. 9, R.V.).
But a further fact is equally decisive. Our Lord is
answering a question—" How oft shall my brother sin
against me, and I forgive him ? Jesus saith unto him,
Until seventy times seven. Therefore is the kingdom of
heaven likened unto a certain king, which would make a
reckoning with his servants." The parable is an ampli-
fication of the answer : it is a revelation of what will
happen to Peter if he does not forgive : it is a scene of the
Judgment Seat of Christ. Our Lord has just dealt with
church quarrels : " if thy brother sin against thee "—it is
offences between brethen, or even apostles—" and he
refuse to hear the church also, let him be unto thee as the
 • 70
Gentile and the publican." If the servant is an unbeliever,
the parable is wholly remote from Peter's question. Peter
asks Jesus to define the limits of forgiveness in the church
disputes just named : it could be no answer to Peter for
our Lord to reveal the consequences of an unforgivng
spirit in an unbeliever. Who is a brother ' ? " Whosoever
shall do the will of God, the same is my brother " (Mark iii.
35)•
Most remarkable is it that, just as our Lord is the most
insistent preacher of Hell, so no warnings to the believer
are as grave as His ; and His application of His own parable
is fearfully decisive. " And his lord was wroth, and
delivered him to the tormentors,—till he should pay all that
was due. So SHALL ALSO MY HEAVENLY FATHER DO UNTO
YOU, IF YE FORGIVE NOT EVERY ONE HIS BROTHER FROM
YOUR HEARTS " : " for judgment is without mercy to him
that hath showed no mercy " (Jas. ii. 13). Nor does this
passage stand alone. There are others of equally fearful
force.
(r) " If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a
branch, and ,is withered ; and they gather them,
and cast them into the fire, and they are burned "
(John xv. 6).
(2) " Whosoever shall say [to his brother], Moreh, shall
be in danger of THE GEHENNA OF FIRE " (Matt. v.
22).
(3) " For if we sin wilfully after that we have received
the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more
a sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful expectation
of judgment, and a fierceness of fire which shall
devour the adversaries " (Heb. x. 26).
No branch, withering after vital verdure, and embedded
in the Vine, can represent empty profession : the brother '
who angrily charges another ' brother ' as Moreh—' rebel
from God '—risks Gehenna because his charge is false ;
that is, both are children of God, and therefore God's
ancient principle (Dent. xix. 16-19) recoils on him—that
the false witness incurs the penalty he sought to inflict :
nor could the Apostle be more explicit that ' we '—includ-
ing himself—must meet fearful consequences for wilful
sin. These passages may be (I believe they are) susceptible
 71

of a reconciliation with the ultimate salvation of all be-

lievers ; but no thinking soul, reverent of Scripture, and
conscious of the dreadful holiness and majesty of God—
" the Lord shall judge His people," is immediately followed
by, " It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living
God " (Heb. x. 30)—will wish to treat them lightly, or
blunt the edge of these sharpest warnings of the Most
High. It is an ill turn to the grace of God to make it
silence .the righteous claims of His justice and holiness :
exactly so the Restorationist and the Universalist seek
to elude the doctrine of Hell.
Now we turn to the Roman doctrine of Purgatory.
Rome's perversion of the truth, which would have been
impossible had the Church always held and taught the
full Scripture revelation of a believer's purging, has only
twice been officially defined. " If such as be truly penitent
die in God's favour before they have satisfied for their
sins of commission and omission by worthy fi-nits of pen-
ance "—i.e., have assisted their own atonement—" their
souls are purged after death with purgatorial punishments "
(Council of Ferrara) ; " and the souls delivered there are
assisted by the suffrages [prayers and devotions] of the
Faithful, and especially by the most acceptable sacrifice
of the Mass " (Council of Trent). The manifest errors
here—apart from such fearful accretions as the sale of
indulgences, or the efficacy of the Mass—are mainly three.
(1) The doctrine of Purgatory locates the purging in
Hades : Scripture locates it in this life, and at the Judg-
ment Seat after resurrection, but never in Hades. Paradise,
for all believers, is the ' very far better ' of an especial
presence of Christ. (2) No power of pope or priest, and
no prayers of fellow-believers, can in the slightest degree
modify the judgments due to any man, believer or un-
believer, after he has once passed into the other world.
" It is appointed unto men once to die, and after this
cometh JUDGMENT " (Heb. ix. 27. R.V.). Prayer for the
dead is unknown in the Scriptures: even in this life prayer
does not avail for a believer under sentence of death
(r John v. 16). This cuts away •the root of all the abomina-
tions (as indulgences, etc.) that have grown around the
Roman doctrine. (3) But the vital error lies in confusing
 72
discipline with salvation. Chastisement is necessary
and salutary ; it is inflicted by God in this life upon all
believers without exception (Heb. xii. 8) ; it may, in
extreme cases, be fearful bodily disease (Ex. xv. 26), or
even be mortal (r Car, xi. 30) ; and since death produces
no magical change, such as converting the sinning into
the sinless, and since much less can it cancel unrepented
offences during discipleship, chastisement may be equally
necessary and salutary at the Judgment Seat :1—but
disciplinary suffering has no connection whatever with
eternal life. There are rio atoning sufferings but the suffer-
ings of Calvary : human works with a view to salvation si
arc sinful and deadly ; " riot of works, that no man should
glory " (Eph. ii. g).
So we turn once again to the Scripture truth. God has
provided two purgings—one by blood, and one by dis-
cipline ; and the purging by blood must precede the purging
by discipline. " According to the law, I may almost say,
all things are purged by blood " (Heb. ix. 22) : " how much
more shall the blood of Christ purge your conscience from
dead works "—the deadly efforts, of self-righteousness—
" to serve the living God " (Heb. ix. 14). For Christ has
effected the essential and fundamental purging once for
all : " who when He had purged our sins, sat down on the
right hand of the Majesty on high " (Heb. i, 3) ; and this
purging is the scle basis, and predisposing cause, of all
subsequent purging. For only a saved soul can be purged
by chastisement. No amount or degree of suffering can
improve into life a soul dead in trespasses and sins, any
more than dead wood can be made to grow fruit by pnin-
The belief that judgment for the believer is exhausted in this
life is obviously untenable, because we have all known backsliders
who died in the utmost worldly prosperity : so that Paul prays for
one faulty believer " that he may receive snercy of the Lord IN
THAT DAY " (2 Tim. 1. 18), and of others—" may it not be laid to
their account " (2 Tim. iv. 15). For there are sins that will be
forgiven—obviously not sins of unbelievers—in the Age to Come
(Matt. xii. 52). In the words of Messrs. Hogg and Vine :—" The
attempt to alleviate the text he that doeth wrong shall receive
again for the wrong that he bath done,' Col, iii. 25] 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."
 73
ing ; chastisement cannot purge him ; he can be purged,
but not by chastisement ; and God is not habitually chasten-
ing the wicked at all. For " if ye are without chastening
whereby all [believers] have been made partakers, then
are ye bastards, and not sons " (Heb. xii. 8). Corrective
sufferings are only granted and effective to those already
judicially purged by the sacrifical sufferings of Calvary.
In the words of Dr. Griffith Thomas :—" While a genuine
Christian who becomes a backslider will not be judicially
condemned for ever, there will be a very serious measure
of personal, practical condemnation when such an one
stands before the judgment seat of Christ, to be dealt with
according to works since conversion."
The second purging is by discipline. " Every branch
that beareth fruit "—i.e., living wood, set in the living
Vine—" He purgeth it " (John xv. 2). A soul which
is born again, yet still having ' the flesh ' in him, can have
his still fallible character cleansed and corrected by chas-
tisement. Nor need this purging end with life. " Some
of the old Roman divines taught that all the remains of
sin in God's children are quite abolished by final grace
at the very instant of their dissolution ; so that the stain
of the least sin is not left behind to be carried into the
other world " (Archbishop Usher's Answer to a Jesuit, p.
165). This ancient Roman doctrine is as unscriptural
as the later Roman doctrine of Purgatory. For the
unbeliever who falls asleep unwatchful, wakes unwatchful
—the servant who dies slothful, appears before the Judg-
ment Seat slothful ; their last look on this world is, mor-
ally, their first look on the next ; they will be purged,
but they are not purged ; there is no magic in death, and
no opportunity in Hades to correct a faulty discipleship ;
and the coming millennial day of Justice, dominated by
the Judgment Seat, has for its essential characteristic the
recoil of works in judicial retribution. ' For he that doeth
wrong "—the context is addressed solely to believers—
" SHALL RECEIVE AGAIN FOR THE WRONG THAT HE HATH
DONE ; and there is no respect of persons " (Col. iii. 25).
But it is Divine Love that will not rest until all we who
believe are " become partakers of His holiness " : no
discipline ever involves our destruction ; it effects, sooner
 74

or later, our perfection. Perhaps the most solemn passage

our Lord ever addressed to the believer concludes exactly
thus :—" Verily I say unto thee, thou shalt by no means
come out thence, TILL [for all chastisements of believers
are purgative and temporary] thou have paid the last
farthing" (Matt. v. 26).
So our Lord in the Parable of the Steward, puts the
conversion of the ' evil servant ' beyond all doubt by
identifying the two characters as possible in one and the
same man. " But if that servant "—the good steward,
whom the Lord Himself set over His household—" shall
say in his heart " (Luke xii. 45) : it is not a change of
servants that our Lord contemplates, but a change of mind
in the same servant : it is one and the same servant,
who may turn out either a good steward, or a bad.1 " And
that servant, which knew his Lord's will, and made not
ready, nor did according to his will, SHALL BE BEATEN
WITH MANY STRIPES." The appearance of the slothful
servant at the Bema with his fellow-servants is decisive
proof of his conversion ; for the Scripture knows nothing
of a rapture of unbelievers. In the words of Dr. Seiss :—
" The words do not at all imply that the one is saved,
and the other lost, but simply that the one reaches blessed-
ness at once when the Lord .comes, while the other, not
being prepared by proper watchfulness, is punished with
temporal judgments, and only saved ' so as through fire '
at a subsequent period."
It is certain that all believers must, sooner or later,
appear at the Bema (2 Cor. v., io) ; and it is equally
certain that none can so appear as a naked spirit ; but what
is constantly overlooked is that, apart from our Lord, who
rose in " the power of an endless life " (Heb. vii., 16), so
far from death after resurrection being impossible, we have
not a single example to the contrary in the recorded history of
mankind. " Women received their dead by a resurrection
(Heb. xi., 35)—a genuine, actual rising of the corpse, like
" This emphatic pronoun (Luke xii. 45) must have some ante-
cedent, and none is to be found save the' faithful and wise steward '
(xii. 42). Truth is not to be reached by settling for ourselves in
advance what the Lord may or may not do to His own servants,
and then sweeping aside the words which do not agree with that
prior decision " (G. H. Lang).
 75
Lazarus ; even a skeleton was reclothed (2 Kings xiii., 21) :
yet, without exception, it has always been no more than a
temporary resuscitation to fulfil a specific purpose of God.
Until the final entrance of all the risen into the City in the
Eternal Ages, it is of one group of the risen, and of one group
only, that a resurrection is stated which is incapable of
death. " They that are accounted worthy to attain to
that Age, and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry
nor are given in marriage : FOR NEITHER CAN THEY DIE
ANY MORE ; for they are equal unto the angels ; and are
sons of God, being sons of the resurrection " (Luke xxi., 36).
Of believers not accounted worthy of that Age, and the
resurrection from the dead, the First, no such assertion of
incorruptibility is made ; so also it is only of partakers of
the Kingdom (r Cor. xv., so), that Paul says that they
" shall be raised INCORRUPTIBLE " (I Cor. xv., 52).
Thus the warning of God comes home to us in full force.
" So, then, brethren "—the Church of Christ—" we are
debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh ; for if ye
live after the flesh, YE MUST "—ye are about to : the expres-
sion in the Greek is almost, one might say, consecrated to
denoting the Millennial Kingdom ; eight times it is used in
Hebrews of the Coming Age (Govett)—" DIE " (Rom viii.,
12). It is not eternal death, for the believer is guaranteed
eternal life : it is not present death, for it is contrary both
to Scripture and to fact that all sanctified believers live to
a great age, and all backsliders die young : it is Millennial
death, the cutting asunder at the Bema. " 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 " (Gal. vi., 7)—a
" corruption " as literal as the " flesh." " The Apostle
does not speak [in Rom. viii., r-13] of the lot reserved
for the bodies of unbelievers, or of unsanctified believers.
The same is the case in z Cor. xv., 20-28. The word of
ver. 13--` If ye live after the flesh, ye shall die '—should
suffice : that is not, especially after all that precedes, a
word of salvation " (Godet). For while all believers possess
eternal life, that life will be manifested for such believers
as have renounced heavily for Christ a thousand years
earlier. " There is no man that hath left house or brethren
 76
. . . for my sake, and for the gospel's sake, but he shall
receive a hundredfold now in this time, . . . and IN THE
AGE TO COME eternal life" (Mark x., 29.)
So now we are in a position for a final summary on
exclusion. Where, it will be asked, are the excluded
during the Kingdom ? We are not obliged to solve all
possible problems connected with a revealed truth before
we accept it ; or else a sceptic's inquiries on the origin of
evil, or the sovereign elections of God—queries impossible
of human reply (Rom. ix. 2o)—could invalidate the Gospel.
Nor is it wise to probe too deeply into that over which
God has cast a holy reserve ; lest, losing ourselves, we
become " wise above that which is written." Let us
grant (if we choose) that God has shrouded the temporary
fate of the excluded in impenetrable mystery, the fact
of exclusion remains, resting securely on its own abundant
Scriptures. Nevertheless Scripture is not wholly silent
on the location of the excluded. (r) Some, perhaps from
the lower regions of Enoch and Elijah, may behold—as
Moses from Pisgah—without entering (John iii. 3, 5).
(2) Some return temporarily to corruption, as did all
who rose before our Lord, until Hades, together with
Death (or Abaddon) are emptied at the final judgment—
saved inmates issuing from Hades (Rev. xx. 13). Both
these classes, presumably the great proportion of the
excluded, continue to enjoy the conditions of Paradise
—the very far better ' of the Lord's especial presence
(Phil. i. 23, Luke xxiii. 43). (3) Some are in the mysterious
region known as the ' outer darkness' (Matt. xxv. 30).
(4) Some, guilty of the very gravest offences, are tempor-
arily in Gehenna (Matt. v. 22, John xv. 6, Heb. x. 26, 27,
Rev. ii. II). " I say unto you, my friends, . . . I will
warn you whom ye shall fear : Fear Him, which after He
hath killed hath power to cast into GEHENNA : yea, I say
The disciple saved, but barely escaping with his life, is said to
be ' fined' (I Cor iii, 15) ; and our Lord, depicting the disciple who
seeks his good things in this life, in contrast to him who even lays
clown life itself in martyrdom, reveals that the ' fine' is the ' soul,'
or life (Matt. xvi, 26). " He that findeth his life [soul, or animal
life] shall lose sl "—at the Bema ; " and he that loseth his life for
my sake shall find it " (Matt. x, 39) in the First Resurrection, in a
life indissoluble (Heb. vii, r6, R,V. margin).
 77
unto you, Fear Hint " (Luke xii. 4).
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 ; it empties of all horror the dread
warnings to the backslider, and leaves him, if it does not
put him, in a drugged sleep ; and it drives privilege over
the precipice of responsibility—a disaster of which the
Church has had direct warning ;—" continue thou in
His goodness, otherwise thou also shalt be cut off " (Rom.
xi. 22). And the melancholy fact revealed all down the
ages in this—that where the sharpness of God's warnings
has been blunted by the misuse of grace, sin follows,
and too often privilege becomes the cloak of lasciviousness.
No man kicks against God's goads save at his own peril.
To this man will I look, even to him that is poor and of
a contrite spirit, and that trembleth at my word " (Is. lxvi.
2). Concerning the utterances, unutterably solemn, with
which our Saviour warns believers off the final fires with
reiterated emphasis, Isaac Taylor has said :—" We of
this age may expound as we think fit these appalling words ;
or may extenuate these phrases ; or, if we please, let us
cast away the whole doctrine as intolerable and incredible.
Let us do so : but it is a matter of history, out of question,
that the apostolic church, and the church of later times,
took it, word for word, in the whole of its apparent value.
It is true that several attempts were made to substantiate
a mitigated sense : but it is certain that the language of
Christ, in regard to the future life, was constantly on the
lips of martyrs throughout the suffering centuries. Often
and. often was it heard from out of the midst of the fire,
and was lisped by the quivering lips of women and children
while writhing on the rack."
 7S

IL- NOTE ON THE JUDGMENT

OF BELIEVERS.

The word of Govett are exceedingly acute and arrest-

ing :—
," All the results of this great doctrine it is impossible
to foresee. But some important ones may be traced.
If its opponents maintain their hold on the doctrine of
the Millennium, it will drive them to strange extremities.
The present attitude of most assailants is this :—
I. ' We admit, that there will be rewards.'
2. We confess, that the believer sins, and as a conse-
quence receives chastisement. But it is only in this
life 1
3. Some go further, and allow that offending believers
will suffer loss at Christ's coming. But it will not amount
to exclusion from the Kingdom.
But the outcry against the doctrine is so sharp, that
those who admit so much will find themselves in a very
awkward position.
Impartial Christians aroused at the stir, and learning
the state of the case, will say to such : What i are you
crying out that this man is subverting the truth, and unfit
for communion, while you are holding the very principle
he affirms, and differ only in the extent to which it shall
be pushed ? Christ, you admit, will call believers before
His judgment-seat. You think that negation of reward
alone will ensue. He, that in extreme cases, positive
punishment will be awarded. Is that all the difference
about which this loud hue and cry is raised ? You agree
in the principle, you differ about its extent. If he, then,
be a burglar, you are guilty of petty larceny.'
Such assailants, too, will be looked on with suspicion
by the stouter-hearted opponents of the doctrine, as
almost traitors to the truth.
Most then will take up the ground—' Chastisement,
but only in this life.'
Your proofs, friend ?
The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all
 79
sin : r John i. 7. Ours is no half-Saviour.'
But you admit, that, in spite of Jesus' atonement, the
chastisements of God descend on the offending believer
in this life. It is no bar then to their falling on him in the
next age. What Scriptures are there which assert, that
chastisements shall not befall an offending disciple when
our Lord appears ?
No such passages are forthcoming.
Proofs to the contrary are many and plain. Take those
from a single Gospel : Matt. v. 22-30 ; Vii. 21-27 ;
X. 32, 33, 39 ; xvi. 25 ; xviii. 7-9, 21-35 ; xxiv. 45-51 ;
4 xxv. 1-3o.
This will be felt then to be not very tenable ground.
The reasons why chastisement must end with this life,
will be very hard to find, very hard to establish. Many
believers have died out of the communion of Churches'
from which they have been justly excluded for sin. Will
they be accounted worthy of a place in the Kingdom,
who were put out as unworthy of a place in the Church ?
Lastly, you admit, friend, that there will be reward
for the saints' good deeds, at Jesus' appearing. There
must then be punishment for their evil deeds, if the coming
day be ' the day of justice ' (' judgment '). Shall we give
account only of our right expenditure as stewards ? or
of thriftless and extravagant expenditure also ? We
may wish it otherwise : but is it not written—that each
will " receive the things done in his body, according to that
he hath done, whether it be GOOD or BAD : " 2 Cor. v. 10.
' He that doeth WRONG shall RECEIVE FOR THE WRONG
WHICH HE HATH DONE, AND THERE IS NO RESPECT OF
PERSONS : COI. iii. 25.
Those then who will be quit of this doctrine at all hazards
will scarcely feel any position a safe one, but that which
asserts : (r) That there is no precept given to the elect of
God ; (2) And, by consequence, that they never sin, nor
ever receive chastisement.
This awful position of unbelief I shall not here assail.
My only object is to show the main bearings of the con-
troversy, and to urge believers to look into the matter
prayerfully, submitting themselves to the Word of God.
To Father, Son, and Spirit, be all glory ! Amen."
C1R
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