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This vivid description of the judgment day begins with an appeal to the justice of its awful events: "If so be that it is a righteous thing," etc. The details of the great day can only be revealed by Divine inspiration. But the great outlines of its proceedings may be predicted by our own consciences.

I. THE SEPARATION OF DESTINIES. Destinies are now apparently mixed and disarranged without any evident regard to justice. They will not be so then. There will be a clear division between the sheep and the goats.

1. Suffering to the persecuters. They who give affliction shall suffer affliction. There is a law of nature as well as a principle of fairness in the lex talionis when it is rightly applied. A bad man's doom is to be the recoil of his evil deeds upon his own head.

2. Rest to the persecuted. The specially coveted reward of the afflicted is rest. To the weary sufferer that alone is an immeasurable blessing. There is some compensation in the fact that rest, which to the idle and comfortable is itself a weariness, becomes the most happy solace to the suffering. Note:

(1) This rest is the more enjoyable because it is shared with beloved friends (Paul, Silas, etc).

(2) It is not given to all the afflicted, but to afflicted Christians.

II. THE TIME OF THE JUDGMENT. It is here synchronized with the second advent of Christ. He is King and Judge as well as Friend and Saviour. His repudiation of the office of Judge during his earthly humiliation (Luke 12:14) should only make us feel how surely the exercise of his rightful judicial functions must be reserved for some future occasion. Jesus Christ cannot endure eternal injustice. He is strong to execute as well as righteous to desire judgment.

III. THE PERSONS CONDEMNED. Two classes are named.

1. Those who are ignorant of God. The heathen world seems to be here referred to. Why should these benighted people be punished for their ignorance? Because they might have known God (Romans 1:18-20). But they can only be punished in so far as their ignorance was wilful and came from moral causes, i.e. in so far as they "held down the truth in unrighteousness." Doubtless there have been good heathen men who have not committed that offence.

2. Those who obey not the gospel. People of Christendom are now referred to. It is of no use to live in a Christian nation, nor to belong to a Christian Church, nor to believe in the truths of the gospel, if we do not obey the gospel. Obedience is the one test. Heathen are only condemned for wilful neglect of God, Christian nations for disobedience to the Christian gospel.

IV. THE DOOM OF THE GUILTY.

1. They are to suffer punishment. Their doom will not be purely privative, nor will merely natural consequences follow their evil conduct. Distinct penalties will be imposed.

2. The punishment will chiefly consist in "eternal destruction." This dreadful phrase certainly cannot be taken as an equivalent foreverlasting torment. Is not sin everywhere destructive? The wages of sin is not pain - though pain does follow it - but death. This destroying process, left to itself, will go on forever. All hope of a far off end to it must be in some interference with its action by the Divine mercy, which is also eternal.

3. The punishment will be increased by the measure of the glory that is missed. The eternal destruction involves separation "from the face of the Lord." In his presence there is fulness of joy. Spiritual destruction includes the killing out of the spiritual eye that beholds the beatific vision. - W.F.A.

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KJV: Seeing it is a righteous thing with God to recompense tribulation to them that trouble you;

WEB: Since it is a righteous thing with God to repay affliction to those who afflict you,