Revelation 20:11-15 And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away… It is obviously of no importance whether we assume that the terms thus employed convey only an image or an absolute and literal reality. If the language is metaphorical, it is nevertheless used to convey to us the ideas which we should naturally conceive from the actual unfolding of a vast register. 1. First, then, there is the book of God's remembrance. Now, strictly speaking, there can be no such thing as forgetfulness in relation to God. Memory implies previous forgetfulness. To remember, is with an effort to summon up the past. But with God, who is eternal, inasmuch as time is not to Him, there can be no such distance put between one event and another. All things are uniformly and unchangeably present to Him. Neither does the multiplicity of the things recorded there cause either mistake or confusion. All things are always present to the infinite mind of the Eternal. Take the old man of fourscore years; God does not call up as by an effort that man's boyhood and earlier manhood, but He looks upon all that he then did, or said, or thought, as though it were now going on: for no past nor future can limit Him who is incomprehensible. The history of every one of us is indelibly written on the mind of God Himself. 2. But we believe that yet another book will then be opened. Each of us carries his own history, written and engraven on the tablet of his own spirit. Conscience will then slumber no more. No counterfeit voices will then drown its accents, or confuse its utterances. No burden of the flesh shall make the vision grow dim, which shall show us to ourselves, shall blur its colours, or distort its lineaments. Imagine, as far as you can, this perfect selfknowledge for the first time breaking in upon us by the quickening power of conscience. We are not, indeed, left altogether without witness beforehand of what this will be. We have an assurance respecting it, amounting to all but the testimony as of some who have risen from the dead, to tell us what they have seen and known. What if we go hence impenitent and unforgiven? What will it be in the resurrection of the dead, in the day when "the dead, small and great," shall "stand before God"? The light of God's countenance shines in on that stricken soul, alas! not now to save and bless, but to witness against, and to condemn. The first glance shows all. He knows as He is known. It tallies — that witness of conscience — with God's knowledge and revelation of him. Self-convicted, self-condemned, sinner, depart! 3. Two volumes have already been opened. A third remains. "Another book was opened, which is the book of life." Now with the idea of life is intimately associated the presence and working of God the Holy Ghost. He is "the Lord and Giver of life." From our baptism upwards, the Holy Ghost has been dealing with us, is dealing with us still, except we be reprobates. Nothing but our own deliberate sinfulness, the wilfulness of our own evil choices, can undo the Spirit's blessed work in our souls. The result of this life-long process of judgment will be seen then, when the books shall be opened, and that other book — "the Book of Life." The question then will be, What can you show of the Spirit of Christ? Upon the manifold doings of the earthly life, where is the seal of the Spirit of the Lord? What remains when the sifting is over, when all former judgments of the Spirit close in this one final judgment, after which is heaven or hell everlasting? (Bp. Morrell.) Parallel Verses KJV: And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them. |
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