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… And I saw a great white throne, etc. There was one fact common to all the preceding epochs through which redeemed humanity had passed - they were all probationary, all connected with the overtures of mercy to the guilty, and the means of spiritual purity, blessedness, and elevation for the polluted, unhappy, and degraded. But the probationary element, which had run on through all dispensations from Adam to Christ, and through all revolutions from Christ to the consummation of the world, is now closed; its last ray has fallen, its sun has gone down to rise no more. Hence on, every man shall be treated according to his past works, and shall reap the fruit of his own doings. The morning of retribution has broken. The magnificent passage before us points to the period designated in Scripture "the day of God," "the judgment of the great day," "the revelation of the righteous judgment of God," "the eternal judgment." It may be well to premise at the outset, in order to guard against the tendency of associating too much of what is merely material and human with the circumstances and transactions of this period, that this retribution will literally involve the judiciary circumstances here portrayed. I have heard and read discourses on this subject, which impress the mind more with a kind of Old Bailey scene, than with the great moral facts which distinguish that period from all preceding times. It is true that we have here the mention of the "throne" and "books" common to human courts; but it should be remembered that inspired writers, in accommodation to our ordinary habits - ay, and laws of thought - reveal to us the unknown through the medium of the known. What mind, in sooth, can receive any new idea without comparing it with the old? We judge of the unseen by the seen; we learn what the testimony of others unfolds to us through the medium of what we have already beheld. Thus "the day of judgment' is set forth under the figure of ancient courts of judicature, which in general features agree with all the modern courts in the civilized world. There is the judge on his seat or throne; there is the prisoner arraigned; there is the investigation carried on through "books" or documents; and there is justice administered. Now, there is quite sufficient resemblance between these courts of human justice and the judicial transactions of God at the last day, to warrant the former being employed as illustrations of the latter, without supposing a "throne" or a "book" whatever. For example: 1. There is the bringing of the Judge and the accused into conscious contact. 2. There is the final settling of the question of guiltiness or non-guiltiness, according to recognized law. 3. There is the administration of an award to which the accused is bound to submit. Let us now proceed to notice a few facts in relation to this retributive period. I. THIS RETRIBUTIVE PERIOD WILL DAWN WITH OVERPOWERING SPLENDOUR UPON THE WORLD. Observe: 1. The character of this manifestation. He comes on a throne. A "throne" is an emblem of glory. It is generally valuable in itself. That of Solomon consisted wholly of gold and ivory; but its glory mainly consists of its being the seat of supremacy. Hence ambition points to nothing higher. The people have ever looked up with a species of adoration to the throne. But what a throne is this! "His throne was like the fiery flame, and his wheels as burning fire." It is a "white throne." Human thrones have often, perhaps generally, been stained by sensuality, injustice, and tyranny. The throne has sometimes become so loathsome that the people, roused into indignation, have seized and burnt it in the streets. But this is a "white throne." There is not a single stain upon it. He who has ever occupied it "is light, and in him is no darkness at all." It is a great "white throne." Great in its occupant: "He filleth all in all." Great in its influence. Toward it the eyes of all intelligences are directed; to it all beings are amenable; from it all laws that determine the character and regulate the destiny of all creatures proceed. 2. The effect of this manifestation. Before its refulgence this material universe could not stand; it melted - it vanished away. "No more place was found for them" (ver. 11). It will pass away, perhaps, as the orbs of night pass away in the high noontide of the sun: they are still in being, still in their orbits, and still move on as ever; but they are lost to us by reason of a "glory that excelleth." What a contrast between Christ now as the Judge, and Christ of old as the despised Nazarene! II. THIS RETRIBUTIVE PERIOD WILL WITNESS THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD, AND THE CONSEQUENT DESTRUCTION OF HADES AND THE GRAVE. "And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell [Hades] delivered up the dead which were in them" (ver. 13). The words suggest two thoughts on this subject. 1. That in the resurrection there will be a connection between man's raised and man's mortal body. A resurrection of the material relics is a traditional dogma of the stupid, not a conviction of the studious. It is evidently implied that the resurrection-body is a something that has come out of the body, deposited either in the grave or the sea. What is the connection? Is it meant that men will come up with exactly the same bodies as they had during the probationary state? This, probably, is the vulgar idea, and this is the idea against which infidels level their objections. The question is now, as of old, "With what body do they come?" And assuming that they come in the same body, they commence their antagonistic reasonings and their sneers. But this is not the Scripture doctrine. "That which thou sowest, thou sowest not that body that shall be." If it be said - Is there no identity, no sameness? I ask - What do you mean by "sameness "? If you say sameness, in the sense of particles, bulk, or capacity, I answer - No! The sameness between the old body and the resurrection body is not the sameness between the seed you deposit in the soil and the wheat which in autumn is produced by it. The one grows out of the other, has the form of the other; the resurrection body is not the same as the old probationary body, in the same sense as the body of any given individual is the same in its man-state as it was in its child-state. Take the case of a man in two different periods of life - say, ten years of age and sixty. In the intervening periods his body has passed through several radical changes; yet at sixty he feels that he has the same body which he had at ten. It is not until your science comes that he questions it; and where the science has been the most convincing, it has never destroyed this underlying consciousness of physical identity. How can you account for this consciousness of sameness? (1) Not because he knows the particles to be the same. He cannot know that, for it is contrary to fact; the particles of his body, when a child, having gone off long ago, and mixed themselves, perhaps, with a hundred different bodies. (2) Not because he knows the amount is the same. He may know that there are ten times the quantity in the one body state as in the other. (3) Not because he knows the capability is the same. In its childish stage it was weak, incapable of much labour or endurance; but in its man-state it is vigorous - its physical powers have increased manifold. How, then, can you account for this consciousness? Consciousness must have some truth as a foundation. (a) Because he knows the one has risen out of the other. It has been an evolution. The casual connection has been preserved. The one was the outcome of the other. (b) Because he knows the one has retained the same plan, or outline as the other. If the body, in the man-state, had taken a form different to that of its child-state, the consciousness of identity might have been lost. If it passed, for instance, from the human form to the lion, eagle, or any other form, though the particles might have been all retained, and bulk and capacity continued as ever, the sense of identity would have been lost. (c) Because he knows the one fulfils the same functions as the other. The body, in the child-state, was the inlet and outlet of himself. Through it, in all cases, he derived and imparted his feelings and ideas. It was the great medium between his spirit and the material universe. Now, for these three reasons, man may feel that his resurrection body is the same as the one in which he spent his probationary life. It grows out of the buried. There is in the body that went down to the grave a something, I know not what, which the man, the spiritual self, takes into his immortal frame. The resurrection body may retain its present form or outline; it may be moulded after the same archetype. It may also fulfil many of the same functions. Ever will it be the medium between the material and the spiritual. I know, then, of no objection that you can urge against the fact of a man having a resurrection body which he may feel to be identical with his probationary body, that could not antecedently be urged against a fact in the present experience of every adult - the fact of an individual having a man body which he feels to be the same as his child body. 2. That the resurrection will be coextensive with the mortality of mankind. "The sea gave up its dead." What a vast cemetery is the sea! Here mighty navies slumber; millions of the industrious, the enterprising, and the brave, lie beneath its restless waves. But all must now come forth. All that have perished - whether in the barques of scientific expedition, or the ships of commerce, or the fleets of conquered nations, must come forth in this dread day. "Death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them" (ver. 13). This is the grave. "All that are in their graves shall hear the voice of the Son of man, and shall come forth." What a voice is that! It would reverberate over sea and land, from island to island, from continent to continent; roll its thunders through the deepest vaults and catacombs; and soon the mouldering skeletons and the scattered dust would feel the stir of life, and spring to immortality. Martyrs, who had no grave to shelter them from the storm of ages, whose dust was consumed in the flames, and left at the mercy of the wild elements, would appear again; as the field of battle, where mighty armies struggled in demon fury, would start to life on the plains where, in hellish rage, they fell. "And hell gave up its dead." Hell here means, not the place of punishment, but the universe of disembodied spirits, both good and bad. This Hades of the Greeks, and Sheol of the Hebrews, sends forth all the myriads of human souls that it has ever received, from Abel to the last man that grappled with the" king of terrors." "The small and great." Not an infant too young, not a patriarch too old. Tyrants and their slaves, sages and their pupils, ministers and their people - all will appear. III. This RETRIBUTIVE PERIOD WILL BRING HUMANITY INTO CONSCIOUS CONTACT WITH GOD. "And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God" (ver. 12). They stand before God; they confront him, as it were, eye to eye, being to being. Each feels God to be the All to him now. The idea of God fills every soul as a burning flame. They stand before him, feeling his presence, and awaiting his doom fixing word. This is a distinguishing feature of the retributive period. In every preceding period of human history, with the exception of the millennial ages, the vast majorities of all generations had no conscious contact with God. Some denied his very being, whilst others desired not a knowledge of his ways. But hence on, forever and ever, all the good and the bad will "stand before God" - will be in conscious contact with him. His felt presence will be the heaven of the good, and his felt presence will be the hell of the ceil. 1. There will be no atheism after this. How will the atheist teachers of the past ages feel now? Lucretius, Democritus, and Strabo among the ancients; Diderot, Lagrange, D'Alembert, Mirabeau, and Hobbes amongst the moderns, will feel now, and evermore, that the greatest reality in the universe was the Being whose existence they impiously ignored or denied. 2. There will be no deism after this. The men who taught, through preceding ages, the doctrine that God had no immediate connection with his creatures; that he governed the universe through an inflexible system of laws; that he took no Cognizance of individuals, and felt no interest in them, will know now that no being in the universe had been in such close contact with every particle and period of their existence as God. All the objects that intervened between God and the soul will be withdrawn now; the veil of sense and matter will be rent asunder, to unite no more. 3. There will be no indifferentism after this. God's Being, presence, and claims will no longer be subjects of no importance. They will be everything to all. God's presence will fill the conscious life of all, as midday sun without a cloud the day. IV. THIS RETRIBUTIVE PERIOD WILL SETTLE FOREVER THE QUESTION OF EVERY MAN'S CHARACTER AND DESTINY. "And the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works," etc. (vers. 12, 13). Here observe three things. 1. That the worth of a man's character will be determined by his works. "According to their works." Not by religious position, or creed, or profession, or office; but by "works." "What has a man done?" will be the question. 2. That a man's works will be determined by recognized authorities. "Books" will be opened. God's moral and remedial laws are books, and these books will now be opened - opened to memory, to conscience, and the universe. This will be a day of moral conviction. 3. That according to the correspondence, or noncorrespondence, of man's works with these recognized authorities will be his final destiny. "Whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire" (ver. 15). "The book of life" - the remedial law or scheme of salvation - the gospel. Whoever was not found vitally interested in this was cast into the lake of fire. What a scene is this that has passed under review! In its light how mean do man's highest dignities and honours appear! How ineffably paltry the pageantry of courts! how empty the pretensions of sovereigns! How solemn is life, in all its stages, relations, and aspects! God help us to live in the light of "that day"! - D.T. 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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