xxxiii. 22. _The Lord is our Judge._
An immense step has been taken in the moral development of any one
who has been led to say this with the understanding, with a vivid
perception of the truth of this declaration.
+I. It is a fact that God is our Judge.+ The Bible teaches
us--1. That God is continually present with us, intimately acquainted
with our real characters, the witness of all our actions, words, and
thoughts (Prov. v. 21, xv. 3; Job xxxi. 4; Ps. xi. 4, cxxi. 1-7).
Thus He is qualified for being in an eminent sense our judge. 2. That
the God who is perfectly acquainted with all our dispositions and
actions cannot behold any one of them with indifference. He observes
them on purpose to estimate their real nature; He necessarily
approves or disapproves of them. It is this that renders His
knowledge of them important. He not only is pure from all moral evil,
but He holds it in abomination; He not only is perfect in all moral
goodness, but He loves goodness (Hab. i. 12, 13; Jer. ix. 24; Ps.
v. 4-6, xi. 7, xxxvii. 23). 3. That this omniscient and holy God is
our proper and righteous Governor. This brings His approbation and
disapprobation home to us; it implies that they will be attended with
the weightiest consequences. All that men can do often is merely to
esteem or to blame us. If they have authority over us, or are able to
promote or obstruct our interest, their opinion of our character
assumes a new importance (Prov. xix. 12). Honour or dishonour in the
eye of the All-perfect Being is for its own sake deeply affecting to
every ingenuous mind; but to the soul of every man not dead to
thought it must, on account of its inevitable and infinite
consequence, appear of infinite importance. God is the Sovereign and
the moral Governor of mankind, and His approbation will be followed
by a great reward, His disapprobation by a dreadful punishment (Ps.
xlvii. 2, 8; Jer. xvii. 10; Eccl. iii. 17, xii. 14). Our conscience
testifies that this should be the case. And our redemption by Jesus
Christ, which displays the marvellous grace and compassion of God,
displays at the same time, in the most striking manner, the
inevitable sanctity of His government of mankind. While it provides
for the pardon of sin, the blood of Christ, shed for the expiation of
sin, testifies how odious, how deserving of punishment it is in the
sight of God. While it secures mercy to the penitent, it seals the
condemnation and the misery of every sinner.
+II. A recognition of the fact that God is our Judge will necessarily
exert a controlling influence upon us.+ We are greatly influenced by
the judgment passed upon our character and conduct by our fellow-men,
especially if they are discerning and virtuous, and still more if
their good or bad opinion is likely to be of advantage or
disadvantage to us. What, then, must be the effect upon any man who
really wakes up to the fact that we are under the scrutiny of One who
alone can justly estimate our character, and whose estimation of it
is of infinite importance to us! To be approved and beloved, or to be
disapproved and hated by the Ruler of the universe! It is in one of
these conditions that each of us stands to-day. Disapprobation from
God is the extremity of disgrace and misery; approbation of Him is
the summit of honour and happiness: the former is the natural object
of fear, sorrow, and shame, exciting to circumspect avoidance of it;
the latter of ardent desire, elevating hope, and rapturous joy,
conspiring to animate us in eager pursuit of it.
1. The unpardoned man cannot remember that "the Lord is our Judge"
without _fear._ Thoughts of His nearness, His omniscience, His
omnipotence, and His hatred of all sin fill him with alarm. Along
with this fear there springs up within him _sorrow._ The sinner who
has become conscious of the discriminating eye of perfect sanctity
marking all his paths, mourns for his sins and is troubled. His
spirit is broken, his heart is contrite. He sorrows to repentance
(2 Cor. vii. 9). To the sorrow is added _shame._ Whatever brings a
stain upon our character in the estimation of our fellow-men
naturally produces shame and humiliation. To be detected in what is
base confounds most men, even though no further inconvenience is
apprehended. To be lost to shame is the last sign of degeneracy; but
to deserve blame from God is the deepest ignominy; it must cover with
confusion every man who has any sense of God (Dan. ix. 8; Luke
xviii. 13).
2. The fear, sorrow, and humiliation which arise in sinful men
immediately they remember the holy government which God exercises
over them continually, influence those also who are conscious that
for Christ's sake He has forgiven them. They cause them to proceed
through life with unremitted caution; to exercise steady care in
avoiding every transgression and every omission displeasing to God.
They constrain them to walk humbly with Him, and produce in them that
modesty, diffidence, lowliness, and sober-mindedness which adorn
their character. But these are not the only results of their constant
remembrance that "the Lord is our Judge." (1.) Recognising that His
approbation is the sublimest honour, they are inspired with an ardent
desire to secure it. That desire gives a direction to their whole
conduct (Ps. iv. 6; Col. i. 10; 2 Cor. v. 9). (2.) Conscious that,
through Christ, they are the happy objects of God's favour, the hope
of its continuance throughout eternity produces within them a
triumphant joy (Rom. viii. 16, 17; Prov. x. 28). The all-penetrating
eye of God, so terrible to the sinner, is become to the man who feels
himself approved in His sight the encouraging, the exhilarating eye
of his Father and Friend. This renders duty delightful, comforts in
sorrow, takes away all fear in death.
CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS.--1. A remembrance that "the Lord is our
Judge" will deliver us from bondage to the opinions of our
fellow-men. While naturally desirous of their approval, every corrupt
fashion presuming to authorise what God disapproves or to explode
what He approves will be counted but the silly caprice of fools. If
every sensible man prefers the esteem of a few able judges to the
applauses of an ignorant multitude, he must be as destitute of good
sense as of religion who can hesitate in preferring honour from God
to the good opinion of the whole universe. 2. All the present
pleasures and advantages which sin can offer will be unable to seduce
the man who preserves a lively sense of the Heavenly Judge, for they
bear no proportion either to the happiness which accompanies His
approbation, or to the misery which arises from His wrath (Matt.
xvi. 26, 27). All the losses, troubles, and perils to which virtue
can expose him will not have power to terrify him from the love and
practice of it (Rom. viii. 18). Conscious that he is observed by God,
animated by the sense of his acting his part before so august a
Presence, he will exert all the powers of his soul to act it well. In
the exertion he will feel a noble expansion of heart, and triumph in
the hope of being approved and rewarded, and his hope shall not be
disappointed, for its largest promises shall be surpassed by the
greatness of his reward.--_Alexander Gerard, D.D.: Sermons,_ vol. ii.
pp. 239-274.
THE ATONEMENT; OR, SALVATION CONSISTENT WITH
THE REGAL AND JUDICIAL CHARACTER OF GOD.[1]
xxxiii. 22. _For the Lord is our Judge; the Lord is our
Lawgiver, &c._
There are here two propositions, the one affirming that Jehovah
sustains a certain relationship to us, the other declaring that in
that relationship, and therefore in a manner perfectly consistent
with it, He will save us. The same thing substantially is repeatedly
asserted in the Scriptures. The very prophet in whose writings these
words occur elsewhere speaks thus in God's name: "There is no God
else beside me, a just God and a Saviour; there is none beside"
(xlv. 21); "I bring near my righteousness, my salvation shall not
tarry" (xlvi. 13); "My righteousness is near, my salvation is gone
forth" (li. 5). All this has been translated into New Testament
language in that remarkable utterance of Paul's, "Christ Jesus, whom
God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in His blood,
to declare His righteousness, that He might be just, and the
justifier of him who believeth in Jesus" (Rom. iii. 25, 26).
Let us endeavour to unfold the harmony of salvation with the law, the
justice, and the royalty of God.
+I. Let us look at the relationship indicated by the three terms
Judge, Lawgiver, and King.+ We say relationship, for although the
words are three, the thing is substantially one, each term giving us
only a modification of the same idea. The judge is the king on the
bench, the lawgiver is the king writing the statute-book, and the
king is the judge and lawgiver on the throne of government. The three
things so run into each other that it is difficult to keep them
distinct, each of the three terms brings before us one distinct
phasis of the governmental relationship which God sustains towards
us. The judge is set to see that the guilty shall not escape, and
that the innocent shall not be punished; the lawgiver has to secure
that the majesty of the law is upheld, and its authority recognised;
and the king has to take care that the best interests of his subjects
as a whole are not interfered with but advanced. Now it is here
affirmed that Jehovah stands to us in this threefold relation, and
that as a judge He saves us criminals, as a lawgiver He forgives us
law-breakers, as a king He pardons us rebels.
We are not denying that God is willing and anxious to show Himself as
a _father,_ even to sinners. Our affirmation is, that _now,_ when man
has sinned, if God is to be to him precisely as He was before, if the
liberty of God's Son is to be enjoyed by him, then some means must be
taken to secure that in all this no dishonour shall be put upon the
law of God, no blot be made upon His judicial character, and no peril
result to His throne or the interests of His holy subjects.
+II. The means by which God the Judge, Lawgiver, and King saves man.+
If we take the Scriptures for our guide, the answer will not be
difficult to discover, for we are there uniformly taught that God
seeks to save us through a substitute. At first this principle was
revealed through animal sacrifices, then through the more definite
offerings of the Mosaic institute, and then through the still more
definite teachings of the inspired prophets. The high priest laid his
hand upon the head of his victim, confessed over it all his
iniquities and all the sins of all the people, and it was to bear
their iniquity. But in the remarkable oracle contained in Isaiah
liii. the very same phraseology is used in reference to the expected
Messiah; for we are there told that God "hath laid upon Him the
iniquity of us all," that "He was wounded for our transgressions, and
bruised for our iniquities," and that "He shall bear our iniquities."
To this corresponds the language of the New Testament; for when John
the Baptist pointed out the Messiah, he said, "Behold the Lamb of God
that taketh (beareth) away the sins of the world;" and Jesus Himself
declared that "the Son of man came to give His life a ransom for
many," and that "the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep."
And in perfect harmony with all this are the utterances of the
Apostles. It seems perfectly clear that the principle of substitution
is the very thread round which all the other declarations of the
Scripture crystallise. The Bible, from its beginning to its close, is
"dipped in blood;" the atoning death of Christ is the foundation on
which its whole system rests, and if that be rejected, the whole book
must go with it as a dead and worthless thing.
+III. Is this arrangement in harmony with the regal and judicial
character of God?+ Gathering up the scattered statements of the Word
of God into one systematic treatment of this subject, it seems clear
that the following things need to be secured in order that
substitution may harmonise with and subserve the ends of
justice:--1. _That the substitute shall be himself free from all
taint of sin, and be a voluntary victim._ Christ was "holy, harmless,
undefiled, and separate from sinners" as He was God-Man, and did not
need to put Himself under the law except He had chosen to be the
sinner's friend. He is thus qualified to be our substitute. And there
was no compulsion. "Lo, I come! I delight to do Thy will, O my God."
2. _That the sacrifice he offers be of such value as to preserve the
majesty of the law, and cover the case of those for whom it was
designed._ The sacrifice offered must be something which the person
making it can call his own property; and it must be something which
is in itself adequate to the end contemplated. This is precisely what
we have in the case of Christ. He could say His life was His own, for
He was God as well as man. Again, it was such a sacrifice as met the
case, for it was offered in the person of a Divine Man. As God-man,
He infinitely transcends all other men, and therefore, when standing
as a substitute, His personal dignity and worth give infinite value
to His substitution. 3. _That the persons set free thereby should be
so changed in character that their after conduct shall not in any way
interfere with or interrupt the happiness of God's other holy
children and subjects._ This is secured in connection with Christ's
work; for when, by the eye of faith, the love of Jesus is seen as
manifested on the cross, its power is such that it constrains the
sinner to live to Him who loved him and gave Himself for him. The
criminal who is pardoned through faith in the substitution of Christ
is also reformed, and no detriment results from his deliverance to
the other citizens of Jehovah's empire. 4. _That the substitute
himself have such compensation given him, that in the end he shall
not lose, but rather gain, through the sacrifice He has made._ Even
although a substitute should willingly offer himself, it would be
injustice to allow him to suffer if no adequate return could be made
for it. Christ received as the reward of His sufferings that which is
by Himself admitted and declared to be a thoroughly satisfactory
recompense for the sacrifice he made. As He sees of the travail of
His soul, He is satisfied. 5. _That the substitute be accepted by
both parties._ That He is accepted by God is evident from the
resurrection of Christ from the dead, His ascension into heaven, and
the outpouring of the Holy Spirit; and He becomes accepted by the
sinner when he believes in Jesus. Christ is not my substitute until I
accept Him as such.
Two remarks in conclusion:--1. It follows that Jesus Christ is an
all-sufficient Saviour. His work is such that any sinner choosing to
avail himself of it may be saved through it. 2. It also follows that
Jesus Christ is the only Saviour; for if these requirements needed to
be satisfied, who is there that can meet them but Himself?--_W. M.
Taylor, D.D.: Life Truths,_ pp. 1-20.