XV.

CHRIST COMING TO THE LAST JUDGMENT.

"Which also said, Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? this same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven."-ACTS i. 11.

"But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him. For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, aud with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: then we which are live and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore, comfort one another with these words."-1 THESS. iv. 13-18.

LAST Sabbath evening we saw God's only Son, our Lord Jesus, sitting on the right hand of God the Father Almighty, as Lord and Christ, exalted with the right hand of God to be a Prince and a Saviour, on the throne above all angels, principalities, and powers of the present age, and of all ages to come, Ruler and Judge Supreme over all things to His Church. We have now to consider the seventh Article of our Creed, which embodies the declaration of the two angels to the disciples as they witnessed our Lord's ascension. The words of the Creed

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are: "From thence He shall come to judge the quick and the dead;" or, as it is expressed in the fourth Article of the Church of England: "And there sitteth until He return to judge all men at the last day." Our subject, then, is CHRIST COMING TO SIT IN THE JUDGMENT OF QUICK AND DEAD AT THE LAST DAY. And may the spirit of Almighty wisdom and grace assist us to make a profitable use of this doctrine.

This is the last of those particular characters ascribed in the Creed to our Lord Jesus. The whole of the Article, if fully expressed, would read in this way: "And I believe in Jesus Christ his only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead and buried and I believe that He descended into hell, and that He rose again the third day from the dead, and that He ascended into heaven, and there sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty; and I believe that our Lord Jesus Christ, who now sitteth in his perfect human nature on the right hand of God, shall come 'with glory' to judge the quick and the dead; and that 'his kingdom shall have no end.'" You see, brethren, how large a portion of the Creed is employed in expressing what we are to believe concerning the Lord Jesus. If the Creed be printed in fourteen lines, nine of the fourteen are required to express our belief in Jesus; and of course the same proportion will obtain in whatever. sized type it may be printed. This may remind us that our faith in Jesus is to be regarded as of special consequence, both as to our own souls and as to our influence on others.

The points of this Article are four in number: First. That Christ shall come again, that is, to this world. Second. That He shall come from the highest heaven

into which He ascended when He left this world. Third. The end of his coming is to judge; and, Fourthly. The objects or persons to be judged are the quick and the dead. The Article relates to Christ in His person and office as Mediator and King, and implies the presence of the same human body in which He ascended. It declares His coming, the place from which He shall come, the end of his coming, and the parties to be judged by him. There is no essential variation in the old copies or draughts of this Article of the Creed. In some of them it is read from thence, and in some from whence, and in some simply, He will come, and in some from thence or from whence He shall come is all left out, and we have only: He shall judge the quick and the dead.

The other words, however, when omitted are left out not because they are not supposed to be true, but because they are thought to be unnecessary, being implied in the other clause. For if Christ is to judge the quick and the dead, it is implied He will come again from heaven to this world. In choosing words to constitute an articulated faith, it is better, however, not to leave any thing to be implied that can by any possibility be misconstrued. The Article, therefore, is to be received as we have it. Nor are the reasons for our holding it as a part of our faith essentially different from those that caused it at first to be adopted. In the early ages of Christianity, the chief difficulties in the Church as to Articles of Faith related to our Lord's human nature. And hence the fulness and earnestness of the large part of the Creed that speaks of Christ. The same teachers and sects for the most part who held erroneous views concerning our Lord's human nature, also denied a future judgment. The bearing of the ancient Creeds is very

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clear on the Incarnation. And in them the sitting of Jesus on the right hand of God in his human nature is connected immediately with his coming from thence to judge the world. This was designed to condemn the idea of Sabellius, that the Son was merely an emanation from the Father, without personal subsistence, put forth for a time and then reabsorbed when his mission was achieved. Particularly was this the purpose of the clause added in the Nicene Creed: "And whose kingdom shall have no end." When the work of redeeming our race is complete, the exercise of the Redeemer's office will cease, but not his kingdom of glory, for from all eternity the decree had gone forth in behalf of God's own Son, "Thy throne, O God, is forever and ever." For when the kingdoms of this world become the kingdoms of the Lord and of his Christ, He shall reign forever and ever.

Some, as the Manicheans, it is believed denied both the resurrection and the future judgment. The Marcionites and other Gnostics also denied the future general judgment, on the ground that God was so full of grace and mercy, that there was no necessity for the general judgment, for God regarded all human actions with indif ference. Men were insignificant in his sight. Now even a limited acquaintance with the literature of our day is quite sufficient to show that similar views are prevalent among us. The Swedenborgians, after their founder, generally hold that the passages of Scripture which speak of the judgment day are not to be literally interpreted, but are used as metaphors or figures of speech. The idea of Swedenborg probably was, that men are a kind of waif, subject to two opposite influences, one from God and good spirits, and the other from evil angels, and as they yielded to one or the other, the soul was good and rose, or was bad and fell. Consequently heaven and

*

hell are not to be regarded as places, or as the result of a Divine appointment, but as the necessary conditions or status of the man himself, according as he is good or evil. Another reason for the use of this Article was to express the faith of the Church in the continuance of our Lord's kingdom, and the eternity of the union between his Divinity and humanity-two perfect natures in one person forever. Origen taught that the kingdom of Christ, after many ages, should end. And Marcellus of Ancyra thought that the office of King was committed temporarily to our Lord, and consequently that his kingly office would cease and his human nature come to nothing. On the other hand, the Scriptures teach that His kingdom shall have no end. The present forms of His kingdom of power and of grace will cease, but the kingdom of his glory shall have no end. It shall last forever. This Article therefore teaches the eternity of the mysterious Incarnation. It asserts that Christ as man shall reign forever. On this point we may well adopt the words of Chrysostom, saying: "We wonder at the awful and ineffable nature of this mystery. Our Lord put on our flesh, not to lay it aside again, but to have it ever with Himself. He inhabits his human tabernacle forever. Otherwise He would not have deemed it worthy of the royal Throne, nor would He have been adored, wearing it, by all the heavenly host of angels, archangels, thrones, dominions, principalities, and powers."+

There are two additions in the Nicene Creed as adopted by the Fathers of Constantinople, namely, the words "with glory:" "and he shall come again with glory, to judge both the quick and the dead:" and also the words:

* See Bishop Browne, p. 101. † Forbes, 250.