Judgment seat of Christ

“ I need the Lord "who loved me and gave Himself for me" to do it. He will. How precious this is for the believer who keeps his eye on the Judge! How blessed for him that ere eternity begins full provision is made for the perfect security of its peace—for a communion that may not be marred by a thought! Never after this shall a suspicion arise in our hearts, during the long ages that follow, that there is one thing—one secret thing—that has not been known and dealt with holily and righteously, according to the infinite purity of the Judgment Seat of Christ. ”

“ But O how will they be deceived when they shall see Christ sitting upon the judgment-seat, having laid aside his priestly and prophetical office, and appearing only as a judge to the wicked? when they shall see all the records of Heaven unfolded and laid open; when they shall see each man his name in the Book of Life, and in the book of the law; when they shall see God in His majesty, Christ in His majesty, the saints in their dignity, but themselves in their impurity. ”

“ Paul teaches that that pattern was the true sanctuary which is in heaven. And John testifies that he saw it in heaven.
In the temple in heaven, the dwelling-place of God, His throne is established in righteousness and judgment. In the most holy place is His law, the great rule of right by which all mankind are tested. The ark that enshrines the tables of the law is covered with the mercy-seat, before which Christ pleads His blood in the sinner's behalf. Thus is represented the union of justice and mercy in the plan of human redemption. ”

“ I am ready in hope of the Lord Jesus Christ, Himself the Head, to bear the punishment of a dreadful death rather than to state by private judgment [4] aught else than His truth, or to declare what would be contrary to the will of Christ and His Church. For these reasons I confidently, truthfully, and steadfastly assert that I have been wrongfully defamed to the Apostolic Seat by those heresy hunters. [5] If they have given or are giving information that I taught the people that in the sacrament the material substance of the bread remains, it is a falsehood. ”

“ And thus our church and nation may feel their national judgments in this world quite independently of the several personal judgments which will be passed upon us each hereafter individually, when we stand before Christ's judgment seat. ”

“ Of those who are to appear on the left hand of Christ's judgement-seat, each will be condemned because he never realized his debt to Christ in the persons of all those who had needs to which he might have ministered. ”

“ But though this may be the case in temporals, yet it is not so in spirituals; all judgment is committed to Christ, because he is the Son of Man; he is the judge in the court of mercy, and I will hear what the Lord will say. Moses has condemned me, conscience has said Amen to the sentence, justice demands satisfaction, the law is broken, guilt is great, Satan is busy, hell appears open, heaven shut, and the soul trembles, and with all the heart exclaims, God be merciful to me, to me a sinner! And amidst all, will you believe it, faith is waiting for the sentence from the judge ”

“ The mercy seat was so called, because, under the Old Testament, it was the place where the high priest, on the feast of expiation, sprinkled the blood of the sin-offerings, in order to make an atonement for himself and the whole congregation; and, since God accepted the offering which was then made, it was, for this reason, accounted the medium through which God showed himself propitious to the people. With reference to this, Jesus Christ may be called a mercy seat, as being the person in or through whom God shows himself propitious to mankind. ”

“ Now judiciary power belongs to Christ in this way according to His human nature on three accounts. First, because of His likeness and kinship with men; for, as God works through intermediary causes, as being closer to the effects, so He judges men through the Man Christ, that His judgment may be sweeter to men. Hence (Heb. 4:15) the Apostle says: "For we have not a high-priest, who cannot have compassion on our infirmities; but one tempted in all things like as we are, without sin. Let us go therefore with confidence to the throne of His grace." ”

“ A righteousness of satisfaction for the breach of the law is fulfilled by the imputation of Christ's complete and perfect righteousness, which answers the utmost demands of the law, as the mercy-seat was as long and as broad as the ark. ”

“ This implies that it will be a resurrection to a final judgment, by which all the children of men will be determined to everlasting happiness or misery in a world of retribution, according to what they were and what they did in this state of probation and preparation. The just shall rise by virtue of their union with Christ as their head; the unjust shall rise by virtue of Christ's dominion over them as their Judge. ”

“ If, therefore, there is a ministry of the Spirit in the world, it must be wholly different in kind from that spoken of above. And this is what we learn from Christ's teaching: "He, when He is come, will convict the world in respect of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment." There is a ring of judicial sternness in the words; they call up to our minds the solemnities of a court of justice--the indictment, the conviction, the condemnation. ”

“ They say that the "righteous are not to be brought to judgment." By this they mean that the elect are not to stand at the bar of Christ's tribunal, and there to tell the story of their lives, as developed in connection with the profession of the faith. Their theory of being conceived, quickened and born of the spirit in an instant of time, will not allow of giving account. They are satisfied with nothing short of an instantaneous and sudden bound from the dust, somewhat after the manner of a rocket skyward through the air! ”

“ Under the gospel, the justice of God is displayed in a more awful manner, though not in so sensible a manner as under the law; for here we behold divine justice seizing upon the Lord Jesus Christ, and making him a propitiatory sacrifice, his soul and body an offering for sin, which is a display of justice far beyond what was seen and heard on mount Sinai when the law was given. ”

“ It is ignominy to suffer from those who occupy the seat of justice, but St. Paul shows us by his example that we have to glory in scourings for Jesus Christ, as marks by which God recognizes us and avows us for His own. ”

“ There is one precious privilege which the Gospel of Jesus Christ has extended to those that believe and obey it—their sins go to judgment beforehand. It is written, "Some men's sins go to judgment beforehand, while others follow after." ”

“ Thirdly, the same thing is evident from comparison of human affairs with the end of human salvation. For, to whomsoever the substance is entrusted, the accessory is likewise committed. Now all human affairs are ordered for the end of beatitude, which is everlasting salvation, to which men are admitted, or from which they are excluded by Christ's judgment, as is evident from Mat. 25:31,40. Consequently, it is manifest that all human affairs are included in Christ's judiciary power. ”

“ At his first coming, he was attended with poor disciples; at his second coming, he will be attended with glorious angels; and if we suffer with him, we shall be glorified with him, 2 Tim. ii. 12.
[2.] As our concern; Then he shall reward every man according to his works. Observe, First, Jesus Christ will come as a Judge, to dispense rewards and punishments, infinitely exceeding the greatest that any earthly potentate has the dispensing of. The terror of men's tribunal (ch. x. 18) will be taken off by a believing prospect of the glory of Christ's tribunal. ”

“ Jesus does not hesitate to say that there will be a final judgment and an ingathering of the elect from all quarters of the earth. [38] There will be, as the parable of the Ten Virgins suggests, a division and a shut door. [39] But punishment will be automatic. Sin will bring its own consequences. Those only will be excluded at the last who even now are excluding themselves. For Christ is already here, and is judging the world every day. ”

“ These keys are the wisdom of discernment and the power of judging, thereby the ecclesiastical judgeis bound to receive the worthy and exclude the unworthy from the kingdom." And it is to be noted, that to the Trinity alone does it belong to have the chief power of this kind. And the humanity of Christ alone has chief subordinate power from within himself, for Christ is at the same time God and man. ”

“ That men may be prepared to stand in the judgment, the message commands them to “fear God, and give glory to Him,” “and worship Him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters.” The result of an acceptance of these messages is given in the words, “Here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.” In order to be prepared for the judgment, it is necessary that men should keep the law of God. That law will be the standard of character in the judgment. The apostle Paul declares, “As many as have sinned in the law shall be judged by the law, ... ”

“ A dreadful judgment, says the Commination Service, is always hanging over the heads of those who do wrong, and always ready to fall on them, without waiting for the last day, thousands of years hence. It was by telling men that—by telling them that Christ was righteous and pure, and desired to make them righteous and pure like himself; and that Christ was a living and present judge, watching all their actions, ready at any moment to forgive their sins, and ready at any moment to punish their sins—by that message the Apostles converted the heathen. ”

“ Those who are below on the earth. Who will judge? Those who are made heaven." Thus much Augustine, showing from Scripture that the righteous are God's seats and they it is who will judge.
Fourthly, seat is understood of the place in which any apostle remains for a given period, ruling the people according to Christ's law, and, in this sense, Jerusalem was not the bare city, but with its people it was the seat of James the apostle who, elected by the apostles, was there constituted by the Lord its first bishop. ”

“ Therefore Christ is not the judge of the angels.
On the contrary, The Apostle says (1 Cor. 6:3) : "Know you not that we shall judge angels?" But the saints judge only by Christ's authority. Therefore, much more does Christ possess judiciary power over the angels.
I answer that, The angels are subjects of Christ's judiciary power, not only with regard to His Divine Nature, as He is the Word of God, but also with regard to His human nature. ”

“ No earthly court can go farther; no earthly court can justify the guilty. But God is able, through the wonderful economy of substitution and atonement revealed in the gospel, in the same court, from the same throne, by the same law, and in the same sentence, to proclaim full pardon and free justification to the sinner. By virtue of the obedience and suffering of Christ on his behalf, he is at once forgiven and justified. Faith unites us to Christ, and gives us an interest in him, as our Mediator, who “bore our sins in his own body on the tree.” ”

“ Truly, it is more advantageous to die than to fall into the hands of God by flying from a momentary evil, and perhaps afterwards to fall into the fire, and into eternal opprobrium. Therefore, since I have appealed to Jesus Christ, to the Judge sovereignly just and powerful, confiding to him my cause, I am resolved to adhere to his decision, and to his holy and sacred sentence, knowing that he will judge all men, not according to false witnesses, or to the errors of councils, but according to the truth, and their own merits. ”

“ Remark.—The Church of Rome does not hold that, at the general judgment, Jesus Christ will use the third book; but holds that, in the first judgment, he uses it for those of the dead who have been neither righteous nor great criminals, and who thereby shall be sentenced to Purgatory, which shall finish at the end of the world. ”

“ And surely it is by the word that every Church pretends to judge; and it is by this rule, in the case before us, that the person in the judgment of the Church stands rejected. Now is not this, to all intents and purposes, determining the merits of the cause? Do we not conclude that the person's error cuts him off from all ordinary possibility of salvation, by thus cutting him off from a place in the Church, out of which there is no ordinary possibility of salvation? Does he not henceforth become to us as a heathen man and a publican? ”

“ A judge who allowed himself to be overawed against his conscience by a secular power, could not any longer be recognized; but no thing or things contained in the Act should be afterwards 'interpreted or expounded, that his Grace (the King) , his nobles and subjects, intended by the same to decline or vary from the congregation of Christ's Church in anything concerning the articles of the Catholic faith of Christendom, or in any other things declared by the Holy Scripture and the Word of God necessary for salvation ”