|
There are many other passages of Scripture bearing on the last
judgment of God, so many, indeed, that to cite them all would swell
this book to an unpardonable size. Suffice it to have proved that both
Old and New Testament enounce the judgment. But in the Old it is
not so definitely declared as in the New that the judgment shall be
administered by Christ, that is, that Christ shall descend from
heaven as the Judge; for when it is therein stated by the Lord God
or His prophet that the Lord God shall come, we do not necessarily
understand this of Christ. For both the Father, and the Son, and
the Holy Ghost are the Lord God. We must not, however, leave
this without proof. And therefore we must first show how Jesus
Christ speaks in the prophetical books under the title of the Lord
God, while yet there can be no doubt that it is Jesus Christ who
speaks; so that in other passages where this is not at once apparent,
and where nevertheless it is said that the Lord God will come to that
last judgment, we may understand that Jesus Christ is meant.
There is a passage in the prophet Isaiah which illustrates what I
mean. For God says by the prophet, "Hear me, Jacob and Israel,
whom I call. I am the first, and I am for ever: and my hand has
rounded the earth, and my right hand has established the heaven. I
will call them, and they shall stand together, and be gathered, and
hear. Who has declared to them these things? In love of thee I have
done thy pleasure upon Babylon, that I might take away the seed of
the Chaldeans. I have spoken, and I have called: I have brought
him, and have made his way prosperous. Come ye near unto me, and
hear this. I have not spoken in secret from the beginning; when they
were made, there was I. And now the Lord God and His Spirit hath
sent me." It was Himself who was speaking as the Lord God; and
yet we should not have understood that it was Jesus Christ had He not
added, "And now the Lord God and His Spirit hath sent me." For
He said this with reference to the form of a servant, speaking of a
future event as if it were past, as in the same prophet we read, "He
was led as a sheep to the slaughter," not "He shall be led;" but
the past tense is used to express the future. And prophecy constantly
speaks in this way.
There is also another passage in Zechariah which plainly declares that
the Almighty sent the Almighty; and of what persons can this be
understood but of God the Father and God the Son? For it is
written, "Thus saith the Lord Almighty, After the glory hath He
sent me unto the nations which spoiled you; for he that toucheth you
toucheth the apple of His eye Behold, I will bring mine hand upon
them, and they shall be a spoil to their servants: and ye shall know
that the Lord Almighty hath sent me." Observe, the Lord Almighty
saith that the Lord Almighty sent Him. Who can presume to
understand these words of any other than Christ, who is speaking to
the lost sheep of the house of Israel? For He says in the Gospel,
"I am not sent save to the lost sheep of the house of Israel,"
which He here compared to the pupil of God's eye, to signify the
profoundest love. And to this class of sheep the apostles themselves
belonged. But after the glory, to wit, of His resurrection, for
before it happened the evangelist said that "Jesus was not yet
glorified,", He was sent unto the nations in the persons of His
apostles; and thus the saying of the psalm was fulfilled, "Thou wilt
deliver me from the contradictions of the people; Thou wilt set me as
the head of the nations,"
So that those who had spoiled the Israelites, and whom the
Israelites had served when they were subdued by them, were not
themselves to be spoiled in the same fashion, but were in their own
persons to become the spoil of the Israelites. For this had been
promised to the apostles when the Lord said, "I will make you
fishers of men." And to one of them He says, "From henceforth
thou shalt catch men." They were then to become a spoil, but in a
good sense, as those who are snatched from that strong one when he is
bound by a stronger.
In like manner the Lord, speaking by the same prophet, says, "And
it shall come to pass in that day, that I will seek to destroy all the
nations that come against Jerusalem. And I will pour upon the house
of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace
and mercy; and they shall look upon me because they have insulted me,
and they shall mourn for Him as for one very dear, and shall be in
bitterness as for an only-begotten." To whom but to God does it
belong to destroy all the nations that are hostile to the holy city
Jerusalem, which "come against it," that is, are opposed to it,
or, as some translate, "come upon it," as if putting it down under
them; or to pour out upon the house of David and the inhabitants of
Jerusalem the spirit of grace and mercy? This belongs doubtless to
God, and it is to God the prophet ascribes the words; and yet
Christ shows that He is the God who does these so great and divine
things, when He goes on to say, "And they shall look upon me
because they have insulted me, and they shall mourn for Him as if for
one very dear (or beloved), and shall be in bitterness for Him as
for an only-begotten." For in that day the Jews, those of them,
at least, who shall receive the spirit of grace and mercy, when they
see Him coming in His majesty, and recognize that it is He whom
they, in the person of their parents, insulted when He came before in
His humiliation, shall repent of insulting Him in His passion: and
their parents themselves, who were the perpetrators of this huge
impiety, shall see Him when they rise; but this will be only for
their punishment, and not for their correction. It is not of them we
are to understand the words, "And I will pour upon the house of
David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace
and mercy, and they shall look upon me because they have insulted
me;" but we are to understand the words of their descendants, who
shall at that time believe through Elias. But as we say to the
Jews, You killed Christ, although it was their parents who did so,
so these persons shall grieve that they in some sort did what their
progenitors did. Although, therefore, those that receive the spirit
of mercy and grace, and believe, shall not be condemned with their
impious parents, yet they shall mourn as if they themselves had done
what their parents did. Their grief shall arise not so much from guilt
as from pious affection. Certainly the words which the Septuagint
have translated, "They shall look upon me because they insulted
me," stand in the Hebrew, "They shall look upon me whom they
pierced." And by this word the crucifixion of Christ is certainly
more plainly indicated. But the Septuagint translators preferred to
allude to the insult which was involved in His whole passion. For in
point of fact they insuited Him both when He was arrested and when He
was bound, when He was judged, when He was mocked by the robe they
put on Him and the homage they did on bended knee, when He was
crowned with thorns and struck with a rod on the head, when He bore
His cross, and when at last He hung upon the tree. And therefore we
recognize more fully the Lord's passion when we do not confine
ourselves to one interpretation, but combine both, and read both
"insulted" and "pierced."
When, therefore, we read in the prophetical books that God is to
come to do judgment at the last, from the mere mention of the
judgment, and although there is nothing else to determine the meaning,
we must gather that Christ is meant; for though the Father will
judge, He will judge by the coming of the Son. For He Himself,
by His own manifested presence, "judges no man, but has committed
all judgment to the Son;" for as the Son was judged as a man, He
shall also judge in human form. For it is none but He of whom God
speaks by Isaiah under the name of Jacob and Israel, of whose seed
Christ took a body, as it is written, "Jacob is my servant, I
will uphold Him; Israel is mine elect, my Spirit has assumed Him:
I have put my Spirit upon Him; He shall bring forth judgment to the
Gentiles. He shall not cry, nor cease, neither shall His voice be
heard without. A bruised reed shall He not break, and the smoking
flax shall He not quench: but in truth shall He bring forth
judgment.
He shall shine and shall not be broken, until He sets judgment in the
earth: and the nations shall hope in His name." The Hebrew has not
"Jacob" and "Israel;" but the Septuagint translators, wishing
to show the significance of the expression "my servant," and that it
refers to the form of a servant in which the Most High humbled
Himself, inserted the name of that man from whose stock He took the
form of a servant. The Holy Spirit was given to Him, and was
manifested, as the evangelist testifies, in the form of a dove. He
brought forth judgment to the Gentiles, because He predicted what was
hidden from them. In His meekness He did not cry, nor did He cease
to proclaim the truth.
But His voice was not heard, nor is it heard, without, because He
is not obeyed by those who are outside of His body. And the Jews
themselves, who persecuted Him, He did not break, though as a
bruised reed they had lost their integrity, and as smoking flax their
light was quenched; for He spared them, having come to be judged and
not yet to judge. He brought forth judgment in truth, declaring that
they should be punished did they persist in their wickedness. His face
shone on the Mount, His fame in the world. He is not broken nor
over come, because neither in Himself nor in His Church has
persecution prevailed to annihilate Him. And therefore that has not,
and shall not, be brought about which His enemies said or say,
"When shall He die, and His name perish?" "until He set
judgment in the earth." Behold, the hidden thing which we were
seeking is discovered. For this is the last judgment, which He will
set in the earth when He comes from heaven. And it is in Him, too,
we already see the concluding expression of the prophecy fulfilled:
"In His name shall the nations hope." And by this fulfillment,
which no one can deny, men are encouraged to believe in that which is
most impudently denied. For who could have hoped for that which even
those who do not yet believe in Christ now see fulfilled among us, and
which is so undeniable that they can but gnash their teeth and pine
away? Who, I say, could have hoped that the nations would hope in
the name of Christ, when He was arrested, bound, scourged,
mocked, crucified, when even the disciples themselves had lost the
hope which they had begun to have in Him? The hope which was then
entertained scarcely by the one thief on the cross, is now cherished by
nations everywhere on the earth, who are marked with the sign of the
cross on which He died that they may not die eternally.
That the last judgment, then, shall be administered by Jesus Christ
in the manner predicted in the sacred writings is denied or doubted by
no one, unless by those who, through some incredible animosity or
blindness, decline to believe these writings, though already their
truth is demonstrated to all the world. And at or in connection with
that judgment the following events shall come to pass, as we have
learned: Elias the Tishbite shall come; the Jews shall believe;
Antichrist shall persecute; Christ shall judge; the dead shall
rise; the good and the wicked shall be separated; the world shall be
burned and renewed. All these things, we believe, shall come to
pass; but how, or in what order, human understanding cannot perfectly
teach us, but only the experience of the events themselves. My
opinion, however, is, that they will happen in the order in which I
have related them.
Two books yet remain to be written by me, in order to complete, by
God's help, what I promised. One of these will explain the
punishment of the wicked, the other the happiness of the righteous;
and in them I shall be at special pains to refute, by God's grace,
the arguments by which some unhappy creatures seem to themselves to
undermine the divine promises and threatenings, and to ridicule as
empty words statements which are the most salutary nutriment of faith.
But they who are instructed in divine things hold the truth and
omnipotence of God to be the strongest arguments in favor of those
things which, however incredible they seem to men, are yet contained
in the Scriptures, whose truth has already in many ways been proved;
for they are sure that God can m no wise lie, and that He can do what
is impossible to the unbelieving.
|
|