A CONTROLLING FACT
Isaiah 33:22. 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, thoughts (Proverbs 5:21; Proverbs 15:3; Job 31:4; Psalms 11:4, Psalms 131:1-3). Thus He is qualified for being in an eminent sense our Judges 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 (Habakkuk 1:12-13; Jeremiah 9:24; Psalms 5:4-6; Psalms 11:7; Psalms 37:23).
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 (Proverbs 19:12). 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 consequences, 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 dreadful punishment (Psalms 47:2; Psalms 47:8; Jeremiah 17:10; Ecclesiastes 3:17; Ecclesiastes 12:14). 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 inviolable 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 from 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 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 Corinthians 7:9). 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 (Daniel 9:8; Luke 18:13).
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 (Psalms 4:6; Colossians 1:10; 2 Corinthians 5:9).
(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 (Romans 8:16-17; Proverbs 10:28). 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 (Matthew 16:26-27). 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 (Romans 8:18). 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 [1237]
[1237] See H. E. I., 374–399.
Isaiah 33:22. 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” (Isaiah 45:21); “I bring near my righteousness, my salvation shall not tarry” (Isaiah 46:13); “My righteousness is near, my salvation is gone forth” (Isaiah 51:5). 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” (Romans 3:25-26).
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 to 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 53 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 all 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.