WILL THERE BE A GRAND ASSIZE? - A DAY OF JUDGMENT?

THE CHALLENGE TO GOD

"Oh that I had One to hear me! . . .And that I had the indictment which mine Adversary

hath written!"—JOB 31:35

"Ye are come . . . to God the Judge of all . . . and to Jesus the Mediator."—HEBREWS 12:22-24

            In these words of Job we have his last appeal, and it is in the nature of a direct challenge to God.

The cycles of controversy with his friends were now over. In this third and last, Eliphaz and Bildad had spoken, and Job had answered. Zophar had nothing to say. Evidently after a pause Job uttered his last speech. In it he first surveyed his past prosperity and adversity, and claimed that he had just cause for all his complaining.

In this final cycle Eliphaz and Bildad had maintained their contention that the sufferings of Job must be evidence of his sin. To this Job replied by once more reaffirming his inno­cence, and in these words uttered his challenge. All the way through he had been misunderstood by men, and felt that he could not make con­tact with God. To put it quite bluntly, he seems to have felt at this point that God was not playing the game. I have said that is a blunt statement, but it does represent a common human experience in hours when the soul is overwhelmed with sorrow, which seems to have neither reason nor explanation.

The language of Job was judicial, that is to say, the appeal was based upon processes in a court of law. The word "adversary" here is a purely legal one, and we might render it in our present terminology "a prosecutor." It refers to one conducting the case against a defendant. In the thinking of Job, God was conceived of as the Adversary in that sense, and himself as defendant. In the ancient courts of law two things were always demanded: first, the statement by the prosecutor of the charge preferred; and second, the statement of the defendant in rebuttal of the charge. The order of procedure was that the prosecutor first states his case, and then the defendant his.

The position of Job, as revealed in this ex­clamation, was that he had never had the case against him stated by his Adversary, but that he had prepared his defense. This he declared in the words, "Lo, here is my signature, let the Almighty answer me." His position was that he had made his declaration, and signed it, in spite of the fact that he had not heard the charge which God had to make against him. There is a sense in which he was quite right. God had made no charge against him. He felt, however, that there must be such a charge to account for his experiences, and thus his last challenge was to God.

All this reveals the consciousness of a man that God was acting as Adversary, or Prosecutor, but that he did not know what the charge against him was. He had been listening to the chatter of his friends. Indeed, he had to listen to more, for Elihu will currently address him. In his consciousness he knew that these men were really not his judges, and had no right to bring any charge against him. He recognized that the only One Who had such a right was God Himself. This in itself was a great and true conviction. We have a striking illustration of it in the fifty-first Psalm, the great penitential Psalm of David, in which he said:

"Against Thee, Thee only, have I sinned."

So that the underlying consciousness of Job was that of the ultimate tribunal to which every man has a right to make his appeal.

The poignant agony of his soul at the moment was that it seemed to him that he was not getting a hearing in that court. In all the affairs of the human soul it is so that final judgment must be found by One Whose know­ledge is perfect, and Whose decisions will be absolutely impartial and just. There is no court that fulfills this ideal perfectly, until the soul stands face to face with God. It was for this Job asked in this great appeal.

In a careful examination of the position, will be revealed the fact that this is the abiding challenge of the human soul. Of course, that is when God is recognized. If men dismiss God from the universe, all this has neither sense nor meaning. And modern man has done such. The cry of Job was the language of a man who believed in a moral universe over which God reigns, and in which He governs. Job, conscious of his innocence, appealed to God. David, conscious of his guilt, said in Psa. 51:4,

"Against Thee, Thee only, have I sinned."

Whether the sense of innocence or the sense of guilt, the man, believing in a moral universe, makes his final appeal to this ultimate court, desiring to be judged there, and to accept the verdict found there. The truth is illustrated on another occasion in the history of David. When he had failed, and punishment was in­evitable, he said in 1 Chron. 21:13; 2 Sam. 24:14,

"Let me not fall into the hand of man."

It was a most significant utterance. How constantly, under stress and strain of life, its perplexities and problems, and under the sense of sin, we desire to get beyond the thinking and the judgments of men, and to be dealt with directly by God. Listening to the words of Job, the question that comes is as to whether we can have access to that court and stand before that Judge. In Job's words we hear the cry, the sigh, the sob, the revelation of necessity. Was there any answer to that cry?

Whereas we might reply to that question by referring to the rest of the Book of Job, in which it is surely shown that God revealed Himself to Job as governing, and therefore available to himself; we make our appeal rather to the answer that came after centuries had run their course historically.

There came into human history the Son of God, and through Him we find the complete answer to Job. That answer vindicates the cry he uttered, and says in effect; yes, it is possible to find the way to God, and to have immediate dealings with Him.

Out of a stupendous passage in the letter to the Hebrews in 12:23, we take these words, for the moment:

"Ye are come . . . to God the Judge of all"

And then other words, revealing what we find in our coming:

"And to Jesus, the Mediator of a new covenant ";

Now in order to understand the value of these statements, we need to carefully observe the whole of the paragraph in which they are found:

"Ye are come unto Mount Zion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable hosts of angels, to the general assembly and Church of the Firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus the Mediator of a new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaketh better than that of Abel."

That passage in its entirety is an epitome of the new economy created by Jesus Christ. I use the word "economy" there, because it refers to the whole system of government. In the beginning of the letter to the Hebrews we read:

"When He bringeth in the Firstborn into the world."

The word there rendered "world" is the word oikoumene, from which we derive our word

"economy." It was the word that was used at the time in reference to the whole Roman Empire. This letter to the Hebrews is con­cerned from beginning to end with the new economy resulting from the speech of the Son; and I repeat, that it is fully described in this paragraph which stands, as a description, in immediate contrast to that which has pre­ceded it, namely, a description of the old economy under Moses. That economy was represented by "a mount that might be touched . . . that burned with fire, and . . . blackness, and darkness, and tempest, and the sound of a trumpet, and the voice of words; which voice they that heard entreated that no word more might be spoken unto them; for they could not endure that which was enjoined. If even a beast touch the mountain, it shall be stoned; and so fearful was the appearance that Moses said, I exceedingly fear and quake."

That was the old economy, a Divine economy, an economy of God. The writer now says, however, "We are not come" to that. That is not where we stand today. "We are come unto Mount Zion," the economy of which he describes in the words already quoted.

The language descriptive of the new economy takes up the symbol of the old in certain ways. The new economy is that of Mount Zion. If we glance back to Hebrew poetry we find interpretations of Mount Zion. The second Psalm says that Mount Zion is the place of the King. The forty-seventh declares that Mount Zion is the joy of the whole earth. The seventy-eighth announces that Mount Zion is loved by Jehovah. The one hundred and twenty-fifth declares Mount Zion to be immovable, abiding forever. Now the writer speaks of Mount Zion as being "the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem."

In other words, he is declaring that through the Son we are brought into the realization of the Divine order and the Divine government. Every line of description is full of light and beauty.

The central fact, however, is the declaration that

"We are come . . . unto God the Judge of all."

And that in that Presence, Jesus is the Mediator.

In the economy of the mount that burned with fire, God was the Judge of all. With a recognition of that abiding principle, the writer goes back to Abel, the shedding of whose blood was due to rebellion against God, and which therefore called for vengeance. In the new economy there is the shedding of blood, but it is not calling for vengeance, but rather for mercy and pardon. In the new economy we find our way to the judgment seat of God, but we do so through the mediation of His Son, in and through the shedding of His blood.

Thus the cry of the soul for access to God as ultimate Judge is answered, and the way is revealed as a way that provides for the deepest necessities of the soul, which have to do with its failure and its sin.

To that Throne for immediate judgment we may come now. Revelation has revealed to us the fact that there will be a great ultimate Assize, or Day of Judgment; but we have not to wait for that day to find our way to the Throne. This is the full and final answer to the challenge of the human soul, as confessed by Job in his agony.

According to this account, God heard the cry, and came immediately, and talked to him. Even then He made no charge against him, except that of reminding him of his own limita­tions. Nevertheless, the complete revelation of the attitude of God towards the soul of man came with the coming of His Son into human life.

The ultimate value of this cry of Job is its expression of the deepest consciousness of a human being who recognizes that he lives in a moral universe. Satan is busy today attempting to teach our youth otherwise. Necessarily if that be denied, there is no such cry, no such sense of appeal. The same lie from the beginning that you shall not come into a Day of Judgment. Wherever there is this consciousness, there is also a sense of personal accountability. That sense may at the moment be a consciousness of innocence, or a conviction of guilt. In order to the ratification of the consciousness of innocence, the soul desires direct dealings with the God of the universe. That is equally true, and perhaps more poignantly so, if the con­sciousness be that of guilt. Human condemna­tion is of no moment in the last analysis, and human ability is utterly unable to deal with the situation.

Then it is to God that the soul inevitably turns. It does so because it recognizes the impotence and inadequacy of all human judg­ments and decisions. It passionately desires to escape from all imperfect judgment. It reaches out to the only One Who knows per­fectly, and Who therefore will find the true verdict, and pronounce the sentence which is one of strict justice. Amid the often trivial lilt of the words of Gilbert, I find some which for some reason always appeal to me as very full of significance. I refer to the lines,

"I shall achieve in time,

My object all sublime,

To make the punishment fit the crime,

The punishment fit the crime."

There is a gentle touch of sarcasm, and a tone of cheerfulness in the words, and yet they express at least half the truth about what the soul of man sincerely needs. We need that the punish­ment should fit the crime, and also that the reward should be according to the innocence. In other words and better, we need to be judged by God.

It is a great thing for the human soul when it ceases to listen to the opinion of neighbors, and the arguments of philosophers, and the futilities of the clever men of earth, and flings itself out into the clear light of the judgments and findings of God.

When any soul does that, it finds there, Jesus the Mediator of a new covenant, Whose blood makes possible the activity of mercy upon the basis of the strictest justice. Before that Throne, through the mediation of the Mediator, justice and mercy meet together; righteousness and peace kiss each other. (Psa. 85:10; 89:14)