§ 388.

The judicial overthrow of Satan and his kingdom presupposes the complete victory of the kingdom of Christ. The final judgment is primarily positive. The good asserts itself and maintains itself on the throne. The Son of Man manifests Himself to be the perfectly righteous One; and His people, by virtue of His approval, are demonstrated to be the living members of the only righteous kingdom. The positive force of the final judgment is its chief significance.

1. The moral and judicial victory of the Son of Man actualizes the meaning, hitherto hidden, of His ascension from earth to heaven. His judicial victory appears in His enthronement as Judge, and in the positive perfection of His mystical body. Even now humanity in the person of the Son, emancipated from the law of corruption, released from the death of sin, is perfectly triumphant over Satan and his kingdom.' What humanity, glorified in the person of Christ is, that His people now are in principle and will actually become at that day. It is not yet made manifest what we shall be. When Christ, who is our life, shall be manifested, then shall we also with Him be manifested in glory. Even whilst in the natural body being risen with Christ, the righteous possess His victory potentially; but then they shall be like Him in reality, for they shall see Him even as He is. The hidden virtue of His ascension they will fulfil. As He overcame so they will overcome. As He rose above the whole realm of Satan's dominion, so will they rise with Him.

1 Cf. 1 John iii. 2; 1 Cor. i. 7, 8; 2 Cor. iii. 17, 18; 2 Cor. iv. 15-18; Col. ii. 15; Col. iii. 3, 4.

2 Rev. iii. 21.

2. It is the kingdom of Christ that attains to perfection and complete triumph, not the believer as an isolated individual. The growth of the whole conditions the growth of all the parts. The perfection of the whole kingdom conditions the perfection of the individual members. True, the relation of every member to the kingdom depends on personal faith and obedience, and his fidelity reacts upon the growth and spiritual status of the entire kingdom; but this reaction is only the correlate of the truth that the history of the entire organism at every epoch conditions the possible status of each member.

Hence the supposition that the final judgment of individuals will ensue immediately after natural death is without warrant. The supposition contravenes Christian philosophy, especially our Lord's parables respecting the last things. The good seed and the tares will grow together until the harvest.1

In the end of the world, the angels shall come forth and sever the wicked from among the righteous. Paul teaches that in Christ shall all be made alive, but each in his own order: Christ the first fruits, then they that are Christ's at His coming. Then cometh the end. The consummation of the individual cannot precede the consummation of the kingdom."

As there are crises in the history of the kingdom, so there are peculiar crises in the history of the individual. Such a crisis is the epoch of natural death. The state of the believer in the intermediate realm may be spoken of as a judgment, a personal vindication, a positive approval of his faith and character; but the judgment of approval rests on the fact that he is a living member of the body of 2 Matt. xiii. 49.

1 Matt. xiii. 30.

3 I Cor. xv. 23.

Christ. Being a member, he participates in the eternal life and the radical salvation which distinguish Christ's mystical body.

The final judgment respects the members of the kingdom as individuals no less than the kingdom in its collective capacity. This aspect of the truth I do not overlook. But the judgment does not respect the individual independently of his relation to the kingdom as a whole. Complete deliverance from sin and final glorification depend primarily on the perfection and victory of the entire body. Therefore every faithful member is approved and will triumph. It is the ark of God that rides safely over the waves of the final convulsion, and every member is safe because the ark will rest on the mount of God.

3. With the Church will also the natural creation itself be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the liberty of the glory of the children of God.' By the immanent presence of Christ the cosmos will be transformed. Heaven and earth are waiting for the revealing of the sons of God. Says Bengel: "The visible creation is intended, and every class according to its capacity." Inwrought with the resurrection of the righteous, heaven and earth will triumph over disorganization. Then the universe of God, emancipated in all its kingdoms from the disturbances and contradictions of moral and physical evil, will be consummated in the grandeur and beauty of Christ's glorification.

1 Romans viii. 18-24.

2

2 Rev. xxi. 5.

CHAPTER VIII.

GEHENNA: THE SECOND DEATH,

§ 389.

The revelation of God in Christ as to its essential nature is prevailingly positive. Christ came directly to declare Himself, His person and His mediatorship; indirectly He uncovers Satan. The ideal life of man and the true end of the world He manifests rather than man's disorganized life and the abnormal condition of the world.

Hence we know less of Satan than of Christ; less of sin than of redemption; less of death than of eternal life.

For the same reason we know less of hell than we know of heaven. We can think with less clearness, less logical consistency, of the ultimate misery of the wicked than of the ultimate blessedness of the righteous.

We have to remember, moreover, that the natural mind, no less than Christian reason, is by its constitution adapted primarily to inquiry into the good, not into the evil; and the laws of scientific thought answer to ob jective truth, not to objective falsehood. Therefore eschatology may develop better and more trustworthy conceptions concerning the kingdom of light than concerning the kingdom of darkness.

The correct idea respecting the moral order of the world and the righteousness of Christ's kingdom conditions an approximately correct conception of the nature of the disturbances and miseries produced by the violation of truth and right. If we recognize and grasp the necessary con

nection of righteousness with blessedness, we may safely infer the necessary connection of misery with wickedness. If only the doing of the truth can yield the fruit of heavenly glory, it cannot be otherwise than that a personal history in the service of the lie must issue in the bitterness of woe.

§ 390.

To all who have not been redeemed from the power and guilt of sin by grace through faith in Jesus Christ the general judgment will issue in the second death, the ripest fruit of sin.

The idea of sin, of self-assertion against God, is the principle of thought respecting the world of woe. This idea, however, is not fundamental. It presupposes a more original principle, namely, a scriptural idea respecting the Second Man, who is the impersonation of the true, the good, the beautiful.

1. The second death is hell, called in the New Testament gehenna. Of gehenna sin is the informing principle; and by the constant action of the forces of sin gehenna perpetuates itself from age to age. Gehenna is the realm where all the dark possibilities of the sinful personality of fallen angels and wicked men are completely actualized.

Hell being directly related to transgression committed by man, and through man's transgression related to the mystery of iniquity lying back of his apostasy, is to be regarded, not as the creation of God, but as the product of the personal creature. Heaven has no beginning, because the good is eternal. Hell has a beginning, because sin is not eternal. Sin begins in time, not with time. When sin and the sinfulness of the personal creature