The Bible and the Final Judgment-Day
By T.
PROFESSOR Paul Haupt, of Johns Hopkins University, recently made an address before the American Philosophical Society, in which he is reported to have taken the ground that there is no Biblical foundation for a final judgment-day. The following paragraph from his address was sent out through the press: “The book of Zechariah, which Jews as well as Christians give as authority for the description of the last judgment, refers merely to a plan for municipal improvements laid out by the Maccabees. The language has been misinterpreted.” Christians do not confine themselves to the book of Zechariah for the evidence of a general judgment-day, as the language of the professor would seem to imply. There are very many perfectly clear texts that speak in no equivocal or ambiguous language upon the subject. Read this text: “Because He hath appointed a day, in the which He will judge the world in righteousness by that Man whom He hath ordained; whereof He hath given assurance unto all men, in that He hath raised Him from the dead.” Acts 17:31. There is nothing difficult in the foregoing text. It needs no interpretation or explanation. It says in the simplest kind of terms that “He hath appointed a day, in the which He will judge the world in righteousness.” The text is taken from one of Paul’s discourses when he was at Athens in Greece. The great apostle seems to have had the habit of referring to the judgment-day in his discourses; for on a later occasion, when he was before the tribunal of Rome, and was making his plea before Felix, the Roman governor, it is said of him: “As he reasoned of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come, Felix trembled, and answered, Go thy way for this time; when I have a convenient season, I will call for thee.” Acts 24:25. There was a power in Paul’s message that made the Roman governor tremble. And why should it not? The apostle reasoned of “righteousness” and the “judgment to come.” The Judge of that great court can not be bribed or deceived. Each one must stand or fall according to the deeds he has actually done. It is more than likely that Felix compared the standards held forth by Paul with his own trickery and lack of justice in dealing with men, and so his own heart trembled with fear at the thought of how he would fare when he was compelled to stand before that impartial tribunal of the great God. The Master, when here in person, said upon the subject of the judgment: “But I say unto you, That every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment.” Matt. 12:36. The Saviour does not speak of the judgment-day as something that needs to be proved, but on the contrary He refers to it as something that the people to whom He was talking would accept as a matter of course. He was addressing those who were familiar with the Old Testament; and by turning to that volume, we find many passages outside the book of Zechariah that speak plainly of the judgment. Solomon, the wise man, had taught: “Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth; and let thy heart cheer thee in the days of thy youth, and walk in the ways of thine heart, and in the sight of thine eyes: but know thou, that for all these things God will bring thee into judgment.” Eccl. 11:9. “God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil.” Eccl. 12:14. These texts from the book of Ecclesiastes are plain enough. They need no comment. They clearly teach a judgment-day. But perhaps one of the most sublime texts in all the Bible, one that is filled with the sublimity of grandeur and awe, is the passage in which the prophet Daniel describes the calling of the world to the judgment-bar of the eternal God. This scripture reads: “I beheld till thrones were placed, and One that was ancient of days did sit; His raiment was white as snow, and the hair of His head like pure wool; His throne was fiery flames, and the wheels thereof burning fire. A fiery stream issued and came forth from before Him: thousands of thousands ministered unto Him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before Him: the judgment was set, and the books were opened.” Dan. 7:9, 10. Daniel was not confined, in his activities, to the work of a prophet. He was the greatest statesman of his time. He was prime minister to the king of Babylon when the empire was at its height, and he stood as an intelligent and strong opposer to the degenerating influences that were coming in, and which resulted finally in her overthrow.9 But when Babylon was overthrown, Daniel was still in his prime; and the conquering kingdom of the Medes and Persians regarded him so highly that he was held as prime minister, and was a power in the new kingdom. If we speak merely from the human standpoint, a man of such experiences and such abilities could not make the mistake of thinking he was describing “municipal improvements laid out by the Maccabees” when he used the language quoted from his prophecy. We must conclude that when the vision was brought before him, he was well aware of the fact that he was viewing scenes that would be enacted in a literal judgment. His language is so clear, so concise, and yet so simple that we know just what he means as we read his utterances. Possibly Paul read this remarkable passage from Daniel as he was reasoning before Felix. If so, it is no marvel that he caused the Roman potentate to tremble. The view that John, in his visions of Patmos, had of the judgment scenes is thus presented: “And I saw a great white throne, and Him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened; and another book was opened, which is the Book of Life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works.” Rev. 20:11-13. A person would need the imagination of a madman, as well as to be very forgetful of history, in order to get from these last-quoted verses the idea they referred to street improvements or any other kind of municipal work when the Maccabees were ruling in their section of the earth. We have hardly made a fair beginning in quoting the plain texts of Scripture that unquestionably refer to the judgment-day of God at the end of this world. There are others that are just as plain in their teaching as the ones we have quoted. One of two things must be very apparent: people who say that the Bible does not teach a general judgment-day must be densely ignorant of what is in the Scriptures, or else they must presume that the people they are addressing are quite completely destitute of Bible knowledge. We should be intelligently sure of our ground when we announce that the Bible either does or does not teach some certain doctrine; for the texts quoted in the foregoing paragraphs very plainly tell us that we will have to meet all our life-work in the judgment. Hence we should be sure that it is sound. T.