The Necessity of the Millennial Judgment
By G. W. Reaser
THE END OF SIN'S DOMINION.—NO. 4.
The Necessity of the Millennial Judgment.
AND I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them; . . . and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years.” “Do ye not know that the saints shall judge the world? . . . Know ye not that we shall judge angels?” Why the necessity of a judgment session to last one thousand years, in which the “saints,” “blessed and holy,” “have part”? Does not the Lord, who “knows the end from the beginning,” have definite knowledge of just what individuals have attained to Christ’s righteousness, and will therefore be saved; and, on the other hand, who have not availed themselves of the benefits of the great Sacrifice, and who have always resisted the Holy Ghost, instead of appropriating its power to overcome sin, and to bear its fruit in their lives, and will consequently be lost? To deny the Lord’s knowledge of the final end of all, and the reward for good, or contrariwise the punishment for evil, due each member of the human family, would be to “limit the Holy One of Israel,” and to circumscribe the power of the Infinite One. Then there must exist a real and actual necessity that each case of lost men and angels come in careful review before, and pass the searching scrutiny of, all of the redeemed. That necessity exists in the fact that the eternal God is accused by Satan, fallen angels, and men, of partiality, of being arbitrary, tyrannical, of ruling by force. Hence, in the very nature of the case, all of the ransomed must see and know that God is just when sentence is pronounced and executed upon the condemned, else the saved could not be supremely happy in the worship of the Father. The only worship that the Lord accepts, is that in which all the heart, soul, might, mind, and strength are employed, because only in rendering such is complete satisfaction found by the worshiper. Not only have the avowedly wicked pronounced the Lord unjust, but even His professed people have said that the “way of the Lord is not equal,”—not just and equitable; and the boldly defiant, not knowing a fraction of His ways, have pointed the finger of scorn at the Father of all, declaring Him to be a God of “cruelty, injustice, wickedness.” “Abundant sin! because a mortal man,
A worm at best, of small capacity,
With scarce an atom of Jehovah’s works
Before him, and with scarce an hour to look
Upon them, should presume to censure God—
The infinite and uncreated God!
To sit in judgment on Himself, His works,
His providence! and try, accuse, condemn.
If there is aught, thought or to think, absurd,
Irrational, and wicked, this is more, this most!
Wise men accuse themselves, not God.” “Therefore judge nothing before the time, until the Lord come, who both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts.” At the present time, and till the close of the millennial judgment session, God is virtually on trial. The saved of each generation of men will doubtless sit in judgment on the cases of the lost of their own generation; and in each case, when the inmost motives of hearts are revealed, when it is made apparent that the lost refused to be redeemed, then those who have gained the victory, and have triumphed over sin, death, and the grave, will join with soul and voice in proclaiming, “Great and marvelous are Thy works, Lord God Almighty, just and true are Thy ways, Thou King of saints.” Then will be revealed,— “The essential truth—Time gone, the righteous saved,
The wicked damned, and Providence approved.”