CONFESSION OR DENIAL

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Mountain View, California · Mar 8, 1905

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 31, No. 10.

CONFESSION OR DENIAL.

IN all the acts of life, in the things we say and think, as well as in what we do, we are confessing or denying the Man who is to confess or deny us in the final judgment.

In spite of this fact, how thoughtlessly, how recklessly, we go on doing, saying, and thinking things we would give more than all we could ever possess here, if we could have them stricken from the records of that final Court. Heaven is long patient, and we have come to consider this virtue a weakness—or so our acts indicate.

Christ Himself, in whom lies our only hope of salvation, has made this plain statement of the matter: "Every one therefore who shall confess Me before men, him will I also confess before My Father who is in heaven. But whosoever shall deny Me before men, him will I also deny before My Father who is in heaven." Matt. 10:32, 33. This must be so in the nature of the case; for those who will not confess Him are those who are out of harmony with His rule of righteousness. Consequently, whether they affirm their position or not, they are adherents of the cause of God’s enemy. As such, they would bring into His realm the very same principles that turned an Eden into a wilderness, and made this earth a plague-spot in the universe. God can not perpetuate sin; so He can not perpetuate that which is out of harmony with His character; and so Christ can not confess those who refuse to confess Him. If we continue to do what we know to be out of harmony with the character and commands of God, we know of our own selves whether we have reason to expect confession or denial from Him.

But there will be those whom Christ will confess (Luke 12:8) before His Father and before His angels. This confession takes place before Christ comes to execute judgment upon those who have, in their lives and in their words, denied Him. In His confession of these He owns them as His, as the purchase of His blood, as the fruit of His life and death and travail of soul.

"The time is come," says the apostle, "for judgment to begin at the house of God; and if it begin first at us, what shall be the end of them that obey not the Gospel of God? And if the righteous is scarcely saved, where shall the ungodly and sinner appear?" 1 Peter 4:17, 18. And again we read: "Some men's sins are evident, going before unto judgment; and some men also they follow after." 1 Tim. 5:24. It is evident that they whose sins go before them to judgment are they who have confessed Christ here in their lives and by their words, and who have been in turn confessed by Him before His Father and His angels; for in confessing Him, they have necessarily confessed their sins. His life and death were both for the remission of sins that have been confessed. That is why Peter, in his fearless sermon at Solomon’s Porch, declared to the wondering Jews: "Repent ye therefore, and turn again, that your sins may be blotted out . . . and that He may send the Christ who hath been appointed for you, even Jesus; whom the heavens must receive until the times of the restoration of all things." Acts 3:19-21.

We find that they who have stood for Christ and His work—who have therefore confessed their sins, and Christ as their Saviour—have had their names entered upon the record books of heaven as candidates for immortality. To this, Paul refers in his letter to the Philippians, when speaking of his fellow workers, "whose names are in the book of life." Phil. 4:3. The Revelator, speaking through John to the churches, refers to the same thing in these words: "He that overcometh, the same shall be clothed in white raiment; and I will not blot out his name out of the book of life, but I will confess his name before My Father, and before His angels." Rev. 3:5. And again in these words: "And there shall in nowise enter into it anything unclean, or he that maketh an abomination and a lie; but only they that are written in the Lamb’s book of life." Rev. 21:27.

The prerequisite, then, to an entrance into the eternal City of God, is having our names engrossed upon the pages of the Lamb’s book of life. Only such are confessed by our Saviour before the court of heaven; for such only does His blood atone. But there are found in that book only the names of those who have confessed Christ here. So belief in, and confession of, Christ in life and words here is the prerequisite of the engrossing of our names upon the pages of that book.

The apostle’s question—"What shall the end be of them that obey not the Gospel of God?"—is answered in Rev. 20:15: "And if any was not found written in the book of life, he was cast into the lake of fire." In designating who would be found unworthy to enter the City of God and dwell with Him eternally, the Revelator declares: "And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him [that power represented by the "beast"], whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world." Such are represented by the "unprofitable servant," who, the Saviour declares, shall be cast into "outer darkness," the symbol of utter destruction.

Preceding that work of execution there occurs in the Court of heaven the most solemn act in all the epoch of the history of man. It is that decision which fixes forever the destiny of every soul in the world, or that has ever been in the world. The prophet Daniel thus describes it:

"I beheld till the thrones were cast down, and the Ancient of days did sit, whose garment was white as snow, and the hair of His head like the pure wool; His throne was like the fiery flame, and His wheels as burning fire. A fiery stream issued and came forth from before Him; thousand 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.

The Revelator pictures the scene in these words:

"And I saw a great white throne, and Him that sat upon it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne; and the books were opened; and another book was opened, which is the book of life; and the dead were judged out of the things which were written in the books, according to their works. And the sea gave up the dead that were in it; and death and hades gave up the dead that were in them; and they were judged every man according to their works." Rev. 20:11-13.

It has been a matter of choice, of confession or denial, all the way down through the ages. Men have been choosing Christ and confessing Him, or they have been choosing their own ways, and denying Him; and in this great and final tribunal they must reap the result of their choosing, whatever it has been. Every life that has been lived upon earth is recorded in heaven; every deed of every life is conspicuous there; and there is no hiding our record from the Judge who sits upon that bench to meet out rewards befitting the lives that have been lived. Confession or denial by us here determines whether it shall be confession or denial by our Saviour there, when our cases shall come in review. Which shall it be?