Signs of the Times, Vol. 21, No. 48. (12/5/1895)

Signs of the Times

Dec 5, 1895

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Dec 5, 1895

Religion and Our Country.

Past and Present Attitude.

In the Christian Advocate (New York) of November 7 is an article by George P. Mains, D.D., on “America the Strategic Basis for the Christianization of the World,” which, from what it contains, as well as acting as an index of many other utterances, deserves more than a passing notice.

After stating, and most truly, that God’s hand has been shaping the centuries to definite ends, and that our own country has a great part to act in connection with God’s plans, Dr. Mains cites “great facts” to enforce his view, from which we quote several striking paragraphs:—

1. The American republic, more than any other great nation in Christendom, is permeated by the leaven, and is under the sway of a progressive, evangelical, and missionary type of church life. The church here stands free from all entangling alliances with the state. The experiment of a free church in a free state has not only proven a great success in the republic, but the incentive of missionary achievement moves American Christianity as no other. Throughout the present century the growth of the evangelical churches has been greatly in excess relatively of the growth of our population. The growth of Christian forces in our land, within this century, is without parallel in the history of the ages. The American Church has not only been phenomenally prosperous at home, but she leads the Christianity of the world in her foreign missionary enterprises.

The first two sentences express a truth that is past. The church does not now stand free from entangling alliance with the state. She has left the Protestant traditions and is in politics everywhere; and her most aggressive methods, the methods that are telling most upon national character, are not evangelical but political. Before the church entered the political field, she was prosperous and powerful. But she now is confessedly without the power of God, as her appeal to the state demonstrates.

Everywhere is she appealing to the civil power for the promotion and enforcement of moral laws and church institutions, compelling the government, through threats, to yield to her demand even to the interpretation of God’s moral law. This was notably manifest in the nation in the summer of 1892, when Congress and the Executive committed the government to religious legislation, and hence to a union of church and state, on the Sunday closing of the Chicago World’s Fair.

The same year the Supreme Court, poisoned by the same wine of fornication, in its “Christian nation” decision committed the judiciary branch of the Federal Government to the same principles. Behind all this were the so-called “evangelical” churches of America. Numerous attempts, together with some “successes” and persecutions in state and municipal governments, show what spirit is entering the churches all over the land. Said the Senate of the United States in 1829 over this very Sunday question: “Extensive religious combinations to effect a political object are, in the opinion of the committee, always dangerous. This first effort of the kind calls for the establishment of a principle which, in the opinion of the committee, would lay the foundation for dangerous innovations upon the spirit of the Constitution and upon the religious rights of the citizens. If admitted, it may be justly apprehended that the future measures of the government will be strongly marked, if not eventually controlled, by the same influence. All religious despotism commences by combination and influence; and when that influence begins to operate upon the political institutions of a country, the civil power soon bends under it, and the catastrophe of other nations furnishes an awful warning of the consequence.”

We have reached that time, and have entered upon the down grade. The same Senate document said in respect to a law for Sunday: “If the principle is once established that religion or religious observances shall be interwoven with our legislative acts, WE MUST PURSUE IT TO ITS ULTIMATUM. We shall, if consistent, provide for the erection of edifices for worship of the Creator and for the support of Christian ministers, if we believe such measures will promote the interest of Christianity. Let the national Legislature once perform an act which involves the decision of a religious controversy, and it will have passed its legitimate bounds. The precedent will then be established, and the foundation laid, for that usurpation of the divine prerogative in this country which has been the desolating scourge to the fairest portions of the Old World.” We see now the beginning of this. And for it all the church is responsible. She has left the very principles which gave her success in the early years of the republic, and has adopted those against which the Reformation was a protest.

Dr. Mains further says:—

The advantage already secured to the American church as a single force in the Christian mission of world-wide conquest can not be overestimated. Her untrammeled life, her evangelical spirit, her missionary training and achievement, have set upon her brow the diadem of leadership. Only by bootless sacrifice of her great advantage through disloyalty to her best traditions can she fail to prove herself the most weal-working of Christian forces.

And the first two sentences of this quotation were once true, but through “disloyalty to her best traditions,” by the “bootless sacrifice” of the advancing light of truth for the dry husks of a dead tradition, the church has failed and will eternally fail as a weal-worker—unless by hearty and humble repentance she break loose from the world and return to Christ and his truth for these days.

2. Our capacity for supporting vast populations, and the certainty that these populations will be with us, is another important element in this problem.

But, notwithstanding our “capacity,” the fact remains that the struggle for life and livelihood is beginning in this country with an intensity equaling that of the Old World. It is not that there is not enough; it is that system that throws all the wealth, with its consequent unmerciful power, in the hands of the few. It was formerly in this land “THE PEOPLE;” it is now coming to be the “classes as against the masses,” as veritably as in the Old World.

3. The wealth of the republic is another factor which should not be excluded from any study of this strategic situation. We are literally to-day the richest nation in the world. Leaving out England, Germany, and France, the wealth reported by our latest census would permit us to buy all of Europe, all of South America, all of Australia, and South Africa, including all of their material possessions, and then we should have billions left for further purchases. Up to 1890 our national wealth had made an average increase of $5,000,000 per week for the previous twenty years. Dr. Josiah Strong, who has given these questions much expert study, estimates that one-fourth of the nation’s wealth is in the churches. He says that the church members of America are growing richer at the rate of $435,000,000 annually over and above living expenses and all benevolences. Surely, it is one of the most significant things in the world-embracing plan of his providence that God has caused so much Christian wealth to be lodged in this land of so matchless moral opportunity.

True, America and the professed Christian church in America are both wealthy; but what boots all this enormous wealth when missions are languishing and mission debts increasing for lack of funds, while church members are piling up costly palaces for life and marble mausoleums for death, in the very shadow of which their brethren and sisters are dying for bread, which the merest pittance of their wealth would have furnished? God has said of the last apostate church, “How much hath she glorified herself and lived deliciously.” Is it not this we see in the wealthy church, rather than self-denying, primitive, and powerful Christianity? What matter the resplendent jewels, the rich robes, the untold wealth, if the life be lacking? What better is the “Christian” wealth hoarded or invested for selfish gain, or lavished on unnecessary luxury, than the wealth of the Jew or the infidel? Truly in the face of the great wealth possessed and the little yielded to Christ, it may well be said, “Thou hast a name that thou livest, and art dead.” We do not include all in these strictures, not even all wealthy Christians; there are many in the aggregate who are living, earning, expending for God’s glory, but how few comparatively!

4. The freedom of our land from militarism is to be reckoned not among the least of those factors which mark our preëminent mission as a Christianizing nation. Standing military preparations rest as a well-nigh intolerable burden upon nearly every nation in Europe. The vast sums annually expended in Europe upon armies and armaments may here be diverted into channels of prosperity and expended in promotion of the arts of peace. From this cause alone our republic has a vast surplus of treasure and of energy which may be capitalized in the interest of extending the victories of the Prince of Peace.

And all this was once true; but as the church has departed from Christ, adopted political instead of evangelical methods, the spirit of militarism has come in. We now have “Christian citizenship,” logically involving in its scheme “Christian” armies and “Christian” warfare with “carnal” weapons. Boys’ Brigades are becoming an approved factor in church and Sunday school work, and bayonets, as well as Bibles, are advocated as Gospel to the heathen, especially to those who do not want the Gospel.

Results Belong to God.

Says Dr. Mains again:—

But the relation of the American church to the Christianizing of the world must not be looked upon simply as a question of possibilities; it must be studied and accepted as a supreme necessity.

Why not leave the “necessity” to God? He will care for that. Let the church do its work—“holding forth the word of life,” “blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom shine ye as lights in the world.” Phil. 2: 16, 15, margin. This is the work of the church. God will care for the results. The great trouble is that the church has unwarrantably adopted the idea of a converted world, that she must do the work, that present methods will not accomplish it, and therefore follow “Christian citizenship,” church dictation in politics, union of church and state, out of which will inevitably result ruin to both church and state.

But there is a deeper question than all this. We are under the necessity of Christianizing these foreigners lest they should heathenize us. No student of the situation now fails to understand that the American city is the strategic and most critical battle field for both Christianity and civilization. But these foreign elements gravitate, as by an instinctive selection, to the cities. In our 500 cities a vast majority of them all now dwell. They very largely monopolize the municipal offices, they are for the most part directors of the saloon system, and are largely behind those forces and influences which render the Christianization of the city the most difficult and desperate task of the American church. These peoples are as those who search, knife in hand, for the very ganglia of our Christian civilization. If we fail to save them, they will destroy us. For the most vital ends of our own civilization, and ultimately for the salvation of the entire world, it is incomparably more important that we secure the Christianization of these heathen at home, than by any possibility it could be to secure the conversion of a like number abroad. A failure now, with all the present advantages within our grasp, to save America would mean the deferring for dark and sad millenniums of Christ’s world triumph in redemption.

This is in the same line as the previous quotation. We must do this; we must do that. It is perilously near the old cry, “Go to, let us build us a city, and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth;” and the same result is following.

We again repeat, It is the duty of the church of Jesus Christ to lift him up, to preach the word in humility, faith, and sincerity, following light and truth, albeit it draws away from creeds; and then leave the results with God. He will care for them. Dr. Mains thus concludes:—

The subject now under consideration, all too large for a single newspaper article, is of measureless import. The sublime possibilities, the fearful perils, the imperial duties, to which it points, will receive from many only a treatment of indifference; others will receive its propositions in the spirit of incredulity or of fear. It is a subject, however, over which broods the divinest of prophecies. That there is much of darkness, alarming darkness, around the horizon need not be ignored. But this darkness does not deepen; it is not night. The light of the most triumphant Christian day that the world has ever seen is lifting itself above the storm centers, and the skies are rich with signs which foretoken a coming glory of the Lord far more resplendent than any which ever yet rested on land or sea.

There are prophecies, but they do not flatter the future of this country. They indeed point to the triumph of the church, but it is through a baptism of trial, persecutions, suffering, and humility. They do indeed speak of a wealthy and outwardly prosperous church, but she is apostate and a harlot with the powers of earth. They do indeed predict the deeper darkness of sin’s night, and also the coming day resplendent with the eternal glory of Christ’s presence. But Christ’s triumph is not by political methods, not by human power, or wealth, or numbers. “The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this.” Would to God that those who profess Christ’s name would turn from the Assyrias and Egypts to him and the Gospel of his power. This would reach the heathen hordes and win some. Political evangelical methods will make hypocrites or harden hearts. Let Christ work.

God’s Object in Connecting Us with Christ.

—The Lord unites believers with himself that they may bring forth fruit. As an illustration of this union he uses the marriage institution. “Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ; that ye should be married to another, even to Him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God.” Rom. 7:4. God ordained the marriage institution for the purpose of producing more of like kind. Again our Lord illustrates this union by the symbol of the vine and its branches. He is the Vine, his people are the branches to bring forth fruit. “Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; so shall ye be my disciples.” John 15:8.

The Perverted Life.—That which produces fruit is life. That which produces good fruit is the good life working in its own way. Now God is “the fountain of life.” All life comes from him; but in the wicked man, the sinner, that life is perverted and becomes, or issues in, death. But while it is operative and perverted by the carnal heart, it brings forth, or produces, the fruit or works of the flesh. Gal. 5:19–21. It is not a natural fruit that is produced, but fermentation, the product of decay and death. All these evil things spring from the evil heart. Mark 7:19–23. There is life, life that came from God, but it is perverted by sin, and tends to death and destruction. While it is originally from God, it is not the life of God; for the wicked are “alienated from the life of God.” Eph. 4:18. That is, they do not know God’s life in its normal workings, and therefore do not know it at all as it is in him, and in Jesus Christ.

The Spirit Is Life.—But to that man which renounces all of self, all of the perverted life, and chooses Christ for all he longs to be to men, the Spirit of God comes into the heart, transforms the life, and turns the energies and activities of the being into their normal channels. Man is recreated. The channels closed by sin are opened. The perverted channels of sin are closed. Man is placed once more where God can work in him, where the life in him may bring forth fruit to God’s glory. The child of the disobedience of unbelief becomes a child of the obedience of faith; the sinner is made righteous; the law of sin and death becomes the law of the spirit of life. But it is God’s Spirit, God’s life, which works out all this change. “Ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the spirit is life because of righteousness.” Rom. 8:9, 10. When the carnal heart reigned, the life of God, perverted by sin, worked out death; but when the regenerating power of the word of life is permitted to work among the dry bones of sin and death, the Spirit works out life and its fruits of righteousness. And it will prove life to every heart which will admit its precious, vitalizing presence.

The Fruit of God’s Life.—What will God’s Spirit in the heart do?—First of all it will lead to obedience to God’s law; for the law is God’s law, and the Spirit is God’s Spirit. They are as inseparable and indivisible as God. Says the Lord: “And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them.” Eze. 36:27. This is the effect of the Spirit of God within the heart. That spirit, whatever its profession, which draws away from God’s law and opposes his commandments, is not of God. The doing of the law will be manifest in the deeds of the life, or the fruits of the Spirit. Gal. 5:18–23. This is evident from two expressions: (1) “If ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law.” Under the law is under the condemnation of the law. But the law condemns only those who transgress its righteous demands. Therefore to be led of the Spirit is “to go in the path of Thy [God’s] commandments.” Ps. 119:35. And again, against that life in which is manifest “the fruits of the Spirit” “there is no law.” The fruits of the Spirit are therefore in harmony with the law of God. “The righteousness of the law,”—its very spirit and substance as well as form,—is fulfilled in those “who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.” Rom. 8:4. The possessing of God’s Spirit is therefore to be in harmony with his holy law, for his law and Spirit are one. The Spirit is life; the law is its expression in words. Why not, then, receive God’s Spirit. In it is all power, light, and blessing. In the “keeping” of his commandments “there is great reward.” He is more willing to give his Spirit to them who ask in humility and faith than is an earthly father to give good gifts to his children. He will not turn one away who seeks him with all the heart.

His Offspring

His Offspring.—God never forsakes his offspring. He does not cast off his children when they have fallen into sin. He fills every relationship in life. He is to us a Father, Mother,—“As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you”—Brother, Friend,—everything. But we are always children as far as he is concerned, “little children,” babes, also. We are to grow in grace and increase in knowledge; and yet in growing from infancy to old age, or from first conversion to ripened Christian experience, we do not at all diminish the difference between us and God in knowledge and understanding. God will always be infinitely above us, so that the wisest man will always be less, as compared with him, than the little babe is as compared with its parent.

The Law and Judgment.

By Ellet Joseph Waggoner

A few words may suffice at present to bring to mind what we have already studied.

The first chapter of Romans may be briefly summed up as setting forth the condition of those who know not God, and the way in which they lost their knowledge, together with the fact that they are wholly without excuse. Then, just as we are ready to hold up our hands in horror at their wickedness, and to launch forth severe condemnation upon them, the apostle turns to us, and shuts our mouths with the stinging words, “Therefore thou art inexcusable, O man, whosoever thou art that judgest; for wherein thou judgest another, thou condemnest thyself; for thou that judgest doest the same things.” And so the second chapter proceeds to show that all will be subjects of God’s righteous

judgment; “for there is no respect of persons with God.” Thus we are brought in the present lesson to a confirmation of the fact that God is impartial, by a comparison of the Two Classes in the Judgment. Rom. 2:12-18

“For as many as have sinned without law shall also perish without law; and as many as have sinned in the law shall be judged by the law (for not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified. For when the gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves; which show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the meanwhile accusing or else excusing one another); in the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ according to my Gospel.”

Questioning the Text.

What proves that there is no respect of persons with God? “For as many as have sinned without law shall also perish without law; and as many as have sinned in the law shall be judged by the law.”

What is to become of those who have sinned without law? They “shall also perish.”

How shall those perish who have sinned without law? “Without law.”

What of those who have sinned in the law? They “shall be judged by the law.”

When shall this be? “In the day when God shall judge the secrets of men.”

What will simply hearing the law not do for men? “For not the hearers of the law are just before God.”

Who alone shall be justified? “The doers of the law shall be justified.”

But what of the men who have never heard the law? “These, having not the law, are a law unto themselves.”

What do they show by their actions? “Which show the work of the law written in their hearts.”

What shows that even without the law they have some knowledge of what the law requires? “Their conscience also bearing witness.”

How do they regard the different actions done by themselves? “Their thoughts the meanwhile accusing or else excusing one another.”

By whom will the secrets of men be judged? “God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ.”

In accordance with what will the judgment be? “According to my Gospel.”

Without Law, and in the Law.—Although it is quite certain that when the Lord comes the second time there will be no people on the earth who have not heard the preaching of the word, it is a fact that thousands and millions have died without ever having seen or heard of the Bible. They are the ones to whom the apostle refers as “without law.” Yet it is plainly set forth that they are not

absolutely without law, but only without the written law. The fact that they have some knowledge of the law is stated in the verses following, and is proved by the fact that they are counted sinners; but “sin is not imputed where there is no law.” Rom. 5:13.

All Sin Punished.—Whether a man has had the written law or not, all are alike counted sinners. “The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men.” Rom. 1:18. The heathen are declared to be without excuse; and if they who have not the written law are without excuse, they who have the law in their hands are of course far more inexcusable. God is just. “We know that the judgment of God is according to truth against them which commit such things.” Yet all who sin, whether in the law or without the law, are to be punished. This is sufficient to show that “without law” does not mean without any knowledge of God. The first chapter settles that. The trouble with too many who read this statement that all shall be punished, and who think that it does not seem just, is that they forget or are ignorant of what is contained in the first chapter. It is a great mistake to take any single verse of the Bible and separate it from its connection.

They Shall Perish.—That is declared to be the fate of the wicked. The apostle Peter tells us that the world is “reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.” 2 Peter 3:7. What is meant by “perish”?—It means just the opposite of living forever. On one occasion some people told Jesus of the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices, and Jesus replied, “Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.” Luke 13:1-3. Again we read, “The wicked shall perish, and the enemies of the Lord shall be as the fat of lambs; they shall consume; into smoke shall they consume away.” Ps. 37:20. The statement, therefore, that those who sin shall perish, means that they shall die; that they shall be utterly extinct; that “they shall be as though they had not been.” Obadiah 16.

Strict Impartiality.—That means strict justice. Sinners will be punished, whether they live in heathen lands or in so-called Christian lands. But no one will be judged by that of which he knew nothing. God does not punish men for violation of a law of which they knew nothing, nor does he hold them accountable for light that they have not had. It is very plain that those who have the law must know many things that are not known to those who have it not in written form. All men have light enough to know that they are sinners; but the written word gives those who have it a knowledge of many particulars of which those who do not have it are ignorant. Therefore God, in his justice, does not hold the latter accountable for many things for which the former will be judged. “As many as have sinned without law shall also perish without law; and as many as have sinned in the law shall be judged by the law.” The man who has rejected light, whether it be little or much, is obviously guilty.

The Root of Sin.—To some it seems unjust that those who have had but comparatively little light should suffer death for their sins, the same as those who have sinned against the greatest light. Their difficulty arises from the fact that they do not consider what sin really is. God alone is good. Luke 18:19. He is the source of goodness. Whatever goodness ever appears in man is only the working of God in him. But he is also the source of life. With him is the fountain of life. Ps. 36:9. God’s life is righteousness; therefore there can be no righteousness apart from the life of God. Now it is evident that if a man rejects God, he effectually cuts himself off from life. It matters not that he has had but comparatively little knowledge of God, if he rejects that light he rejects God, and thus rejects life. And by rejecting the little that he has seen of God, he shows that he would reject God in any case. Sin is simply separation from or rejection of God; and that means death.

Justified.—Here is another term the meaning of which should be settled once for all. We have seen that righteousness means conformity to the law of God, and so we shall understand it throughout the book of Romans and the whole Bible. Rom. 2:13 shows that “just,” or “justified,” means the same thing. Who are the justified ones?—They who do the law. We need not here stop to consider the fact that is stated later, that there are no doers of the law; all we are concerned with now is the statement that to be justified means to be in a condition of harmony with the law of God. The matter of how men get into such a condition will be considered later. Let it not be forgotten that “just” means “righteous,” and that both mean a state of harmony with the law of God, which is his life.

Hearing and Doing.—“Not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified.” That is, it makes no difference how much a man knows; his knowledge will not justify him. People who have had great advantages are very prone to look with contempt upon those who have been less favored, and to feel pride because of their own superior knowledge, forgetting that their superior knowledge only makes their own shortcomings the more marked. The man who knows much and does wrong is obviously more blameworthy than the one who knows only little. “Take heed therefore how ye hear.” Luke 8:18. “Be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. For if any man be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass; for he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgeteth what manner of man he was. But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed.” James 1:22-25.

A Law unto Themselves.—“These, having not the law, are a law unto themselves.” They have not the written law, and so they are their own law. “Which show the work of the law written in their hearts.” So the law that they are unto themselves is nothing different from the written law. This statement is the same as that in the first chapter, namely, that “that which may be known of God is manifest in them.” God has revealed himself, and therefore his law, not only to every man, but in every man. Christ is God, and he is “the true light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.” John 1:9. In the judgment even the heathen will stand self-condemned.

Accusing and Excusing.—“Their thoughts the meanwhile accusing or else excusing one another.” The French have a proverb to the effect that “he who excuses himself accuses himself.” This is a true proverb. No man thinks of excusing himself if he does not think that he is at fault. If a thing is right, it needs no excuse. And so in the statement that the heathen either excuse or else accuse one another for the things that they do, we find evidence that their conscience continually condemns them. Even in the things which they try to make themselves believe are right, they show that they know that they are wrong.

A Parenthesis.—The reader will note that verses 13, 14, 15 are thrown in by way of explanation, to show that, although the heathen are said to sin without law, and to perish without law, they are not absolutely without law, but only without the written law. This needs to be noted in order not to become confused in following the apostle’s statement about the judgment. The connection is found by reading verses 12 and 16 together, thus: “For as many as have sinned without law shall also perish without law; and as many as have sinned in the law shall be judged by the law;” “in the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ according to my Gospel.”

Judged by Jesus Christ.—God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ. Christ is the representative of the Godhead in all things,—in creation, in redemption, and in judgment. “The Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son; that all men should honor the Son, even as they honor the Father.” John 5:22, 23. “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. The fact that the judgment will be conducted by Christ, “who gave himself for

our sins,” who died to redeem men, and who is our Advocate with the Father, the propitiation for our sins, “and not for ours only, but also for the whole world,” is assurance to all men that the judgment will be conducted with the utmost fairness.

According to the Gospel.—The judgment is according to the Gospel. This is additional evidence that love is always combined with justice. In fact, the justice of God is always love itself; for God is love, and he can never be anything else but love, for he can not deny himself. And he is always just. His mercy appears even in his judgments. “O give thanks unto the Lord; for he is good; for his mercy endureth forever. . . . To him which divided the Red Sea into parts; for his mercy endureth forever; and made Israel to pass through the midst of it; for his mercy endureth forever; but overthrew Pharaoh and his host in the Red Sea; for his mercy endureth forever.” Ps. 136:1-15. Since the righteousness of God—the law—is revealed in the Gospel, and men are judged by the law, it is plain that the Gospel is not omitted in the judgment. The Gospel is in reality nothing else but the law of God in Christ.

“My Gospel.”—Paul says, “God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ according to my Gospel.” What does he mean by “my Gospel”? Is it that he has a Gospel that is peculiarly his own, or from himself?—By no means. Let him explain himself: “But I certify you, brethren, that the Gospel which was preached of me is not after man. For I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ.” Gal. 1:11, 12. The Gospel which Paul preached was the word which he had received from the Lord Jesus Christ himself; and therefore his statement in the text before us is the same as saying that this judgment will be according to the word of the Lord.

E. J. W.

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