The Great
Controversy continued…
Chapter XLII - The
Controversy Ended
The glory of the Eternal Father is enshrouding
his Son. The brightness of his presence fills the city of God, and flows out
beyond the gates, flooding the whole earth with its radiance. Nearest the throne
are those who were once zealous in the cause of Satan, but who, plucked as
brands from the burning, have followed their Saviour with deep, intense
devotion. Next are those who perfected Christian characters in the midst of
falsehood and infidelity, those who honored the law of God when the Christian
world declared it void, and the millions, of all ages, who were martyred for
their faith. And beyond is the “great multitude, which no man could number, of
all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues,” “before the throne, and
before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands.”
[Revelation 7:9.]
Their warfare is
ended, their victory won. They have run the race and reached the prize. The
palm branch in their hands is a symbol of their triumph, the white robe an
emblem of the spotless righteousness of Christ which now is theirs. The
redeemed raise a song of praise that echoes and re-echoes through the vaults of
heaven, “Salvation to our God which sitteth upon the throne, and unto the
Lamb.” And angel and seraph unite their voices in adoration. As the redeemed
have beheld the power and malignity of Satan, they have seen, as never before,
that no power but that of Christ could have made them conquerors.
In all that shining
throng there are none to ascribe salvation to themselves, as if they had
prevailed by their own power and goodness. Nothing is said of what they have
done or suffered; but the burden of every
song ,the key-note of every anthem, is, Salvation to our God, and unto
the Lamb. In the presence of the assembled inhabitants of earth and Heaven the
final coronation of the Son of God takes place.
And now, invested
with supreme majesty and power, the King of kings pronounces sentence upon the
rebels against his government, and executes justice upon those who have
transgressed his law and oppressed his people.
Says the prophet of
God: “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.” [Revelation 20:11, 12.]
As soon as the books of record are opened, and
the eye of Jesus looks upon the wicked, they are conscious of every sin which
they have ever committed. They see just where their feet diverged from the path
of purity and holiness, just how far pride and rebellion have carried them in
the violation of the law of God. The seductive temptations which they
encouraged by indulgence in sin, the blessings perverted, the messengers of God
despised, the warnings rejected, the waves of mercy beaten back by the
stubborn, unrepentant heart,—all appear as if written in letters of fire.
Above the throne is
revealed the cross; and like a panoramic view appear the scenes of Adam’s
temptation and fall, and the successive steps in the great plan of redemption.
The Saviour’s lowly birth; his early life of simplicity and obedience; his
baptism in Jordan; the fast and temptation in the wilderness; his public
ministry, unfolding to men Heaven’s most precious blessings; the days crowded
with deeds of love and mercy, the nights of prayer and watching in the solitude
of the mountains; the plottings of envy, hate, and malice which repaid his
benefits; the awful, mysterious agony in Gethsemane, beneath the crushing weight
of the sins of the whole world; his betrayal into the hands of the murderous
mob; the fearful events of that night of horror,—the unresisting prisoner,
forsaken by his best-loved disciples, rudely hurried through the streets of
Jerusalem; the Son of God exultingly displayed before Annas, arraigned in the
high priest’s palace, in the judgment hall of Pilate, before the cowardly and
cruel Herod, mocked, insulted, tortured, and condemned to die,—all are vividly
portrayed.
And now before the swaying multitude are
revealed the final scenes,—the patient Sufferer treading the path to Calvary;
the Prince of Heaven hanging upon the cross; the haughty priests and the
jeering rabble deriding his expiring agony; the supernatural darkness; the
heaving earth, the rent rocks, the open graves,
marking the moment when the world’s Redeemer yielded up his life. The
awful spectacle appears just as it was. Satan, his angels, and his subjects
have no power to turn from the picture of their own work. Each actor recalls
the part which he performed. Herod, who slew the innocent children of Bethlehem
that he might destroy the King of Israel; the base Herodias, upon whose guilty
soul rests the blood of John the Baptist; the weak, time-serving Pilate; the
mocking soldiers; the priests and rulers and the maddened throng who cried,
“His blood be on us, and our children!”—all behold the enormity of their guilt.
They vainly seek to hide from the divine majesty of His countenance ,
outshining the glory of the sun, while the redeemed cast their crowns at the
Saviour’s feet, exclaiming, “He died for me!”
Amid the ransomed
throng are the apostles of Christ, the heroic Paul, the ardent Peter, the loved
and loving John, and their true-hearted brethren, and with them the vast host
of martyrs; while outside the walls, with every vile and abominable thing, are
those by whom they were persecuted, imprisoned, and slain.
There is Nero, that
monster of cruelty and vice, beholding the joy and exaltation of those whom he
once tortured, and in whose extremist anguish he found Satanic delight. His
mother is there to witness the result of her own work; to see how the evil stamp
of character transmitted to her son, the passions encouraged and developed by
her influence and example, have borne fruit in crimes that caused the world to
shudder.
There are papist
priests and prelates, who claimed to be Christ’s ambassadors, yet employed the
rack, the dungeon, and the stake to control the consciences of his people.
There are the proud pontiffs who exalted themselves above God, and presumed to
change the law of the Most High. Those pretended fathers of the church have an
account to render to God from which they would fain be excused. Too late they
are made to see that the Omniscient One is jealous of his law, and that he will
in nowise clear the guilty. They learn now that Christ identifies his interest
with that of his suffering people; and they feel the force of his own words,
“Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye
have done it unto me.” [Matthew 25:40.]
To be continued…
