CHRIST THE JUDGE
#491 CHRIST THE JUDGE
Scripture Acts 17:31, NIV Orig. 4-28-68
Rewr. 2-20-91
Passage: For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to all men by raising him from the dead.
Purpose: Continuing a series for Easter on Jesus’ nature, here seeing Him as the One in whom ultimate judgment must rest.
Keywords: Christ Judge Judgment Revival Nature of Christ
Timeline/Series: Easter/Other
Introduction
Most of us, because of inoculations administered when we were children, have little fear of such diseases as small pox and diphtheria. However, contagious diseases are still a great concern. We are reading about the cholera epidemic in Peru. The Centers for Disease Control reports on other problem areas in the world. Here in our own country, HIV is a terrible risk. Deviant sexual behavior is not its only source. Every winter, millions of people regularly take flu shots in a sometime fruitless attempt not to catch the flu during the peak-susceptibility cold weather months. We want to think of ourselves as invulnerable to disease.
Thankfully, some things have been brought under control. Others are as death-dealing as ever they have been. We must be sensible in our approach to health. We must generate a healthy lifestyle. Even with one, we are not completely invulnerable.
One of the myths of the ancients was that of a man named Achilles. He was the son of Peleus and Thetis. His father was noted for bravery during the Trojan Wars. Because his mother perceived that he would follow in his father’s steps and would thus face danger, she feared for his vulnerability. While a baby, she dipped Achilles in the River Styx, presumably to thus cover him with a shield of protection. He was thus submerged over the entirety of his body except the one spot on his heel where she held him. The myth informs us that it was in that heel years later that Achilles was mortally wounded.
In our day, even, an Achilles heel is a personal weakness for which there seems to be no solution. We can protect ourselves and our families from a few of life’s dangers, but not all. We may spend a fortune in the process and yet be vulnerable.
The question raised by all of this is, “What good is an almost invulnerability?” Why would people work with such determination to protect themselves from the vicissitudes of life, and pay no mind to the facing of the judgment of God? It is this judgment that we seek to address this morning as a part of the nature of Christ.
I. It is a Judgment of Appointed Time. “He hath appointed a day.” There are places in the world where time means little. People live in routine existence. Sameness controls their lives.
For most of us, everything is by appointment. We work appointed schedules. Our children practice ball, music, art, taekwondo, by appointment. We even meet our friends by appointment.
A four-year-old told her parents, just after her fourth birthday, that she wanted a baby brother for her next birthday. As if by appointment, on her fifth, he was born. Her mother was barely home from the hospital when the girl said she wanted a sister for the next one. On that very day a little girl was born. The little girl came breathlessly into the room, but was interrupted by her mother asking, “Susie, how would you like a puppy for your birthday, next year?”
The judgment of God will be by decree. John 5:28f “The hour cometh in which all that are in the tombs shall hear his voice, and shall come forth; they that have done good, to the resurrection of life; they that have done evil, to the resurrection of judgment.”
II. It is Likewise a Judgment of Universal Scope. “He will judge the world.” Every evil scheme will fall under the searching eye of God. Paul had been brought out of Berea by his friends because of dangers. They came here to Athens. Doubtless, the same message that drove him from Berea, he preaches here. Remember, these are the philosophers, scholars, learned men. Architecture, art, philosophy know no equal. There are no advantaged people before God. The message is the same to all.
Read the message preached in Acts. The life of Jesus, the death, forgiveness. Why would Jesus go through the struggle of the cross if it meant nothing? What it means is forgiveness. What it means is deliverance from the resurrection of judgment.
III. It is a Judgment Administered in Righteousness. “He will judge the world in righteousness.” There is much injustice in our world. History alludes to its presence in every time, clime, and culture. Hitler is a prime example. Russia represses the Baltic States.
There are evident Biblical examples. Psalmist: 73:6-8 “Therefore pride is their necklace; The garment of violence covers them. Their eye bulges from fatness; the imaginations of their heart run riot. They mock, and wickedly speak of oppression; They speak from on high.” In v16 he continues: “it was too painful for me, until,” he said, “I remembered what is in store or them.”
How many times the man on the street has no idea what really happens in the halls of Congress, in the state house, among the military tribunals, in our private enclaves. –But God knows, and justice will be done.
IV. It is Judgment Administered by a Chosen Agent. “He will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained.” Christ is this specially chosen vessel on the basis of his character, because His talk and His walk have been without sin. His knowledge is flawlessly accurate. An Anglican burial service contains the words: “holy and merciful Saviour, thou most worthy Judge eternal.”
The 19th century Scottish preacher Alexander Whyte wrote “The righteousness of God is that righteousness which His righteousness requires Him to require.” How does this measure against John 8:15 “I judge no man”? He meant “to divide,” “to separate.” John 8:15, again. “You judge after the flesh. I do not.”
It is human to issue rewards on the basis of favoritism. But Deuteronomy 1:17 reads “You shall not show partiality in judgment; you shall hear the small and the great alike. You shall not fear man, for the judgment is God’s. And the case that is too hard for you, you shall bring to me, and I will hear it.”
V. It is a Judgment Consummated in Hope. “Whereof He hath given assurance to all men, in that He hath raised Him from the dead.” Paul speaks of what they now have experienced. It was not so clear before. Job: “If a man die, shall he live again?” David: “I can go to him, but he cannot return to me.”
But it is clear now. Jesus, who was dead, lived again. Herein, the Christian witness is different from all others. For the Hindu, reincarnation offers only a proposed re-birth to a higher caste, or as a bug. Communism has a dead saviour whose coffin was a shrine.
The New Testament, however, declares that the resurrection brings the believer into a state of grace. Philippians 3:8f “. . . I count all things but loss, . . . that I may win Christ, . . . That I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection.” Acts 17:18 “He preached unto them Jesus and the resurrection.” John 11:25f “I am the resurrection and the life, he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live.” I Peter 1:3 “His abundant mercy has begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.”
Conclusion
Donald Barnhouse tells of an encounter on the Celebes Island with a boy and a small monkey. The boy was selling the animal that he had trapped with a handful of rice placed in a gourd. The monkey placed its small hand into the opening for the rice, but once clutching the object of its desire, he could not pull the hand free through the small opening, and was thus captured. Sin is the object of our desire. Jesus enables us to be set free.