for acceptable service. The recipients are already "accepted in the Beloved" as to their persons; and

therefore they strive to be "acceptable" as to their service. As to their standing, they appear there in all the

Righteousness of Christ. Perfect in all His perfection; glorious in all His glory; beautiful in all His beauty;

raised in His likeness, conformed to His image, and made like His own body of glory! How then can they be

judged to see if they are lost or saved? The very feeblest of them have already been judged in the person of

their Substitute. He bore their sin. He has undergone all the judgment due to them, and hence all who are

"quickened with Christ" are said to be "Risen with Christ" so that the question of sin can never again be

opened. "To them that look for Him shall He appear, without sin, unto Salvation" (Heb. ix. 28).26 For all such,

Death is sleep, through Jesus; for it is not necessary that they should die, because this penalty of sin has

been paid: and therefore "those who are alive and remain" to Christ's coming will not die at all. And as to

Judgment, it is positively stated by Jesus Himself that they "shall not come into Judgment" (John v. 24).27

Hence the Apostle asks "Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? Shall God that justifieth?

Who is he that shall condemn? Shall Christ that died?28 To suppose that one of the God's saints could ever

come into judgment, as to his standing and his title to Glory, is not only to flatly contradict the direct

statement of Christ Himself, but it is to deny the very foundations of the Gospel; it is to rob the work of

Christ of all its merit! For not only does Christ assert the contrary, but the Holy Spirit in Rom. viii. 1 also

expressly declares "There is now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus."

Do you not see that if our title to Glory and our standing in Righteousness was not settled at the cross, it is

not settled now! that if we did not die with Christ we must die for sin ourselves! that if our salvation is not

settled now it must be settled in judgment! and if it has to be settled then, there can be only one result, for it

is written "Enter not into judgment with thy servant, O Lord, for in Thy sight shall no man living be

justified" (Ps. cxliii. 2). It may sound very humble, to say 'we cannot know we are saved till the day of

judgment,' but this is the essence of Romanism, and he who says it knows nothing of the Gospel, nothing of

the work of Christ, nothing of the results of His atonement. He who says it, may call those who rejoice in

these precious truths 'presumptuous,' but when Christ says "He that heareth my word, and believeth on Him

that sent me, hath everlasting life and shall not come into judgment, but is passed from death unto life," then

we maintain that it is 'presumption' to deny it, and not to believe it! Those who in spite of all their conviction

of sin, set to their seal that God is true, are truly humble, while those who profess to be too humble thus to

believe his word (!) are really guilty of presumption!

All who are in Christ are saved, justified, and sheltered from all judgment. They are risen with Christ, and

stand with Christ on resurrection ground; and hope for "the Resurrection of life," endless glory, and eternal

blessedness, in the presence of God and the Lamb.

But their work has yet to be appraised, their works have yet to be assayed, their service has yet to be tried;

and hence "we shall all stand before the Bema of Christ" (Rom. xiv. 9-13). We shall then see how little of our

service has been done for the "glory of God," and how much for the "praise of men"; how little with the

"single eye," and how much with a second motive; how little "fulfilled before God" (Rev. iii. 2), and how

much before our fellows. And while much, or most, and in many cases all, will be burnt up; yet all who stand

there in that heavenly scene will be "SAVED." We next come to

Matt. xxv. 31-46.

R.V. "So Christ also, having been once offered to bear the sins of many, shall appear a second time, apart

from sin, to them that look for Him, unto salvation."

This is the meaning of the word here translated "condemnation": and rendered "judgment" in the R.V. It

occurs forty-eight times, and is forty-one times translated "judgment."

So the R.V. margin, and Tregelles.