Chapter 7. The Four Beasts

Chapter 7. The Four Beasts In the dreams and doings of those “three Gentile kings, is brought to light that which would characterize the whole times of the Gentiles, and the way in which the faithful witnesses of God would be tried and tested by the idolatry, profanity, and blasphemy of those whom God had raised up into the throne of the world, and also the ability of God to deal with those crowned potsherds of the earth, and to deliver His afflicted servants, when His ways with the various self-willed monarchs have been accomplished, and His beloved people have learned their lesson. And a record is made of all these doings for the encouragement, not only of our poor faithless and timid hearts, when we might find ourselves in similar circumstances, but also for the enlightenment and confidence of those who shall be similarly tried, after the present dispensation has passed, and the church of God is no longer here. Then shall the descendants of those very people, who found themselves under the godless domination of Nebuchadnezzar, find themselves under the authority of a more idolatrous and blood-thirsty autocrat than was this vain-glorious head of gold. Such will require all the consolations of God, as recorded in this book, and all other books of Holy Scripture; and I have no doubt they will, by the Spirit of God, be turned to these writings. Meantime are our hearts encouraged and strengthened, as we witness the moral courage and unconquerable determination of those Hebrew captives in a strange land, and under the authority of one who had absolute power over life, and everything that was theirs, except their immortal souls. And when we witness the spiritual vigour with which those feeble few stood in the path of these crowned vessels of self-will, and how utterly gone from their hearts was the fear of anything they could inflict upon sensitive flesh, are we not ashamed of ourselves that shrink from an evil word or a scornful look? With all our hearts we can, and I trust do, thank God for the peace and the privileges we enjoy in this favoured land; but we must remember that the natural, fertile, and fruitful soil of Christian life is in the sphere of this world’s enmity, and in suffering for Christ. Just as faith is the gift of God to us, so is also suffering for Christ (Php 1:29). May we ever do our best to live at peace with all men, but may we, along with this, esteem it an immense privilege, if through grace it be granted to us, to suffer a little for His sake.

It is only in the first six chapters that we have recorded the dealings of God with those Gentile monarchs, and the way in which He speaks to them through His witnesses. Nebuchadnezzar is apprised of the passing away of the kingdom given to Him by the God of heaven; and in his seven years’ madness is intimated the atheistical character of governments during the time of Gentile rule. He himself, under the mighty hand of God, becomes truly humbled, and learns his lesson, “That the Most High rules in the kingdom of men, and gives it to whomsoever He will.” The profane and presumptuous Belshazzar, detected in the midst of his accursed revelries, falls upon the sword of the victorious Mede and dies without mercy. Darius, who was entrapped by his wicked advisers, seems to have learned that the God of Daniel is “The living God,” while those who sought to destroy the servant of the Lord die like Belshazzar, in their sins and without mercy. In all these things we may learn what a wretched creature man is without the knowledge of God; and how utterly foolish and presumptuous to pit his finite wisdom and strength against His, whose wisdom and power are infinite. And the folly of this shall still more be seen when the work of God is ended, when His rest has come, and we have entered into it. How fully shall then be manifested how infinitely superior He has shown Himself to be, and that throughout the whole history of the fallen creature, to all the puny efforts that have been made by the enemy to circumvent His plans! When all is over both friend and foe shall have learned that the creature, however powerful he may seem, is nothing but a creature, and that God is God.

Nebuchadnezzar, Belshazzar, Darius, have all passed away, and their glory and greatness have disappeared with them. They appear for a little moment before our mental vision, not that we might learn something about them that could not be found in others of the race of Adam, but that we might see the shadows of the events that shall come to pass immediately before and at the appearing of Christ, when He shall come to judge this world in righteousness; and that seeing those shadows we might learn to keep ourselves apart from this present course of things, and that our confidence in God might be greatly increased. Nothing that transpires in the whole creation disturbs the serenity of His presence, who dwells in light unapproachable, and nothing can disturb the peace of him who commits the keeping of his soul to God.

If anything could have disturbed the eternal tranquillity of that holy sphere in which He dwells, it would have been the conceit, presumption, and wicked daring of Nebuchadnezzar, whom He had raised to such an eminence of earthly splendour, and of those who followed him. The victory He had allowed Nebuchadnezzar to gain over Jerusalem was, in the estimation of that monarch, nothing but an indication of his own military skill, and the superiority of the god he worshipped over the God of Israel. Therefore the vessels of the house of the living God must be laid at the feet of the god who had helped him in his wars. And in the presence of this blasphemous affront the living God is absolutely quiescent. No angry lightnings shoot forth their fiery arrows. No earthquake threatens the destruction of throne and city. Everything goes on as usual. The tranquillity of heaven is undisturbed. God sits above the water-flood which foams at His feet, and when He is pleased He can bring its raging to an end. He well knows how to handle His own creation, and how to humble the pride of His creatures, and He can well afford to wait His own time, so that His purposes may be accomplished, while His impatient people may be murmuring against. His inactivities and seeming indifference regarding their destiny, so that they may be ready to cry out, “Carest Thou not that we perish?” The provocation that He receives from the rod wherewith He chastises His wayward people, though He cannot view it with anything but abhorrence, cannot hasten by one moment the judgment by which He will avenge the insult. What a God He is with whom we have to do, and who has made Himself fully known to us in His Son Jesus! From this chapter until the end of the book, the communications of which we have a record, are made to Daniel himself, not by means of the dreams of Nebuchadnezzar, of which he became interpreter, nor foreshadowed by the persecutions to which he and his three friends were subjected. The dreams of the first king set before us the times of the Gentiles, portrayed in the four kingdoms that represented those times under the eye of God. And one can very well understand the uneasiness that must have filled the mind of Nebuchadnezzar when He contemplated that “Great Babylon” falling into other hands than those of his descendants. But the exercise of soul produced by the communications of the Lord is often of very short duration. After being made aware of the fleeting character of all human glory, he is found wallowing in his wretched idolatry worse than ever. The kings and rulers of the various kingdoms in the sphere of Christian profession have an open Bible in their hands, that tells them of the sin of this world in the rejection and murder of the Son of God; of the world as now under judgment, and of the appointed day in which that judgment shall be executed; of the Gospel which is God’s way of delivering souls out from this world, and from the impending judgment; of the great fact that believers are a heavenly people, and not of this world any more than Christ is of it; of the fact that friendship with this world constitutes one God’s enemy: and though all this is brought continually to the notice of the earthly authorities, how quickly does it pass away from heart and memory! Not a vestige of it seems to remain, except the shadow of a fear that darkens to an extent the joys of life. This was so with the Gentile monarch, it was so with the Roman governor, Felix (Act 24:25), and the tendency with every human being is to slip away from the revelation of God. This we should lay to heart, and seek grace from God that we may be able to hold fast His word. In the great image of Nebuchadnezzar’s dream the four kingdoms are presented according to the splendour that characterized each of them, distinct deterioration in grandeur and glory is manifested from head to feet, except that in the last mentioned not splendour but strength is attributed to it. But the first, or head of gold, is directly set up by God, while the others take the kingdom by right of conquest. But in this chapter they are viewed according to their own true origin, nature, and propensity. They are wild beasts. They have no living link with God. They are without any intelligent relationship with Him. They arise out of the tumultuous agitation of the population of the world, and that agitation the work of the prince of the power of the air. The four winds of heaven, we are told, strove upon the great sea, and out of that storm-tossed waste of lawlessness arise four beasts different one from the other; all beasts, the various characteristics of which are well known to us, though with endowments not natural to the beast itself.

I do not doubt there is a certain element of truth in the devil’s assertion, that the kingdoms of the world are at his disposal, and that to whomsoever he will he gives power and kingship. Our Lord does not dispute his audacious claim, but He will have nothing from the devil. Power and glory He will have from the Father, but from no one else. That the devil is a powerful being, and that he can give power to others, we see from Scripture. I need scarcely say that God does not give power to any creature to do evil, or to use it just as he pleases. Satan has not one atom of power but what God has given him, neither has any other creature; but that power is to be used in the service of God who gave it. The adversary can do nothing except by the permission of the Lord, and only that His wise purposes may be carried out with regard to individuals or nations is this permission given. Therefore must the thought of the heart be manifested in the day of judgment, for one might have in his heart to serve God, and might be hindered by the devil; another might be on his way to do evil, and God might turn him away from his object. To build a house for Jehovah was a good thought of David, and he is commended for it; but he was not allowed to carry out his thought. Solomon was the man chosen for that work. Sennacherib, King of Assyria, and his servant Rab-shakeh, thought to work evil against Jerusalem, but the Lord turned both of them back by the way which they had come, and the king comes to his end as he was engaged in worshipping his god, being slain by his two sons (2Ki 18:1-37, 2Ki 19:1-37). The liberty granted to Satan shall soon be brought to an end. At the present time, for the accomplishment of the all-wise purposes of God, his sphere of action is a wide one, and he uses it with all the craft and subtlety with which he is endowed, and his wisdom seems to be beyond that of any other creature. But his wisdom became his folly when he matched his creature might with his omnipotent Creator. When permitted of God he can raise up tribulation for the saints, and bring them into deep waters, but beyond a certain limit he cannot go. And just because the saint knows that power belongs to God, and that no adverse power can do anything but contribute to the carrying, out of the mind and thought of God, he can view all the evil that crosses his path as coming directly from the hand of God, leaving Satan out of his reckoning altogether. How good it is to be in the hand of One who is infinite in wisdom and might, and to realize that He is our Father, and that He loves us with a love that is both boundless and eternal!

It is not difficult to see that the four beasts that come up out of the sea are the four kingdoms that are set forth in the image of gold, silver, brass, and iron. The first was like a lion and had eagle’s wings. The kingdom embraced the majesty of the lion and the swiftness of the eagle, with the might of both combined. None of the powers that arose after Nebuchadnezzar could equal that which God gave into his hand, and set him over. It takes the head among wild beasts, and the head among the fowls of heaven to set forth the might of the kingdom that was his. But the eagle’s wings were eventually plucked, and the wild beast lost its ferocious and terrifying appearance. There came a day in which Babylon lost its power among the nations of the earth. The second beast was like a bear, higher at one side than the other, for though at the first the Mede was the leading power, the Persian very quickly became dominant. Because of this it is presented as rising above its primitive level. Cyrus the Persian raised it into a position of great prominence by his clever generalship, and by his conquest of Babylon. But the bear, while its ferocity is clearly depicted by the fact that in the mouth of it are three ribs, has neither the majesty, the activity, nor the dash of the lion. It is more unwieldy and awkward in its movements, but characterized by insatiable conquest and rapacity. It was said to it, “Arise, devour much flesh.” The third beast does not lack rapidity of execution, for it has upon its back four wings of a fowl, but its flight is not the sublime and lofty flight of the eagle, but that of a much meaner bird. It has, however, four wings instead of two. It has also four heads; absolute authority was not vested in one head only. To it dominion was given.

Whatever be the nature and character of these beasts they are as truly ordained of God as was David, the King of Israel, who was anointed with the holy oil. As energized by their own self-will and rapacious disposition, they devoured countries, subdued kingdoms, and possessed thrones. But behind all that man could see, there was the hand of God working toward the fulfilment of His wise designs, and neither they nor their armies could go one inch beyond what was permitted to them by Him. In putting upon the throne of Egypt the Pharaoh who oppressed the children of Israel, the devil may have supposed that himself was the instrument that brought such a thing to pass, but God says to him, “For this same purpose have I raised thee up, that I might show my power in thee, and that my name might be declared throughout all the earth” (Exo 9:16; Rom 9:17). This rebel against the authority of God, and oppressor of his poor people, was raised up to the throne by the intervention of God, being one, I suppose, who had no title to it. Neither man nor the devil has power to accomplish anything apart from the permission of God. What a comfort this truth is to our cowardly souls! As to the fourth beast, there was not any beast in field or forest that resembled it. It is like nothing that ever was created. As regards political and kingly power, it is the devil’s masterpiece, as popery is his masterpiece religiously. It is the same beast that in Rev 13:1 is said to arise out of the sea, and in Rev 11:7, and Rev 17:8, is said to ascend out of the bottomless pit. To him the devil gives his power, seat, and great authority. He combines in his own person all the brutal characteristics of the first three beasts. This beast was like a leopard, his feet like a bear’s, and his mouth like a lion’s (Rev 13:2). Both in Daniel and in Revelation it is said to have ten horns, but in the latter Scriptures it is also said to have seven heads, and upon the horns ten crowns, thus manifesting it as an empire composed of ten kings, with an emperor in the midst possessed of despotic authority.

I have no doubt that the little horn spoken of in Daniel, which came up among the others, and before whom three of the first horns were plucked up by the roots, is the beast to whom Satan gave his power, seat, and authority. It is the one that dominates the empire, and that is the beast of Revelation. The beast is said to arise out of the sea (Dan 7:3) and out of the earth (Dan 7:17), but added to these apparently conflicting statements, we have in Revelation that he ascended out of the abyss. How are we to reconcile these seeming contradictions? The power of the devil acting upon the masses, who are always in opposition to whatever government may exist, produced a state of things that favoured the rise of such a person as is described as the beast. By the people he would be hailed as just the sort of person needed to bring order out of chaos.

Man in his natural fallen condition will not, if he can help it, be in subjection to any authority. Hence there has always been a good deal of murmuring against the existing government. Every man wants to rule over all the others, but not to be ruled over himself. And all this comes from the notion begotten in the heart of man at the outset, and which occasioned his fall. The devil suggested to man that he had a selfish and jealous-minded Creator, and that to rebel against His authority, act on his own behalf, take of the fruit of the forbidden tree, would be to thus exalt himself to equality with God. And though his attempt to exalt himself brought him under death and the domination of the devil who had deceived him, nevertheless the notion that he is his own master, or at least should be, has never left him.

I do not suppose there ever was a day in which the masses were so hard to rule as the day in which we live. Russia groaned under the iron rule of the Czar, and now under the rule of the Soviet their cry of distress is heard throughout the whole world. Everyone wants to rule, and everyone wants that which others have, and if they cannot get it by legal means they will take it by a bloody revolution. But when the revolution has come to pass, how is peace to be established, seeing that the revolution has only brought about a more terrible state of oppression?

Jude in his short epistle speaks of the state of things that subsists today, and we see that the evil that abounds is traceable to the same source that brought about the fall of Adam and the ruin of his race. Jude traces the evil to those who denied the only Despot and Lord, Jesus Christ. The next thing we find is, they despise earthly authorities and rail against dignities. You may be perfectly persuaded that if a man will not submit to the authority of the Lord, he will not submit to any other authority, if he can avoid it. The whole world is seething with rebellion at this present time, and no one can tell what a day may bring forth.

What is wanted is a man that can tame, or at least subdue, the savage nature of the people; who will be able to take up the various questions that vex the world, and who shall compel everyone to submit to his dictation. And such an one shall be found in this beast, whose voice shall be like the roar of a lion, striking terror into the heart of the hearer; for we are told that his mouth was like a lion’s. He shall have plenty of wisdom to deal with difficult questions, and power enough to cause his judgments to be respected; for his teeth shall be of iron and his nails of brass; He will devour, break in pieces, and no one shall be able to resist him. This is the man the world is looking for, and this is the man the world shall get. He rises out of the sea, from the populace in agitation. But he is also said to rise out of the earth, for the whole four kings and their kingdoms also are of the earth. They are not kingdoms that have had their origin in heaven. They are earthly, and belong to this present order of things in which the pride and self-will of man displays itself, and refuses to have any connection or relationship with heaven. God has His own sphere, and they have theirs! If He has interests upon earth, those interests are in their territory, and must, like everything else, come under their authority. As cradled in these principles the four beasts come to their thrones. But as we have seen, in Revelation the beast is said to arise out of the abyss. Its origin is satanic. This is not said of any other kingdom that I am aware of. Of course this that we have here is a picture of the Roman Empire in its revived and last condition. It comes out of the abyss, and goes into destruction (Rev 17:8). When it arises it shall dominate the earth; and all those who have settled down in earth, and have made their home here, in contrast with those whose hopes are all centred in heaven, and who look for the establishment of God’s kingdom upon earth, shall fall utterly under its power, and shall do it homage. And we must not forget that the British Isles are in the sphere of that empire; and how soon most of the inhabitants shall be in the midst of this terrible state of things no one can tell. At present things in the political world seem shaping in the direction of the rise of this empire, and of the man who shall guide and control it.

Soon the saints of the Lord shall be called up to meet Him in the air, and the Spirit, who has been here on earth since Pentecost, shall leave the earth along with them. The devil and his angels shall then be cast down from their heavenly positions, and this empire shall become the sphere of their accursed operations. The beast, the willing tool and vessel of their devilry, shall open his mouth against God, to blaspheme His name and His tabernacle, and those that dwell there.

There is another beast that rises out of the earth, who is not mentioned in Dan 7:1-28, but comes before us in Dan 11:36. He is the one spoken of in Thessalonians as the man of sin, the son of perdition; “who opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sits in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God” (2Th 2:4). He is spoken of in John’s first epistle as the antichrist, and we have his rise and his activities in Rev 13:11-16. He is evidently the king in Jerusalem, and he plays into the hand of the Roman emperor. Thus in that day there shall be a trinity of evil, all completely of one mind, and determined to banish every recognition of the true God from the earth. The objects of his special animosity and persecution will be the believing Jews, who then shall be God’s witnesses in a world from which the saints of this present dispensation have been withdrawn to heaven, and, as I have already said, the Holy Spirit shall have gone with them. From heaven where he now has his seat, the devil shall have been cast down, and his angels along with him, and he full of great fury, knowing that his day of liberty to do evil is very near its close. In that day shall be woe to the earth as under stable government, and also to the lawless masses that revolt against all authority; “Woe,” says the Spirit of God, “to the earth and to the sea, because the devil has come down to you, having great rage, knowing he has a short time” (Rev 12:12 N.Tr.).

It has been said that wickedness never is wise. We might add that this goes without saying, for the extreme height of folly is for the creature to set himself up against his Creator. The fallen creature, whether man or the devil, has often shown himself very crafty and inventive, and often his inventive powers have been so astonishing that they have staggered himself, though the inventions of men have often been the result of mere accident; but whatever they be, the result is to exalt man in his own imagination, and to make him think he is himself a kind of God, if not the only creature that is altogether supreme.

How appalling it is to contemplate a creature, once as perfect as infinite wisdom and goodness could make him, fallen so low as to be the incorrigible enemy of God (Ecc 3:11; Eze 28:11-19); his wisdom corrupted, his beauty disfigured, and his primitive position absolutely irrecoverable! “A short time” to carry on a losing battle with the almighty God! “A short time” to work wickedness in a world that he has already plunged into ruin! “A short time” to destroy the creature made in the likeness of God! “A short time” in which to spread brutality, bloodshed, and murder in the earth! “A short time,” and then, what? A millennium in the abyss; and after that another “short time” in which he shall lead the whole world in revolt against God: after that “the lake that burns with fire and brimstone” for eternity. And this is the being that men follow! This is the being with whom the king of Jerusalem, and the emperor of revived imperial Rome, shall form their infernal alliance! And all for “a short time” in which to wear a crown, rule a kingdom, oppress the world, and compel a little worship from their fellow-men! O, the utter insanity and wickedness of it all! Eternity! Eternity, sunless, moonless, starless, Godless, Christless, joyless, hopeless! And how terrible to have to contemplate the awful certainty, that two men at least shall come into it a thousand years before the devil and his angels for whom it is prepared! When this terrible Roman Empire is revived it will be the pride and boast of its citizens. It will be dreadful and terrible, and strong exceedingly. The people of the empire will turn devil-worshippers, because the devil shall give his power and authority to the beast. The little horn that shall eventually rule the empire will, I have no doubt, be the very kind of man the world is in quest of. He will have intelligence, power of penetration, and his words like the roar of the lion. He will be well to grapple with the questions that agitate the minds of men today. He will not have any great difficulty in dealing with either the capitalists or the labourists. The action will as quickly follow the word as the sound follows the explosion of a magazine, and woe betide the soul that resists his authority! Men are seeking such a man today; and in that day, which is not far distant, he shall be found. But God is the special object of attack by this trinity of evil. This evil man shall speak words against the Most High. Great things and blasphemies shall proceed out of his mouth. As regards the other kings, the first three, God was not so much the object of attack as were His people; but here it is directly against God in the heavens that this man’s railing is directed. He does persecute the saints that stand for the rights of God during this time of trial, and who are spoken of as “the saints of the most high places,” as it has been pointed out that “Most High” in Dan 7:18, Dan 7:22, and the first mentioned “Most High” in Dan 7:25 are plural. These saints stand for the rule of God in the heavens during the time in which this is denied by the earthly rulers, and that which Nebuchadnezzar had to learn was “that the heavens do rule” (Dan 4:26); and in the end all the nations of the earth shall have learned this. Against the witnesses to this truth, which in that hour will be of most vital importance, the wrath of this trinity of evil is mainly directed, and under the persecutions to which they will be subjected they shall be worn out. It seems as though none would be left alive. But then it shall be, “Blessed are the dead which the in the Lord from henceforth: Yea, says the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours; and their works do follow them” (Rev 14:13). But the wrath of this fourth beast is altogether directed against God, though the saints have to suffer because they are His witnesses upon earth. He opens his mouth in blasphemy against God, to blaspheme His name, and His tabernacle, and them that dwell in heaven” (Rev 13:6). The heavenly saints having now their dwelling-place in heaven, and the devil having been cast down to the earth, he is absolutely powerless to reach them. He can only open his mouth and include them in the blasphemies that he utters against God. But determined to have his revenge, and having no longer access to heaven, he will put forth all his power to prevent God having any place upon earth. He makes war with the saints, prevails against them, destroys the saints of the high places, changes times and laws which are connected with Jewish worship, and seeks to destroy out of the earth both the Name of God, and everything that relates to that Name. And for the moment it will seem as though he would accomplish his infernal will, for everything on earth that does not submit to his authority falls before his merciless sword. Our Lord tells us that “except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect’s sake those days shall be shortened” (Mat 24:32). If those days were lengthened out over the twelve hundred and sixty days, there would be no saints of God to enter the millennial earth: all would be destroyed. But the coming of the Ancient of days, judgment committed to the saints of the high places, the arrival of the appointed time, and the kingdom taken possession of by the saints, shall put an end to the reign of this terrible trinity of evil. The kingdom and the dominion, and the greatness of the kingdom under the whole heavens, shall be given to the people of the saints of the most high places; that is, I have no doubt, the Jews shall be given the authority of the kingdom under the reign of the Messiah, and peace shall be brought to the earth. The advent of the Ancient of days puts an end to kingdom and reign of the fourth beast. The Stone cut out of the mountain without hands strikes the image of Nebuchadnezzar’s dream upon the feet of iron and clay, and the glory and power and strength of them are in a moment reduced to powder, and are as the chaff of the threshing floor, which is carried away by the winds of heaven, and the remembrance of them ceases from the earth. A kingdom is established under the reign of the Son of Man, and the wearied earth is rejuvenated by His glorious administration. The trinity of evil is no longer dreaded. The head of the Roman Empire and the anti-Christian king of Jerusalem, or, in the words of the Apocalypse, the beast and the false prophet, are both cast alive into the lake of fire, and the devil that deceived them is imprisoned for the space of a thousand years in the abyss. The nations also must give account to the King for the way they behaved toward the servants of the Lord who had gone out with the Gospel of the kingdom during the terrible reign of the beast. Their attitude toward God and His Christ is seen in the way they treated His messengers, and by this are they judged. His enemies perish in the everlasting fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels. Those who at the peril of their lives cared for those messengers, and thus manifested their affection for the coming Messiah, are saluted as the blessed of His Father, and called to inherit the kingdom prepared for them from the world’s foundation. His enemies get that portion which was never contemplated they should merit, and His friends that which had been prepared for them, when the foundation of the earth was laid. How thoroughly the ways of the creature justify the counsels of the Creator! Every way that the responsible creature takes has its legitimate end, and is unalterable in its consequences; for in the day when God shall judge the secrets of men, according to the Gospel preached by Paul, God shall render to every man according to his deeds, “To them who by patient continuance in well doing seek for glory and honour and incorruptibility, eternal life: but unto them that are contentious, and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish, upon every soul of man that does evil, of the Jew first, and also of the Gentile; but glory, honour, and peace, to every man that works good, to the Jew first, and also to the Gentile: for there is no respect of persons with God” (Rom 2:6-11). Grace that saves the believing sinner does not alter this principle, which is inherent in the very nature of God.

How it comes to pass, where there is none righteous, and none that do good, any can be found characterized by patient continuance in well doing, might well seem to be a mystery, but this is fully gone into in the rest of the Roman epistle, in which the believer is seen, not only to be justified but to have justification of life (Dan 6:18), that is, to be in the life of the One in whom we are justified, also by the death of Christ to have got our freedom from sin’s domination, so that we have the privilege of reckoning ourselves dead to sin and alive to God (Dan 6:1-28), and also the Spirit given to us as the power of the new nature and life, in order that we may produce righteousness. The truth is, the salvation of God is a perfect salvation, a work worthy of Himself. It is not a patchwork of the old order; there is no tinkering with the old nature, no attempt to disinfect the evil from the flesh: it is new birth, new life and nature; sins put away, and the nature that the sins sprang from condemned in the unsparing judgment of the cross; it is life, relationship, and being, in the last Adam the heavenly Man, with the Holy Spirit given to dwell in us, as the power by which all our new and eternal relationships with God are enjoyed. By this work of God, both for us and in us, power is given to us that enables us to seek by patient continuance in well doing the glory, honour, and incorruptibility, that are set before us in the Gospel; and thus by the practice of righteousness we have our fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life (Rom 6:22). Truly that which we are we are by the grace of God; but those that are saved by that grace come under its blessed teaching, and are characterized by denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, and living soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present evil world (Tit 2:1-15). Where people do not submit to the Gospel they remain under sin’s dominion, and by such nothing but sin is produced, and therefore in the judgment they cannot escape the consequence of such a life, for God does not depart from the principles that must ever characterize a righteous judge. The way of escape is through faith in Christ; for Him who knew no sin God made sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him, and such do not come into judgment, for . . .
“Payment God will not twice demand
Once at my bleeding Surety’s hand,
And then again at mine.”