Isaac M. Haldeman – The Judgment Seat of Christ

Excerpt

The condition foretold by that cry which rent the earth, echoed to the farthest reach of the universe and pierced with pain the heart of listening angels, is the condition of every soul forsaken at last of God.

A fact and a condition!
The fact – that all who have not received the salvation bought at this fearful price of the Cross will be forsaken.
The condition – agony, agony uttered and expressed in one eternally repeated and eternally unanswered question, “My God, my God, why has thou forsaken me?” The aspect of the judgment of the Cross is twofold.

Because the death of Christ met the law, the government and the being of God, it has obtained a stay in proceedings against the individual sinner.

Because the Cross is the demonstration of the unimpeachable righteousness of God, it has enabled Him to bring the world upon mercy ground where He can deal with it in grace, justify the ungodly and still be just. The Cross has set Christ before the world as the sacrifice for sin provided of God, and as the substitute the sinner is invited of God to claim.

The moment any sinner, be he never so stained, so sunken and hopeless in sin, offers up Christ on the Cross by faith as his sacrifice for sin and claims Him as his personal substitute, as having taken his place and suffered for him, that moment the Father accepts the death of the Cross for the believing sinner, counts him to have died in the person of His Son, counts the wrath which fell upon the Son as having fallen on the believer, reckons the believer’s sins as fully transferred to the Son (so that He is made sin for the believer) reckons that the righteousness of Christ’s obedience unto death is freely transferred to the believer, sees the believer as having passed through the judgment with Christ on the Cross, justifies him before the demands of the law and accepts him as His own very righteousness in His now risen, ascended, glorified, and priestly Son.

On the basis of this divine and exact justification the Son of God in His office and function as the Second Adam, the New Head of the race, communicates of His own life and nature to the justified and accepted believer. That believer has passed out of death into life. He is one with God in Christ. He is eternally saved. He has been delivered and saved by the judgment of the Cross.

So complete, so ample and so immediately available is this provided salvation that at this present moment any individual sinner, though he be as black as hell’s deepest darkness and no man on earth be willing to lend him a hand, if he will, in childlike simplicity, take God as His Word, claim the crucified Christ as his sacrificial substitute, say believingly in his inmost soul as though he talked face to face with God, ” Almighty and Holy Lord, I ought to be eternally ruined, swept out of Thy presence and denied every joy; death, endless, hopeless, is my due; but I claim Thy Son hanging on that Cross for such as I, accept all the judgments that fell on Him as having fallen on me and as having satisfied for every claim against me. Count His agony and damnation as mine and as completely and finally suffered there.” Let any sinner say that, mean that in honest, claiming faith, and God will accept you, accept you quicker than the flash of a second. He will brush away every cloud of condemnation that hangs above you. You shall never stand at the judgment bar of doom. You shall be saved now and safe evermore.

This is the judgment of the Cross and the salvation it brings.

On this day...

• James 5:19-20 | James - 2011
• Hebrews 4:13 | Hebrews - 2011
• Romans 5:11-21 | Romans - 2011
• victual - 2007