Section 2

Thus I have shown how the success of Christ's redemption has been accomplished during the continuance of the Christian church under the means of grace. We have seen what great revolutions there have been and are to be, during this space of time; how the great wheels of providence have gone round for the accomplishment of that kind of success of Christ's purchase, which consists in the bestowment of grace on the elect: and we are, in the prosecution of the subject, come to the time when all the wheels have gone round; the course of things in this state of it is finished, and all things are ripe for Christ's coming to judgment.

You may remember, that when I began to discourse of this third proposition, namely, That from the resurrection of Christ to the end of the world, the whole time is taken up in procuring the success and effect of Christ's purchase of redemption, I observed, that the success of Christ's purchase is of two kinds, consisting either in grace or glory; and that the success consisting in the former of these, is to be seen in those works of God which are wrought during those ages that the church is continued under the means of grace; and that the success, consisting in the latter, will chiefly be accomplished at the day of judgment.

Having already shown how the former kind of success has been accomplished, I come now, in the second place, to the latter, namely, that kind of success which is accomplished in the bestowment of glory on the church, which shall chiefly be bestowed on the church at the day of judgment. Here I would mention two or three things in the general concerning this kind of success of Christ's purchase.

1. How great the success of Christ's purchase is, chiefly appears in this. The success of Christ's purchase does summarily consist in the salvation of the elect. But this bestowment of glory is eminently called their salvation: Hebrews 9:28. "To them that look for him, shall he appear the second time, without sin unto salvation". So it is called redemption, being eminently that wherein the redemption of the church consists. So in Ephesians 4:30, "Sealed unto the day of redemption;" and Luke 21:28; and Ephesians 1:14, "Redemption of the purchased possession."

2. All that is before this, while the church is under the means of grace, is only to make way for the success which is to be accomplished in the bestowment of glory. The means of grace are to fit for glory; and God's grace itself is bestowed on the elect to make them meet for glory.

3. All those glorious things which were brought to pass for the church while under the means of grace, are but images and shadows of this. So were those glorious things which were accomplished for the church in the days of Constantine the Great; and so is all that glory which is to be accomplished in the glorious times of the church which are to succeed the fall of Antichrist. As great as it is, it is all but a shadow of what will be bestowed at the day of judgment; and therefore, as I have already often observed, all those preceding events, by which God wrought glorious things for his church, are spoken of in scripture as images of Christ's last coming to judgment.

But I hasten more particularly to show how this kind of success of Christ's purchase is accomplished.

1. Christ will appear in the glory of his Father, with all his holy angels, coming in the clouds of heaven. When the world is thus revelling in their wickedness, and compassing the holy city about, just ready to destroy it, and when the church is reduced to such a great strait, then shall the glorious Redeemer appear. He through whom this redemption has all along been carried on, he shall appear in the sight of the world; the light of his glory shall break forth; the whole world shall immediately have notice of it, and they shall lift up their eyes and behold this wonderful sight. It is said, "Every eye shall see him," Revelation 1:7. Christ shall appear coming in his human nature, in that same body which was brought forth in a stable, and laid in a manger, and which afterwards was so cruelly used, and nailed to the cross.

Men shall now lift up their eyes, and see him coming in such majesty and glory as now is to us utterly inconceivable. The glory of the sun in a clear firmament, will be but darkness in comparison of it; and all the glorious angels and archangels shall attend upon him, thousand thousands ministering to him, and ten thousand times ten thousand round about him. How different a person will he then appear from what he did at his first coming, when he was a root out of a dry ground, a poor, despised, afflicted man! How different now is his appearance, in the midst of those glorious angels, principalities, and powers, in heavenly places, attending him as his ordinary servants, from what it was when in the midst of a ring of soldiers, with his mock robe and his crown of thorns, to be buffeted and spit upon, or hanging on the cross between two thieves, with a multitude of his enemies about him triumphing over him!

This sight will be a most unexpected sight to the wicked world: it will come as a cry at midnight: they shall be taken in the midst of their wickedness, and it will give them a dreadful alarm. It will at once break up their revels, their eating, and drinking, and carousing. It will put a quick end to the design of the great army that will then be compassing the camp of the saints: it will make them let drop their weapons out of their hands. The world, which will then be very full of people, most of whom will be wicked men, will then be filled with dolorous shrieking and crying; for all the kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him, Revelation 1:7. Where shall they hide themselves? How will the sight of that awful majesty terrify them when taken in the midst of their wickedness? Then they shall see who he is, what kind of person he is, whom they have mocked and scoffed at, and whose church they have been endeavouring to overthrow. This sight will change their voice. The voice of their laughter and singing, while they are marrying and giving in marriage, and the voice of their scoffing, shall be changed into hideous, yea hellish yelling. Their countenances shall be changed from a show of carnal mirth, haughty pride, and contempt of God's people; it shall put on a show of ghastly terror and amazement; and trembling and chattering of teeth shall seize upon them.

But with respect to the saints, the church of Christ, it shall be a joyful and a most glorious sight to them: for this sight will at once deliver them from all fear of their enemies, who were before compassing them about, just ready to swallow them up. Deliverance shall come in their extremity: the glorious Captain of their salvation shall appear for them, at a time when no other help appeared. Then shall they lift up their heads, and their redemption shall be drawing nigh, Luke 21:28. Thus Christ will appear with infinite majesty, and yet at the same time they shall see infinite love in his countenance to them. Thus to see their redeemer coming in the clouds of heaven, will fill their hearts full of gladness. Their countenances also shall be changed, but not as the countenances of the wicked but shall be changed from being sorrowful, to exceeding joyful and triumphant. Now the work of redemption will be finished in another sense, namely, that the whole church shall be completely and eternally freed from all persecution and molestation from wicked men and devils.

2. The last trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised, and the living changed. God sent forth his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, to gather together his elect from the four corners of the earth in a mystical sense, before the destruction of Jerusalem; that is, he sent forth the apostles, and others, to preach the gospel all over the world. And so in a mystical sense the great trumpet was blown at the beginning of the glorious times of the church. But now the great trumpet is blown in a more literal sense, with a mighty sound, which shakes the earth. There will be a great signal given by a mighty sound made, which is called the voice of the archangel, as being the angel of greatest strength, 1 Thessalonians 4:16. "For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God." On the sound of the great trumpet, the dead shall be raised everywhere. Now the number of the dead is very great. How many has death cut down for so long a time as since the world has stood. But then the number will be much greater after the world shall have stood so much longer, and through most of the remaining time will doubtless be much fuller of inhabitants than ever it has been. All these shall now rise from the dead. The graves shall be opened everywhere in all parts of the world, and the sea shall give up the innumerable dead that are in it, Revelation 20:13.

Now all the inhabitants that ever shall have been upon the face of the earth, from the beginning of the world to that time, shall all appear upon earth at once; all that ever have been of the church of God in all ages, Adam and Eve, the first parents of mankind, and Abel, and Seth, and Methuselah, and all the saints who were their contemporaries, and Noah, and Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and the prophets of Israel, and the saints in the time of Antiochus Epiphanes, and all that were of the church in their times; and all the holy apostles of Jesus Christ, and all the saints of their times; and all the holy martyrs under the ten Heathen persecutions. And all who belonged to the church in its wilderness state, during the dark times of antichrist, and all the holy martyrs who have suffered under the cruelty of the Popish persecutions; and all the saints of the present time, and all the saints who are here in this assembly among the rest; and all that shall be from hence to the end of the world. Now also all the enemies of the church that have or shall be in all the ages of the world, shall appear upon the face of the earth again; all the wicked killed in the flood, and the multitudes that died all over the world among God's professing people, or others; all that died in all the Heathen nations before Christ, and all the wicked Heathens, and Jews and Mohammedans, and papists, that have died since; all shall come together. Sinners of all sorts; demure hypocrites; those who have the fairest and best outside, and open profane drunkards, whoremasters, heretics, Deists, and all cruel persecutors, and all that have died or shall die in sin amongst us.

At the same time that the dead are raised, the living shall be changed. The bodies of the wicked who shall then be living, shall be so changed as to fit them for eternal torment without corruption; and the bodies of all the living saints shall be changed to be like Christ's glorious body, 1 Corinthians 15:51-53. The bodies of the saints shall be so changed as to render them for ever incapable of pain, affliction, or uneasiness; and all dull heaviness, and all that deformity, which their bodies had, shall be put off; and they shall put on strength, and beauty, and activity, and incorruptible unfading glory. In such glory shall the bodies of all the risen saints appear.

Now the work of redemption shall be finished in another respect, namely, that all the elect shall now be actually redeemed in both soul and body. Before this, the work of redemption, as to its actual success, was but incomplete and imperfect; for only the souls of the redeemed were actually saved and glorified, excepting in some few instances: but now all the bodies of the saints shall be saved and glorified together; the elect shall be glorified in the whole man, and the soul and body in union one with the other.

3. Now shall the whole church of saints be caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and all wicked men and devils shall be arraigned before the judgment seat. When the dead saints are raised, then the whole church, consisting of all the elect through all ages, will be standing together on the face of the earth, at least all excepting those few whose bodies were glorified before; and then they shall all mount up as with wings in the air to meet Christ: for it seems that Christ, when he comes to judgment, will not come quite down to the ground, but his throne will be fixed in the air, in the region of the clouds, whence he may be seen by all that vast multitude that shall be gathered before him. The church of saints therefore shall be taken up from the earth to ascend up to their Saviour. Thus the apostle tells us, that when the dead in Christ are raised, and the living changed, then those who are alive and remain, shall be caught up together with them to meet the Lord in the air, and so shall we be ever with the Lord, 1 Thessalonians 4:16, 17. What a wonderful sight will that be, when all the many millions of saints are seen thus mounting up from all parts of the world!

Then shall the work of redemption be finished in another respect: then shall the whole church be perfectly and for ever delivered from this present evil world, for ever forsake this cursed ground: they shall take their everlasting leave of this earth, where they have been strangers, and which has been for the most part such a scene of their troubles and sorrow; where the devil for the most part has reigned as god, and has greatly molested them, and which has been such a scene of wickedness and abomination; where Christ their Lord has been cruelly used; and where they have been so hated, and reproached, and persecuted, from age to age, through most of the ages of the world. They shall leave it under foot to go to Christ, and never shall set foot on it again. And there shall be an everlasting separation made between them and wicked men. Before they were mixed together, and it was impossible in many instances to determine which were which; but now all shall become visible; both saints and sinners shall appear in their true characters.

Then shall all the church be seen flowing together in the air to the place where Christ shall have fixed his throne, coming from the east and west, and north and south, to the right hand of Christ. What a mighty cloud of them then will there be, when all that ever have been of the church of God, all that were before Christ, all that multitude of saints that were in the apostles' time, and all that were in the days of Constantine the Great, and all that were before and since the Reformation, and also all that great multitude of saints that shall be in all the glorious times of the church, when the whole earth shall for so many generations be full of saints, and also all that shall be then living when Christ shall come; I say, what a cloud of them will there be, when all these are seen flocking together in the region of the clouds at the right hand of Christ!

Then also the work of redemption will be finished in another respect, namely that then the church shall all be gathered together. They all belonged to one society before, but yet were greatly separated with respect to the place of their habitation; some being in heaven, and some on earth; and those who were on earth together were separated one from another, many of them by wide oceans, and vast continents. But now they shall all be gathered together, never to be separated any more. Not only shall all the members of the church now be gathered together, but all shall be gathered unto their Head, into his immediate glorious presence, never to be separated from him any more. This never came to pass till now.

At the same time, all wicked men and devils shall be brought before the judgment seat of Christ. These shall be gathered to the left hand of Christ, and, as it seems, will still remain upon the earth, and shall not be caught up into the air, as the saints shall be. The devil, that old serpent, shall now be dragged up out of hell. He, that first procured the fall and misery of mankind, and has so set himself against their redemption, and has all along shown himself such an inveterate enemy to the Redeemer; now he shall never more have any thing to do with the church of God, or be suffered in the least to afflict or molest any member of it any more for ever. Instead of that, now he must be judged, and receive the due reward of his deeds. Now is come the time which he has always dreaded, and trembled at the thought of; the time wherein he must be judged, and receive his full punishment. He who by his temptation maliciously procured Christ's crucifixion, and triumphed upon it, as though he had obtained the victory, even he shall see the consequences of the death of Christ which he procured: for Christ's coming to judge him in his human nature is the consequence of it; for Christ obtained and purchased this glory to himself by that death. Now he must stand before that same Jesus whose death he procured, to be judged, condemned, and eternally destroyed by him. If Satan, the prince of hell, trembles at the thought of it thousands of years beforehand, how much more will he tremble, as proud and as stubborn as he is, when he comes to stand at Christ's bar!

Then shall he also stand at the bar of the saints, whom he has so hated, and afflicted, and molested: for the saints shall judge him with Christ: 1 Corinthians 6:3 "Know ye not that we shall judge angels?" Now shall he be as it were subdued under the church's feet, agreeable to Romans 16:20 — Satan, when he first tempted our first parents to fall, deceitfully and lyingly told them, that they should be gods: but little did he think that the consequence should be, that they should indeed be so much as gods, as to be assessors with God to judge him. Much less did he think, that that consequence would follow, that one of that nature which he then tempted, one of the posterity of those persons whom he tempted, should actually be united to God, and that as God he should judge the world, and that he himself must stand trembling and astonished before his judgment-seat. But thus all the devils in hell, who have so opposed Christ and his kingdom, shall now at last stand in utmost amazement and horror before Christ and his church, who shall appear to condemn them.

Now also shall all Christ's other enemies be brought to appear before him. Now shall wicked proud scribes and Pharisees, who had such a malignant hatred of Christ while in this state of humiliation, and who persecuted Christ to death, those before whose judgment-seat Christ was once called and stood, as a malefactor at their bar, and those who mocked him, and buffeted him, and spit in his face; now shall they see Christ in his glory, as Christ forewarned them in the time of it, Matthew 26:64, 65: Then Christ was before their judgment-seat; but now it is their turn. They shall stand before his judgment-seat with inconceivable horror and amazement, with ghastly countenances, and quaking limbs, and chattering teeth, and knees smiting one against another.

Now also all the cruel enemies and persecutors of the church that have been in all ages, shall come in sight together. Pharaoh and the Egyptians, Antiochus Epiphanes, and the persecuting scribes and Pharisees, the persecuting Heathen emperors, Julian the apostate, the cruel persecuting Popes and Papists, Gog and Magog, shall all appear at once before the judgment-seat of Christ. They and the saints who have in every age been persecuted by them, shall come in sight one of another, and must confront one another now before the great Judge. Now shall the saints on their glorious thrones be made the judges of those unjust kings and rulers who have before judged and condemned them, and cruelly put them to death. Now shall those persecutors behold the glory to which they are arrived whom they before so cruelly despised, and so cruelly used; and Christ will make those holy martyrs as it were to come and set their feet on the necks of their persecutors; they shall be made their footstool.

Thus wonderfully will the face of things be altered from what used to be in the former times of the world; now will all things be coming to rights.

4. The righteousness of the church shall be manifested, and all the wickedness of their enemies shall be brought to light. Those saints who had been the objects of hatred, reproach, and contempt in the world, and were reviled and condemned by their persecutors without cause, shall now be fully vindicated. They shall now appear clothed with the glorious robe of Christ's righteousness. It shall be most manifest before the world, that Christ's righteousness is theirs and they shall as it were gloriously shine forth in it. Then also shall their inherent holiness be made manifest, and all their good works shall be brought to light. The good things which they did in secret shall now be manifested openly. Those holy ones of God, who had been treated as though they were the filth and offscouring of the earth, as though they were not fit to live upon earth, as worse than beasts or devils, shall now, when things shall appear as they are, appear to have been the excellent of the earth. Now God will bring forth their righteousness as the light, and their judgment as the noonday. Now it shall appear who were those wicked persons that were not fit to live, when all the wickedness of the enemies of Christ and his church, their pride, their malice, their cruelty, their hatred of true religion, shall be set forth in all the horrid acts of it, and with all its aggravations in its proper colours.

Now the righteous may be heard before this great Judge, who could not be heard before those unjust judges. Now they shall declare their cause, and shall rise up in judgment against their persecutors, and shall declare how they have been treated by them. Now all the wickedness of the wicked of the whole world shall be brought to light. All their secret wickedness, and their very hearts, shall be opened to the view, and as it were turned inside out before the bright light of that great day: and things that have been spoken in the ear, in the closet, and done in the dark, shall be manifested in the light, and proclaimed before all angels and men that are, ever were, or shall be.

5. The sentence shall be pronounced on the righteous and the wicked. Christ, the glorious judge, shall pass that blessed sentence on the church at his right hand, "Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world." This sentence shall be pronounced with infinite love, and the voice will be most sweet, causing every heart to flow with joy. Thus Christ shall pronounce a sentence of justification on thousands and millions, who have before had a sentence of condemnation passed upon them by their persecuting rulers. He will thus put honor upon those who have been before despised: he will own them for his, and will as it were put a crown of glory upon their heads before the world; and then shall they shine forth as the sun with Jesus Christ in glory and joy, in the sight of all their enemies.

Then shall the sentence of condemnation be passed on the wicked, "Depart, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels." Thus shall the church's enemies be condemned; in which sentence of condemnation, the holy martyrs, who have suffered from them, shall concur. When the words of this sentence are pronounced, they will strike every heart of those at the left hand with inconceivable horror and amazement. Every syllable of it will be more terrible than a stream of lightning through their hearts. We can conceive but very little of those signs and expressions of horror which there will be upon it, of shrieking, quaking, gnashing of teeth, distortions of countenance, hideous looks, hideous actions, and hideous voices, through all that vast throng.

6. Upon this Christ and all his church of saints, and all the holy angels ministering to them, shall leave this lower world, and ascend up towards the highest heavens. Christ shall ascend in as great glory as he descended, and in some respects greater: for now he shall ascend with his elect church with him, glorified in both body and soul. Christ's first ascension to heaven soon after his own resurrection was very glorious. But this his second ascension, the ascension of his mystical body, his whole church, shall be far more glorious. The redeemed church shall all ascend with him in a most joyful and triumphant manner; and all their enemies and persecutors, who shall be left behind on the accursed ground to be consumed, shall see the sight, and hear their songs.

Thus Christ's church shall forever leave this accursed world, to go into that more glorious world, the highest heavens, into the paradise of God, the kingdom that was prepared for them from the foundation of the world.

7. When they are gone, this world shall be set on fire, and be turned into a great furnace, wherein all the enemies of Christ and his church shall be tormented forever and ever. This is manifest by 2 Peter 3:7. "But the heavens and the earth which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment, and perdition of ungodly men." When Christ and his church are ascended to a distance from this world, that miserable company of wicked being left behind to have their sentence executed upon them here, then, some way or other, this whole lower world shall be set on fire, either by fire from heaven, or by fire breaking out of the bowels of the earth, or both, as it was with the water in the time of the deluge. However, this lower world shall be set all on fire. How will it strike the wicked with horror, when the fire begins to lay hold upon them, and they find no way to escape it, or flee or hide from it! What shrieking and crying will there be among those many thousands and millions, when they begin to enter into that great furnace, when the whole world shall be a furnace of the fiercest and most raging heat! Insomuch that the Apostle Peter says, (2 Peter 3:10, 12), that "the heavens shall pass away with great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein, shall be burnt up;" and that the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat." So fierce shall be its heat, that it shall burn the earth into its very center: which seems to be what is meant, Deuteronomy 32:22. "For a fire is kindled in my anger, and shall burn unto the lowest hell, and shall consume the earth with her increase, and set on fire the foundations of the mountains."

Here shall all the persecutors of the church of God burn in everlasting fire, who have before burnt the saints at the stake, and shall suffer torments far beyond all that their utmost wit and malice could inflict on the saints. Here the bodies of all the wicked shall burn, and be tormented to all eternity, and never be consumed; and the wrath of God shall be poured out on their souls. Though the souls of the wicked in hell do now suffer dreadful punishment, yea their punishment will be increased at the day of judgment, that what they suffered before, is, in comparison of it, as an imprisonment to the execution which follows it. Now the devil, that old serpent, shall receive his full punishment; now shall that which he before trembled for fear of, fully come upon him. This world, which formerly used to be the place of his kingdom, where he set up himself as God, shall now be the place of his complete punishment, and full and everlasting torment.

In this, one design of the work of redemption which has been mentioned, namely putting Christ's enemies under his feet, shall be perfectly accomplished. His enemies shall now be made his footstool, in the fullest degree. Now shall be the most perfect fulfillment of that in Genesis 3:15. "It shall bruise thy head."

8. At the same time, all the church shall enter with Christ, their glorious Lord, into the highest heaven, and there shall enter on the state of their highest and eternal blessedness and glory. While the lower world, which they left under their feet, is seized with the fire of God's vengeance, and flames are kindling upon it, and the wicked are entering into everlasting fire, the whole church shall enter, with their glorious head, and all the holy angels attending, in a joyful manner, into the eternal paradise of God, the palace of the great Jehovah, their heavenly Father. The gates shall open wide for them to enter, and there Christ will bring them into his chambers in the highest sense. He will bring them into his Father's house, into a world not like that which they have left. Here Christ will bring them, and present them in glory to his Father, saying, "Here am I, and the children which thou hast given me;" as much as to say, Here am I, with every one of those whom thou gavest me from eternity to take the care of, that they might be redeemed and glorified, and to redeem whom I have done and suffered so much, and to make way for the redemption of whom I have for so many ages been accomplishing such great changes. Here they are now perfectly redeemed in body and soul; I have perfectly delivered them from all the ill fruits of the fall, and perfectly freed them from all their enemies: I have brought them all together into one glorious society: and united them all in myself: I have openly justified them before all angels and men, and here I have brought them all away from that accursed world where they have suffered so much, and have brought them before thy throne: I have done all that for them which thou hast appointed me: I have perfectly cleansed them from all filthiness in my blood, and here they are in perfect holiness, shining with thy perfect image.

Then the Father will accept of them, and own them all for his children, and will welcome them to the eternal and perfect inheritance and glory of his house, and will on this occasion give more glorious manifestations of his love than ever before, and will admit them to a more full and perfect enjoyment of himself.

And now shall be the marriage of the Lamb in the most perfect sense. The commencement of the glorious times of the church on earth, after the fall of Antichrist, is represented as the marriage of the Lamb; and this shall be the marriage of the Lamb in the highest sense that ever shall be on earth: but after this we read of another marriage of the Lamb, at the close of the day of judgment. After the beloved disciple had given an account of the day of judgment, in the close of the twentieth chapter of Revelation, then he proceeds to give an account of what follows, in the twenty-first and twenty-second chapters; and in the second verse of the twenty-first chapter, he gives an account, that he saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And when Christ shall bring his church into his Father's house in heaven, after the judgment, he shall bring her thither as his bride, having there presented her, whom he loved, and gave himself for, to himself without spot or wrinkle, or any such thing.

The bridegroom and the bride shall then enter into heaven, both having on their wedding robes, attended with all the glorious angels. And there they enter on the feast and joys of their marriage before the Father; they shall then begin an everlasting wedding day. This shall be the day of the gladness of Christ's heart, wherein he will greatly rejoice, and all the saints shall rejoice with them. Christ shall rejoice over his bride, and the bride shall rejoice in her husband, in the state of her consummate and everlasting blessedness, of which we have a particular description in the twenty-first and twenty-second chapters of Revelation.

Now the whole work of redemption is finished. We have seen how it has been carried on from the fall of man to this time. But now it is complete with respect to all that belongs to it. Now the top stone of the building is laid. In the progress of the discourse on this subject, we have followed the church of God in all the great changes, all her tossings to and fro that she has been subject to, in all the storms and tempests through the many ages of the world, till at length we have seen an end to all these storms. We have seen her enter the harbor, and landed in the highest heavens, in complete and eternal glory, in all her members, soul and body. We have gone through time, and the several ages of it, as the providence of God, and the word of God, have led us; and now we have issued into eternity after time shall be no more. We have seen all the church's enemies fixed in endless misery, and have seen the church presented in her perfect redemption before the Father in heaven, there to enjoy this most unspeakable and inconceivable glory and blessedness; and there we leave her to enjoy this glory throughout the never-ending ages of eternity.

Now all Christ's enemies will be perfectly put under his feet, and he shall have his most perfect triumph over sin and Satan, and all his instruments, and death, and hell. Now shall all the promises made to Christ by God the Father before the foundation of the world, the promises of the covenant of redemption, be fully accomplished. Christ shall now perfectly have obtained the joy that was set before him, for which he undertook those great sufferings which he underwent in his state of humiliation. Now shall all the hopes and expectations of the saints be fulfilled. The state of things that the church was in before, was a progressive and preparatory state: but now she is arrived to her most perfect state of glory. All the glory of the glorious times of the church on earth is but a faint shadow of her consummate glory in heaven.

Now Christ the great Redeemer shall be most perfectly glorified, and God the Father shall be glorified in him, and the Holy Ghost shall be most fully glorified in the perfection of his work upon the hearts of all the church. And now shall that new heaven and new earth, or that renewed state of things, which have been building up ever since Christ's resurrection, be completely finished, after every material frame of the old heavens and the old earth are destroyed: Revelation 21:1. "And I saw a new heaven, and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away." Now will the great Redeemer have perfected everything that appertains to the work of redemption, which we began so soon after the fall of man. And who can conceive of the triumph of those praises which shall be sung in heaven on this great occasion, so much greater than that of the fall of Antichrist, which occasions such praises as we have described in the nineteenth chapter of Revelation! The beloved disciple John seems to want expressions to describe those praises, and says, "It was as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of mighty thunderings, saying, Alleluia, for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth." But much more inexpressible will those praises be, which will be sung in heaven after the final consummation of all things. How shall the praises of that vast and glorious multitude be as mighty thunderings indeed.

Now how are all the former things passed away, and what a glorious state are things fixed in to remain to all eternity! As Christ, when he first entered upon the work of redemption after the fall of man, had the kingdom committed to him of the Father, and took on himself the administration of the affairs of the universe, to manage all so as to subserve the purposes of this affair; so now, the work being finished, he will deliver up the kingdom to God even the Father. 1 Corinthians 15:24, "Then comes the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall have put down all rule, and all authority and power." Not that Christ should cease to reign or have a kingdom after this; for it is said, Luke 1:33, "He shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever, and of his kingdom there shall be no end." So in Daniel 7:14, "That his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed." But the meaning is, that Christ shall deliver up that kingdom or dominion which he has over the world, as the Father's delegate or vicegerent, which the Father committed to him, to be managed in subserviency to this great design of redemption. The end of this commission, or delegation, which he had from the Father, seems to be to subserve this particular design of redemption; and therefore, when that design is fully accomplished, the commission will cease, and Christ will deliver it up to the Father, from whom he received it.

I have now shown how the success of Christ's redemption has been accomplished throughout the duration of the Christian church under the means of grace. We have seen the great revolutions that have occurred and are yet to come during this span of time — how the great wheels of providence have turned for the accomplishment of that kind of success of Christ's purchase which consists in the bestowal of grace on the elect. And now in our survey we have arrived at the time when all the wheels have completed their turning, the course of this state of things is finished, and everything is ready for Christ's coming to judgment.

You may recall that when I began to discuss this third proposition — that from the resurrection of Christ to the end of the world, the entire time is devoted to bringing about the success and effect of Christ's purchase of redemption — I observed that the success of Christ's purchase is of two kinds: consisting either in grace or in glory. The success consisting in grace is seen in God's works during the ages when the church continues under the means of grace. The success consisting in glory will be chiefly accomplished at the day of judgment.

Having now shown how the first kind of success — grace — has been accomplished, I turn to the second: the kind of success accomplished in the bestowal of glory on the church, which will chiefly occur at the day of judgment. I want to make two or three general observations about this kind of success of Christ's purchase.

1. The greatness of the success of Christ's purchase is most clearly seen here. The success of Christ's purchase ultimately consists in the salvation of the elect. And this bestowal of glory is preeminently called their salvation. Hebrews 9:28: "So Christ also, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time for salvation without reference to sin, to those who eagerly await Him." It is also called redemption, being the thing in which the redemption of the church most fully consists — as in Ephesians 4:30: "sealed for the day of redemption," and Luke 21:28, and Ephesians 1:14: "the redemption of God's own possession."

2. Everything before this — while the church is under the means of grace — is only preparing the way for the success that will be accomplished in the bestowal of glory. The means of grace are designed to prepare people for glory, and God's grace itself is given to the elect to make them fit for glory.

3. All the glorious things accomplished for the church while she is under the means of grace are only images and shadows of this final glory. This is true of the glorious things accomplished for the church in the days of Constantine the Great, and it is true of all the glory to be accomplished in the glorious age of the church that follows the fall of Antichrist. Great as that glory will be, it is all only a shadow of what will be bestowed at the day of judgment. That is why, as I have already noted many times, all those preceding events through which God did glorious things for His church are described in Scripture as images of Christ's final coming to judgment.

But I will proceed more specifically to show how this kind of success of Christ's purchase will be accomplished.

1. Christ will appear in the glory of His Father, with all His holy angels, coming in the clouds of heaven. When the world is reveling in its wickedness, surrounding the holy city and just about to destroy it, and when the church has been brought to such a desperate situation, then the glorious Redeemer will appear. He through whom this redemption has been carried forward through all the ages will appear visibly to the world. The light of His glory will break forth, and the entire world will immediately become aware of it. People will look up and behold this astonishing sight. "Every eye will see Him" (Revelation 1:7). Christ will appear in His human nature — in that same body that was born in a stable and laid in a manger, and that was afterward so cruelly treated and nailed to the cross.

People will look up and see Him coming in such majesty and glory as we can barely conceive of now. The brightness of the sun in a clear sky will seem like darkness in comparison, and all the glorious angels and archangels will attend Him — thousands of thousands ministering to Him, ten thousand times ten thousand surrounding Him. How different a person He will appear from what He was at His first coming, when He was "a root out of dry ground," a poor, despised, suffering man! How different His appearance now — surrounded by glorious angels, principalities, and powers in the heavenly realms, attending Him as His servants — from when He stood encircled by soldiers in His mock robe and crown of thorns to be struck and spat upon, or when He hung on the cross between two thieves with a crowd of enemies mocking Him!

This sight will come as a complete shock to the wicked world — like a cry in the middle of the night. It will catch them in the middle of their wickedness and fill them with dread. It will instantly break up their revelries, their eating and drinking and celebrating. It will immediately put an end to the campaign of the great army then surrounding the camp of the saints, making them drop their weapons. The world at that time will be very densely populated, and most of those people will be wicked. The earth will be filled with agonized screaming and crying — for "all the tribes of the earth will mourn over Him" (Revelation 1:7). Where will they hide? How terrifying will the sight of that awesome majesty be to people caught in the middle of their wickedness? Then they will see who He is — what kind of person He is — whom they mocked and scoffed at, and whose church they were trying to destroy. That sight will change their voices. The sounds of their laughter and singing as they were marrying and making merry, and the sounds of their scoffing, will turn into hideous, hellish screaming. Their faces will change from expressions of worldly pleasure, arrogant pride, and contempt for God's people to expressions of ghastly terror and astonishment — trembling and chattering of teeth will seize them.

But for the saints — the church of Christ — this will be a joyful and most glorious sight. In an instant it will deliver them from all fear of their enemies, who had just been surrounding them on the verge of destroying them. Deliverance will come in their darkest hour. The glorious Captain of their salvation will appear for them at a time when no other help was in sight. They will then lift up their heads, for their redemption will be drawing near (Luke 21:28). Christ will appear with infinite majesty, and yet at the same time they will see infinite love in His face toward them. To see their Redeemer coming in the clouds of heaven will fill their hearts with joy. Their faces will also be changed — but not as the faces of the wicked. They will change from sorrow to overflowing joy and triumph. Now the work of redemption will be finished in another sense: the entire church will be completely and eternally freed from all persecution and harassment from wicked people and demons.

2. The last trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised and the living transformed. God once sent out His angels with the sound of a trumpet to gather His elect from the four corners of the earth in a figurative sense — before the destruction of Jerusalem — that is, He sent out the apostles and others to preach the Gospel throughout the world. In a similar figurative sense the great trumpet was blown at the beginning of the glorious age of the church. But now the great trumpet is blown in a more literal sense, with a mighty sound that shakes the earth. A great signal will be given by a mighty sound called "the voice of the archangel" — as the angel of greatest power. 1 Thessalonians 4:16: "For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God." At the sound of the great trumpet, the dead will be raised everywhere. The number of the dead at that point will be enormous. Death has been cutting people down ever since the world began. But by that time the number will be vastly greater still, since the world will have stood so much longer, and through most of the remaining time will no doubt have been far more densely populated than it has ever been. All of them will now rise from the dead. Graves will be opened everywhere in every part of the world, and the sea will give up the countless dead within it (Revelation 20:13).

Now all who ever lived on the face of the earth — from the beginning of the world to that time — will appear on earth at once. All who ever belonged to the church of God in every age will be there: Adam and Eve, the first parents of humanity; Abel, Seth, and Methuselah, and all the saints who lived alongside them; Noah, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and the prophets of Israel; the saints in the time of Antiochus Epiphanes and all who belonged to the church in their day; all the holy apostles of Jesus Christ and all the saints of their time; all the holy martyrs under the ten pagan persecutions. All who belonged to the church in its wilderness state during the dark times of Antichrist, and all the holy martyrs who suffered under the cruelty of Roman Catholic persecution; and all the saints of the present time, and all who are in this assembly among the rest, and all who will live from now until the end of the world. And all the enemies of the church who ever existed in any age will also appear on the face of the earth again: all the wicked who perished in the flood, and the multitudes who died throughout the world among God's professing people and others; all who died in the pagan nations before Christ, and all wicked pagans, Jews, Muslims, and Roman Catholics who have died since. Every kind of sinner will be there: the outwardly respectable hypocrite, the openly godless drunk, the sexually immoral, heretics, Deists, all cruel persecutors, and all who have died or will die in their sins among us.

At the same time the dead are raised, the living will be transformed. The bodies of the wicked still living at that time will be changed to make them fit for eternal punishment without ever decaying. And the bodies of all the living saints will be transformed to be like Christ's glorious body (1 Corinthians 15:51-53). The bodies of the saints will be so changed that they will be forever incapable of pain, affliction, or discomfort. All dullness and every deformity their bodies once had will be stripped away, and they will be clothed with strength, beauty, vitality, and incorruptible, unfading glory. In such glory will the bodies of all the risen saints appear.

Now the work of redemption will be finished in yet another respect: all the elect will at last be actually redeemed in both soul and body. Before this moment, the work of redemption in its actual results had been incomplete — only the souls of the redeemed had been actually saved and glorified, with a few exceptions. But now all the bodies of the saints will be saved and glorified together. The elect will be glorified in the whole person, soul and body united.

3. The entire church of saints will now be caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, while all wicked people and demons will be arraigned before the judgment seat. When the dead saints are raised, the entire church — all the elect through all ages — will be standing together on the face of the earth, at least all except the few whose bodies were glorified before. Then they will all rise up into the air, as with wings, to meet Christ. It appears that Christ, when He comes to judgment, will not come all the way down to the ground, but will establish His throne in the air in the region of the clouds, from where He can be seen by all the vast multitude gathered before Him. The church of saints will therefore be taken up from the earth to ascend to their Savior. The apostle tells us that when the dead in Christ are raised and the living transformed, those who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them to meet the Lord in the air, and so they will always be with the Lord (1 Thessalonians 4:16-17). What a wonderful sight that will be — when all those many millions of saints are seen rising up from every part of the world!

Then the work of redemption will be finished in another respect: the entire church will be perfectly and forever delivered from this present evil world, leaving this cursed ground behind for good. They will take their eternal leave of this earth — where they have been strangers, where for the most part they have known trouble and sorrow, where the devil has mostly reigned as god and caused them great misery, which has been a scene of wickedness and abomination, where Christ their Lord was cruelly treated, and where they have been hated, slandered, and persecuted age after age through most of world history. They will leave it beneath their feet as they go to Christ and never set foot on it again. An eternal separation will be made between them and the wicked. Before this they were mixed together, and in many cases it was impossible to tell which was which — but now all will become visible. Both saints and sinners will appear in their true character.

Then the entire church will be seen streaming together in the air toward the place where Christ has fixed His throne — coming from east and west, north and south, to stand at Christ's right hand. What an enormous company it will be! Think of all who have ever belonged to the church of God: all who lived before Christ, all the multitude of saints in the apostles' time, all who lived in the days of Constantine the Great, all who lived before and since the Reformation, all the vast number of saints in the glorious age of the church when the whole earth will be filled with believers for so many generations, and all those living when Christ comes. What an immense gathering they will form as they all stream together in the region of the clouds at Christ's right hand!

Then the work of redemption will also be finished in yet another respect: the entire church will be gathered together. They had always belonged to one society, but had been greatly separated by where they lived — some in heaven, some on earth; and those on earth were separated from each other, many by vast oceans and great continents. But now they will all be gathered together, never to be separated again. Not only will all members of the church be gathered together, but all will be gathered to their Head — into His immediate and glorious presence — never to be separated from Him again. This had never happened before.

At the same time, all wicked people and demons will be brought before the judgment seat of Christ. They will be gathered to Christ's left hand and, as it appears, will remain on the earth — not caught up into the air as the saints will be. The devil — that ancient serpent — will be dragged up out of hell. He who first brought about the fall and misery of humanity, and so set himself against their redemption, and who throughout all of history has shown himself to be such a bitter enemy of the Redeemer — he will never again have anything to do with the church of God, or be permitted to afflict or trouble any member of it in any way, ever again. Instead, he must now be judged and receive the full penalty for his deeds. Now has come the time he has always dreaded and trembled to think about — the time when he must be judged and receive his complete punishment. He who through his temptation maliciously caused Christ's crucifixion, and triumphed over it as though he had won the victory — he will now see the consequences of the death of Christ he brought about. Christ's coming to judge him in His human nature is itself a consequence of that death, for Christ won and purchased this glory for Himself through that very death. Now he must stand before that same Jesus whose death he engineered — to be judged, condemned, and eternally destroyed by Him. If Satan, the prince of hell, trembled at the thought of it thousands of years before — how much more will he tremble, proud and stubborn as he is, when he actually stands at Christ's bar!

He will also stand at the bar of the saints whom he has so hated, afflicted, and harassed — for the saints will judge him alongside Christ. 1 Corinthians 6:3: "Do you not know that we will judge angels?" Now he will in a sense be crushed under the feet of the church, in keeping with Romans 16:20. When Satan first tempted our first parents to fall, he deceitfully and falsely told them they would become like gods. Little did he imagine that the consequence would be that they would actually be so much like God as to sit with God in judgment over him. Even less did he anticipate that the consequence would be that one from the very nature he tempted — one of the descendants of those he tempted — would actually be united to God, and that as God He would judge the world, and that Satan himself would stand trembling and astonished before His judgment seat. But so it will be: all the demons in hell who have so opposed Christ and His kingdom will at last stand in absolute horror and amazement before Christ and His church as sentence is pronounced against them.

Now all Christ's other enemies will also be brought to appear before Him. The proud scribes and Pharisees who held such malignant hatred toward Christ during His humiliation — who persecuted Him to death, before whose judgment seat Christ once stood as a criminal at their bar, and who mocked Him, struck Him, and spat in His face — they will now see Christ in His glory, just as Christ warned them in that very moment (Matthew 26:64-65). Then Christ stood before their judgment seat. But now it is their turn. They will stand before His judgment seat with inconceivable horror and amazement — with ghastly faces, trembling limbs, chattering teeth, and knees knocking together.

All the cruel enemies and persecutors of the church from every age will appear together. Pharaoh and the Egyptians, Antiochus Epiphanes, the persecuting scribes and Pharisees, the persecuting pagan emperors, Julian the Apostate, the cruel persecuting Popes and Roman Catholics, Gog and Magog — all will appear at once before the judgment seat of Christ. They and the saints who were persecuted by them in every age will come face to face and must confront one another before the great Judge. The saints on their glorious thrones will now be made judges over those unjust kings and rulers who previously judged and condemned them and cruelly put them to death. Those persecutors will behold the glory of those whom they once so cruelly despised and mistreated. Christ will cause those holy martyrs to come and place their feet on the necks of their persecutors — they will be made their footstool.

How wonderfully different will everything be from how it was in the former ages of the world. Now all things will be set right.

4. The righteousness of the church will be made clear for all to see, and all the wickedness of their enemies will be brought to light. The saints who had been objects of hatred, contempt, and slander in the world — who were slandered and condemned by their persecutors without cause — will now be fully vindicated. They will appear clothed with the glorious robe of Christ's righteousness. It will be plainly evident to all the world that Christ's righteousness is theirs, and they will shine forth in it gloriously. Their genuine holiness will also be made plain, and all their good works will be brought to light. The good things they did in secret will now be made openly known. Those holy ones of God who had been treated as though they were the filth and scum of the earth — as though they were unfit to live, worse than animals or demons — will now, when things appear as they truly are, be revealed as the noblest people on earth. God will bring forth their righteousness as the light, and their vindication as the noonday sun. Then it will be clear who were truly the ones unfit to live, when all the wickedness of the enemies of Christ and His church — their pride, their hatred, their cruelty, their contempt for true religion — is set forth in all its hideous detail and in its true nature.

Now the righteous will be heard before this great Judge — they who could not be heard before those unjust judges. They will declare their cause, rise up in judgment against their persecutors, and testify to how they were treated. Now all the wickedness of the wicked throughout the entire world will be brought to light. All their secret sins and the contents of their very hearts will be opened for examination, turned inside out as it were before the blazing light of that great day. Things spoken in private, in secret rooms, and done in darkness will be exposed in the light and proclaimed before all angels and people who are, ever were, or ever will be.

5. The sentence will be pronounced on the righteous and the wicked. Christ, the glorious Judge, will pronounce that blessed sentence on the church at His right hand: "Come, you who are blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world." This sentence will be pronounced with infinite love, and the voice will be most sweet, causing every heart to overflow with joy. Christ will thus pronounce a sentence of justification on thousands and millions who previously had sentences of condemnation pronounced on them by their persecuting rulers. He will honor those who had been despised: He will own them as His, will place a crown of glory on their heads before the entire world, and they will then shine forth as the sun — with Jesus Christ in glory and joy — in full view of all their enemies.

Then the sentence of condemnation will be passed on the wicked: "Depart from Me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels." This sentence will condemn the church's enemies — a sentence in which the holy martyrs who suffered from them will concur. When the words of this sentence are spoken, they will strike every heart on the left with inconceivable horror and dread. Every syllable will strike those hearts more terribly than a bolt of lightning. We can barely imagine the expressions of horror that will fill that vast crowd — the screaming, the trembling, the gnashing of teeth, the contorted faces, the hideous looks, the hideous sounds.

6. After this, Christ and all His church of saints, with all the holy angels ministering to them, will leave this lower world and ascend toward the highest heavens. Christ will ascend in glory as great as — and in some respects greater than — His descent: for now He will ascend with His elect church with Him, glorified in both body and soul. Christ's first ascension to heaven shortly after His own resurrection was very glorious. But this second ascension — the ascension of His mystical body, His whole church — will be far more glorious. The redeemed church will all ascend with Him in most joyful and triumphant fashion, while all their enemies and persecutors — left behind on the cursed ground to face destruction — will watch them go and hear their songs.

So Christ's church will forever leave this cursed world to enter that more glorious world — the highest heavens, the paradise of God, the kingdom prepared for them from the foundation of the world.

7. After they have ascended, this world will be set on fire and turned into a great furnace in which all the enemies of Christ and His church will be tormented forever. This is made clear by 2 Peter 3:7: "But by His word the present heavens and earth are being reserved for fire, kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men." After Christ and His church have ascended to a distance from this world, leaving that miserable company of the wicked behind to have their sentence carried out, this entire lower world will be set ablaze — whether by fire from heaven, or by fire breaking out from within the earth, or both, as happened with the waters in the time of the flood. However it comes, this lower world will be consumed by fire. How the wicked will be struck with horror when the fire begins to seize them and they find no way to escape, flee, or hide from it! What screaming and crying will there be among those many millions when they begin to enter that great furnace — when the whole world becomes a furnace of the fiercest and most intense heat! The apostle Peter says (2 Peter 3:10, 12) that "the heavens will pass away with a roar and the elements will be destroyed with intense heat, and the earth and its works will be burned up" and that "the heavens will be destroyed by burning and the elements will melt with intense heat." So fierce will the heat be that it will burn through the earth to its very core — which seems to be what Deuteronomy 32:22 means: "For a fire is kindled in My anger, and burns to the lowest part of Sheol, and consumes the earth with its yield, and sets on fire the foundations of the mountains."

Here all the persecutors of the church of God will burn in everlasting fire — they who once burned the saints at the stake — suffering torments far beyond anything their most cruel ingenuity could inflict on the saints. Here the bodies of all the wicked will burn, tormented to all eternity, never consumed. And God's wrath will be poured out on their souls as well. Though the souls of the wicked in hell already suffer dreadful punishment, their punishment will be intensified at the day of judgment — so much so that what they suffered before is, by comparison, like imprisonment compared to the execution that follows. Now the devil — that ancient serpent — will receive his full punishment. Now the thing he has always trembled to think about will fully come upon him. This world, which was formerly the seat of his kingdom — where he set himself up as God — will now be the place of his complete punishment and endless torment.

In this, one of the purposes of the work of redemption mentioned earlier — putting Christ's enemies under His feet — will be perfectly accomplished. His enemies will now be made His footstool in the fullest sense. Now will come the most perfect fulfillment of Genesis 3:15: "He shall bruise you on the head."

8. At the same time, all the church will enter with Christ their glorious Lord into the highest heaven, and there will begin the state of their highest and eternal blessedness and glory. While the lower world they left beneath their feet is seized by the fire of God's judgment — flames kindling across it, the wicked entering into everlasting fire — the whole church will enter joyfully with their glorious Head and all the holy angels attending them into the eternal paradise of God, the palace of the great God, their heavenly Father. The gates will open wide for them to enter, and there Christ will bring them into His chambers in the fullest sense. He will bring them into His Father's house — a world nothing like the one they have left. Here Christ will present them in glory to His Father, saying in effect: "Here I am, and the children You gave Me" — meaning, Here I am with every one of those You gave Me from eternity to care for, so that they might be redeemed and glorified. To redeem them I have done and suffered so much, and to make way for their redemption I have been bringing about such great changes across so many ages. Here they are, now perfectly redeemed in body and soul. I have perfectly delivered them from all the consequences of the fall and perfectly freed them from all their enemies. I have gathered them all together into one glorious society and united them all in Myself. I have openly justified them before all angels and humanity, and I have brought them all away from that cursed world where they suffered so much, and have brought them before Your throne. I have done everything for them that You appointed Me to do. I have perfectly cleansed them from all filth in My blood, and here they are in perfect holiness, shining with Your perfect image.

Then the Father will receive them all, own them all as His children, and welcome them to the eternal and perfect inheritance and glory of His house. On this occasion He will give more glorious expressions of His love than ever before and will admit them to a fuller and more perfect enjoyment of Himself.

Now will come the marriage of the Lamb in the most complete sense. The beginning of the glorious age of the church on earth after the fall of Antichrist is represented as the marriage of the Lamb, and that will be the highest form of the marriage of the Lamb that ever takes place on earth — but after this we read of another marriage of the Lamb at the close of the day of judgment. After the apostle John gave his account of the day of judgment at the close of Revelation 20, he proceeds to describe what follows in chapters 21 and 22. In Revelation 21:2 he gives an account of seeing the holy city, the new Jerusalem, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. When Christ brings His church into His Father's house in heaven after the judgment, He will bring her there as His bride — having at last presented to Himself the one He loved and gave Himself for, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing.

The bridegroom and the bride will enter heaven together, both clothed in their wedding garments, attended by all the glorious angels. There they will enter into the feast and joy of their marriage before the Father, and an everlasting wedding day will begin. This will be the day of Christ's great rejoicing — the gladness of His heart — and all the saints will rejoice with Him. Christ will rejoice over His bride, and the bride will rejoice in her husband, in the state of her perfect and everlasting blessedness — described in detail in Revelation 21 and 22.

Now the entire work of redemption is finished. We have traced how it was carried forward from the fall of humanity to this moment. Now it is complete in every respect. The capstone of the building is laid. Through this entire study we have followed the church of God through all its great changes, all its tossings back and forth, all the storms and tempests across so many ages of the world — until at last we have seen an end to all those storms. We have seen her enter the harbor and land in the highest heavens, in complete and eternal glory, all her members whole in soul and body. We have journeyed through time and its various ages, guided by God's providence and God's word, and now we have arrived in eternity — after time is no more. We have seen all the church's enemies fixed in endless misery, and we have seen the church presented in her perfect redemption before the Father in heaven, there to enjoy glory beyond all words and thought. And there we leave her to enjoy this glory throughout the never-ending ages of eternity.

Now all Christ's enemies will be perfectly placed under His feet, and He will have His most perfect triumph over sin and Satan, and all Satan's instruments, and death, and hell. Now all the promises made to Christ by God the Father before the foundation of the world — the promises of the covenant of redemption — will be fully accomplished. Christ will now perfectly have obtained the joy that was set before Him, for which He undertook the great sufferings of His state of humiliation. Now all the hopes and expectations of the saints will be fulfilled. The state the church had been in before was one of progress and preparation — but now she has arrived at her most perfect state of glory. All the glory of the church's glorious age on earth is only a faint shadow of her consummate glory in heaven.

Now Christ the great Redeemer will be most perfectly glorified. God the Father will be glorified in Him. And the Holy Spirit will be most fully glorified in the perfection of His work in the hearts of all the church. And now that new heaven and new earth — that renewed state of things that has been building since Christ's resurrection — will be completely finished, after every element of the old heavens and old earth is destroyed. Revelation 21:1: "Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth passed away." Now the great Redeemer will have completed everything belonging to the work of redemption that began so soon after the fall of humanity. Who can conceive of the triumphant praises that will be sung in heaven on this great occasion — praises so much greater than those sung at the fall of Antichrist, which already occasioned praises like those described in Revelation 19! The apostle John seems to lack words to describe those praises and says: "It was like the sound of many waters and like the sound of loud thunder, saying, 'Hallelujah! For the Lord our God, the Almighty, reigns.'" But the praises sung in heaven after the final completion of all things will be even more inexpressible. How those praises from that vast and glorious multitude will be like mighty thunderings indeed.

Now how completely all former things have passed away, and what a glorious state has been established to remain for all eternity! Just as Christ, when He first entered into the work of redemption after the fall of humanity, was given the kingdom by the Father and took on Himself the administration of all the affairs of the universe — managing everything to serve the purposes of this redemptive work — so now, the work being finished, He will deliver up the kingdom to God the Father. 1 Corinthians 15:24: "Then comes the end, when He hands over the kingdom to the God and Father, when He has abolished all rule and all authority and power." This does not mean Christ will cease to reign or have a kingdom after this — for Luke 1:33 says "He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and His kingdom will have no end." And Daniel 7:14: "His dominion is an everlasting dominion which will not pass away; and His kingdom is one which will not be destroyed." Rather, the meaning is that Christ will surrender the particular kingdom and authority He holds over the world as the Father's appointed representative — the administration committed to Him to serve the great design of redemption. The purpose of this commission from the Father was to accomplish this specific work of redemption. When that design is fully completed, the commission will end, and Christ will return it to the Father from whom He received it.