It is perfectly plain, from the elevated central point of view where we now stand, and in the focal light in which we now see, that no man can be justified before God upon the ground of personal character; for that character, when subjected to God’s exhaustive scrutiny, withers and shrinks away.  A man may possibly be just before his neighbor, or his friend, or society, or human laws, but he is miserably self-deceived who supposes that his heart will appear righteous under such a scrutiny and in such a Presence as we have been considering.[1] However it may be before other tribunals, the apostle is correct when he asserts that “every mouth, must be stopped, and the whole world plead guilty before God.”  Before the Searcher of hearts, all mankind must appeal to mere and sovereign mercy.  Justice, in this reference, is out of the question.

Now, in this condition of things, God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him might not perish, but have everlasting life.  The Divine mercy has been manifested in a mode that does not permit even the guiltiest to doubt its reality, its sufficiency, or its sincerity.  The argument is this.  “If when, we were yet sinners,” and known to be such, in the perfect and exhaustive manner that has been described, “Christ died for us, much more, being now justified by His blood, shall we be saved from Wrath through Him.”  Appropriating this atonement which the Searcher of hearts has Himself provided for this very exigency, and which He knows to be thoroughly adequate, no man, however guilty, need fear the most complete disclosures which the Divine Omniscience will have to make of human character in the day of doom.  If the guilt is “infinite upon infinite,” so is the sacrifice of the God-man.  Who is he that condemmeth? it is the Son of God that died for sin.  Who shall lay anything to God’s elect? it is God that justifieth.  And as God shall, in the last day, summon up from the deep places of our souls all of our sins, and bring us to a strict account for everything, even to the idle words that we have spoken, we can look Him full in the eye, without a thought of fear, and with love unutterable, if we are really relying upon the atoning sacrifice of Christ for justification.  Even in that awful Presence, and under that Omniscient scrutiny, “there is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus.”

The great lesson, then, taught by the text and its unfolding, is the importance of attaining self-knowledge here upon earth, and while there remaineth a sacrifice for sins.  The duty and wisdom of every man is, to anticipate the revelations of the judgment day; to find out the sin of his soul, while it is an accepted time and a day of salvation.  For we have seen that this self-inspection cannot ultimately be escaped.  Man was made to know himself, and he must sooner or later come to it.  Self-knowledge is as certain, in the end, as death.  The utmost that can be done, is to postpone it for a few days, or years.  The article of death and the exchange of worlds will pour it all in, like a deluge, upon every man, whether he will or not.  And he who does not wake up to a knowledge of his heart, until he enters eternity, wakes up not to pardon but to despair.