We must all be manifested before the tribunal of Christ, in order that each may receive according to that which he shall have done in the body, be it good or evil. A happy and peaceful thought, after all, solemn as it maybe; for if we have really understood grace, if we are standing in grace, if we know what God is, all love for us, all light for us, we shall like to be in the full light:it is a blessed deliverance to be in it; it is a burden, an encumbrance, to have anything concealed, and although we have had much sin in us, that no one knows (perhaps even some that we have committed, and which it would be no profit for any one to know), it is a comfort-if we know the perfect love of God-that all should be in perfect light, since He is there. . . . There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ. They do not come into judgment. But they shall be manifested before His tribunal and receive that which they have done in the body.

The good deserve nothing; they received that by which they have wrought what is good-grace produced it in them. Nevertheless they shall receive a reward. What they have done is counted as their own act. If by neglecting grace and the witness of the Spirit in them the fruit which He would have produced has been turned aside, they will bear the consequences. It is not that in that case God will have forsaken them, it is not that the Holy Ghost will not act in them with regard to the condition they are in, but it will be in their conscience that God judges the flesh which has prevented them from bearing the blessed fruits of His presence and operation in the new man. So that the Holy Ghost will have done all that is necessary with respect to their state of heart, and the perfect counsel of God with regard to the person will have been accomplished, His patience manifested, His wisdom, His ways in governing, the care which He deigns to take of each one individually in His most condescending love. Each one will have his place as it was prepared for him of the Father.

Where the natural fruit of the presence and operation of the Holy Ghost in a soul which has a certain measure of light (or, ought to have had, according to the advantages it has enjoyed) will not have been produced, it will be seen what it was that prevented. It will judge according to the judgment of God all that was good and evil in itself, with a solemn reverence for that which God is, and a fervent adoration on account of what He has been for us. The perfect light will be appreciated, the ways of God understood in all their perfection by the application of the perfect light to the whole course of our life, and of His dealings with us in which we shall thoroughly recognize that love-perfect, sovereign above all things-has reigned with ineffable grace.

Thus the majesty of God will have been manifested by His judgment at the same time that the perfection and tenderness of His dealings with us will be the eternal recollection of our souls. Light without cloud or distance will be understood in its own perfection. To understand it is to be in it and to enjoy it. And light is God Himself. Selected