* Phil. ii. 16.
Christ's coming to judgment.
Jude 14, 15. Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophe- sied of these, saying, Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousand of his sai?its, to execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among them, of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against him.
GOD has had in every age some to testify against the ungodly, and to warn them of the consequences of their sin at the future judgment : and though the faithful execution of this office meets with but ill returns from an ungrateful world, yet we trust there will be found, to the end of time, some, who will gladly suffer reproach or even death itself in the ser- vice of their God, and in the benevolent attempt to save their fellow-sinners from destruction. We do not indeed hear of many, who were witnesses for God, before the time of Moses ; and even his warn- ings and exhortations were enforced principally with temporal sanctions : yet the certainty of a future judgment was known not only by Moses, but by the antediluvian world ; and was solemnly urged by Enoch as a motive to repentance. This prophecy is not recorded in the Old Testament ; but, by what- ever means St. Jude attained the knowledge of it, whether by tradition, or by some written memorial,
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or by immediate inspiration, we may be sure that it was delivered by Enoch ; and we may be thankful that such a precious fragment of inspired truth has been preserved to us.
It proclaims to us,
I. The manner in which our Lord shall come to judgment —
Christ, we are assured, is coming to judge the world —
[There can be no reason to doubt that Enoch referred to Christ, even to that very " seed of the woman, who was to bruise the serpent's head:" him he represents as coming to complete his victory over Satan and his agents by calling them to his tribunal, and by consigning them over to the punishment they have deserved. The New Testament writers uniformly speak to the same effect: they declare that it is at the judg- ment seat of Christ we must stand a; that it is Christ who is ordained to be the Judge of quick and deadb; and, that all judgment is therefore committed unto him, because he is the Son of manc; or, in other words, that he, who died for sinners, shall, in that very nature that he assumed for them, be the immediate author of salvation to his followers and of con- demnation to his enemies.]
And even the manner of his appearing is here plainly predicted —
[It is not with " his saints" but with his holy ones, or holy angels, that he will come. The saints will not be his assessors in judgment till they themselves shall have received their sentence: then indeed " they shall judge angelsd;" but till then, they themselves will stand before him to be judged. But the holy angels will be his attendants in the clouds of heaven; all the " myriads" of them shall descend with him from their blessed abodes, to increase the solemnity of that day, and to honour him, to whom they owe their very exist- ence. This accords with the description given by Daniel e, by St. Paulf, and by Christ himself g. How different will our Lord's appearance then be from what it was when he first visited our guilty world, and lay a helpless infant in the manger! and how earnestly should we now exert ourselves that we may be prepared to meet him !]
a 2 Cor. v. 10. b Actsx. 42. c John v. 27.
d 1 Cor. vi. 3. e Dan. vii. 9, 10. f 2 Thess. i. 7, 8.