We want the reader to dwell for a few moments on the little word which forms the heading of this paper. If we mistake not, he will find it to be a word of immense depth and suggestive power, as used by the Holy Ghost in Scripture. We shall just now refer to four passages in which our word occurs; and may the One who penned these passages be pleased to open and apply them in divine power and freshness to the heart of both writer and reader.
1. And first we shall turn to 1 Peter i. 5, where it is used in connection with the word "_salvation_." Believers are said to be "kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation, _ready_ to be revealed in the last time."
Here, then, we are taught that salvation is ready to be revealed at this moment; for we are, as John tells us, in "the last times." And be it noted that salvation as here used is not to be confined to the mere matter of the _soul's_ deliverance from hell and perdition: it refers, rather, to the deliverance of the _body_ of the believer from the power of death and corruption. In short, it takes in all that stands in anywise connected with the glorious appearing of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. We already possess the salvation of our souls, as we are told in the very context from which our text is taken. "Receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls.... Wherefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto you _at the revelation of Jesus Christ_."
Thus we learn in the clearest way that the "salvation ready to be revealed" is linked on to "the revelation of Jesus Christ." This is confirmed, were confirmation needful, by Hebrews ix. 28, where we read, "So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for Him shall He appear the second time, apart from sin, unto _salvation_."
From all this the reader may learn that the salvation which is _ready_ to be revealed is at the second coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. For this we are taught, as Christians, to look at any moment. There is literally nothing so far as God is concerned, nothing so far as the work of Christ is concerned, nothing so far as the testimony of the Holy Ghost is concerned, to hinder our hearing "the shout of the archangel and the trump of God" this very night, this very hour. All is done that needed to be done. Atonement is made, redemption is accomplished, God has been glorified by the work of Christ, as is proved by the fact of Christ's present place on the throne of the Majesty in the heavens. From the moment that our Lord Christ took His seat upon that throne, it could always be said that "salvation is _ready_ to be revealed."
But it could not have been said before. Salvation could not be said to be ready until the divine groundwork thereof was laid in the death and resurrection of the Saviour. But when once that most glorious work of all works was accomplished, it could at any moment be said that "salvation is ready to be revealed." "The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit Thou at My right hand, until I make Thine enemies Thy footstool" (Ps. cx. 1).
2. But the apostle Peter gives us another instance and application of our word in chap. iv. 5, where he refers to some "who shall give account to Him that is _ready to judge_ the quick and the dead."
Here the word stands before us in a form of awful solemnity. If on the one hand it be true that _salvation_ is ready to be revealed for the everlasting joy of God's redeemed, it is equally true on the other hand that _judgment_ is ready to take its course, for the everlasting misery of those who neglect God's proffered salvation.[3] The one is as true, and as pointed, and as forcible, as the other. There is nothing to wait for in respect to the judgment, any more than there is in respect to the salvation. The one is as "_ready_" as the other. God has gone to the utmost in demonstrating His grace; and man has gone to the utmost in demonstrating his guilt. Both have reached their climax in the death of Christ; and when we see Him crowned with glory and seated on the throne, we have the most powerful evidence that could possibly be afforded that nothing remains but for salvation to be revealed on the one hand, and for judgment to take its course on the other.
[3] As regards the solemn subject of eternal punishment, we shall just refer the reader to three passages of Scripture which establish the truth of it beyond all question: Mark ix. 43-48, the fire is _unquenchable_, and the worm _never dies_; Luke xvi. 26, the great gulf is _fixed_; John iii. 36, the wrath of God _abideth_.