Standing Before God
Bp. Phillips Brooks. Revelation 20:11-15 And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away… Do you not see what that means? Out of all the lower presences with which they have made themselves contented; out of all the chambers where the little easy judges sit with their compromising codes of conduct, with their ideas worked over and worked down to suit the conditions of this earthly life; out of all these partial and imperfect judgment chambers, when men die they are all carried up into the presence of the perfect righteousness, and are judged by that. All previous judgments go for nothing, unless they find their confirmations there. Men who have been the pets and favourites of society, and of the populace, and of their own self-esteem, the change that death has made to them is that they have been compelled to face another standard, and to feel its unfamiliar awfulness. Just think of it. A man who, all his life on earth since he was a child, has never once asked himself about any action, about any plan of his. Is this right? Suddenly, when he is dead, behold he finds himself in a new world, where that is the only question about everything. His old questions as to whether a thing was comfortable, or was popular, or was profitable, are all gone. The very atmosphere of this new world kills them. And upon the amazed soul, from every side, there pours this new, strange, searching question, "Is it right?" That is what it is for the dead man to "stand before God." But, then, there is another soul which, before it passed through death, while it was in this world, had always been struggling after higher presences. Refusing to ask whether acts were popular or profitable, refusing even to care much whether they were comfortable or beautiful, it had insisted upon asking whether each act was right. It had always struggled to keep its moral vision clear. It had climbed to heights of self-sacrifice that it might get above the miasma of low standards which lay upon the earth. In every darkness about what was right, it had been true to the best light it could see. It grows into a greater and greater incapacity to live in any other presence, as it had struggled longer and longer for this highest company. Think what it must be for that soul, when for it, too, death sweeps every other chamber back and lifts the nature into the pure light of the unclouded righteousness. Now for it, too, the question, "Is it right?" rings from every side; but in that question this soul hears the echo of its own best-loved standard. That is what it is for that soul to "stand before God." God opens His own heart to that soul, and is both judgment and love. (Bp. Phillips Brooks.) Parallel Verses KJV: And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them. WEB: I saw a great white throne, and him who sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away. There was found no place for them.