blessed words—"for the truth's sake, which dwelleth in us, and shall
appearing. And so sure is the ground we rest upon—so simple is the promise of acquittal to all who will trust God for it—that we feel just as certain of our justification as if public sentence had already been pronounced. Hence faith teaches us to say even now—far on this side of judgment—"I am justified," just as it enables us to say, "I am saved." This judgment, which faith anticipates so joyfully, as being quite sure, from what it knows of God, that there can be no condemnation for any trusting one, is final and irreversible. There lies no appeal from it to any higher or more ultimate tribunal. It is eternal judgment! It is judgment whose issues and sentences determine our condition in all coming ages. There is much that is truly comforting in the thought of "eternal judgment." To be justified for ever! To have all wrongs righted for ever! To be thus lawfully acquitted, and reinstated irrevocably in the favour of the Judge, so that law and justice can never again claim us as their victims—this is security such as unfallen Adam could not have had. Our sentence of acquittal shall be to us a far greater assurance of a justified eternity, than creation in innocence could have been. That "judgment"—being an "eternal" one—shall, through all ages, stand between us and the possibility of condemnation.
9. It thinks of the EVERLASTING truth (2 John 2).—These are blessed words—"for the truth's sake, which dwelleth in us, and shall be with us for ever." There shall be no more seeking of truth, or groping after it, but a possessing of it. And if to be a "lover of truth" be a good thing, how much better to be a possessor of it, and that for ever! The imperfect knowledge of the truth which we get here "makes us free" (John 8:32); what enlargement of our liberty shall the perfection of that knowledge give us! The "belief of the truth" pours peace into the soul; how much more of that unutterable peace shall fill us in the day when our belief shall be as complete and full as the truth which we shall then possess! For it shall be all truth, and no falsehood nor error; seeing it shall have its centre in Him who is THE TRUTH. Rooted in the truth—surrounded by the truth— overshadowed by the truth—dwelt in by the truth,—we shall know