N MY FIRST FRIDAY night on a Christian campus I found my way to the college church for what was called "vespers." After songs and prayer a distinguished-appearing guest speaker stepped to the pulpit and began reading Daniel 7:9, 10.

"I beheld till the thrones were cast down, and the Ancient of days did sit, whose garment was white as snow, and the hair of his head like the pure wool: his throne was like the fiery flame, and his wheels as burning fire. A fiery stream issued and came forth from before him: thousand thousands ministered unto him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him: the judgment was set, and the books were opened."

Knowing nothing about judgment, I sat among the Christian "saints," petrified! So intense was the conviction that I would stand in judgment before God, that as I write these words, the same emotion seizes me.

The meaning is sure: God has set a time when He will judge the world (Acts 17:13). However I might wish to escape it, I know that I shall stand one day before the judgment seat of Christ (Rom. 14:10) to hear His verdict on what I've done--good or bad (2 Cor. 5:10). I knew that my name was not written in what the speaker was calling the "Lamb's book of life." I sat. I shook. I could hear the crash of the gavel--6 million years at 240 degrees!

I've since learned that judgment can be good news! First, because it's fair. Second, because we can ensure a favorable verdict before we even enter the courtroom. And third, because both the defense attorney and the judge are on our side.

1. Because it's fair.
"Fair" means, first of all, that God does not punish arbitrarily. In that courtroom above, the punishment will fit the crime. In fact, we write our own sentence on the very molecules of our mind. As one writer has observed, "By a life of rebellion, Satan and all who unite with him place themselves so out of harmony with God that his very presence is to them a consuming fire" (Ellen G. White, The Desire of Ages, p. 764; see also Heb. 12:29).

Earth, you see, is the testing ground between two eternities. Every person shall reap in judgment what he or she sows here. Here we must come into harmony with God. Here we must groove channels into our minds through which the currents of heaven can flow unimpeded. Here we must cooperate with the Lord in rooting out every indulged sin. Here we must capture the melody of heaven until, when the divine tuning fork is struck, our very being will resonate in harmony with God's holy law. Punishment is not an arbitrary act on the part of God.

In every age the guiltless have died. Saints have rotted in dungeons. Truth has seemed "forever on the scaffold, wrong forever on the throne" (James Russell Lowell). Millions go to bed at night, as Robert Louis Stevenson said, with only "the half of a broken hope for a pillow." But justice will come. Truth will triumph. It is in the context of saints strongly accused, investigated, and convicted that the book of Revelation points to what some call a "pre-Advent judgment." John pictures the saints crying out, "How long, O Lord, . . . [before you] judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?" (Rev. 6:10).

As a result of this judgment all wrongs will be righted. "Behold, I come quickly," Jesus said, "and my reward is with me, to give every man according as his work shall be" (Rev. 22:12). The sinless beings on a million worlds will confirm that citizenship in the universal kingdom can be safely restored to the transformed inhabitants of this rebel world. The wicked themselves--raised in the second resurrection--kneel around the Holy City to acknowledge with all the creation: "Great and marvellous are thy works, Lord God Almighty; just and true are thy ways" (Rev. 15:3).

"Fair" means that God does not judge arbitrarily. He rights all wrongs on His way to making the universe whole again.

2. Because it enables us to clear our record before it's opened to the universe.
Timothy tells us that we can send the record of our sins to court now and have it "fixed" (1 Tim. 5:24). How? By cooperating with Jesus in ferreting out every secret thing, even thoughts, that could, if uncorrected, leave us to stand without an Advocate in that final courtroom scene.

Early in my experience as a Christian I lived next door to two young sun-worshipping schoolteachers. Every time the sun came up, they came out--garbed in two towels each, strategically positioned and pinned. Occasionally I'd put on my dark glasses and drop by to minister to their mortal souls. One day the Lord joined us in the backyard. "Roland," he said, "out here in the desert the humidity isn't all that high. Why are your sunglasses all steamed up?"

"Why, it must be my fervor for their souls, Lord." (Anything to get the Hound of heaven off the scent of sin.) "But," said the Lord, "I can't help noticing that their souls aren't where you're looking."

Says God's Word: "Some . . . sins are open beforehand, going before to judgment; and some . . . follow after" (1 Tim. 5:24). And those that follow after, He made clear, cannot be hidden--even behind dark sunglasses. No, they can't be hidden, but they can be put on Jesus. God doesn't want us to carry lust into his courtroom. He wants us to put it on his Son. And "if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness"
(1 John 1:9).

3. Because both the defense attorney
and the judge are on our side!
Yes, both our heavenly Father and Jesus want to hand down a verdict in our favor. And from what I've shared frankly with you of my troubled growth in Christ, you must know that's just the kind of Advocate I need! By heaven's definition I'm a killer, for I have been angry with my parents. I'm an adulterer, because I have lusted; I'm a thief, because I have coveted.

We should both be grateful, you and I, that Jesus is handling our case in court. He's sitting at the right hand of the Majesty on high (Heb. 1:3). That's the place of power, the place of authority. And He's offering us the benefits He bought for us by paying our debt at Calvary.

As I share these words with you, I'm very aware of the Holy Spirit's presence. "God is using us to speak to you," says Paul. "We beg you, as though Christ himself were here pleading with you, receive the love he offers you--be reconciled to God. For God took the sinless Christ and poured into him our sins. Then, in exchange, he poured God's goodness into us!" (2 Cor. 5:20, 21, TLB).

I'm a person who likes bargains. But this offer qualifies as extravagant!

Michael A. Musmanno, an associate justice of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court until shortly before his death, tells of an astounding courtroom story in his autobiography, Verdict.* As a young law student in 1925, he visited a Paris courtroom. The defendant, Aida Valette, a young woman of 25, stood charged with hurling acid into the face of Jacqueline Claremont, her rival for the love of a young man, Charles Viviers.

Jacqueline, her face and neck hidden beneath wide bandages, sat at the witness bench. Only her eyes were visible, but they told much of suffering and of beauty. The golden strands of hair escaping from her fashionable turban, the graceful lines of her figure, the photograph of her made prior to the assault--all spoke of surpassing loveliness.

On the witness stand Jacqueline, after giving an emotional account of what happened, crumpled into her chair, convulsing with sobs. Jacqueline's doctor then took the stand and described in harrowing detail the mordant impact of the acid, which a year before had reduced her face to a mask of spine-chilling grotesqueness.

Then it was that Aida Valette demanded her right-to face Charles Viviers, who had said in the courtroom that he still loved Jacqueline.

Flanked by two gendarmes, she strode in front of him. "Charles," she said in a surprisingly calm voice, "you have said that you will marry Jacqueline. But I know you do not love her. You only feel sorry for her. Once you see her hideous face, you will hate yourself for your rash act. Witness now what you would have to look at every day of your life!"

Breaking loose from the guards, she lunged at Jacqueline, trying to rip the protecting bandages from her face. The public prosecutor restrained her just in time, and the guards shoved her, as she kicked and struggled, back into her chair.

The judge reprimanded her and announced a 20-minute recess.

When the court reconvened, counsel for the defense arose. "Mr. President," he said, addressing the judge, "my client is here charged with a grave offense--the crime of mayhem. I submit to the court that she has the right to demand that Mademoiselle Claremont's covering be removed so that the jury can see for themselves whether the crime of mayhem has actually been established."

Over objections of the public prosecutor, the judge gave his ruling. Although regretting that Mademoiselle Claremont must be subjected to embarrassment, trial procedure impelled the granting of the defendant's request. "Until the wounds are revealed," said the judge, "all elements of the crime charged have not been proved legally."

"Mr. President!" Charles Viviers was on his feet. "Mademoiselle Claremont need not fear that her wounds will rob me of my devotion to her." Turning to the distraught girl, he said, "Jacqueline, I love you and I will marry you today, if you will have me. Let me remove the bandages, and let us both stand before the world, unashamed and unafraid. I entreat you to let me do this."

"But Charles, you might not want me then . . . but do as you wish."

Speaking softly and reassuringly of his love, he tenderly touched the bandages. Not an eyelash flickered as he unwound the first strips, which, glistening in a shaft of sunlight, fell at the feet of the quivering girl.

As the ribbon descended, a sneer curled Aida's lips. She would be found guilty, but in a moment she would have her revenge. As only two turns of the bandage remained, the judge spoke: "Stop! Stop for a moment. I warn everyone in the courtroom, there will be no demonstration."

Like a spiral of white, the last dressing floated to the floor. Only a square of gauze now hid Jacqueline's face. Tenderly Viviers lifted the corner of the protecting shield and pulled it away. As it fell from his fingers to the floor, the courtroom froze. Like a movie stopped on a frame, time seemed suspended. Then, with a cry of anguish, Jacqueline buried her face in her hands.

Gently, lovingly, Viviers lifted her to her feet and raised her head. Still no one spoke. Finally Jacqueline sobbed, "Give me a mirror. Let me see this Medusa's head that has transfixed you all."

A woman close by opened her purse and as if in a trance withdrew a small mirror, which she handed to the weeping girl. Slowly Jacqueline lifted it, looked, gasped, and cried out, "No!" For in the mirror she saw--perfection. Not a scar or blemish marred her beauty. "I don't understand," she stammered. "At the hospital I saw the pictures taken after I arrived, and I was so hideous that I haven't looked at my face since."

The public minister subpoenaed the girl's doctor, a plastic surgeon; and an hour later, after a recess, he took the stand. He explained that he had performed several operations on the girl, but fearing to raise hopes that might not be realized, had never told her of the extent of the skin grafts.

"But now I am happy to say," he went on, "that the operations were successful, and I can assure all her friends that her beauty has been permanently restored."

And suddenly, spontaneously, the audience broke into deafening applause, for in that moment the whole world had become beautiful again.

One day the enemy of our souls, who has scarred us and defaced the image of God in us, will demand that we be exposed to the gaze of the universe. And while the universe waits in breathless expectancy, and we ask in agony of spirit, "Can He love me still?" our Advocate will step forward and gently, lovingly, unwrap our bandages. Oh, when the bandages fall away! Then shall we know the triumph of love, for from the universe assembled shall come the cry, "His face, her face, is as the face of the dear Son."

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*Michael A. Musmanno, Verdict (London: P. Davies, 1958).

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Roland Hegstad, a former editor of Liberty magazine, writes from Silver Spring, Maryland.