The opulent room is starkly hollow, thousands of silent witnesses stilled in their revelries. Half-eaten animal carcasses litter tables once strewn with richest foods, the crimson wine which desecrated sacred golden vessels now staining the floor. Rising behind a tragic scene–the figure of a crowned cadaver, slumped and cold on a blood-stained throne–is a wall, odd figures carved high into its surface:
MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN.[1]
Numbered, wanting, divided: the stark message of judgment delivered at probation’s close.
…
Crushed beneath the weight of towering temple pillars, thousands of once-laughing people have been eternally silenced. Greatest lords, powerful politicos, lie flattened along with their richly-adorned wives and concubines; glittering golden adornments warmer than the bodies they remain attached to. It is a bloodless scene, instead a chalky layer of dust veiling pallid skin. A final cry seems to echo through the air:
“Let me die with the Philistines!”[2]
A fatal prayer, condemning all the mocking infidels in the midst of idolatrous celebration.
…
The splatters of blood on the wall are the only indication of the death that has transpired. Dogs hover about the site but there is no corpse; just a skull, two feet, and the palms of hands. Nothing is particularly remarkable about this regicide; no evidence remains of painted eyes and adorned head[3] – the weighty headdress fixed to her head, as she tumbled to her death, is nowhere to be seen. The soundless word of prophecy trembles over the gory scene:
“Dogs shall eat the flesh of Jezebel.”[4]
Judgment declared years prior, brought to completion by open defiance and unrepentant evil.
…
There seems to be no doubt that, even in their final moments, Belshazzar, the Philistine lords, and Jezebel were having the time of their lives. Feasts, festivities, and finery characterized their closing moments on earth, even with the knowledge of impending doom. They went out with a bang, we might say, a kind of ‘go big, or go home’ attitude that continued to the point of their deaths.
Any fear was too late. At the point of judgment delivered in each case, probation had closed, their hearts hardened in stubborn rebellion against Jehovah. And while the Persian army encircled the city, while the mighty Samson stood, chained, in their midst, while the murderous Jehu stood just beneath the queen’s window, what did they do?
Nothing.
They kept drinking, kept celebrating–with Jezebel even going so far as to adorn herself in a climatic declaration of her royalty, her determination to die with the same ornamental dignity as the queen she had lived as. And the irony is, of course, that these were all lives well-lived–that is to say, lives lived to the fullest. Previous to the final delivery of providential judgment, they had wanted for nothing, engaged in every sordid pleasure, indulged their appetites, desires, pride, until they had been fully sated in their own rebellion. Clothed in the finest of fineries, adorned with the most expensive cosmetics and jewelry, their outward appearances ultimately proved the weakest and most inefficient armor in the face of the judgment of a mighty God.
And don’t we do the same?
“The hour of His judgment is come,”[5] we repeat the favorite ubiquity–the sound of the trumpets just beyond our earshot. The LORD God is coming with ten thousand of His saints to execute judgment[6], and what are we doing? Living our lives well. While an army surrounds our city walls, we are engaged in our feasting and festivity; we feel safe in our temples of self-idolatry; while the executioner stands beneath our window, we adorn ourselves, preparing to stand before a just God, dolled up in our own righteousness.
The greatest tragedy is that we are content knowing that our lives have been well-lived. We cannot even see the hopelessness of our position, admiring with pride the long lists of our works and the comparatively short lists of others. We are the same Israel to whom Jeremiah declared in deploring plea: “And when you are plundered, what will you do?”[7]
The answer comes, a glorious and hopeful solution: Turn back to the LORD.[8]
This same solution is depicted by Paul in his exhortation to the Galatians: “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.”[9] The solution is not, as we have long assumed, a life well-lived; it is Christ, living in us.
So who is living your life? Is it you, with the self-assurance that the life you have lived well will hold up in the courts of judgment–before the throne of God when the books are opened and our lives are all examined in the light of the perfection of a Holy God?[10] Or do you recognize, as we all must if we are truly to be saved, that you must die? That you must stop living your life, and allow Christ–His perfection, His character, His righteousness–to live in you?
I have no answer to offer in placation; I am faced with the same exposing and convicting questions. But our hope and great joy is that all Christ needs is willing penitents: That we see our great need for Him, and fall at the foot of the cross, knowing that nothing short of His blood will cleanse us, that nothing short of His grace will be sufficient.
This seventh issue, Exterior, is an issue of the heart. Waggoner calls us to critical reflection: who have we crucified upon the Cross in the place of Christ? Kronk calls us to personal evaluation: do we jealously guard the affections of our hearts, the time spent with our Lover in personal communion? Homan calls us to institutional reckoning: Are we driven by compliance or conversion, by formalized obedience or a principled love? De Silva calls us to scrutinizing introspection: Where do our priorities lie? How do our outward affectations betray a lack of true conversion within?
Ultimately, they—we—all asking the same question: The world or Christ? For if Christ and His cross is not at the center of all we do, all we are, then our dreams for revival, reformation, and True Education will forever remain as such.
[1] Dan. 5:25
[2] Judg. 16:30
[3] 2 Kgs. 9:30
[4] 2 Kgs. 9:36, paraphrased.
[5] Rev. 14:7
[6] Jude 14
[7] Jer. 4:30
[8] Jer. 4:1
[9] Gal. 2:20
[10] Dan. 7:9-10