The Danger of Falling Into the Hands of the Living God

Book excerpt: In this convicting work directed to increase a healthy fear of the Living God to Christians, Mead works from Hebrews 10:31, “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the Living God.” Mead teaches in what sense God is the living God, and what it means to “fall into the hands” of this God who lives. Every sinner (redeemed, or remaining in unbelief) will ultimately stand in judgment before the Living God, and will have to deal with God both necessarily and everlastingly. Necessarily, as God requires an account of their life, and everlastingly, where the final state of the sinner will be determined. Mead demonstrates that having such a healthy fear of falling into God’s hands is evidenced from that terror which sinners themselves many times feel under the sense of God’s wrath in this world. Men must be saved by Christ to escape the dreadful judgment that accompanies unbelief when they fall into the hands of the Living God. This union with Christ, God’s only Redeemer, is such a union as that by it, a man’s state is fundamentally changed, so that he is no longer a child of wrath. It is a union fixed in the blessed state of justification, and the forgiveness of sins. By virtue of this union, he has a right to all the blessings of the covenant. This is what gives Christians great boldness in the day of judgment to stand before the Living God in whom hands they are judged. This is not a scan or facsimile, has been updated in modern English for easy reading and has an active table of contents for electronic versions.