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The Final Judgment

by Jim McGuiggan

The doctrine of the Final Judgment has always been scary and there are those of us who ought to be scared because we have reason to be frightened. Often it’s those who have the best reason to be frightened who have no fear at all—they think death is how you escape judgment. 

But the doctrine of a yet future Final Judgment is one of the teachings of NT Scripture that the human family should be pleased about for its essential message is this: All wrongs will be righted! 

It’s about the honor and holiness of God, of course! In that judgment God will glorify himself and demonstrate his righteousness (see, for example, Acts 17:31). By his righteousness Paul would certainly mean God’s personal integrity, his “doing what is right” in light of his own glorious character which is the fountain of all that is “right”. When God acts righteously he isn’t acting in accordance with some standard outside himself—he is the standard and when he shows his righteousness he is simply being true to himself! 

It was in light of his character and purposes that he created humans and purposed them to live creatively in loving righteousness toward each other and in doing this they would be living as “the image of God”. All who live cruelly and selfishly, all who live greedily and carelessly, all who live in insolence toward the honor of God and the needs of their neighbor are rejecting their destiny. For these there can be no life with God for life with God cannot exist on those terms. 

The tyrants of the earth and those who choose to serve such tyrants, home-bred or foreign, have reason to fear the Final Judgment for God cares for the poor and the defenseless. No Nazi commandant, no current tyrant or self-serving power-broker can escape Judgment by dying—that just ushers him/her into the nearer presence of the Judge of all the earth who does and will do what is right. The impenitent do nothing more by their ungodliness than treasure up for themselves the wrath of God in that day of final wrath (compare Romans 2:1-6). 

But righting all wrongs means more than dealing with the bullies and tyrants, murderers of individuals and nations, rapists and pillagers of entire nations as well as individuals. Righting of all wrongs will include God’s response to the pillaged and plundered, those who knew nothing from birth to the grave but beatings, deprivation and injustice. To punish the tyrant is only one side of God’s righteousness for a central element in the righteousness of God is his faithfulness to his commitments. 

God brought the powerful Nebuchadnezzar down for his sins against the poor (Daniel 4:27) and he buried Sodom for refusing to give help to the poor and needy despite the blessings God lavished on her (Ezekiel 16:49). He fills the OT with warnings against those who abuse their power and instead of using it to bless the needy they humiliate them and drive them down to death. 

And what will God say to these defenseless countless millions? He will make it up to them! The Judge of all the Earth can be depended on to do right (compare Genesis 18:25). But how can he undo their past suffering? I dare say that even God cannot undo what has been done and still judge the evil for having done it so there is no undoing of the past torment and loss. But I believe that the suffering of the innocent (babies and such) and of the defenseless righteous has a purpose within God’s overarching redeeming purpose and that one day we'll all come to understand. Jesus had his unique place in all of that, which means there is no need to undo the past for it serves a glorious purpose. What we’re sure of is this: All that needs to be done to right all wrongs will be done and no one will move away from Final Judgment without knowing and confessing that. 

The doctrine of Final Judgment is not to be feared except by those who have reason to fear it. For all others it’s a doctrine of profound consolation and comfort. 

Other Articles
Attitudes Towards the Weak
Relative Righteousness
Misrepresentations of the Church