May 4, 2014
The Judgment None Can Escape
5-5-14
Judgment Day. The stuff of legends, and lessons, and sermons. Depicted in art from ancient stained-glass windows to the steel engravings of Bibles and tracts, to cartoons of God (or maybe St Peter), looking stern with an enormous white beard and on an august throne, hearing the individual cases of cowering humanity. Some are consigned to hell; some are promoted to heaven.
I had been a Christian – or, rather, a church-goer – for a long time before I became aware of the biblical assurance, indeed the promise of Christ, that we can know whether we will spend eternity in heaven. We can know right now, or any time; we don’t have to hope and die and hope again, nervously awaiting the judgments of a capricious God.
Neither will our citizenship in heaven depend upon a balance of our good and bad deeds during our lives. “Our righteousness is like dirty rags” before a holy God, anyway. None, not one, can “earn” heaven.
To believe otherwise is to deny biblical texts, the words of Christ and the apostles, and would be an insult to the Plan of Salvation; the cross; the resurrection.
There is unbelievable comfort in knowing, not having to guess, about our souls’ status in eternity. Some denominations believe (I do not) that we can lose our salvation by apostasy, but that is one of those matters, while important, that we can leave until that Day to discover.
The Bible is intentionally vague about some matters (for instance, details of End Times) which I regard as God’s wisdom: keeping us, spiritually, on our toes. In similar fashion there ARE aspects of our eternal standing with God that likewise are challenging to our understanding. For instance, we are told that some of the saints (us, not necessarily Vatican conferees alone) will receive treasures and crowns.
Saved is saved, right? No, God will confer crowns to some (we presume to martyrs and defenders of the faith)… and then, it is my own belief, there will not be a hierarchy in heaven. Those saints will lay down their crowns before the throne, by the glassy sea. Some will be given that extra opportunity to praise God.
“Saved is saved”? Yes, but let us look at the different judgments to come. The “Great White Throne Judgment,” pictured in Revelation, is an End Times trial for anyone who has rejected Jesus; has refused to accept God’s plan of redemption from sin. The Bible says that all will acknowledge God and Jesus Christ as Lord. Even too late, but all Creation will acknowledge Him in this scenario.
“And then will [Jesus] profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity (Matthew 7:23).” “And I saw a great white throne, and Him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is [the book] of life… (Revelation 20:11-12).”
Chilling. And reason to take solace in Eternal Security of those who have accepted Christ.
But we have that challenging question of what is informally called the “believers’ judgment”: “And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment (Hebrews 9:27).” “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things [done] in [his] body, according to that he hath done, whether [it be] good or bad (2 Corinthians 5:10).” No threat of hell, but… judged.
I have an idea. It is not in the Bible, but I don’t believe it is anti-biblical. There are several instances in scripture of God judging His people. Satan tried to condemn Job before God. The devil, we are taught, is Accuser of the Saints. I believe, however, that part of the “believer’s judgment” will not only be Christ on His throne, or God holding the Lamb’s Book of Life, or Satan like a devilish prosecutor, accusing us of sins or shortcomings in life.
I can picture other people surrounding us. It will be their eyes, not God’s, who meet ours, and accuse us. Can you picture it? These will be people who failed to accept Christ in their lifetimes, destined for damnation. But we failed THEM, by not sharing Christ.
Unsaved loved ones will cry: “Why didn’t you try harder to tell me about Jesus?”
Jewish friends will lament, “I knew the basics of the faith. Why didn’t you lead me to Yeshua??”
Someone you met once will say, “I expressed curiosity about the Bible one day; you could have shared things with me. Why were you silent???”
An associate who had self-destructive tendencies, that you knew about quite well, could sob: “That was when I needed Jesus! Where were you?”
A friend you were with during his or her dying days might shout out, “THAT was the moment I needed to get my life together. You knew the Truth! Why did you never say a word to me?”
This circle of people cannot condemn us, but they can accuse us, indict us. God forbid that their names are written under our names in the Lamb’s Book of Life. I’m afraid we all have people we have met in our lives, who could populate that crowd of accusers – our Lost Chances.
Looking ahead to this possible aspect of Judgment should bring us up short now. We can store up treasures in heaven… by not squandering them on earth.
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Click: I Do Not Know You
RE: “’Our righteousness is like dirty rags’ before a holy God, anyway. None, not one, can ‘earn’ heaven.”
It is true that no person can “earn” heaven; it is the Holy Spirit of Grace’s presence alone within the person’s heart/soul at the time of his death which ultimately saves/redeems him and thereby makes him acceptable/worthy to inherit eternal life.
It is also true that it is good works/fruits which justify a person and make him acceptable to inherit eternal life. The Holy Spirit does not remain/abide in a Christian person who later denies Jesus by his evil works/deeds/fruits or who denies Him by his lack of good works/deeds/fruits. Titus 1:16; Revelation 3:16; Acts 5:32; 2 Thessalonians 1:7-9
Now, back to your quote from Isaiah:
Isaiah 64:4-7
For since the beginning of the world
Men have not heard nor perceived by the ear,
Nor has the eye seen any GOD besides YOU,
WHO ACTS FOR THE ONE WHO WAITS FOR HIM.
5 YOU MEET HIM WHO REJOICES AND DOES RIGHTEOUSNESS,
WHO REMEMBERS YOU IN YOUR WAYS.
You are indeed angry, for we have sinned—
In these ways we continue;
And we need to be saved.
6 But we are all like an unclean thing,
And all our righteousnesses are like filthy rags;
We all fade as a leaf,
And our iniquities, like the wind,
Have taken us away.
7 And there is no one who calls on Your name,
Who stirs himself up to take hold of You;
For You have hidden Your face from us,
And have consumed us because of our iniquities. nkjv
Isaiah tells us that a righteous person’s personal works are indeed righteous works and that God accepts and helps the righteous man; but he also tells us that an unrighteous person’s personal works are no better than filthy rags. Matthew 3:10; Matthew 7:17-19
A righteous man’s personal righteous works/deeds are INDEED acceptable to God [Genesis 4:4; Genesis 7:1], but no person’s or nation’s righteous works could ever redeem mankind from Adam’s sin. That is why we needed a Savior who was both God and Man, to restore mankind’s spiritual relationship with God which Adam lost for himself, his wife, and all his descendants. Adam’s sin made it impossible for any person to inherit/enter into eternal life with God in heaven.
Jesus’ perfect sacrificial death on the cross restored mankind’s spiritual relationship with God and so now it is possible for each and every person to choose to believe in Jesus Christ and to choose to obey Him and thereby have hope to inherit eternal life after he dies.
1 Timothy 4:8
For bodily exercise profits a little, but godliness is profitable for all things, having promise of the life that now is and of that which is to come. nkjv
However, an unrighteous sinner’s or unrighteous nation’s works/deeds are not acceptable to God. Israel had no righteous persons (other than Isaiah) when Isaiah made these statements.
Ezekiel 18:24
“But when a righteous man turns away from his righteousness and commits iniquity, and does according to all the abominations that the wicked man does, shall he live? All the righteousness which he has done shall not be remembered; because of the unfaithfulness of which he is guilty and the sin which he has committed, because of them he shall die. nkjv
A righteous man who sins against God’s commandments becomes unrighteous and thereby he will not inherit eternal life.
Israel’s inheritance was taken away from them because its leaders/tribes did not produce the good works/deeds/fruits that God had required for them to do.
Matthew 21:43
“Therefore I say to you, the kingdom of God will be taken from you and given to a nation bearing the fruits of it. nkjv
We are judged by our works/fruits on Judgment Day. We are not judged to be either sheep or goats by our profession of faith alone. We are judged according to our works. The fruit we produced on earth determines whether we join the sheep or the goats. James 2:20-26
1 Peter 1:15-19
but as He who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, 16 because it is written, “Be holy, for I am holy.” 17 And if you call on the Father, who without partiality judges according to each one’s work, conduct yourselves throughout the time of your stay here in fear; 18 knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, like silver or gold, from your aimless conduct received by tradition from your fathers, 19 but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot. nkjv
Acts 10:35
But in every nation whoever fears Him and works righteousness is accepted by Him. nkjv
A righteous man becomes unrighteous/wicked when he sin(s) against God’s commandment(s) and so he will not inherit eternal life (he will not live). This wicked man can be forgiven if he repents, confesses, and makes restitution to the best of his ability. He can thereby be forgiven and restored to righteousness again and then he will have hope of eternal life once more.
Ezekiel 33:15
if the wicked restores the pledge, gives back what he has stolen, and walks in the statutes of life without committing iniquity, he shall surely live; he shall not die. nkjv
A righteous/good person becomes unrighteous/wicked by committing mortal sin [1 John 5:16-17 RSV] (sin leading to death [1 John 5:16-17 NKJV]). An unrighteous/wicked person becomes righteous/good when he repents and confesses his sin. Only the people who do righteous works will inherit eternal life. Acts 26:20; Revelation 2:5; Luke 15:4-10
Luke 8:13
But the ones on the rock are those who, when they hear, receive the word with joy; and THESE HAVE NO ROOT, WHO BELIEVE FOR A WHILE AND IN TIME OF TEMPTATION FALL AWAY. nkjv
Our “faith working through [our] love” of God and love of our neighbor is what makes us worthy to inherit eternal life. Galatians 5:6; James 2:24; Acts 10:35
We Christians will face accusation by those whose salvation depended on US.
REALLY?
You are right: The Bible does not teach that my salvation, your salvation, nor anyone else’s salvation depends on what I do, and is not a product of my willing it nor my promoting it. The Bible does, however, teach that salvation is a rebirth at the behest of the Holy Spirit’s regeneration of a previously spiritually-dead being. I can’t do that. I can participate in God’s plans for an individual by sharing the life-giving Word with them, but in no way can I doom them to hell by my act of disobedience; that’s THEIR job. If a person is predestined to be a child of God they WILL be a child of God whether or not I allow God to use me in any given situation.
You are saying that God will be sitting on his throne watching our accusers heap their detest upon us because God could not save them, and He could not save them because WE were disobedient. I don’t believe you honestly believe that. If I do not deliver the Word in a given situation, God is big enough to simply use a more obedient servant to do it.
If I have to go to eternity in heaven with the immense burden of the multitude that went to hell because of MY failure, just send me to hell because heaven will suck.
Your “idea” is a colossal over-estimation of our role in salvation, and a tragically myopic reckoning of the power of God to save all of his chosen ones regardless of any contingency on my part. I hope you will reconsider whether or not it is Biblical.
Thank you for your points. All important, but I still maintain that some we will learn when we are before the throne. You say we are justified by our works; that is not my reading. Justification came through the Blood: Christ’s work. In the same way — and this I believe without asserting dogmatism — when we sin, even after we have the Holy Spirit, we are covered by the Blood, and when God thereafter sees us, He sees the Blood of Jesus, not our transgressions. I am persuaded that salvation withdrawn is an admission of imperfection, an admission we cannot admit. Finally, any discussion of works, such as we have here, cannot fail to come face-to-face with the verse that Luther encountered as he dissented from Roman Catholic error. You do not quote it among your verses. (Although all translations are similar, I will quote the 1599 Geneva Bible, of which recent reprinting I was a mere editor, but I love its language) Ephesians 2:8-10: “For by grace are ye saved through faith, and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast himself. For we are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath ordained, that we should walk in them.” In other words, God provides the opportunity for us to do good works, but in service to Him (toward fruits), not means to bypass grace or the necessity of faith. Why, else, the cross? Why not a system of merit badges? God forbid.
Thank you for granting that I am correct about our role in our salvation. Yes, by grace through faith, and the Holy Spirit’s work of regeneration.
We part company (despite my editorial work on the Geneva Bible — Calvin’s Bible) on predestinarianism. And when you say you don’t believe “I honestly believe” that on Judgment Day God will look on helplessly “because God could not save them, and He could not save them because WE were disobedient” — you are correct, because I did not say that.
I just speculated in the essay that if there are accusations against our lives as servants of the Word on one end, or “treasures” on the other end of the spectrum, God will not have to list our shortcomings; those with whom we could have shared the gospel can be poignant accusers.
If you believe that lost souls were condemned to hell before they were born, then our desire to share the Good News is a cynical waste of time anyway. But in any event my purpose here was to speculate — and I so stated, trying to be consistent with the Great Commission — in a narrative context, to spur my readers to share Jesus at every opportunity.
I never said, or implied, nor do I believe, that in such a scenario, if possible, our works [see another reader’s response for an argument to the contrary extreme of yours], others’ accusations, or anything else can persuade a sovereign God outside the bounds of His Will.
I hope you’re wrong, Rick. I’ve had so many missed opportunities I don’t think I could count the number of souls ending up in hell because of me. Suddenly heaven doesn’t look so great.
Well, I’m glad you’re not being sarcastic, because it would be a terrible thing to make a joke about souls going to hell, as well as to be flippant about our responsibility to witness to others. But you could read more carefully because we never wrote that people would go to hell because of me, or that I can be argued in or out of heaven by anyone but the Almighty. If all strict predestinarians are so cold as to regard witnessing as futile, then…
… then my parable of encouragement should really not bother you as much as it seems to. By the way, not me, but there are people, you know, who say that a hyper-Calvinist’s brand of heaven does NOT look so great, as you confess about yourself.