'He will come to judge the living and the dead'

[1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 & Matthew 25:31-46]

Steve Paynter, Sunday 27 January 2008

Introduction

Leslie Newbigin, one of the most respected missionary theologians of recent times across the church said this “It is one of the weaknesses of a great deal of contemporary Christianity that we do not speak of the last judgement and of the possibility of being finally lost.”

Why have we stopped teaching and speaking about this subject? Well the reason is not that we are unsure what God’s Word in the Bible teaches on this subject, or that the church has officially changed its views recently. The foundational creeds remain unaltered. For example from the apostles creed:

“I believe in Jesus Christ, …and he will come to judge the living and the dead.”

There has been no dramatic headlines in the news saying - “Church consigns hell to history - the notion of facing judgement at the end of your life has been abandoned by the church as outmoded and irrelevant in the modern world.”

Non of this has happened, but we have just quietly avoided the subject in the mainstream churches by and large, as perhaps too uncomfortable and awkward.

However, the modern revisions of the Funeral Service in Common Worship in 2000 retain a Christian understanding of Judgement. In the service we commend the deceased person to God, who is described as “our merciful redeemer and judge.”  And so he is. But it is a difficult subject - open to huge misunderstanding and emotional overload. Our task today then is to look at what we mean when we say “Jesus will come to judge the living and dead” and secondly how might we answer some of the difficult questions this raises.

So first, what does “he will come to judge the living and the dead” actually imply?

At the heart of Jesus’ teaching ministry is the theme of the Kingdom of God.

Jesus’ teaching on the Kingdom has a present aspect as well as a future aspect.

The present aspect is a partial, gradual, and accumulative coming of God’s reign into human affairs on earth through Christ. Christ’s first coming in humility, was to announce that God’s Kingdom had come in himself, was near to everyone, and to call people into his Kingdom. This is the age in which we live and each of us is free to enter into God’s Kingdom now through repentance and faith in Jesus Christ.

But there is also a future aspect to God’s Kingdom.

1 Thessalonians 4:15-end………………………………................................................................

There are 300 references in the NT to Jesus' second coming. 

At the end of this age, Christ will return in power and great glory to bring this age to an end, and establish God’s reign, absolutely and completely, on earth in all things.

It will mean the triumph of good over evil and the renewal of all things:

The separation between heaven and earth caused by sin will be no more, and the physical creation and heaven will be one, unified, healed reality.

For this second coming of Christ we wait with bated breath and in eager anticipation.

But for all this to happen the return of Christ will also, inevitably, herald a judgement of the whole of humanity (which is the meaning of the living and the dead).

This judgement of the whole of humanity brings to an end this interim age, and sets the stage for the new creation, the age to come.

So Christ’s return will bring about a separation within the whole human family,  between those who have welcomed Christ and those who have rejected him and his way.

This is a difficult concept which many reject as abhorrent?

And it surely does raise many difficult questions.

So secondly then, what can be said, in defence of this biblical truth?

First, let us be careful not to make God in our own image.

What people end up saying is ‘God must be just a better more perfect version of me!’

We who are fallen and prone to evil cannot know God at all, unless he reveals himself to us, which we believe he has done in Christ. Therefore we must seek to follow Christ in regard to what God is like and not our own faulty notions. We learn a lot about God’s holiness in scripture - he is absolutely, implacably opposed to all evil, always, as well as totally just and righteous. He cannot simply overlook wrong doing. Appalling evil cries out for justice.

Second, we are created with the dignity of free will & the capacity to make real choices about right & wrong in our lives, & about our readiness to love God or not.

God cannot simply withdraw that free will when we exercise it wrongly.   Nor can he over rule it, if a person finally and ultimately rejects him, as that would be to violate the very free will, which makes us truly human.

And thirdly, God is a God of love who desires that no one should perish, but that all be saved.

Indeed God has gone to the very extremity of self giving love on the cross to open the way for us into his eternal kingdom, the new creation. He alone knows the very depths of a persons heart and his judgements will always be seen to be just and fair. 

We do not ultimately know who will be where, in the end - that is not given to us to know.

But perhaps more difficult than judgement itself is the fate of those who reject God and his merciful provision of salvation in Christ Jesus, ultimately and finally.

What awaits those who fail to repent or embrace Gods mercy in this life while wilfully continuing in evil, or simple selfishness, as our Matthew reading suggests? 

I am not speaking of those whose knowledge is faulty or who haven’t had the opportunity to know Christ or whose appeal to God’s mercy is simply not evident to us.  God alone knows a human heart, the sum total of its experiences and responses.

We do not, and we are not called upon to make that judgement, which is Christ’s alone. Christ is our merciful redeemer and judge - not me or you.

But that still leaves the question what awaits those who have not received God’s grace in Christ?

First may I say emphatically that we are not meant to understand the biblical imagery about hell literally. Obviously outer darkness and fire are mutually incompatible making such views absurd anyway. The Biblical picture we are given of hell is of an eternal separation from God. There will indeed be great anguish in the realisation of this awful reality. To know that the God of love is real but to be banished from his presence is truly appalling to contemplate. 

“What hell of hells, the torment of torments, is the everlasting absence of God, and the everlasting impossibility of returning to his presence ... to fall out of the hands of the living God, is a horror beyond our expression, beyond our imagination ... “

However, the Bible does not teach eternal fire for unrepentant sinners. Looking at all the references on this subject the words ‘perishing’ and ‘destruction’ are most commonly used and the function of fire is after all destruction. I am much persuaded by those who argue for the final annihilation or destruction of those who ultimately reject God and his ways, rather than the souls of those who have rejected God’s love continuing in eternal conscious punishment. That does seem to me to be abhorrent and not only contrary to scripture but to God’s justice also, as the punishment would not then fit the severity of the crime.

But let us be under no allusions Jesus gave frequent warnings about the dangers of being finally lost.   And not least in the passage read to us from Matthews gospel.

Here the sheep and the goats are separated on the basis of whether they have responded to Jesus Christ the King of the Kingdom, and shown that love for Christ in their unconscious service of others. The unrepentant went on serving themselves.

The teaching of this passage does not say that judgement will be on the basis of whether our good deeds out weigh our bad. They never can, for we should have lives full of love and compassion anyway. The truth is we have all sinned and fallen short of God’s perfect love and are undeserving of eternal life in his eternal kingdom.

It is in realising our spiritual poverty that we must then turn to God for his mercy and grace. It is in Christ alone that we find grace and forgiveness for our many sins and the sure promise of eternal life. It is in coming to Christ and receiving his free, undeserved grace that our hardness of heart is melted and our lives will show forth his mercy and grace to others in need.

So what are we too conclude?

Hell is not a reality to frighten people to God, but it is a reality. Ultimately, we are free to choose how and for whom we will live.

It was CS Lewis who said “The gates of hell are locked from the inside.”

God will eventually honour our choices in life and when Christ returns the opportunities for change will have passed. However, there is abundant grace available in Christ to meet all our sins. Let us make sure we are resting in that grace, praying for other and ready to share that knowledge of God‘s forgiveness with others. And the best way to live on earth is in that love which is from God, flowing out to all around us. Eternal life is to know Jesus Christ and to serve him in others.

I saw that his love was our judgement; that as the eye must quail before the light of the sun because of the exceeding brightness of that light, so the soul must quail before his love because of the exceeding splendour of the love; and that that love was the greatest of all forces, the perfection of all power.              [Father Andrew - A gift of light.]