Judgement

Jesus Christ will come to judge the living and the dead’ says the Apostles’ Creed so that God who is truth sees the ultimate triumph of truth over falsehood. It is Christian faith that we live in hope of that moment of judgement to come individually and generally. The doctrine of judgement extrapolates from those of creation and redemption linked to the person of Jesus Christ seen as having won the right to assert the definitive triumph of good over evil and truth over falsehood. ‘Nothing is covered up that will not be uncovered, and nothing secret that will not become known’ (Luke 12:2). Christ himself demonstrated such unveiling of truth throughout his earthly ministry and encouraged people to face up to their shortfalls offering forgiveness and healing. ‘You will know the truth, and the truth will make you free’ (John 8:32). Facing the truth is a great human problem addressed by Christianity. That we humans find it hard to own our shortcomings is linked to bad experiences in our past when we have been treated harshly for our sins. This makes the idea of forgiveness novel and the idea of ultimate judgement unthinkable. Encountering the love of God in Jesus Christ through word and sacrament, prayer and Christian fellowship brings conviction of our acceptance and the forgiveness of our sins. This in turn removes fear of facing God at death or at the final judgement, whilst keeping us alert to the danger of presumption, since ‘there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus’ (Romans 8:1).

Truth-telling has implications both for individuals and society. Speaking on the BBC about the social responsibility of global media agencies Alan Rusbridger drew this analogy. ‘Just as a society can’t function without clean water it cannot function without clean information’. In the wake of Donald Trump’s Presidency and removal from Twitter, Rusbridger was addressing the literal cost of truth telling such as researching items in the public domain to check their veracity. There is a balancing act on social media between freedom of speech and information against dangers from unfiltered speech and misinformation. Are social media organisations platforms for anyone to speak or, as indicated by the removal of a US President from one, a publishing agency with responsibility concerning the truth content of what they publish? If it is the latter there will be costs involved to them which would affect their working through the need to recoup these. Living in truth as a society is inseparable from taking responsibility for unveiling falsehoods. Like the need to clean up water before it goes through house pipes there is a need to cleanse society from untruths that cause dysfunction. Christians, though like others deceived at times by the media, have a special investment in truth-telling as they witness to God who is truth. Belief in the return of Christ to judge the world is foundational to conviction of the greatness and ultimate triumph of truth and justice.

In Dostoyevsky’s classic novel ‘The Brothers Karamazov’ two brothers argue about the evil in the world and whether there is ultimate justice. The debate comes to a point where one of the brothers says he is so outraged by the suffering of children that, given a place in heaven, he would refuse it in protest. The other brother replies by pointing to the suffering of Jesus. Does God expect anything of us that he has not been through himself? The judge of the world is not aloof. In Christian faith it is through Jesus that God will provide the ultimate righting of wrongs. God has invested in the human race. One day he will get a return on that investment. We get a glimpse of the judgement and fulfilment of all things in the book of Revelation 11:15 where we read ‘the kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever’. 

To believe in the judgement of the living and the dead is to believe in the coming of this kingdom and the trumping of the rule of evil and God’s triumph over injustice in this world at Christ’s return. Jesus Christ who came, died and rose has yet to complete his great and saving purpose. This purpose is described in the letter to the Ephesians as the seeking of a bride by a heavenly bridegroom. To the eye of Christian faith the whole of human and cosmic history has this purpose: to prepare a holy people for God’s possession. The church is this, a bride being prepared ‘without spot or wrinkle’ (Ephesians 5:27) for a heavenly destiny when her Lord comes again. In this eternal perspective all the sufferings of this world endured in faith will ‘work for good for those who love the Lord’ (Romans 8:28). ‘Christ has died! Christ is risen! Christ will come again!’ This is Christian faith and it brings an assurance that evil’s triumph in this world will be short lived. God will turn the wrath of man to his praise by the building up of the body of Christ as ‘a people for his own possession’ (1 Peter 2:9).

How can judgement be possible? Can there really be a final catalogue of wrongdoing? Surely there can, Christian faith replies. As surely as a computer memory contains a million records, the memory of God is established. To him all hearts are open and all desires known. By his sharing in our nature and his boundless compassion Jesus Christ is well appointed to judge the living and the dead. Did he not welcome and put the best slant on thieves and prostitutes, always ready to treat people as better than they were? Christian tradition distinguishes an individual judgement at the moment of death and a general judgement which completes God’s righteous task at the Lord’s return. After death scripture speaks of two ultimate destinies, heaven and hell, although there is a qualification that no one dying with unrepented sin can face the Lord without cleansing since ‘no unclean thing shall enter’ his presence (Revelation 21:27). This is the origin of the doctrine of purgatory which in its plain sense of the need for the faithful departed to be purged or cleansed of residual sin to come close to God is hard to counter. The other historical understanding of purgatory as a place where the closeness to God of the departed can be engineered or even bought by appropriate religious services or exercises was rightly opposed at the reformation.

Our minds argue against judgement because they think they know best. This is the case at times even for believers in God. Though many unbelievers would see truth in relation to the common good its objectivity is naturally in question and the idea of giving account for all their thoughts and actions to God is alien to their sense of autonomy. So is the implied threat of judgment so often captured graphically in medieval art. How might we depict judgment today? Maybe in a more intimate fashion, looking God, who is truth, in the face trusting in his loving capacity to forgive. When we look into the eyes of Christ at his return there will be pain, but it should be seen as an ‘if the cap fits wear it’ sort of pain. Owning and confessing falsehood is our choice. Our wrong actions are an affront to God but he has given us a remedy. As the video of my life is prepared for showing on judgement day Christ has power to edit out the unacceptable points if I give them to him by repenting of them. Mercy triumphs over judgement when we allow Christ a place in our hearts. 

Scripture assures us there is no condemnation for those who welcome Christ’s indwelling. God looks on those in Christ with the same love with which he looks upon his Son. Judgement has in a profound sense been passed already for those who have accepted God’s judgement on their lives. To accept one’s sinfulness and inadequacy is therefore in Christian tradition a pathway to joy. Such acceptance springs from a vision of God given in Jesus Christ, a God more concerned to give us what we need than to give us what we deserve. To believe in Jesus Christ ‘who will come to judge the living and the dead’ is to face the future with an infectious hope. If faith shows you that the whole world is in God’s hands so is its future. Christianity provides a deep sense of certainty that falsehood and evil will be seen ultimately as illusory. All will come right in the end because in the end there will be the grace and truth of Jesus Christ (John 1:14, 17). Ultimately there will be grace – mercy - for repentant sinners and truth to prevail over all who live and act deluded by falsehood.