The Judgment of God

The Judgment of God

The Inevitability of Judgment

By Dr. David R. Reagan

A Dozen of the Bible's Most Important Prophecies

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Two of the most ignored subjects in pulpits today are the wrath of God and the judgment of God. I guess most pastors have decided these are topics people do not want to hear, and they are certainly correct. But that is no excuse for avoiding them.

I have written extensively about the wrath of God. You can find a detailed exposition on our website at https://christinprophecy.org/articles/the-wrath-of-god. In this article I explain that although our Creator is a God of love, grace and mercy, He is also a God of justice, righteousness and holiness. As such, He must deal with sin, and He does that in both wrath and judgment. I also explain in the article that there are five types of God’s wrath: Consequential, Cataclysmic, Abandonment, Eschatological and Eternal.

The Inevitability of Judgment

King Solomon’s book of Ecclesiastes ends with these words in chapter 12:

13) The conclusion, when all has been heard, is: fear God and keep His commandments, because this applies to every person.
14) For God will bring every act to judgment, everything which is hidden, whether it is good or evil.

Judgment for all of us is inevitable. For those who reject Jesus as their Lord and Savior, their judgment will take place at the end of the Millennium when they will be resurrected and judged of their works to determine their eternal destiny. And since no one can be saved by works, all of them will be consigned to Hell.

For those of us who have accepted Jesus as our Savior, we will be judged by Him as to how we used our spiritual gifts to advance His kingdom here on earth — not to determine our eternal destiny, but to determine our degrees of rewards. You can find a wonderful article about heavenly rewards on our website by Pastor Glenn Meredith (https://christinprophecy.org/articles/heavenly-rewards).

I want to emphasize that those of us who have been born again through faith in Jesus will never be judged of our sins. That’s because Jesus took that judgment for us as He hung on the Cross. Thus, we are told in Hebrews 9:28 that because Jesus died for our sins, when He appears a second time, it will be “without reference to sin, to those who eagerly await Him.” That’s what I call a “Hallelujah verse.”

The Bible says that for believers, God has removed our transgressions from us as far as east is from west (Psalm 103:12). In Jeremiah 31:34, God says He will remember our sins no more. Micah 7:19 declares that God will cast our sins in the depths of the sea. And, as Corrie ten Boom used to say, “He has put a sign there that says, ‘No Fishing!'”

Judgment in the Scriptures
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Judgment in the Scriptures

I was recently reading one of Ron Rhodes’ excellent books titled, New Babylon Rising. In it, I ran across a series of quotations about judgment that I would like to share with you.

Theologian Paul Enns has noted that “because God is holy, He must judge all that is unholy or He would no longer be holy. Judgment is a necessary expression of God’s own character.”

Another theologian, Henry C. Thiessen, comments that “the whole philosophy of the future judgments rests upon the sovereign right of God to punish disobedience.” He then provides a great biblical summary regarding God’s prerogative to judge humankind:

In Genesis, Abraham recognized God as the judge of all the earth (18:25), and Hannah said that “the LORD will judge the ends of the earth” (1 Sam. 2:10). David spoke of the Lord “coming to judge the earth” (1 Chron. 16: 33), and he said that He had established His throne for judgment” (Psalm. 9:7).
In the New Testament, this fact is more frequently asserted. Jesus said, “For the Son of Man is going to come in the glory of His Father with His angels; and will then recompense every man according to his deeds” (Matt. 16:27). At Athens, Paul declared that God had “fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness through a Man whom He has appointed” (Acts 17:31)…The writer to the Hebrews says that after death comes the judgment (9:27). It was John who “saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne” to be judged (Rev. 20:12). God has given assurance of the fact of judgment by raising Christ, the judge, from the dead (Acts 17:31).

Are you ready to face the inevitable judgment of God? If not, then repent of your sins and place your faith in Jesus as your Lord and Savior. It is only then that you can be confident that God has forgiven and forgotten yours sins — past, present and future. Hallelujah!

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