For most people, the primary emotion felt when they hear the words “the Last Judgment” is fear. Terrifying paintings and descriptions of that judgment dating from the Middle Ages have prepared generations of Christians to tremble when they think of that event. And in our own day, revivalist preachers have added their own versions of dread as they try to scare people into their salvation.
Above all else, our eschatology must be defined by the final purposes of God for this creation and for us. Where is God taking history? What are God’s goals for earth? As Christians we claim that we see those goals best in the life, teachings, death, and resurrection of Jesus. In him we see what God wants. And what do we see? We see compassion, hope, forgiveness, mercy, truth, peace, justice, joy, and unconditional love. All of this Jesus summed up in the phrase “the Kingdom of God.” All Jesus said and did was devoted to bringing God’s Kingdom to earth where God’s will would be done as it is in heaven.
Jesus defines the details and events associated with the last things, not the other way around.
If Jesus is the key to understanding God and what God wants, then whatever we believe must be in harmony with his nature. Jesus “trumps” all our expectations and beliefs about the last things. Let me put it another way: Jesus defines the details and events associated with the last things, not the other way around. This realization is very important to understand. So often we start with a concept like “the Last Judgment” and make all kinds of assumptions about what such an event/metaphor must mean. We then force Jesus to carry out what we believe must be involved in that Last Judgment. It’s as though his hands are tied by our cut and dry theology and distorted expectations. For example, many Christians grew up with the idea that you must believe in Jesus to be saved. If you don’t believe in Jesus, you are condemned at the Last Judgment and sent to everlasting hell. Many American Evangelicals and all Fundamentalists fervently believe this. There are denominations where this is the only sermon ever preached.
So, let’s say there is a wonderful person who never heard of Jesus. She is kind, compassionate, loving—a model human being, perhaps more like Jesus than many of us. Such a person comes before the judgment seat and hears, “Too bad. You didn’t believe in Jesus. It doesn’t matter that you loved God as best you could understand the Almighty. It doesn’t matter that Jesus of Nazareth would have had compassion for you. You are condemned to eternal damnation. So, please exit stage right to the fires of hell.” I don’t believe for one second that this is what will happen to such a wonderful human being as she comes before her Maker.
Neither his hands nor God’s hands are tied to our wooden theologies which are so quick to divide the world into the saved and the damned.
My point is this: just as Jesus defines what the Messiah really is, so he defines what we can expect at the Last Judgment. Neither his hands nor God’s hands are tied to our wooden theologies which are so quick to divide the world into the saved and the damned.
With those thoughts in mind, let us ask what is the purpose of the Last Judgment? Is the purpose to punish or to set right? To punish or to reconcile? To punish or to rehabilitate? Is the purpose of the Last Judgment punitive or redemptive? For far too long the church has understood the Last Judgment to be punitive in nature. This judgment in many minds is designed to separate the good from the damned and to sentence the damned to everlasting, never-ending torment. But do you hear what we are saying about God with such a belief? We are saying that God will send people to an eternal “concentration camp” where they will be tortured forever. That is why the mention of the Last Judgment scares the hell into (not out of) people.
Dante in the Inferno section of his Divine Comedy wrote that above the gates of hell is a sign which reads, “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.” Imagine being in a concentration camp where you are tormented forever and ever with no hope of liberation. Can you see the God revealed in Jesus Christ doing that? Can you see Jesus who said we are to love our enemies because God loves God’s enemies sitting idly on a throne while billions of people are condemned to such a fate? And even if you believed some people should be punished for what they have done in this life, is everlasting torment a just and fair judgment for what one might do during their short lifetime here on earth? This idea of judgment is not even fair, much less loving. It turns God into a tyrant worse than Hitler or Stalin.
Of course, some say that the hell the damned are condemned to is not a place of literal torture. It is a place where persons must live forever in isolation and with what they have done and who they have become without any hope of love or forgiveness and forever separated from God, goodness, and compassion. To me that sounds like a form of everlasting solitary confinement. POWs who have endured long periods of solitary confinement report that it can be as bad as any torture devised by humans. Once again, can you see Jesus condemning anyone he loves to such a fate? I guess we could say that Jesus doesn’t love them anymore. But if that is the case, we all have reasons to worry. What will happen to us if Jesus should stop loving us? God’s love is unconditional, indiscriminate, and everlasting. That is our only hope. If God’s love is not for everyone, then there is no Good News—at least, no Good News for this world and most of the humans who have peopled this planet.
If God’s love is not for everyone, then there is no Good News—at least, no Good News for this world and most of the humans who have peopled this planet.
So, is there no place for judgment in our concept of God or the last things? Of course, there is a place for judgment. Why? Because for there to be a New Heaven and a New Earth, things must change and be set right. Those who oppress others, degrade God’s good creation, and afflict this world with their violence, greed, bigotry, and egotism must not be allowed to continue the pain and destruction they cause. For there to be an end to suffering, injustice, and oppression, God must act to set things right. Evil must be identified, named, and dealt with before there can be healing and reconciliation. There will be judgment, but again we must ask what is the point of that judgment.
At this point I want to give credit where credit is due. Much of what I will say in the rest of this article was inspired by the thoughts of Jurgen Moltmann, one of the greatest theologians in our world today. His writings have been a blessing to me since 1970. From this point on, some of what I write in this article will be paraphrases of his words.
To discover the purpose of judgment in the Bible, we must go back to the Hebrew Scriptures. The prophets spoke of God judging the nations. They called the time of that judgment “the Day of the Lord.” The basic meaning of the verb “to judge” in the Hebrew Scriptures is “to deliver.” For example, the Book of Judges tells the stories of Israel’s heroes who delivered God’s people from the oppression imposed by their enemies. “Judges” in that book should be translated “Deliverers.” We also see that meaning in the phrase “to judge the widow and the orphan.” That judgment does not mean that the poor widow and the helpless orphan will be punished. It means that they will be delivered/liberated from their economic oppression and vulnerable state. So, when the prophets speak of God’s judging the nations, they do not necessarily mean that God will punish the nations. They mean primarily that God will administer justice and bring about deliverance wherever needed to all human beings. The result will be a kingdom of peace and justice in which all nations will “beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks, and nations shall not lift up sword against nations. Neither shall they train for war anymore” (Isaiah 2:1-4). In other words, God will create a universal kingdom where all the resources and energies that have been wasted on war and oppression will now be used to heal, liberate, and bless all of humanity as well as all of creation.
This theme continues with Israel’s hope for a Messiah. Every single messianic passage in the Hebrew Scriptures states that the job/vocation/calling/destiny of the Messiah is to bring justice and peace to the whole world. This ideal king will establish and uphold Israel with justice and peace and will create the kingdom of freedom which knows no end (Isaiah 9:7). With righteousness he shall judge/deliver the poor and decide with equity for the meek of the earth (Isaiah 11:4). He will even bring justice and peace to the animal world as wolves live in harmony with lambs (Isaiah 11:6). It is a righteousness which creates justice and puts people right (reconciliation); so, it’s a redemptive righteousness (Isaiah 1:27). The Day of the Messiah, like the Day of the Lord, is ultimately not a day of wrath. It is the day when the possibility and processes of shalom begin. By passing judgment on injustice and enmity, the Messiah creates the preconditions for the universal kingdom of shalom.
In light of the above observations, something should become clear regarding this great judgment on the part of God in which divine justice will triumph over evil. Those who cherished this hope were victims of oppression. The basic point of such judgment was not the punishment of those doing evil but the creation of justice by God for those who suffer wrong. Only later was God made into the penal judge of humanity before whom human beings must tremble.
That process of change from judgment primarily being deliverance to being punishment occurred in part when the Jewish faith took on an apocalyptic flavor. The apocalyptic figure who would judge was called “the Son of Man.” In apocalyptic thinking, the Son of Man will judge everyone individually according to his or her deeds. There will be either eternal reward or eternal punishment for each person. With such thinking the idea of divine righteousness which creates justice and shalom gives way to a judicial system which simply weighs the balances and reacts accordingly. God’s great judgment of deliverance and setting the world right as envisioned by the prophets is turned in to criminal court in which the law of retaliation is applied. The good are rewarded and the evil are punished.
When the church took over the title “Son of Man” for Jesus, to some extent, they also took over this apocalyptic expectation of judgment. As a result, we have both of these ideas regarding the Last Judgment in the New Testament. On the one hand, we continue the vision of the prophets whereby God’s judgment is good news as it delivers the oppressed and reconciles, redeems, and transforms those doing evil. On the other hand, certain passages in the New Testament present a more apocalyptic view of judgment whereby God simply pronounces judgment on each person according to their deeds and assigns them to eternal reward or punishment. The problem is that the New Testament never resolves the tension between these two expectations.
The New Testament consistently presents Jesus as the one who proclaimed the justice/deliverance of divine mercy to those who have received no justice.
How, then, do we deal with all of this in our own time? What is the ultimate purpose of the Last Judgment? Once again, I suggest we look to Jesus who defined God for us as well as what we can expect from the last things. The New Testament consistently presents Jesus as the one who proclaimed the justice/deliverance of divine mercy to those who have received no justice. (Read among other places the Beatitudes in Matthew 5 as well as Jesus’ description of the Last Judgment in Matthew 25.) At the same times, the New Testament presents Jesus as the one who offers forgiveness and redemption to the unjust. Evil must not be allowed to continue. God will set things right. But when love is the guiding principle in all that God does, we must hope for a judgment which both delivers and reconciles, which establishes justice and justifies sinners, which creates peace and redeems.
The most perfect form of love in Jesus’ teachings is love for one’s enemies just as God loves God’s enemies. Through such sacrificial love, Christ has “slain enmity” says Colossians 2:16. In fact, Colossians sees the reconciliation of the whole cosmos taking place through Christ’s self-surrender on the cross. Jesus even prays from the cross for those crucifying him saying, “Father, forgive them because they don’t know what they are doing.” It is by such love that the Messiah Jesus creates his kingdom of peace. Such love could never let the law of retaliation be the last word. The Last Judgment over which Jesus presides can never be the cut and dry pronouncements of a merciless judge. It can only be the judgments of a God whose final purpose is to set things right by delivering the oppressed and redeeming and reconciling the world. As such, the final judgment is no more than the beginning of the new creation of all things. It is not an end but a beginning—the first of the final steps in God’s eternal plan of creating a cosmic community of love, creativity, freedom, and solidarity. As such, the final judgment is not final at all. It is not the last that can be expected from God. At most, it is the next to the last. The last would be the Kingdom of God in its fullness and the new creation of all things. Just as in Genesis the first thing was not human sin but God’s primal blessing given to creation, so judgment cannot be the last thing. What would come last would be the final blessing of the new creation in which righteousness and justice dwell and where shalom and love reign.
And so those who know Jesus and understand the heart of God have nothing to fear from the Last Judgment.
And so those who know Jesus and understand the heart of God have nothing to fear from the Last Judgment. The Last Judgment is good news. It represents the joyful and liberating eventuality whereby God begins the new creation of heaven and earth. And all that will be decided and all that will be done will be guided by the compassionate love and pure righteousness we have already seen in Jesus.
