If God won the War, Why isn't It Over?
A Distinctive Message
About the Judgment
Since its very beginning, the Seventh-day Adventist Church has been enthralled with the theme of final judgment. And not without good cause! It is a message which makes astonishing good sense when seen in its fullness. Like a golden thread of internal logic, it weaves together soteriology (beliefs about final events) and eschatology (beliefs about final events). It is a motivator for action and a guard against indifference.
But more than that, it is the judgment message which -- to a large degree -- comprises the Seventh-day Adventist's distincitive message as a Christian group to the rest of the world. In addition to all that we share with other Christians, Seventh-day Adventists have something special which we are persuaded needs to be said to the worlds before the end can come. And this distinctive message can well be organized around the theme of final judgment.
We can look at that distinctive message under the following five heading:
A. Judgment Is Good News!
The mighty angel of Revelation 14 who announces the time and importance of the judgment is described as having "the everlasting gospel."(1) We know that the word gospel means simply 'good news' -- a message thoughtful people will be glad to hear.
And thoughtful people will be glad to hear the message of judgment for at least two reasons. First, those who are on God's side in the controversy will rejoice when judgment is given "in favor of the saints of the Most High."(2) God's people, having experienced the brunt of Satans's accusations, will be delighted to see the time come when, before the whole universe, "he pleads my cause and executes judgment for me. He will bring me forth to the light; I shall behold his deliverance."(3)
But on an even grander scale, the judgment is good news because this is when the Judge Himself is exonerated from all Satan's charges. It means the ending of all conflict -- the entire universe being brought back into complete oneness with God. Thus the at-one-ment will be complete, and rebellion will be no more.
When the judgment is over and the now-peaceful universe gathers to celebrate its outcome, it is worth noticing the words to the song which the redeemed will sing:
"Great and marvellous are
thy deeds,
O LORD God, sovereign
over all;
Just and true are thy ways,
Thou king of the ages.
Who shall not rever thee, LORD,
And do homage to thy name?
For thou alone art holy.
All nations shall come and worship in thy presence,
for thy just dealings stand revealed."(4)
No wonder the saints whohave died for thir faith cry out with a loud voice, "O Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before thou wilt judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell upon the earth."(5)
B. Judgment Reveals How God Sin-Proofs the Universe!
It will be an infinite, eternal thrill to see a universe secure against the possibleility of sin ever rising up again. But what will be even more thrilling will be to see how God does it! Indeed, it is the method which God uses to end the sin problem which makes it secure.
The final judgment is a statement that God will end the controversy by revealting truth rather than by exercising power. It puts the focus on the free, thoughtful response of persons created in God's image and thus able to make sense out of spiritual realities. The judgment presents a picture of a people choosing to set their loyalties upon God forever, because they have come to know him as He is. It sets forward a conviction that people's characters will be restored into perfect readiness for heaven because God has used the methods of truth, love, and freedom -- rather than recreating those characters by divine fiat.
The Adventist understanding of the judgment emphasizes that the sin problem is located in man's opinion of God rather than in God's opinion of man. Thus the focus is not a dreadful "What does God think of me when my name comes up in the courts of heaven?" Rather, it is a positive "what do I think of God in the our of His judgment?" And also "What does the world think about my God because of what they have seen in me?"
C. Christlikeness of Character -- Privilege, Not Duty.
The Adventist understanding of the final judgment puts a wholly new context around the Christian's concern for holiness of life -- for Christlikeness of character. Never again is the attitude of perfect submission to God's will seen as some staggering duty, exacted from us as the reluctant price to be paid for admission to the kingdome. Instead, the Christian's heart thrills to each new call to holiness, to each deeper convicting of the Spirit to "come up higher" in personal piety. For it is our privilege to "give glory to him"(6) in the hour of HIs judgment. We count it the highest honor to let our lights shine in such a way that people will, through what they see of God through us, give glory to the Father.(7) The deepest longings of our hears center in being ready to respond to that call to go forth with trimmed and fully fueled lamps to prepare the way for the coming of the Bridegroom.(8) At a time when thick darkness covers the earth (darkness of the misunderstanding of God's character), we believe the noble commission is ours to "arise, shine; for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you."(9)
Dismal, self-centered, anxiety-ridden concerns are gone! Who has time for them? God has given us higher reasons to liver -- to life for Him who for our sakes died and was raised.(10)
D. Final Judgment is a Clearer Message About God.
Seventh-day Adventists see a sensible, overriding purpose to every detail of their life-style -- and it is judgment-related!
If God's will is an expression of His wonderful character, then every aspect of that will, lived out fully in our lives, will allow some aspect of His character to shine attractively to others. And everytying we stay or do which reveals His character helps someone prepare for judgment. For example, we get excited about principles of health, for we see in them such wise, sensible, powerful, God-ordained methods for fighting disease and staying well. When they are lived, they make God look so good! We get excited about God's detailed plans for education, because they tend to produce such capable, secure, Christlike young men and women, able to serve as Jesus served when He came to reveal the Father. And others looking on are better able to make informed decisions about God in the great final showdown of the ages.
And so it continues with principles of family life, business ethics, community service -- no part of life is excluded. The totality of what we are lends credibility to what we say about our God. And for this reason, we long to gladly, fully embrace all that God has offered us. For it is all a revelation of Himself -- to us, then through us. And the world needs nothing so much as a full, accurate revelation of the character of God, that they might make an informed choice in the time of judgment.
E. A Message that Completes the Purpose for Israel's Call!
Some contemporary authors have wondered if Adventism might be failing in its attempt to complete the Protestant Reformation (in the full preaching of justification by faith.) Upon closer examination it becomes clear that Adventists have never claimed to be rooted in a sixteenth-century movement. Indeed, the purposes God sought to accomplish on earth are better defined by Moses and his movement than by Luther and his movement. God calls Israel "the people whom I formed for myself that they might declare my praise."(11) He intended that through them His wonderful character might be demonstrated to all the surrounding nations.(12) His ideal plan was that they sould know their God so well that, when he came to them in humanity to die as their Saviour, they should accept Him and carry the message of His life, death, and resurrection to the whole world. Very shortly, then, would the world be brought to judgment and God's eternal kingdom established.
But as a nation, the Jews never seemed to understand their God,(13) much less His plan for them. And so all that God intended to be accomplished through literal Israel became the privilege of spiritual Israel.(14) Now God's design is that "through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places. This was according to the eternal purpose which he has realized in Christ Jesus our Lord."(15)
Seventh-day Adventists believe that God's desire for us and for all Christians who would join in this privilege is the same as it was for Israel:
"Then they will be my
people,
and I will be their God.
I will give them a single purpose in life:
To honor me for all time,
For their own good
and the good of their descendents."(16)
The End
---------------------
1. Revelation 14:6
2. Daniel 1:22
3. Micah 7:9
4. Revelation 15:3, 4
5. Revelation 6:10
6. Revelation 14:7
7. Matthew 5:16
8. Matthew 25:1-13
9. Isiah 60:1
10. 2 Corinthians 5:15
11. Isiah 43:21
12. Deuteronomy 4:5-8
13. Hosea 4:1, 6; 5:4; 6:1-3
14. Galatians 3:14-16, 29; 1 Peter 2:9-12
15. Ephesians 3:10, 11
16. Jeremiah 32:38, 39