If God won the War, Why isn't It Over?

Who Needs
an End-Time Judgment?

Most of the negative comments one hears about the concept of an ent-time judgment are reactions against what can only be viewed as a caricature of the judgment. This distorted, confused scenario of the judgment suggests some very strange ideas about God and how He works, and as such it deserves to be questioned by thoughtful people. In its various forms, this view of the judgment goes something like this:

God simply cannot make up His mind about whom to save in the judgment. So He must convene a court in order to reexamine the evidence before casting a decision. The books of recrd, listing the good and bad works of each person, are opened and examined. As the lists of sins are reviewed, the Father's face darkens, and the verdict looks doubtful for the individual in question. Bu then Jesus steps froward, and in the true adversary fashion typical of earhly courts, pleads the gracious merits of His blood over against the stern justice of the Father. Perhaps if the believer has registered enough good works on his record, Jesus can win his case.

Ths caricature continues by suggesting that, as each case is settled in the courts of heaven and marked as "accepted" or "rejected," that person's probation is closed. The divine Magistrates then go on to the next -- apparently in chronological order. When the entire list of repentant believers has thus been examined, then judgment is over and the second coming is next on the agenda. Thus, it is the heavy case load in the heavenly courts or the long processing time which (according to this view) accounts for the delay in the second coming of Jesus. "What's the matter?" one young boy asked in all seriousness, "Is God short of secretarial help?"

Wouldn't we agree that such views of God and the final judgment deserve to be challenged? But what, then, is the more accurate view? The Bible does indeed speak of a final judgment. What is being decided? Let's look at several aspects of the heavenly court scene.

Who Are the Key Personalities?

Daniel 7 names most of the key personalities involved in the judgment. (1) In the "jury bos" we see a vast array of holy angels, intensely interested in the decisions about their future neighbors. On the judge's bench is, of course, the Father, described with all the dignity befitting His office. Then Jesus, clothed, we notice, in His humanity, is brought into fill the role of defense attorney.

We must note right at the start that in all decisions relating to the redeemed, Jesus and His Father are not adversaries. To the contrary, they stand totally united, on the side of the redeemed! (2) In fact, Jesus even went so far as to say that He would not pray to the Father on behalf of His deciples, (3) lest they missunderstand and think that the Father needed to be coaxed into granting their requests. There is no disunion in the Godhead -- least of all on this matter!

Who, then, holds the position of prosecuting attorney -- the adversary against God and His plan to redeem mankind? Who else, but the adversary himself, (4) the accuser of the brethern, (5) the one who has always stood by to challenge God's elect and to argue with God about His choice of redeemed ones? (6) Satan is the antagonist in the courtroom of heaven.

Annoying as Satan's continual objections are (because of his prejudiced motives against the Judge), God still treats his chares with respect. It has never been God';s method to "pull randk" on the enemy -- to order him into silence by His own superior status. Nor does God ever erase the evidence against His people as a means of winning His case. Because, as you recall, the primary issue at stake in the great controversy is not the destiny of individual persons but the character and methods of the Judge Himself! Satan cross-examines each of God's decisions, not so much because he desires one more or less person to join him in the lake of fire, but because he hopes to catch the Judge Himself in an unfair act -- an indefensible verdict. This has always been his goal.

What Are the Issues in the Judgment?

Perhaps no part of Scripture better illustrates the issues in the judgment than does the book of Job. Surprising as it may seem, some of us feel that this book's primary goal in the Bible is not just to bring comfort during times of trial (since Job really didn't get much of that), but rather to help us perceive the cosmic issues in the judgment. Since we are already familiar with the basic narrative, let us note the following insights observed in the book:

1. The setting for the book is a brisk disagreement between God and Satan regarding one man. The evidence of Job's behavior is open to both and is not seriously questioned. Rather, the inner motives of the heart are disputed.
2. Satan is, in effect, charging that there is no such thing as genuine faith; that if God is going to get followers, He has to do it by purchasing their loyalties. No one, Satan claims, will serve God for God's sake alone, but rather for the things they can get out of HIm. Genuine, God-centered faith, he insists, is a myth and can be exposed as such under pressure.
3. As such, the charge is really against God rather than against Job. Satan is simply willing to use Job to prove his point that God's methods of winning loyalty won't work. Satan intends that the outcome of the trial, though initially reflecting badly on Job, will ultimately reflect badly on God Himself. It will expose God as having misplaced His confidence, as having trusted methods that are really untrustworthy. (It is in this sense that the final judgment, through it centers on the cases of indificuals, is actually a judgment of God! The cry of the first angel, "The other of his judgment has come." (7) thus has a double meaning: though He is dealing with individual cases, it is His own case that will ultimately result in His exoneration, by the way in which He deals with those cases! More on this later.)
4. God is the One who nominated Job's name for judgment. (8) This was HIs statment of confidence that He believed Job would stand from under the intense trial by fire. God put forward Job's name for cross-examination, not because He wanted to make up His mind about Job, but because He had already made up His mind about Job, and He believed that others would concur that His confidence had been rightly placed.
   This is a vial concept for understanding the final judgment. The judgment is not a time for God to decide who are his. The Lord already knows who are His. (9) Rather it is a time for Him to defend the decisions He has already made. It is a time when He can say both to Satan and to the onlooking universe, 'I believe in My people and in the reality of genuine faith. I believe that they have been fully restored to unshakeable loyalty and can be trusted with eternity without need to furhter alter their characters. I am confident that they will stand true even under the most severe test." (10) And to emphasize his confidence, He will stand up and leave the sanctuary from which He has ministered forgiveness for their specific sins. "(11) For He knows that they will not fall back into distrust and rebellion again.
5. Jobe remained loyal to God and was in the end commended by God because of one fact: he trusted God. There was no evidence that Job ever understood the reason for the calamities that were happening to him. His four friends urged him at length to accept an interpretation that that would have portrayed God as working on the reward-for-goodness, punishment-for-badness philosophy. He rejected this interpretation, because he knew God better than that! And through he had no surer interpretation to offer in return, he trusted God anyway. Such will be the experience of those whom God will put forward as evidence of His restoring power in the final judgment. (12)

What is the Evidence Used in the Judgment?

The Bible speaks frequently of Books of record in heaven which well be used in the judgment. (13) And it is certain that a person's actions, deeds, or works are part of that record and will be considered in judgment. (14) Some have found this a puzzleing matter in view of two other questions: Why does God need records -- does He not have a perfect memory? And what is the point in keeping track of works -- doesn't the Bible say that we are saved apart from our works?

The answer to the first question might be suggested in the words of the Lord to Samuel as he was trying to evaluate which of Jesse's sons would make the best King: "The Lord sees not as man sees; man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart." (15) God remembers perfectly and evaluates the evidence accurately. But remember, the judgment isn't really for God's sake. It is for the sake of all those lesser beings in the Universe who cannot rad the hear and who must therefore be convinced on the basis of evidence that makes sense to them: the outward appearances of deeds and acts.

Regarding salvation apart from works: to be more precise, the Bible says God "saved us ... not in virture of our works." (16) That is, man's works never have been and never will be the meritorius basis for salvation. Gods desired response from us is not that we sork to earn His favor, but that we respond in loving trust to favor already given. Now, in God's mind, genuine faith and the works which grow from faith are one and the same. He can judge one or the other and come up with the same answer. But the apostle James voiced a familiar complaint -- that many people were simply giving lipservice to faith. (17) He urged the right to see real live works as an evidence of faith -- a request which God sees as still falid in the judgment. Theus, for everyone else's sake, He keeps track of works. He has nothing to hide. He has no intent to nominate for judgment anyone whose faith cannot be vindicated by his works.

Once again, it is man's opinion of God, not God's opinion of man, which needs to be changed before the great controversy can end. Thus the purpose of the judgment is not for God to form an opinion of man, but for man to see God dealing so fairly, so livingly in the settling of the final issues that man will form an unchangingly loyal opinion of God!

Next Chapter

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1. Daniel 7:9-13.

2. Notice Romans 8:33, 34 and Micah 7:7-9.

3. John 16:26, 27.

4. 1 Peter 5:8.

5. Revelation 12:10.

6. Zechariah 3:1-7.

7. Revelation 14:7.

8. Job 1:8.

9. 2 Timothy 2:19.

10. See Zechariah 13:8, 9.

11. Daniel 12:1.

12. Job 13:15; 23:6. 7, 10; 27:2-6; Zephaniah 3:11-13.

13. Daniel 7:10; Exodus 32:32; Psalm 56:8; 69:28; 139:16; Malachi 3:16.

14. Romans 14:10; 2 Corinthians 5:10.

15. 1 Samuel 16:7.

16. 2 Timothy 1:9,

17. James 2:14-24.