Judgment is a common theme in the Bible, but one that we are hesitant to talk about today. When judgment is brought up in conversation people end up feeling awkward. They generally feel, well… judged. The fact is that we will all be judged one day by a perfect Judge. We try to ignore this fact or rework it to make us feel more comfortable, but sooner or later we must stop and face this truth. When Paul preached the gospel in Athens he told them, “the times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed.” If this is the case, then it is important for us to know how we will be judged.

I run across a lot of people who think that they will escape the judgment of Christ. They think that only the non-Christians will be judged. Somehow those of us who go to a good church will take a shortcut out and not face Christ enthroned. However, I think this is a grave mistake. We don’t buy a ‘get out of jail free’ card when we sign on with Jesus. It grieves me deeply to see people use some sort of nominal allegiance to Jesus as an excuse to do whatever they want against him. Don’t get me wrong. I wholeheartedly trust in the forgiveness that we find in the sacrifice of Jesus. However, the Bible is pretty clear that all will be judged. 1 Corinthians 3:11-15 is a good passage to meditate on when thinking about this subject.

We also seem to be a little confused about God’s criteria for judgment. A lot of people think that the requirement that must be met in order to go to heaven is some kind of adherence to Christian doctrine. I was in a conversation with a guy who refused to believe in God, because he thought God was incredibly unjust for creating hell. He told me, “how could God condemn most of the world’s population simply because they don’t believe in a few points of Christian belief.” Of course God would not condemn the world for that; it would be absolutely absurd. For the truth, lets take a look at Revelation 20,

“Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. From his presence earth and sky fled away, and no place was found for them. And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Then another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged by what was written in the books, according to what they had done. And the sea gave up the dead who were in it, Death and hades gave up the dead who were in them, and they were judged, each one of them, according to what they had done. Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire… And if anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.”

There is a key phrase in there that is repeated twice: “according to what they had done.” This is the missing piece in a many people’s understanding of Christianity. God is righteous and just. He does not judge based upon some intellectual belief or whether you pay tithes to a particular denomination or whether you have the right friends. He judges people based on what they have done in their life. Jeremiah 17:10 says, “I the Lord search the heart and test the mind, to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his deeds.” In one sense, this is a relief because it means that we don’t have some childish God who requires people to mumble some creed that they don’t really understand every Sunday. However, it is also incredibly frightening, because by this standard we all fall woefully short. The standard does not consist of having a few more good deeds than bad, the standard is perfect holiness, and if you have ever looked at yourself with any degree of honesty, you know that you come nowhere close. By this standard we are all judged and condemned by a perfect God.

Left to our own devices, there is no way that we could be justified before God. This is not, as many people think, because the bar is too high. If you read the Bible, the standard is simple and not unreasonable. The things that God wants from us are not out of our reach and are generally things we agree are good anyways. Like not murdering people, not hating one another, not stealing someone else’s wife, etc. John tells us that his commands are not burdensome. It is not as if God is commanding us to jump over a 20 foot wall or hold our breath for an hour underwater. The reason that we do not live up to the righteous standard of God is not because we are unable to. It is because we are evil.

This is where Jesus comes in. He tells us, “I am the way, and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” This gives me incredible hope. Many Christians use this passage as a way to tell people of other religions that they need to believe in the Apostle’s Creed in order to go to heaven. I don’t think that is quite what Jesus is getting at here. He is saying, “Look. You guys cannot live up to the standard that God has set on your own. Left to your own devices, you have no hope. I am the only way you can be purified and come to know him. Follow me.” Now, of course, the first step in following Jesus is to at least believe intellectually that he exists and is the Son of God, etc., etc. However, too many people stop there with an intellectual believe and never take up their cross to really follow him. Doing that is the only way that we can ever be justified and sanctified. Another way to say that very churchy sentence I just spilled out is to say that Jesus is the only way our past deeds can be forgiven and our future deeds can be different.

Now, I want to talk more about forgiveness and sanctification in another article tomorrow, so stay tuned.