How Should We Think About God’s Judgement?
How Should We Think About God’s Judgement?
The topic of the judgement of God is often a stumbling block for many Christians and non-Christians alike. We love the idea of God as a God of love, but the idea that we will be judged is an unpopular idea in today’s culture. God as judge invokes images of God “smiting” people out of anger and wrath. Yet, when understood correctly and in its context, God as the righteous judge is a good and necessary reality.
There is something within our very being that longs for justice. If you don’t believe me, how do you feel inside when someone cuts you off in traffic or cuts the line at the supermarket? We vividly see the evil in the world today, and our souls long for the unjust to be judged and those who are the victims of injustice to be vindicated. It is easy to see the injustices done by other people.
It is more difficult though, when we see the evil within ourselves. When someone else commits evil — lying, betrayal, abuse, and more — we see the need for judgement, but when we commit an evil act or have an evil thought, we tend to not see it as a big deal. We hold others to account, but we tend to give ourselves the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps this is why the idea of God’s judgement seems so harsh? We are not really that bad, are we?
Scripture paints a different picture, though. Starting in Genesis chapter 3, when Adam and Eve first disobeyed God, sin and evil have become part of our world. The result of sin, the Bible says, is death, but this is not what God intended for his creation. Out of love, though, God gives us a choice, and scripture says that all of humankind has choses sin and evil.
So, what does God do? If God was truly motivated by hate leading vengeance, he could have wiped out his creation long ago. However, God is, instead, motivated by love for humanity. So, he began to make a way for creation to be reconciled to himself.
Half of the book of Revelation is about God’s judgement upon sin and evil. However, the organizing vision of the book is not this judgement, but the love of God for people through Jesus, the Lamb of God who was slain.
In this sermon, I walk us through some of the visions of judgement that we see in Revelation, symbolic of both the self-inflicted judgement that is already at work and the coming, more final judgement, that will come when Jesus returns.
In the sermon, I try to paint a picture of the judgement of God as good news for all who have repented of their sin and for the coming reality of eternal life in the renewed creation. In this sense, God’s judgement upon evil is not the end, but it is a means to the end — the renewal of all things — where there will be no more evil, pain, death, and tears. And through the Lamb that was slain, you are invited into this new creation.
— Pastor Branden