Even among people who do admit to the self-evident reality of a Creator God, the vast majority are unwilling to see Him as a Holy and Righteous Judge to whom we must someday give full account. However, God’s Word, the Bible, makes it very clear that He has indeed set a time when He will judge every person who has ever lived.
Although this judgement is referred to many times throughout the Bible (for just a few examples, see Luke 12:2-3, John 12:48, Acts 17:31, 1 Corinthians 4:5, Hebrews 9:27, Jude 6), Revelation 20 gives us a brief but powerful glimpse of the event. Notice verses 11 and 12: “And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works.”
You may be asking, “Will God expect me to explain myself for every little thing I’ve ever done?!” Jesus Christ, the Son of God, has answered this question for us; He says in Matthew 12:36-37, “But I say unto you, That every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment. For by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned.” King David’s son, Solomon, writes in Ecclesiastes 11:9: “Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth; and let thy heart cheer thee in the days of thy youth, and walk in the ways of thine heart, and in the sight of thine eyes: but know thou, that for all these things God will bring thee into judgment.” He closes the book of Ecclesiastes with these words in chapter 12, verses 13-14: “Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man. For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil.” Scripture repeatedly states that when we stand before God, our every word, thought, and action will be brought to light.
A necessary question, then, is this: “What is the standard God will hold me to when I am judged?” God has answered this question for us as well. As we saw in Ecclesiastes 12:13, we are to “Fear God, and keep his commandments.” This is referring primarily to the ten commandments which constitute God’s moral law (found in Exodus 20:1-17). We will be held to the standard of God’s own perfect righteousness, as reflected in His perfect law.
When Jesus was asked which commandment was the most important, He responded, “...thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment. And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these” (Mark 12:30-31). In John 14:15 Jesus explains what truly loving the Lord entails: “If ye love me, keep my commandments.”
Lest we should comfort ourselves with any of our own outward keeping of His law, Jesus took two commandments by way of example and said, “Ye have heard that it was said of them of old time, ‘Thou shalt not kill; and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment:’ But I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment:” and “Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, ‘Thou shalt not commit adultery:’ But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart” (Matthew 5:21-22a, 27-28).
God will require a record of absolute, unwavering, no-exceptions obedience to His law in our actions and our hearts. Obviously, none of us come remotely close to achieving this. We are constantly breaking God’s law and rejecting His authority over us in one way or another. This rebellion is called “sin,” and God has made it clear that sin requires punishment. There is a God-given sense of justice within us that acknowledges this truth. We all know inherently that wickedness deserves appropriate retribution.
No amount of morally good things we may have done during our lifetime will do anything to “tip the scales” in our favour on that day. Even a record full of good behavior, generous giving, or religious affiliation would do no more to release us from punishment for our wickedness than a murderer’s “good deeds” would cancel out just punishment for his crime in a court of law. The Old Testament prophet Isaiah said this: “But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities [sins], like the wind, have taken us away” (Isaiah 64:6). We can do and say things that make us look good to others or even to ourselves, but the Lord knows the hidden motives of the heart; and “the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” (Jeremiah 17:9). A wicked heart cannot produce pure motives.
Knowing ourselves to be sinners, the realization that we will one day meet a holy God–coupled with the fact that we can do nothing by our own effort to improve our case before him–should do much to sober us. However, the most frightening aspect of this coming day of reckoning is that our final and permanent destinations will be determined by the outcome of God’s investigation into our lives. This is where we get back to the concept of eternity. The Scriptures repeatedly tell us that God’s judgement of sin is not a one-day event; He created us with souls that will exist forever, and that’s exactly how long His righteous wrath against sin will last (See Matthew 25:41 & 46; Mark 9:43-48; II Thessalonians 1:8-9; Revelation 14:10-11 & 20:10). Those who are found guilty before God will be sentenced to an eternity spent in a terrifying place of punishment usually referred to as Hell. We’ve all heard multitudes of references to hell in our lifetimes, but the reality is far removed from any man-made version portrayed in popular culture. The Bible calls it a place of outer darkness, torment, weeping, and gnashing of teeth; a place without rest; a bottomless pit; the lake of fire; and a place of everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels. We can be certain that the endless wrath of God will be more horrifying than any nightmare we can imagine.
It looks bad because it is bad. How did we get ourselves into this mess? We’ll answer that and more when we take a look at history in Part III.
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