Judgment, Hell, and Heaven
Some of the Thessalonians focused their attention so closely upon the second coming of Christ that they lost sight of their spiritual vision. They figured that if Christ were likely to return any day, it did not much matter whether they applied themselves to their daily vocations. So they crew neglectful and indolent – waiting for the Lord. In his Epistle, Paul set them straight. Yes Christ would come someday but the timing was no concern for them. They must attend to their affairs and be ready for Him whenever He might come. They were told to study and to go about their business.
So many false predictions have been made about the end of the world that some people laugh off the whole idea of a second coming of our Lord. While the predictions are ridiculous, the coming of Christ is definitely part of the Christian Gospel. Christ told the high priest at His trial, “Hereafter shall ye see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven.” Paul told the Corinthians, “Then cometh the end, when He shall have delivered up the Kingdom to God, even the Father.” He told the Thessalonians, “The Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God.” While the language is vivid, the event is definitely forecast. Christ is to reign for a millennium – which does not mean exactly to one thousand years.
Amillennials believe we are in the millennium now and the Kingdom of Christ on Earth is both physical and spiritual. They believe that Christ will come in a cosmological event that will precede the judgment. Premillennials believe that the millennium is yet to come and that the period of great tribulation will precede the millennium reign of Christ on Earth. Postmillennials believe there will be a period of great tribulation for the saints after the millennium reign of Christ on Earth. These are serious issues for theologians. For the rest of us, I suggest another approach. Panmillennials are the peacemakers in the field of eschatology. They believe that all things will “pan” out according to the will of God.
Leaving the speculation aside we have been told that two notable events will occur – the general resurrection and the general judgment. St. John quotes Jesus, “The hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear His voice, and shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation.”
We don’t know what our resurrection bodies will resemble. We do know that a complete personality needs an instrument through which to express itself, and that instrument will function in that life as our flesh and blood bodies do in this world. St. Paul points out that the new growth does not always look like the seed. “God giveth it a body as it hath pleased Him, and to every seed his own body.” If the resurrection body is dependent upon the seed, how the Christian treats his human body is very important. God built a universe designed to operate according to moral and spiritual laws. He must be true to Himself so our actions, our habits and the character that grows out of them must be relevant in the next life as well.
We are constantly writing our own record of rights and wrongs. At death comes a summing up in what we call the particular judgment based on the quality of character we may have achieved in our earthly progress. The correcting, purifying, strengthening process goes on for waiting souls in Paradise. Finally comes the general judgment which our Lord presents in the well-known picture of separating the sheep from the goats. He says to those on the right hand “Come, ye blessed of my Father,” and to those on the left hand “Depart . . . ye cursed.”
Christ will be our Judge, and His justice will be tempered with the mercy which comes from sympathetic understanding. Beyond that we cannot say much. There will be a Judgment. It will be real justice mitigated by the atoning mercy of our Saviour’s redemption. There will be no appeal. Heaven and hell will be opened. Christ said so.
Seven centuries before Christ an evil king named Manasseh reigned in Jerusalem and corrupted the religion of Israel to the point of introducing human sacrifice. These rites were held in the Valley of Hinnom. King Josiah abolished all such practices and formally defiled the place where the sacrifices were carried out. It became a dumping place for the refuse of the city where fire burned day and night consuming the cast off things. The Valley of Hinnom was translated into Greek and then into English and became Gehenna which was translated to hell in the English Bible. Our Lord issued a solemn warning that stubborn resistance to the will of God made people spiritually worthless and fit for such a rubbish pile as might be found in the Valley of Gehenna.
The words “hell” and “damn” have hardened into meanings never intended in Christian teaching. Damnation means simply an adverse judgment. Hell means the receptacle for lost souls – those that have made themselves worthless. Both words have acquired a flavor of profanity and jokes are made about them without giving them serious consideration. This is unfortunate because real Christian teaching about hell is definitely a serious matter.
Persistence in sin is a malignancy that disqualifies one for the company of God. The impenitent will be excluded from the company of their more honest brethren and will be denied a place in the household of God. They will suffer loss of spiritual privileges and consigned to a state of unhappy deprivation. There is such a thing as spiritual retribution just because God must be true to Himself. Even the Scriptures decline to describe hell and damnation, but they are solemn and serious facts.
It is hard to imagine that God’s purposes will not be completely successful in the long run. How can righteousness and unrighteousness exist forever in clear opposition to each other? We believe that God will be all in all. God has a way of working out what seems to be contradictions. However he has not seen fit to tell us how this might happen. We have been told, however, that unrepented rebellion against God faces a final penalty commensurate with the gravity of the offense.
What is your vision of heaven? Golden streets, pearly gates, and shining towers somewhere far off in the bright blue sky is a familiar image. Then again, it is not exactly stimulating for those who are accustomed to a vigorous, robust life in this world. Our allegorical anticipations are not and cannot be descriptions. “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him.”
The first idea we must dispel is our obsession with possessing things. Even when we find happiness is illusive, we still think more wealth, position or power might bring it closer. When we think of heaven, we concentrate on things to be had and special privileges to be enjoyed. Heaven is involved in being something rather than to get something. It is concerned with character, not possessions.
Whatever the best may mean to any of us, heaven will be that multiplied indefinitely. Selfishness, and jealousy, and envy, and all such human annoyances will have been sponged out together with the causes of them. Happiness for one will not be obtained by less happiness for another. There will be an abundance for all. There will be no sorrow in heaven. Sorrows come from accidents and maladjustments which turn our hopes into disappointments. Where our hopes coincide with the will of God and His will is assured, neither maladjustments nor disappointments are possible. Likewise, there will be no sin or regrets. There will be work to be done, but not as a burden, with anxiety about the results. As constructive service of the Heavenly Father, it will be always fruitful and always satisfying.
What about the value of struggle against adverse circumstances? What about the stimulating benefits of uncertainty, the fortitude bred by facing failure and defeat? These things will still exist but without the grief, and the hurt, and the tragedy. We can be sure that nothing good will be lost out of all God’s creation.
God’s purpose must come to pass just because it is God’s purpose. It will be the absolute of all that is good, right, true, and beautiful. The when, the where, and the how of it will only be known in what we call Heaven.