Saturday, July 2, 2022

The Four Formal Judgments of Scripture

by James C. Morris – www.tojesusbeallglory.com/p/james-c-morris.html 

The Holy Scriptures describe four distinct formal judgments that will take place after the Lord comes for us. That is, they describe four different occasions when judgments will take place to determine the rewards or punishments that will be received by those brought before the Lord.

Taking these formal judgments in the order in which they will take place, two different scriptures call the first one, “the judgment seat of Christ.” The first of these is:

But why do you judge your brother? Or why do you show contempt for your brother? For we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ. For it is written:

As I live, says the LORD,

Every knee shall bow to Me,

And every tongue shall confess to God.’

So then each of us shall give account of himself to God.” (Romans 14:10-12)

And the second one is:

For we know that if our earthly house, this tent, is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed with our habitation which is from heaven, if indeed, having been clothed, we shall not be found naked. For we who are in this tent groan, being burdened, not because we want to be unclothed, but further clothed, that mortality may be swallowed up by life. Now He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who also has given us the Spirit as a guarantee. So we are always confident, knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord. For we walk by faith, not by sight. We are confident, yes, well pleased rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord.

Therefore we make it our aim, whether present or absent, to be well pleasing to Him. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive the things done in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad.” (2 Corinthians 5:1-10)

The material surrounding both of these mentions of “the judgment seat of Christ” is included so we can clearly see that they are both about a judgment of people that have truly trusted in the Lord Jesus, His own redeemed. These are the ones who will be judged at “the judgment seat of Christ.”

This can again be clearly seen in its description in another scripture:

According to the grace of God which was given to me, as a wise master builder I have laid the foundation, and another builds on it. But let each one take heed how he builds on it. For no other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if anyone builds on this foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, each one's work will become clear; for the Day will declare it, because it will be revealed by fire; and the fire will test each one's work, of what sort it is. If anyone's work which he has built on it endures, he will receive a reward. If anyone's work is burned, he will suffer loss; but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire.” (1 Corinthians 3:10-15)

So it is clear that this is a judgment for rewards, not for punishment. As we read in another place, “behold, I am coming quickly, and My reward is with Me, to give to every one according to his work.” (Revelation 22:12)

But now we must ask, when will this judgment take place? We are are told:

But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged by you or by a human court. In fact, I do not even judge myself. For I know nothing against myself, yet I am not justified by this; but He who judges me is the Lord. Therefore judge nothing before the time, until the Lord comes, who will both bring to light the hidden things of darkness and reveal the counsels of the hearts. Then each one's praise will come from God.” (1 Corinthians 4:3-5)

So this “judgment seat of Christ,” in which Christians will be evaluated to see what rewards they will receive, will take place when “the Lord comes.” And the fact that only real Christians will be involved in this judgment is shown by the fact that it clearly says that “each one's praise will come from God.” And, “If anyone's work is burned, he will suffer loss; but he himself will be saved.” For we remember that salvation is not based on works, but on faith. As we read, “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.” (Ephesians 2:8-9)

But we are told more about this than simply that it will take place “when the Lord comes.” For Jesus told His own that “In My Father's house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also.” (John 14:2-3) So the place where Jesus went “to prepare a place” for us was His “Father’s house,” that is, heaven. And that is the place from which He will come to “receive” us to Himself, that where He is, there we “may be also.”

And in Revelation 19 we find “the marriage of the Lamb,” (verses 7-9) taking place in heaven just before the Lord goes forth out of heaven as the “KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS.” (verses 11-21) And it says of “His wife,” that “to her it was granted to be arrayed in fine linen, clean and bright, for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints.” (Revelation 19:8) But “the righteous acts of the saints” will not be made manifest until this judgment takes place, as Jesus said, “there is nothing covered that will not be revealed, nor hidden that will not be known.” (Luke 12:2) So we see that this judgment has to take place before the Lord comes in power and glory to judge the wicked.

But a different judgment is described as taking place “when the Son of Man comes in His glory.”

When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then He will sit on the throne of His glory. All the nations will be gathered before Him, and He will separate them one from another, as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats. And He will set the sheep on His right hand, but the goats on the left. Then the King will say to those on His right hand, ‘Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: for I was hungry and you gave Me food; I was thirsty and you gave Me drink; I was a stranger and you took Me in; I was naked and you clothed Me; I was sick and you visited Me; I was in prison and you came to Me.’ Then the righteous will answer Him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry and feed You, or thirsty and give You drink? When did we see You a stranger and take You in, or naked and clothe You? Or when did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?’ And the King will answer and say to them, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me.’ Then He will also say to those on the left hand, ‘Depart from Me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels: for I was hungry and you gave Me no food; I was thirsty and you gave Me no drink; I was a stranger and you did not take Me in, naked and you did not clothe Me, sick and in prison and you did not visit Me.’ Then they also will answer Him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to You?’ Then He will answer them, saying, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.’ And these will go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into eternal life." (Matthew 25:31-46)

Here we see a completely different judgment. For while in the first judgment “each one's praise will come from God.” And, “If anyone's work is burned, he will suffer loss; but he himself will be saved.” In this judgment, some “will go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”

But there is an even bigger difference between these judgments than that. For “the judgment seat of Christ,” being a judgment of the redeemed after the Lord comes, is a judgment of saints that will take place after “we shall all be changed-- in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.” (1 Corinthians 15:51-52) But in this judgment “all the nations will be gathered before Him.” That is, this is a judgment of people that are still in their natural bodies. “The judgment seat of Christ” is a judgment to determine the degree of reward to be received in heaven. But this is a judgment to determine whether people who are still in their natural bodies will be condemned to “the everlasting fire” or allowed to “inherit the kingdom,” that is, to live on into the millennium. “For the Son of Man will come in the glory of His Father with His angels, and then He will reward each according to his works.” (Matthew 16:27)

And at about the same time as this judgment, there will be another one that is less well known. This is most certainly a different judgment from the last one. For the second judgment we discussed was a judgment of “all the nations,” that is, of “gentiles.” But this will be a judgment of Israelites as they will be in the act of returning to the land after Messiah comes. That return, as well as when it will take place, is found in the last chapter of Isaiah.

“ ‘For I know their works and their thoughts. It shall be that I will gather all nations and tongues; and they shall come and see My glory. I will set a sign among them; and those among them who escape I will send to the nations: to Tarshish and Pul and Lud, who draw the bow, and Tubal and Javan, to the coastlands afar off who have not heard My fame nor seen My glory. And they shall declare My glory among the Gentiles. Then they shall bring all your brethren for an offering to the LORD out of all nations, on horses and in chariots and in litters, on mules and on camels, to My holy mountain Jerusalem,’ says the LORD, ‘as the children of Israel bring an offering in a clean vessel into the house of the LORD.’ ” (Isaiah 66:18-20)

This passage describes the great battle of Armageddon, without naming it, and then says that the Lord will send the survivors from that battle out to tell all the world about Himself. And “Then they shall bring all your brethren... to My holy mountain Jerusalem.” The fact that this return will take place after Armageddon would seem to indicate that it will take place after the judgment we just discussed. This also seems to be indicated by the fact that, in the parable of the wheat and the tares, (Matthew 13:24-30) the Lord said, “at the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, "First gather together the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them, but gather the wheat into my barn.” (Matthew 13:30) As “the tares” will be gathered “to burn them,” before “the wheat” is gathered into the “barn,” it seems that the previous judgment will take place before Israel is brought back to the land. And this next judgment will take place while Israel is in the act of returning to the land, as is clearly stated in the following scripture:

“ ‘As I live,’ says the Lord GOD, ‘surely with a mighty hand, with an outstretched arm, and with fury poured out, I will rule over you. I will bring you out from the peoples and gather you out of the countries where you are scattered, with a mighty hand, with an outstretched arm, and with fury poured out. And I will bring you into the wilderness of the peoples, and there I will plead My case with you face to face. Just as I pleaded My case with your fathers in the wilderness of the land of Egypt, so I will plead My case with you,’ says the Lord GOD. ‘I will make you pass under the rod, and I will bring you into the bond of the covenant; I will purge the rebels from among you, and those who transgress against Me; I will bring them out of the country where they dwell, but they shall not enter the land of Israel. Then you will know that I am the LORD.’ ” (Ezekiel 20:33-38)

As this judgment will take place while these people are returning to the land, and as the Lord will deal with them “face to face” when He makes this judgment, we see that it will take place at the time of the return described in Isaiah 66. So, while the last judgment was of the gentiles, to determine which of them would be allowed to live on into the millennium, this will be a similar judgment of the Israelites, for the same purpose. For it says, “I will purge the rebels from among you, and those who transgress against Me; I will bring them out of the country where they dwell, but they shall not enter the land of Israel.”

This scripture does not state what will happen to the rebels that will be purged “from among” Israel. But other scriptures show us what will happen to them. For Ezekiel 36:1-10 says that “all the house of Israel, all of it” will again inhabit the “mountains of Israel,” along with “the hills, the rivers, the valleys, the desolate wastes, and the cities that have been forsaken, which became plunder and mockery to the rest of the nations all around.” This would be a flat contradiction of the words “they shall not enter the land of Israel.” if “the rebels” who had been so purged had been allowed to live. So we see that the fate of the sinners among the nation of Israel will be the same as that of the sinners among the gentile nations. That is, that “these will go away into everlasting punishment.”

We see this again in two other scriptures. For in Isaiah 4 we read:

In that day the Branch of the LORD shall be beautiful and glorious;

And the fruit of the earth shall be excellent and appealing

For those of Israel who have escaped.

And it shall come to pass that he who is left in Zion and remains in Jerusalem will be called holy--everyone who is recorded among the living in Jerusalem. When the Lord has washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion, and purged the blood of Jerusalem from her midst, by the spirit of judgment and by the spirit of burning.” (Isaiah 4:2-4)

Then again, we read in Zachariah 12:

And I will pour on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem the Spirit of grace and supplication; then they will look on Me whom they pierced. Yes, they will mourn for Him as one mourns for his only son, and grieve for Him as one grieves for a firstborn. In that day there shall be a great mourning in Jerusalem, like the mourning at Hadad Rimmon in the plain of Megiddo. And the land shall mourn, every family by itself: the family of the house of David by itself, and their wives by themselves; the family of the house of Nathan by itself, and their wives by themselves; the family of the house of Levi by itself, and their wives by themselves; the family of Shimei by itself, and their wives by themselves; all the families that remain, every family by itself, and their wives by themselves.” (Zechariah 12:10-14)

These two scriptures speak explicitly of these blessings coming upon “those of Israel who have escaped,” “everyone who is recorded among the living,” and “all the families that remain.” So we see that those of Israel who will not be allowed to partake of these blessings will no longer be living.

Finally, the last of the four formal judgments will be delayed until after the millennium. We realize the reason for this when we realize that this last formal judgment will be a judgment of the wicked dead. During the millennium, there will still be sinners in the earth, and after it ends, there will be a final rebellion. So there will still be more wicked dead to deal with until that final rebellion has been put down. We find this final judgment in Revelation 20:

Then I saw a great white throne and Him who 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, standing before God, and books were opened. And another book was opened, which is the Book of Life. And the dead were judged according to their works, by the things which were written in the books. The sea gave up the dead who were in it, and Death and Hades delivered up the dead who were in them. And they were judged, each one according to his works. Then Death and Hades were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And anyone not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire.” (Revelation 20:11-15)

We need to notice that at this judgment, “the dead... were judged, each one according to his works.” But the deciding factor will not be their works, but rather, “anyone not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire.”

What is this “Book of Life”? We find it mentioned several other times in scripture. The first place we find it is Philippians 4:3, where we read, “I urge you also, true companion, help these women who labored with me in the gospel, with Clement also, and the rest of my fellow workers, whose names are in the Book of Life.” That is the only place in the entire Bible where ths term is found outside of its six occurrences in the Revelation. The most significant of these, for our present purpose, is Revelation 21:27, which says of “the holy city, New Jerusalem,” (verse 2) that “there shall by no means enter it anything that defiles, or causes an abomination or a lie, but only those who are written in the Lamb's Book of Life.” And we also note that those who are written in this book, have been there “from the foundation of the world.” (Revelation 17:8) The NKJV, which we are using, as well as the KJV, also has this term in Revelation 22:19. But almost all other translations render that phrase as “the tree of life,” instead of “the Book of Life.” 11

It is critical to notice that at this judgment, there is no mention of anyone being exonerated, that is, of anyone being found “not guilty.” Why is this? because the righteous dead will have been resurrected and gone to their rewards a thousand years earlier, as we read earlier in the same chapter:

And I saw thrones, and they sat on them, and judgment was committed to them. Then I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for their witness to Jesus and for the word of God, who had not worshiped the beast or his image, and had not received his mark on their foreheads or on their hands. And they lived and reigned with Christ for a thousand years. But the rest of the dead did not live again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is he who has part in the first resurrection. Over such the second death has no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with Him a thousand years. But the rest of the dead did not live again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is he who has part in the first resurrection. Over such the second death has no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with Him a thousand years.” (Revelation 20:4-6)

So it is plain that the judgment at the “great white throne,” is a judgment of the wicked dead. No one judged at that time will be found in “the Book of Life,” so they will all be “cast into the lake of fire.”

We have seen four distinctly different formal judgments described in the word of God, the Bible. Two of these, the first one and the last one, are of those who are either dead or transformed. The first one is of the righteous dead or transformed and the last one is of the wicked dead. The other two formal judgments are of those living at the time the Lord returns. One is of the nations (gentiles.) And the other is of Israel, as it is being brought back to the land. The grand point we need to keep in mind is that these four formal judgments, and the differences between them, are not mere interpretations of scriptures that are less than completely clear. Each one of them is explicitly described, in plain, clear, words. So all four of these formal judgments will certainly take place, exactly as God has told us.

And each one of us needs to prayerfully consider whether or not we are ready to face whichever of these four formal judgments we will have to face. If we have truly trusted in the Lord Jesus Christ, we will most assuredly be in the first one. But even at that, will we receive the rewards that we imagine we will receive? Or will our efforts be wasted, be burned up? Only what is done out of love for Christ, and in accordance with His word, will be rewarded. But on the other hand, everyone who never trusts in the Lord Jesus will most assuredly face one of the other three formal judgments, and at that judgment will most assuredly be condemned to eternal punishment. Any and all “good deeds” that such a person may have committed will be wasted. For the only thing that will count is whether or not their names are “written in the Lamb’s Book of Life.”

11 In both the NKJV and the KJV, the New Testament is based on the "textus receptus," which is a Greek text produced in 1550 by Stephanus, along with an almost identical Greek text produced in 1598 by Beza. So this Greek version of the New Testament is often called "the received text of Stephanus and Beza." But the majority text, which is a text determined by using whatever reading is found in the largest number of Byzantine manuscripts, agrees with the texts of Tischendorf and the Greek Orthodox Church, as well as the Nestle text and that of Wescott and Horst, in rendering this as "the tree of life," rather than "the Book of Life."

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