Acts 17:30-31 - And the times
of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men every where to
repent: ...
Romans 2:5 - But after thy hardness and impenitent heart treasurest up unto thyself wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God;
1 Corinthians 6:9-10 - Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, ...
2 Peter 2:4 - For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast [them] down to hell, and delivered [them] into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment;
Hebrews 9:27 - And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment:
Revelation 20:11-12 - 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...
Joel 2:1 - Blow ye the trumpet in Zion, and sound an alarm in my holy mountain: let all the inhabitants of the land tremble: for the day of the LORD cometh, for [it is] nigh at hand;
Romans 2:5 - But after thy hardness and impenitent heart treasurest up unto thyself wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God;
1 Corinthians 6:9-10 - Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, ...
2 Peter 2:4 - For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast [them] down to hell, and delivered [them] into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment;
Hebrews 9:27 - And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment:
Revelation 20:11-12 - 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...
Joel 2:1 - Blow ye the trumpet in Zion, and sound an alarm in my holy mountain: let all the inhabitants of the land tremble: for the day of the LORD cometh, for [it is] nigh at hand;
We have a natural
tendency of thinking about the final judgment, or as the author of Hebrews says
eternal judgment, as being like a court trial; in which the accused will come
forth and declare his guilt or innocence. We also tend to think of this
judgment in the sense of a scale where our good must outweigh our bad.
The final judgments
will occur in a very different way; it will be a judgment of presence.
Costume jewelry may be beautiful to our eye but
when placed next to a true gem that it imitates it becomes an obvious fake.
It is not only the image of a thing that can
be judged in this manner but the likeness also, i.e. bravado placed next to
courage becomes obviously false, the life generated by the Spirit of God
reveals the existence in the works of the flesh as death.
In a similar way
the spirit of a person can often affect those around them without words; a
child will become scarred if they sense that their parent is scarred despite
reassurance to the opposite, a pet will hide under a bed if they know we are
angry with them, despite our use of a sweet voice, there are some people who
just by their being in a room can affect the mood of others.
When a person
seems to emanate confidence, dignity, anxiety, depression, kindness, danger, or
any such thing we say they have a presence. This presence is more about the
spirit of that person than it is about their physical body.
I have discussed
all of these things to point out that judgment is not always an action of
events but often simply a revealing presence of what is true. In this way Jesus
death and time in the grave judged death and the grave as paid for all who are
in Him by faith taking away the guilt of our transgressions; in a similar way His
presence at the right hand of the Father makes Him the mediator and gate by
which the life breath of Gods Spirit flows to every believer.
To understand the
final judgment we must understand this type of judgment and what mercy is.
Mercy is not an act as much as it is a covering veil or shroud.
In the witness of
Moses we see a manifestation of YHWH in the burning bush. This bush for that
moment of visitation burned with the glory and holiness of Gods life to such a
degree that the very ground surrounding it became holy for our God is a
consuming fire.
Now what is this
consuming? We see by the fact that the bush was not consumed that the consuming
fire of God consumes all that is not life; as He is life His presence purifies
from everything that is not. Not too long after Moses would, upon Sanai while
standing within the manifestation on the mountain, ask to see YHWH face to
face.
YHWH tells Him no
man could survive standing in His presence, but allows Him to see from the
cleft of a rock the wake of His presence as He passed by. Just this train of
the glory of His presence so saturated Moses with the life and the light of
YHWH that he shown like the sun. He emanated this glory to the point that the
people feared they would die if they looked upon him and asked that he would
wear a veil before speaking to them.
We give these
things consideration to understand that the milk teachings of eternal judgment.
As already mentioned mercy was an act of God’s love to veil His creation from
His presence; that the fall of Adam into the death and darkness of self-existence
could be redeemed back to His life and light for us by Yeshua His Messiah.
There is coming a
day, which we refer to as the final judgment, eternal judgment, or great white
thrown judgment when the veil shall be removed and all things shall stand in
the presence of the creator. On this day if His life and light is not in us we
will be completely consumed and if it is in us it shall be purified till
nothing else remains.
This will be done
by His presence alone; there will be no need of guilt to be assessed or for
explanation to be given.
