Judgment is not an attractive word. We have a feeling that it is necessary to an ordered society to protect us from anarchy, so we form official systems and courts to make decisions which hold as official judgments (evaluations in known laws). Violations of those judgments have specific punishments attached. The errors in the applications of human law systems, and the uneven oversights of the law enforcers, are not arguments against the ideal application of honorable systems meant to protect, perhaps advance, the common good – for the individual (person), and the group (societies of individuals). Overlap of some values, human (legal) with the divine (moral) may be strongly regarded, as one of the evidences of the forms given to mankind. Creation and design are worthy of protection against whatever evil violates them as related to the individual and the society. Human balances are found in the Testaments of Scripture.
The most unattractive feature of the word (judgment) is in the concept of the last judgment that includes hell. There seems to be something sinister about it. It seems almost made up in some primordial belief. How can it be real? There is sense to the whole meaning of judgment. Human concern about judgment is not so much against the concept as concern that it be fair and just, and terminal at some point. With that feeling about judgment, we need to judge (evaluate) it for what it is. We discover that judgment has a good side, higher than fairness – to redemptive approval in evaluation. To accept a good is to make a judgment. Judgment occurs when we believe we have assumptions, perhaps facts and conclude. Declaration of penalty or recourse follows the judgment, indicating conclusion. It means that the punishment, not the judgment, will fit the crime (sin), or that the award will relate to the excellence of the context related to righteous (right) conduct. Motives (ancillary factors) must be included in the denouement (the final unraveling). Even Jesus accented the point: Luke 12:46-48. This and other information (related to fairness and justice) makes clear that God’s judgments will be fair, even righteous – that reflects absolute truth. (John 7:24; Romans 2:55; 2 Thessalonians 1:5; and, Revelation 16:7) Jesus also reviewed the matter in John 9:24-41. All persons must face judgment (evaluation) for good or ill. Each life is evaluated.
Judgment Day for Christians will mean mortal endings. Awards will be on a different scale than earth values. Fulfillment, related to holiness, will be the standard. Capacities will be different, but the effect will be the same. Those with greater capacity as those with lesser will be fulfilled with what they have.
A shadow of that is seen in the persons who having less than others are fulfilled with their context of life. A gallon has the quality of a quart, but potential is larger. Measurement of heaven is not in size, but in quality. In Christ, the debt of wrong has been paid. Nature’s differences are unknown, but meaningful to the context of heaven. The future rests in quality, righteousness that flows out from the holiness of God. Truth in holiness reigns. Truth, love and holiness fit all, but not every earthly person chooses them. The options are not known in eternity. Only God can manage any expanding meaning. Mercy is in his nature.
What is left for those not admitted to the divine court? What is left is denominated as hell a final word of sin judgment from God. We do not know what hell is. The worm would not die there, which implies that hell is not fire as we know it. Hell does not need oxygen. We know only fragments of other contexts. There is abundant Scripture texting that there are banished souls. Even more, the length of this hell is perceived in the same terms as the length of heaven. We do not even know the meaning of that, in that time is ended – and there are no more worms. We are taught to believe that those not found in Christ will never be fully reconciled. That is hell. The burning may be regret, for all we know. There is a divine grace that will treat the matter in congruence with the nature of God. Scripture presents the alternative of hell as an unsatisfactory option for human beings, so unsatisfactory that the individual ought to do whatever is necessary to escape its unhappy context. There is something to be gained in spiritual commitment, and something to be shunned in it. Scripture offers sufficient information on the alternatives to leave no doubt about the importance of personal choice to join one and evade the other. *Mark W. Lee, Sr. — 2016, 2020