This article is the thirty-eighth installment in our series "Christian, What Do You Believe: The Belgic Confession of Faith." Find the whole series here.
To many people, the Bible’s teaching on the final judgment seems out of touch with the times. Non-Christians may find the topic offensive. Even some professing believers are embarrassed by it. It may appear harsh and impractical; we want positive messages about the here and now.
But the Bible insists that we not neglect the Last Judgment. The Belgic Confession reminds us that this topic is “according to God’s Word.” Moreover, the judgment is not a biblical tangent; it is instead the culmination of the entire drama of redemption. So, we shouldn’t be surprised that the judgment is the theme of Jesus’ last sermons (Matt. 24, 25), that it is integral to the apostolic presentation of the gospel (Acts 17:31), and that it undergirds Paul’s most comprehensive and passionate pleas for personal godliness (e.g., Rom. 12:19; 1 Thess. 4:13–18). Without the final judgment, we are left with a story about “a nobleman [who] when into a far country to receive for himself a kingdom” and never returned to look after his servants (cf. Luke 19:12).
But if “God will judge the world in righteousness by a man [Christ] whom he has appointed” (Acts 17:31), we must understand and respond appropriately to this doctrine.
What We Must Know
Christ will come again to cleanse this old world with fire in preparation for the reunion of heaven and earth (2 Peter 3:10). On that great day, the spirits of the dead will be reunited with their bodies, and the bodies of the living will be changed and made imperishable (1 Cor. 15:52). “Then all human creatures will appear in person before the great judge” (BC 37; cf. Heb. 9:27).
Scripture teaches that the dead will be judged “according to what they had done” (Rev. 20:12–13; cf. John 5:29; 2 Cor. 5:10). We are all God’s stewards who must give account of our stewardship (Rom. 14:12). In John’s preview of the judgment, he saw every human “standing before the throne, and books were opened” (Rev. 20:12). The Confession interprets these books as our consciences. Your life-book will not be flattering. But it will reveal whether you have done the most important work of God, which is “to believe in the one he has sent” (John 6:29; cf. 1 John 3:23). The ancient hymn writer put it succinctly: “Man’s work faileth; Christ’s availeth; he is all our righteousness.” To stand in the judgment, you must build your life on Christ (1 Cor. 3:11–14). And that is just what the “faithful and elect” will do, those whose names “are written in the book of life from the foundation of the world” (Rev. 13:8; cf. Rev. 17:8; 20:12). Every good work of believers is a fruit of God’s gracious and sovereign election. God has prepared a kingdom for his children and enables them to walk in the way of the kingdom (Matt. 25:34, 40). Election makes believers’ salvation certain; it guarantees our justification and secures our final vindication at the judgment seat of Christ.
The result of Christ’s judgment will restore balance in the universe. In this age, justice is often unrealized; oppressors sometimes seem to flourish, and godly people suffer (see Psalm 73:3–5). But on the last day, everyone will receive an appropriate reward. “The ungodly shall … be tormented in the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels. In contrast, the faithful and elect will be crowned with glory and honor. The Son of God will ‘confess their names’ before God his Father and the holy and elect angels; all tears will be ‘wiped from their eyes’ … And as a gracious reward, the Lord will cause them to possess such a glory as never entered into the heart of man to conceive.” The confession doesn’t get lost in controversial eschatological details. It simply focuses on the return of the just judge and the weight of its consequences.
How We Must Respond
Christ will judge the living and the dead. God will use the judgment to accomplish many purposes which are extremely practical to us here and now.
The Last Judgment Proves God’s Innocence
Especially in times of tragedy, God is often blamed for being malignant or absent. But on the great day, God will “be justified in [his] words and blameless in [his] judgment” (Ps. 51:4). Thomas Watson wrote, then “Sinners shall be so clearly convicted that they shall hold up their hand at the bar and cry ‘guilty’…the sinner himself shall clear God of injustice.” God is always right, even when things seem to go wrong.
The Last Judgment Warns Us to Repent
We may not want judgment sermons, but we need them. Hell is real and terrible. Thankfully, God has provided one way to escape condemnation and eternal torment and shame: whoever believes in God’s son will not perish but have eternal life (John 3:16).
The Last Judgment Motivates Missions and Evangelism
Like God, we should “[desire] all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Tim. 2:4; cf. Rom. 10:1). Is there anything more hateful than to refuse to tell people how to escape hell and know God’s love? Paul is blunt: “Knowing therefore, the terror of the Lord, we persuade men” (2 Cor. 5:11).
The Last Judgment Urges Personal Godliness
Everything you do has eternal significance. Paul believed that the Righteous Judge will award a crown of righteousness to all who faithfully long for his appearing (2 Tim. 4:8). Only heartless mercenaries work exclusively for a reward. But God uses his promise of a gracious reward to motivate his beloved children to live well.
The Last Judgment Invites Us to Rest in Christ
Rebels should fear Christ’s return (Ps. 2:10–12). But believers “confidently await the very judge who has already offered himself to the judgment of God in [their] place and removed the whole curse from [them].” John Calvin asks, how “could [Christ] our advocate condemn his clients?” (see 1 John 2:1). “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are Christ Jesus” (Rom. 8:1).
The Last Judgment Consoles Suffering Christians
Some professing Christians might be embarrassed by the doctrine of Christ’s return. But suffering Christians aren’t; they long for the “Sovereign Lord” to “judge and avenge” those who persecute them (Rev. 6:10). The Judge of all the earth shall do what is just (Gen. 18:25). For this reason we can rest in his judgment and resist avenging ourselves (Rom. 12:19).
The Last Judgment Previews God’s Glory
Unlike many earthly judgments, the final judgment is not God’s way of discovering anyone’s future state; he already knows. The judgment is rather to display “before all rational creatures the declarative glory of God in a formal, [legal] act, which magnifies on the one hand His holiness and righteousness, and on the other hand, His grace and mercy.”
The Day of Judgment isn’t a metaphor for some vague day of reckoning. Jesus Christ will return to judge the earth. His return should intensify your calling and strengthen your hope. If it does, you can “look forward to that great day with longing in order to fully enjoy the promises of God in Christ Jesus, our Lord.”
Footnotes
Venantius H. C. Fortunatus, “Praise the Savior Now and Ever,” Trinity Psalter Hymnal, 335.
Thomas Watson, The Duty of Self-denial and 10 Other Sermons (Pittsburg: Soli Deo Gloria Publications, 1996), 173.
The Confession suggests that there “are degrees of bliss in heaven and of punishment in hell, determined by God in the light of what men have done while in the flesh.” Peter Y. De Jong, The Church’s Witness to the World (Pella, IA: Pella Publishing Inc., 1962), 2.429.
Heidelberg Catechism, Q/A 52.
John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion (Philadelphia: The Westminster, Press, 1960), 2.16.18.
Louis Berkhof, Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: WM. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1939), 731.
