April 27  Retrospect On Judgement

He has fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness through a Man whom He has appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising Him from the dead. Acts 17:31, NASB.

Judgment. A fearful topic to some. A hopeful one to others. And a complex subject for all. Today we want to stand back and take a look at the breadth of the topic. Most people think of judgment as a single event taking place somewhere near the end of time or for individuals at death. But the early Adventists discovered that it was a process rather than a single event. By 1857 James White had come to regard the final judgment as having four quite discrete phases.

Phase one he saw as the pre-Advent or investigative judgment of those who claimed to be followeres of the God of the Bible. the earliest Adventists arrived through Day of Atonement typology at the fact that it would include only God's people. On that day the high priest went into the holy of holies wearing the breastplate of judgment, which had inscribed on it the names of God's people. It was those who he interceded for on the annual judgment day.

The second phase as the Adventists viewed it was an executive judgment that would take place at the Second Advent, when God in His executive role brought blessings to His people(Rev. 22:12; Matt. 16:27).

The third phase is the millennial judgment mentioned in Revelation 20:4. "Then," we read, "I saw thrones, and seated on them were those to whom judgment was committed"(RSV). At this point you may be wondering what is left to be judged. After all, the righteous are in heaven with God, and the wicked are sleeping in their graves. That's true on both counts. But the wicked have not yet faced eternal destruction. And before they do, God gives every person a chance to go over the records of the unjust during the millennium. Wanting no one still to have questions, He provides time for all to realize that He is doing the best thing He can in a bad situation. Thus the millennial phase of the judgment is in a sense an "investigative" judgment of the wicked. But is is even more a judgment on God's rightousness and the adequacy of His decisions.

The final phase of judgment comes at the end of the 1,000 years, when an executive judgement forever removes those who have continued to reject God and His principles(Rev. 20:9, 12-15). That final phase is not a happy one, but God has no choice if He will not force people's wills and if he disires to create a universe in which sin and destructive relationships have no part.