Wednesday: The Executive Judgment
During the Middle Ages there was a strong tendency to portray God as a severe, punitive Judge. Today the tendency is to describe Him as a loving, permissive Father who never punishes His children. Yet, love without justice will turn into chaos and lawlessness, and justice without love will become oppression and subjugation. God’s judging process is a perfect blend of justice and mercy, both of which derive from His unconditional love.
The executive judgment is God’s final and irreversible punitive intervention in human history. Limited punitive judgments occurred, for example, in the casting out of Satan and his rebellious angels from heaven (Revelation 12:7-12), the driving out of Adam and Eve from the garden of Eden (Genesis 3:1-24), the Great Flood (Genesis chapters 6-8), the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 19:1-38, Jude 7), the death of the firstborn in Egypt (Exodus chapters 11-12), and the death of Ananias and Sapphira (Acts 5:1-11).
Image © Justinen Creative from GoodSalt.com
So it is no surprise that there will be an executive judgment of the wicked also at the end of human history.
Read 2 Peter 2:4-6 and 2 Peter 3:10-13. How do these texts help us understand the nature of the final executive judgment? How do they imply the idea of the completion of judgment as opposed to its going on forever, which would be a perversion of justice and not an expression of it?
“God’s goodness and long forbearance, His patience and mercy exercised to His subjects, will not hinder Him from punishing the sinner who refused to be obedient to His requirements. It is not for a man — a criminal against God’s holy law, pardoned only through the great sacrifice He made in giving His Son to die for the guilty because His law was changeless — to dictate to God.” — Ellen G. White, Manuscript Releases, vol. 12, p. 208.
All that God could have done to save humanity from being eternally lost He did, even at a great cost to Himself. Those who are lost ultimately made choices that led them to this unfortunate end. The idea that God’s judgment on the lost, even the annihilation of the lost (as opposed to eternal torment), goes against the character of a loving God is simply wrong. It’s God’s love, and God’s love alone, that demands justice, as well.
| What does the Cross itself teach us about what God was willing to do in order to save everyone who would be saved? |
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As you probably know by now, I grew up on a farm. This was back in the days when dairy farms were small enough so that each cow had a name and the farmer knew every cow in the herd. I have to say this about most of the farmers I knew. They loved their animals. Orphaned lambs were brought into the house and had a place in front of the fire until they were strong enough to go outside. Sick cows were nursed back to health. The dogs had to live outside, but they had a nice warm kennel to sleep in. Farmers might ultimately eat some of their cows, but they made sure that they had a good life right up to the end.
City folk had their own perception of farmers. They saw the practice of cutting off the tails of lambs as inhumane. The problem was that if you left the tail on the lamb it would get soiled and ultimately become flyblown (maggot infested) and the pain and suffering would be much worse than cutting off their tails. When I was a kid I remember we had a change of government and the new government in its great wisdom decided that farming practices needed a bit of an overhaul. So the "city folk" government started making rules about how farmers should treat their animals. Their perception - from the city - was that farmers were cruel to their animals. The point is that these city folk, hearing some of what happened on farms formed an opinion about farmers that was very wide of the mark.
In Genesis God said:
Then he actioned that idea:
The issue is, that we have turned the tables on God by trying to make God in our image. So to a certain extent, our perception of God is limited by our culture.
When we discuss the nature of God, and even quote scripture and Ellen White, how much of our selection and thinking is tempered by our (culturally-based) perception of what we think he should be like?
We can be like the city folk in my illustration who thought they knew enough about farming practice from what they read and saw in the media to start making rules about farming.
How true!
I understand that God judges all men, and that they are saved or lost based on the choices they made. The wicked die at Jesus' 2nd coming. Why are the wicked raised at the end of the millennium just to be cast in the fire rather than just stay dead?
I think if you go back to Tuesday’s comments, you will get a clearer picture. It helped me. To put it simply, God is allowing the opportunity for them to understand the nature of their own rejection of God so that every knee will bow and every tongue confess that JC is Lord (Phil. 2) and that His ways are just and true (Rev. 15).
The wicked are not raised "just to be cast into the fire." As Sarah said, God raises them to understand His actions, and when they do, *every* knee shall bow and acknowledge the justice and righteousness of God.(Phil 2:9-11; Rev. 5:8-10) Not just the righteous, but the wicked will also confess the justice and righteousness of God. Only then, will God do his "strange work," which is to destroy forever sin and all who cling to it. It is the most loving thing He can do for people who could not possibly enjoy the atmosphere of heaven and would only destroy the happiness of others there.
The lesson writer states: “It’s God’s love, and God’s love alone, that demands justice, as well.” God’s salvation of man is focused on ‘righteousness’ – His Righteousness. If man accepts and wants to make God’s righteousness his own in Christ Jesus, he will need to do this according to the teachings of the Word of God.
A humble and contrite heart, a humble spirit to love God with, and God will take on the work of our Salvation, applying, as the lesson writer states, “the perfect blend of justice and mercy, both of which derive from His unconditional love.” Who needs to be afraid of the one he loves and is loved by?
Earlier in the week I invited consideration of whether God's way/form of things is the same as our human way/form of things. I would therefore invite consideration of Romans 2:1-15 in light of today's lesson. Romans 2:6 affirms that God will repay everyone according to their deeds and then goes on to unpack how this will happen. Romans 2:7 states that those who persevere in 'doing good' will receive eternal life. Romans 2:8 contrasts the 'repayment' of those who persevere in self-seeking, rejection of truth and in so doing embracing of evil/lawlessness. These people will receive wrath and anger/indignation.
What is God's wrath and anger/indignation? Is it the same as ours? Fortunately Paul has already unpacked what God's wrath and anger is in Romans 1:18, 24,26,28. It is God's releasing the self-seeking, lawless ones to the inherent consequences of their choice such that they "receive in (and of) themselves the due penalty for their error" (Romans 1:27).
That the self-seeking, lawless ones receive the due penalty "in themselves" perfectly aligns with the term "perish" in John 3:16 and 2 Peter 3:9 that is a middle voice* verb in both instances. Of note, Paul goes on in Romans 2:12 to state that all who sin apart from the law will perish apart from the law - once again the verb perish being in Middle voice.
Galatians 6:7-8 also affirms this same reality when it states that those who sow to the flesh reap destruction from the flesh and not from the Spirit.
In light of the above, I find consistent biblical evidence that there will be 'punishment' - negative consequences - arising from executive judgment and that God will be involved in this. However, I find that the means by which this will take place is very different to what we are used to in our human ways.
What do you find?
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* Middle voice means that the person experiences impacts from something arising from within themselves as opposed to being the recipient of something imposed upon them from an external source.
Judgement is also necessary in love. The right justice comes out of love, not from hate! The justice of hate is what the world preaches, but the justice of love comes from God! Thank God that everything will be judged and will end according to His loving character.
Am getting it difficult to differentiate between The Final Judgment and The Executive Judgment.
Jeremiah, the "Final Judgment" and the "Executive Judgment" are two different terms used for the same phase of the very last judgment.
I'm not sure it's that important to get all the precise details right, as long as we remember that when we allow Jesus to be Lord of our lives, He will stand for us in the judgment which happens *before* He comes. (We sometimes call that the "Investigative Judgment" or, which I like better, the "Pre-Advent Judgment." But, come to think of it, "Investigative" is not a bad label. In our western society we have an "investigative hearing" to see if the plaintiff has a case against the accused. In the Pre-Advent Judgment, Satan is the plaintiff/accuser who claims everyone on this planet sinned and is unworthy of eternal life. (See also Zechariah 3:1-7) The cases are then investigated, and Jesus stands as Advocate (1 John 2:1) for all who put their trust in Him. He will never lose a case!