Truth About Judgment

For not even the Father judges anyone, but He has given all judgment to the Son, so that all will honor the Son even as they honor the Father. He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent Him. (John 5:22-23)

As I read the devotional from Oswald Chambers for today, I was alerted to something I had not noticed before concerning judgment. It really helped open my eyes to an important truth lurking in these verses and that has been emerging more into my awareness over the past few years. But I have never seen it quite so clearly as I have today.

I have been noticing recently the fact that the great war going on in the universe between good and evil revolves centrally about the issue of the Son of God, Jesus Christ and what all created beings believe about Him and His authority. It was this very issue that first initiated the seed of sin as it was originally conceived in the mind and heart of Lucifer, the covering cherub assigned to hover over the throne of the great God of the universe. Christ, the Son of God, from evidence gleaned here and there throughout the Bible, seems to have been involved similarly around the throne and well may have been a companion to Lucifer. He may have seemed so similar in appearance and function to Lucifer that it might have been possible for Lucifer to mistakenly come to assume that Christ was not necessarily equal with God the Father but was more like himself as a created being.

When the Godhead went into secret planning sessions in preparation for creating this world and were designing a race of beings to uniquely reflect the image and likeness of God, Lucifer began to be jealous of the fact that Christ was taken into the secret discussions while he was excluded. He wondered why Christ was allowed to participate in that level of confidence while Lucifer, the highest created being and the most intelligent and beautiful of any angel in the entire universe, was not allowed into those secret councils. As a result he allowed jealously to remain and grow and deepen into resentment and for the first time ever selfishness became a dangerous element that began to sour, contaminate and infect the heart of perfect beings.

Up to that point in time there was no one in the entire universe that had ever questioned the perfect love of God or the perfect arrangement and function of all creation that God had placed into existence. But even in the midst of perfection throughout the universe it was necessary for faith to exist. We sometimes assume that if we lived in a more perfect world that we would not need to exercise faith because everything would be plain. But that is not so true. The angels of God actually lived in faith long before sin ever came into existence – they just didn't realize how important that faith was or ever stopped to analyze just what it was; they simply lived a life of perfect faith which is just implicit trust in the heart of a perfectly loving God whom they believed would always take care of them and provide for all of their needs.

When Lucifer began to allow doubts about God's goodness to linger in his heart and mind and when those doubts began to formulate into concepts and ideas and strengthen like noxious weeds inside of him, he also began to resist the convicting Spirit of God that warned him of the danger of his new urges and selfish feelings. As he began to resist internally more and more that quiet conviction, in turn he gave more room for these strange notions to coalesce and deepen. As a result, sin began to take on all the counterfeit aspects of deception and his brilliant mind began to invent perversions of true reality. To justify his feelings and growing deceptions, Lucifer had to continue to fabricate more and more compelling ideas about why he believed he was right and that Christ was the real problem with God's government. Finally God had to be more open in His warnings to the angels and to Lucifer that the path they were starting to follow would only lead them to disaster and ruin.

Of course, another problem was that there had never been such a thing as death or pain or disaster before, these things had never existed. So warnings in that context may not have had the same impact as they potentially can have on those of us who are all too familiar with pain and death. But that does not mean that the angels could be excused for not responding properly to warnings from God. For it is not the presence of fear based on personal knowledge of sin that is the motivation we need to stay in alignment with God as many suppose; it is a choice to trust the heart of the Father and choose to believe His words and declarations even when we cannot understand how it all is going to work out. That is the nature of true faith and it was just as necessary for the angels then as it is for us today.

Because the central issue that initiated the beginnings of sin in Lucifer's heart revolved around disputing the inherent authority of Christ the Son of God, that issue continues to be at the center of the dispute and will be up to the last moments of the final Day of Judgment that will expose the complete truth about both the Father and the Son. Thus, judgment is really all about exposing the truth about Jesus Christ as well as about the Father, not mainly about exposing all the sins and faults of those who have rebelled against God. Those are just evidence as to the credibility of the witnesses.

The very term judgment has been so mistakenly used in our thinking for ideas about forcefully imposing arbitrary punishments on people who commit bad actions against others that we have pretty much completely lost sight of the real purpose and nature of God's judgment. This has been slowly emerging into my attention over the past few years and it has caused me to become very excited as I am beginning to see what true judgment is really all about. As Revelation 14:7 plainly states, "Fear God, and give Him glory, because the hour of His judgment has come; worship Him who made the heaven and the earth and sea and springs of waters."

It is now becoming more and more clear to me that God's judgment is all about correcting the lies about God and about the Son of God that have plagued the universe ever since the inception of sin and the rebellion of Lucifer became a full-blown war in heaven. The real battle has always been over the authority of Christ to exercise the full prerogatives of God in the universe and this has been the point of contention repeatedly every time the war becomes evident. This is the issue that Jesus is addressing in these verses and is one of the issues that lies at the root of much of our own sin problems.

Is Jesus Christ, the Son of God and the Son of Man, qualified to reveal the correct truth about the Father and how the Father relates to all created beings? Is Jesus Christ actually God or is He a created being? Does Jesus have both the inherent authority and the received authority from the acknowledged Supreme Authority of all the universe to govern and determine and expose the real truth about both God and about sin and all those who have chosen to embrace the lies of sin?

I would like to go ahead and quote the devotional for today that I mentioned at the beginning, but now from the context that I have just laid out here (with added emphasis of my own) and then make a few final comments.

For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God. 1 Peter 4:17.

The Christian worker must never forget that salvation is God’s thought, not man’s; therefore it is an unfathomable abyss. Salvation is the great thought of God, not an experience. Experience is only a gateway by which salvation comes into our conscious life. Never preach the experience; preach the great thought of God behind. When we preach we are not proclaiming how man can be saved from hell and be made moral and pure; we are conveying good news about God.

In the teachings of Jesus Christ the element of judgment is always brought out, it is the sign of God’s love. Never sympathize with a soul who finds it difficult to get to God; God is not to blame. It is not for us to find out the reason why it is difficult, but so to present the truth of God that the Spirit of God will show what is wrong. The great sterling test in preaching is that it brings everyone to judgment. The Spirit of God locates each one to himself.

If Jesus ever gave us a command He could not enable us to fulfill, He would be a liar; and if we make our inability a barrier to obedience, it means we are telling God there is something He has not taken into account. Every element of self-reliance must be slain by the power of God. Complete weakness and dependence will always be the occasion for the Spirit of God to manifest His power.

Chambers, Oswald: My Utmost for His Highest : Selections for the Year. Grand Rapids, MI : Discovery House Publishers, 1993, c1935, S. May 5

This affirms what I have been discovering for a number of years now – that the real truth about God and His potent love is the real issue of judgment. True judgment is not primarily a rehashing of all of our sins and faults or our failures to ask for forgiveness. Judgment and salvation is mainly about revealing the actual truth, both about God and His perfect, unconditional love for His created beings and about the fact that Jesus Christ is actually and incontrovertibly one and the same as God the Father and as such is a perfect expression of the character of the Father.

From this perspective of the true meaning of judgment, it suddenly crashed into my awareness this morning what this text really means that was quoted at the beginning of this devotional. Of course judgment needs to begin at the house of God! And it will begin with the people who finally allow God to reveal Himself through them by dwelling in them. Where else should the revelation of the real truth about God – the true meaning of judgment – begin? God intends to reveal to the entire universe the true nature of His own character by reproducing His perfect love and what He looks like under the pressure of surrounding sin and antagonism, first in the life of Jesus when He lived here on earth and finally in the lives of a special group of people in the last days of this earth's history.

Judgment – the revelation of what God is really like and how He relates to others – will happen when those who claim to be filled with His Spirit begin to allow that Spirit to totally control everything they do and say and think and feel. When that begins to happen they will collectively start to live the life that Jesus lived and will fulfill the prophetic words of Jesus Himself, Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do, he will do also; and greater works than these he will do; because I go to the Father. (John 14:12)

Father, prepare and shape and transform my own heart and life to be part of that group of people who will expose and bring about real judgment – the revelation of Your perfect character and love to the world in the face of any and all opposition and resistance. Cleanse me of all of my resistance to You and demonstrate the incredible power of Your grace to change this sinner into a saint – all for Your name and for Your reputation's sake, Amen.