What is the last judgment?

What the Bible says

"The last judgment" calls up frightening pictures. Scripture first presents judgment as putting things right. Too many wrongs in this world end with the wrongdoer unpunished and the victim's tears undried. The psalmist describes heaven, earth and sea rejoicing at the news that God is coming to judge the world:

before the LORD, for He is coming— He is coming to judge the earth. He will judge the world in righteousness and the peoples in His faithfulness.

Psalm 96:13

Abraham once asked, "Will not the Judge of all the earth do what is right?" (Gen 18:25). Scripture says he will. The martyrs under the altar cry out in the same hope: "How long, O Lord, holy and true?" (Rev 6:9-10).

The New Testament names the Judge: Christ. The Father "has assigned all judgment to the Son" (John 5:22), and Paul proclaims in Athens that God has set a day to judge the world with justice by the man he appointed, proved by raising him from the dead (Acts 17:31). The Judge is the one who hung on the cross for us.

Judgment reaches everyone:

For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive his due for the things done in the body, whether good or bad.

2 Cor 5:10

Revelation sees "the dead, great and small, standing before the throne" (Rev 20:12). Jesus described a shepherd separating sheep from goats. The King tells those who fed the hungry, welcomed the stranger and visited the prisoner that they did it to him:

Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of Mine, you did for Me.

Matt 25:40

So judgment takes ordinary deeds seriously. Romans 2 says God "will repay each one according to his deeds" (Rom 2:6), and that he shows no favoritism (Rom 2:11).

Yet Scripture says just as plainly:

Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

Rom 8:1

Jesus says that whoever hears his word and believes the One who sent him "has eternal life and will not come under judgment" (John 5:24). Paul asks, "Who is there to condemn us?" and points to Christ, who died, was raised and intercedes (Rom 8:34). And salvation is by grace, "not by works, so that no one can boast" (Eph 2:9). How do the two fit together?

The church's witness

The church has always confessed that Christ will come to judge the living and the dead; both the Apostles' and the Nicene Creeds say so The Apostles' Creed The Nicene Creed. Matthew Henry, on Romans 2, observes: "Nothing speaks more terror to sinners, and more comfort to saints, than that Christ shall be the Judge" Matthew Henry. For those who trust Christ, the Judge is the one who died for them.

Augustine noticed that "judgment" can mean two things. On John 5:24 he writes: "judgment sometimes means punishment, sometimes trial" Augustine. He reads "we must all appear before the judgment-seat of Christ" as trial, and "shall not come into judgment" as not being condemned Augustine. Believers too appear before Christ, but not for condemnation.

How has the church held the two together? The Reformation traditions, Lutheran and Reformed, teach that a person is justified by grace alone through faith, and that good works are the fruit and evidence of that faith The Augsburg Confession Calvin, Institutes. Works appear at the last judgment not to price salvation but to show whether faith was real, as James says: "faith by itself, if it does not result in action, is dead" (James 2:17).

The Catholic Church teaches that justification begins wholly in God's grace, and that faith working through love bears good works which God rewards with eternal life; the merits he crowns are themselves his gifts Council of Trent, Decree on Justification. In 1999 the Lutheran World Federation and the Catholic Church stated together that salvation is by grace alone and that good works follow as its fruit Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification. The two still speak differently about works and the word "merit," but agree that salvation can never be a ground for boasting.

On Matthew 25 Matthew Henry makes the point clearly: "What we inherit is not got by ourselves. It is God that makes heirs of heaven" Matthew Henry.

Christians differ over who "the least of these" are in Matthew 25: all people in need, or, given the words "brothers of Mine," Christ's disciples. They also differ over the final end of those who remain turned from God: eternal conscious punishment, the view most churches have held; final destruction; or a hope that all will in the end be restored. That is taken up in Are heaven and hell real?.

In the original languages

"Judgment" is krisis (κρίσις), from krino (κρίνω), "to separate, to decide." It can mean the neutral act of discerning, or the verdict that results, condemnation. In John 5:24, "will not come under judgment" most naturally means the second.

The word in Romans 8:1 is katakrima (κατάκριμα), the sentence handed down after a verdict. For those in Christ there is no such sentence. This does not deny a day of judgment; it says no sentence of condemnation falls on them then.

Bema (βῆμα), "judgment seat," originally meant a raised platform, the seat of a judge. At Corinth the governor Gallio sat on the bema to hear the case against Paul (Acts 18:12).

Common objections

"A loving God does not judge." This is the most common and serious objection: love forgives, it does not punish. But consider someone who suffered the gravest wrong, abuse that no one was ever made to answer for. If God never set anything right, could that be called love? A love that does not care about evil is hard to tell from indifference to the victim. Scripture treats God's judgment not as the opposite of his love but as love that will not leave evil alone. John also says God sent his Son not to condemn the world but to save it (John 3:17). The God of Christianity is not one who enjoys judging but one who, in Christ, bore its cost himself on the cross.

"Who can judge a person? People differ and no one knows another's circumstances." There is something right here. Jesus himself forbade passing final condemnation on one another (Matt 7:1). Human judges cannot see motives. But the Judge Scripture describes is the One "who weighs hearts" (Prov 24:12), who knows what we suffered, what light we had, and what we did not know. For those who never heard the gospel, see What about those who never heard?.

"If we are judged by works, how can we be saved by grace?" It looks like a contradiction, and theologians have long argued over it. But the statements answer different questions. Grace answers what makes us right with God; works show what that grace has done in a life, whether described as its evidence, as Protestants say, or as merits that are God's own gifts, as Catholics say. Neither makes salvation a boast, and neither counts faith without action as real. Paul adds that a Christian's work will be tested by fire, and if burned up, "He himself will be saved, but only as if through the flames" (1 Cor 3:15). Salvation rests not on our work but on the foundation, Christ.

Going further

The last judgment is not a teaching meant to stoke fear. Scripture speaks of the day so that evil does not have the last word, so that we know our lives matter before God, and so that we know in advance who will stand on our side.

You might ask yourself: am I awaiting God's judgment on the side of someone wronged, or dreading the exposure of my own failings? If both, how does the cross answer each? Who, in my own life, are "the least of these"?

To read further, see Are heaven and hell real?, Will Jesus come again? and What is justification?.