Doctrine for Theology: Final Judgement and Eternal Glory

“The Lord Jesus Christ will return in person, to judge everyone, to execute God's just condemnation on those who have not repented and to receive the redeemed to eternal glory.”
– UCCF’s Doctrinal Basis, Article 11

What are we affirming in this statement?

This final statement of the Doctrinal Basis (DB) reminds us that the gospel looks not only to past events, or present realities, but to a future hope. This is the certain hope that one day Christ will return, God’s justice will be revealed and we who trust in him will enjoy eternity with him.

“The Lord Jesus Christ will return in person, to judge everyone”

The Christian hope does not look forward to an escape from embodied existence to a future where our souls, freed from the evils of a material world, float up to a disembodied, spiritual bliss. Nor does it look to the ever advancing progress and improvement of this world until it surely but gradually morphs into the world that it is meant to be. It looks to a bodily resurrection and new creation, inaugurated at Christ’s first coming and consummated at his second.

“But about that day or hour no one knows” (Matthew 24:36), yet Christ’s return is certain, and Christian’s are called to be prepared for it, to look forward to it, to eagerly desire it (The cry of Revelation 22, ‘Come Lord Jesus’). Jesus will come as he went, in his glorious new-creation body, descending in person.

There will be an abrupt and decisive end to the world-as-we-know-it brought about by Jesus’ bodily return. This world will end and the new creation will be ushered in. This new creation existence will be a world no less real and embodied than this one, but free of all sin and corruption that marks the present age.

Everyone will be caught up in this pivotal moment between the present age and the age to come. The dead will be raised, believer and unbeliever alike. All will stand to face the judgement of Christ, where Jesus will call everyone to account for everything they ever did, separating those who truly have their trust in Jesus and those who do not. He will right all wrongs of this age, bring about the righteousness and justice of God’s reign for which we long, and ensure a perfect, sinless new creation.

“to execute God’s just condemnation on those who have not repented”

It is sobering to contemplate that those who have not repented and put their trust in Jesus will receive the verdict of condemnation due their sins. Jesus’ judgement is absolutely just. Everyone will be judged according to the ‘light’ available to them. Yet, as Romans 1:18-23 makes clear, this given no one an excuse. All who reject God will have done so due to wickedness not innocent ignorance. This final judgement will be the end of all opportunity for anyone to repent and turn to Christ (cf. Luke 16:19-31).

“The justice of God’s final judgment, which Jesus will administer, according to the Gospel, lies in two things: first, the fact that what people receive is not only what they deserve but that they have in effect already chosen — namely, to be forever without God and therefore without any of the good that He gives; second, the fact that the sentence is proportioned to the knowledge of God’s Word, work and will that was actually disregarded (cf. Luke 12:42-48; Rom. 1:18-20, 32; 2:4, 12-15). Hell, according to the Gospel, is not immoral ferocity but moral retribution, and discussions of its length for its inmates must proceed within that frame.”
– J. I. Packer, “Annihilationism in Review”, Reformation & Revival magazine, Volume 6, Number 2 - 1997.

Hell is the final destination for those justly condemned at the final judgement. Unbelievers will face conscious punishment for their sin and rebellion against God. “He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might” (2 Thessalonians 1:8-9). This reality is one that Jesus speaks about more than anyone else in the bible, talking about it in terms of fire, destruction, exclusion, ‘gnashing of teeth’, darkness and eternal torment (cf. Matthew 10:28, 25:30, 46; Luke 16:23; Mark 9:48).

This is rightly troubling for us to contemplate. We should feel a deep sense of anguish and sorrow over the destiny of the lost. But this should not lead us to despair or undue fear. Hell ought not be contemplated in isolation from the gospel. God’s great delight is not in punishing people but in the forgiveness and redemption of the repentant, “not wanting anyone to perish” (2 Peter 3:9). The gospel is the power of God for salvation, our Shepherd can be trusted to seek and to save his lost sheep (Romans 1:16). Instead of despair, taking seriously what Scripture says of the destiny of the lost ought to instill genuine urgency in our evangelism. This awful prospect is the alternative to believing in Jesus, and “how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard?” (Romans 11:14).

“and to receive the redeemed to eternal glory.”

The return of Christ should not be a fearful prospect for believers, but a joyful one. On that day Christ will publicly confirm the favourably judgement that he has already made over us. “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1). We have been justified by Christ on the cross. We are justified day by day each time we repent and receive God’s forgiveness – “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9). And on that last day, we will be justified when Christ declares over us “righteous” because we are clothed in him.

The result of our justification on that day will be our reception into eternal glory; “those he justified, he also glorified” (Romans 8:30). Sin will be irreversibly irradicated from us so that we will be no longer wrestling with the desires of our flesh, but can live wholly with the desires of the Spirit. We will receive restored, undying, imperishable and incorruptible bodies. We will no longer suffer from sickness, pain or death (Revelation 21:4). In glory we will live eternity before the face of God, never again to suffer separation from him (1 Corinthians 13:12).

Where is this challenged or a challenge when studying theology at university?

The idea of a final judgement or the reality of hell is both challenging to accept and draws significant challenge and criticism. These challenges come from wider than just the world of academic theology, but they remain influential and difficult to engage with. Judgement is unpalatable and hell atrociously barbaric an idea for modern western sensibility. Perhaps a few of the absolute worst people in history deserve something like that, but do Christian’s really believe the nice old lady from down the road deserves it simply because she didn’t believe in Jesus?!

These challenges are certainly difficult at an emotional level and have led to the abandonment of doctrines of judgement in favour of universalism, the idea that everyone will really be saved in the end regardless of whether they put their faith in Jesus in this life, be that through a post-death conversion, or through some kind of universal application of Christ’s death aside from personal faith. Others propose a form of annihilationism, that those who have not put their trust in Jesus simply cease to exist when they die, as more palatable than a doctrine of judgement and death.

While these theological moves have raised helpful questions around the God’s ultimate victory, and the reconciliation of all creation to him (cf. Colossians 1:20), they ultimately fail to appreciate the seriousness of Sin, the purity of God’s justice, the enormity of his grace and the significance of putting your trust in Jesus. Not only does Scripture teach judgement and hell clearly, God’s goodness is displayed in both his forgiveness of penitent sinners and his just condemnation of those who refuse to turn to Christ for salvation.

There is legitimate disagreement among some evangelicals over the duration of hell. While the traditional and by far majority view across church history is the view that Scripture teaches of eternal conscious punishment in hell for the condemned, some evangelicals more recently have argued for an understanding of the destruction language of hell as entailing an eventual annihilation of condemned humans. This view is commonly known as annihilationism or conditionalism (referencing the idea that human immortality is conditional upon God’s redemptive grace).

This issue is one in which the DB allows some room for disagreement. However, it is important how and why we come to our particular view. It is one thing to arrive at conditionalism on the basis of exegetical convictions, taking seriously the horrors and sorrows of the just condemnation of the wicked. It is quite another to be drawn to an annihilationist view that rejects biblical descriptions of ongoing punishment and torment because of a modern discomfort with a traditional view of hell. See the taking it further section below for resources exploring this issue further.

How does this help us do Evangelical Christian theology better?

Attention to the end of all things helps us keep our theology rightly ordered. The return of Christ is where history is heading and what the gospel is ultimately aimed at. Being prepared for his return is a major theme of Jesus’ teachings which orients us toward what is ultimately important. This is an encouragement to be active in pursuing theology that is free from the baggage of frivolous theological ‘curiosities’. The stakes in theology are too high to become preoccupied with anything less than the gospel of Christ and the implications that has on all things.

This is not to limit the scope of theology to the systematic theme of ‘salvation’ but to be ultimately oriented towards Christ in all that we think and do. Looking to the end, the day of judgement, the fearsome reality of hell and the glorious reality of redemption and new creation is fuel for an urgently gospel-centred theology that is more focussed on glorifying Christ than it is on displaying the extent of our intellectual capacities. Dan Strange makes excellent points to this end that are well worth reflecting upon in “The Theology of the End and the End of Theology”.