The Day of Judgment

.... When the Day of the Lord comes, God will judge us by His own, heavenly perspective, and this will decide our eternity. On that Day we’ll wish we’d anticipated this event from the beginning, and planned for it all along. And through this, the mind of Christ emerges:

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.... Jesus always spoke from an eternal perspective, and the Day of Judgment is the key to understanding His frame of reference. Everywhere in the Gospels, and especially in Matthew’s Gospel, He would summarize His teachings by casting them in this light:

.... ". . . It shall be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah in that day, than for you . . . whoever receives a prophet in the name of a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward . . . the men of Nineveh and the queen of the south shall rise in the judgment against this generation . . . whoever confesses Me before men, I will confess before My Father in heaven . . . how hardly shall a rich man enter into the kingdom of heaven!"

.... To stand before God on the Day of Judgment is the ultimate goal of our entire life, and the supreme intention behind every instruction that Jesus gave us. So let us understand exactly what our Lord envisions, pertaining to the Judgment itself:

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.... From the beginning of time, God ordained a Day in which He alone would be exalted. It is that great and final day, the Day of Judgment. It is a Day that will count for all days, when everything in creation will be reviewed and judged, that God may be exalted in relation to everything that has ever been. Aptly it is called ‘the Day of the Lord’.

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.... As creation occurred and progressed, as history unfolded through the manifold workings of God, the outcome of the ages has always moved toward this goal. So to understand the beginning and all that has ever followed, from the heavenly perspective, we must discern it in this light and consider how these things will glorify God on that Day.

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.... Those things that in our lives that glorify our heavenly Father will be rewarded, for they will complement the mighty purpose of that Day. But God will also be glorified in relation to proud and boastful things, by destroying them in the judgment of that Day:

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.... "The lofty looks of man shall be humbled, the haughtiness of men shall be bowed down, and the LORD alone shall be exalted on that day."

.... "that, as it is written, ‘He who glories, let him glory in the Lord.’"

(Isaiah 2:11; 1 Corinthians 1:31)

.... This is the message that Jesus cries, "that the glory of the LORD may be revealed," and He is telling us how to prepare for it (Isaiah 40:5). Through this, He is showing us how to bring forth fruit to eternal life. Understanding this perspective is one of the very great keys to grasping the mind of Christ, and we will discuss it further in our next posting.

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Daily Bible Reading: John 21