When we hear the word ‘judgment’, our senses hear ‘punishment, bad’. Some people don’t even want to hear about it. But the Bible says in Hebrews 9:27 that we will all have to face it!! So, whether we like judgment or not, it is wise for us to know what the Bible says about it.
After everyone is physically resurrected, God will judge us all. (2 Cor 5:10). Those who have accepted Jesus as their personal Saviour will be judged righteous because of what Jesus did for them.
Those who did not accept Jesus by putting their faith in Him will be judged unrighteous and they will be condemned to an eternity in the lake of fire, which was made for the devil and his angels (Matthew 25:41). This judgment is eternal, never-ending. There won’t be any reconciliation for those who go to hell and the lake of fire (Revelation 20:14-15).
Now, hell was prepared for the devil and his angels. God never meant for human beings to go to hell. People are choosing that place themselves by rejecting Jesus. And that is the only sin that sends people to hell. (Jn 6:8-11)
Jesus has paid for all sins already. So, there is absolutely no reason for anybody to go to hell.
Refusing to believe in Jesus is a sin, but it is one sin that Jesus could not pay for because in doing that, Jesus would be going against your free will.
Jesus cannot choose salvation for you, no one can. He only made it available to everyone. You have to choose salvation yourself by accepting Jesus as your Lord and Saviour.
In John 5, Jesus warned us about what will happen to us all after God resurrects all the dead. He said all the dead in their graves would hear His voice and they will rise again; some will rise to eternal life with God; others will rise to eternal punishment away from God. (Jn 5: 28-29).
The judgment for the wicked will basically be for the purpose of showing them why they are going to hell and they will be punished according to how evil they were while they were alive on earth. That is really sad because they will be in hell for sins that Jesus already paid for.
On judgment day they will come back to life in the same body they had just before whatever killed them killed them; because their bodies will not experience any miraculous transformation. They will not receive the new body that the believers will receive when they come back to life.
On the other hand, the believers will also face a ‘judgment’ but it is not a judgment to punish them and send them to hell. It is a judgment to decide how much good you did so you can also be rewarded accordingly.
You see, scriptures say that God prepared good works for everybody long before he created the people and send them to earth. So no one can say they had nothing to do while on earth. (Eph 2:10, Titus 2:14). God created every human being with a purpose and a good plan for their lives (Jer 29:11, Jer 1:5)
Also, God equipped us with gifts and talents (skills) to be able to perform those good works he prepared in advance for us. There is a parable of the talents in the Bible in Matt 25:14-30 that tells us how the kingdom of God works.
Some bible translations call it talent, others call it ‘gift’ and some others call it ‘bags of silver’. Whatever they were, they represent skills or gifts God gave us to enable us to grow, to prosper, to multiply or to increase.
The parable tells a story of how a Master (who represents God) gave different talents or money to 3 of his servants (representing human beings) and the master went on a long journey.When he came back, he expected his servants to have more talents then what he gave them initially. They were obviously expected to use these talents that they were given. (Matt 25:14-30).We are told in verse 15 of Matthew 25 that the master divided the talents in proportion to the servants’ abilities. Then he left on his trip. So they all received according to how much they were able to do.
This is proof that whatever the Lord calls you to, He already equipped you for the job because he gives jobs according to the abilities or skills he has already put in you when he created you. So, we have no excuse. The story goes on telling us that the servants who received 5 talents and 2 talents respectively, both worked and doubled the amount they were given initially. But the servant who received the one talent dug a hole in the ground and hid the master’s talent and produced nothing.
When the master returned after a long period, he was very pleased with the two servants who worked on their talents and doubled them, but he was very angry with the last one who did nothing.We are also told that the ones, who doubled their talents, received more responsibilities as a reward.But the one who did nothing was cast out and called a wicked and lazy servant.
You can see from this story that God sees laziness the same as wickedness. And this parable is telling us how the kingdom of God operates. God does not expect us to return to Him the way we left Him. He wants us to use the gifts and talents He put in us, to develop and grow ourselves and to make the world a better place by serving others with our gifts. And we will get a reward for our works on judgment day.
There is another portion of scripture that tells us exactly what will happen on the believer’s judgment day.
This one is not a parable, it is the actual thing. Paul was telling the Corinthians believers that we are all workers in God’s field. He said, the foundation which is the work of salvation, was laid by Jesus Himself. Any work we do comes on top of that foundation.
For no one can lay any foundation other than the one we already have—Jesus Christ. Anyone who builds on that foundation may use a variety of materials—gold, silver, jewels, wood, hay, or straw. But on the judgment day, fire will reveal what kind of work each builder has done. The fire will show if a person’s work has any value. If the work survives, that builder will receive a reward. But if the work is burned up, the builder will suffer great loss. The builder will be saved, but like someone barely escaping through a wall of flames. 1 Corinthians 3:11-15 (NLT)
I personally believe it to be a shame if on that day we have nothing to show as a result of our salvation because we all have talents and we have all received the gifts of the HS and the empowerment from above to do great works. So if we have no work to show on judgment day, we are exactly like the wicked lazy servant who buried the talent he received rather than working it.
So, this is what is going to happen on Judgment Day, both for the believers and the unbelievers. It is not going to be the same day. The wicked have their own and the righteous also have their own.
At the moment there is no one in hell.
Hell is a future event. No one is there yet, not even the devil himself. My notes on the website give you a few scriptures backing this truth. (Rev 20:14-15, 19:20, 20:10). The devil doesn’t go in and out of hell as he pleases. He has not been there yet and it is not a place of pleasure for him or demons either.
So, where do people go when they die then?I will show you 2 scenarios. The 1st one is before the cross and the 2nd one after the cross.
Before the cross people could not get born again because the price for their sins was not paid for yet and so no one could go to heaven, even those who believed in God could not go to heaven. Everybody went to the place of the dead. In Greek is called ‘Hades’, in Hebrew ‘Sheol’. This place of the dead had 2 compartments; one was called ‘paradise’ or Abraham’s bosom, where the believing dead went.
Although it was not heaven, it was a place of comfort and peace while waiting for heaven. Remember Jesus with the thief on the cross, he promised him paradise, not heaven, because the righteous dead didn’t go to heaven before the cross (Lk23:43).
The story of Lazarus and the rich man illustrates it as well. Lazarus was righteous when he was alive but he was very poor and suffered a lot. The rich man, on the other hand, was obviously very rich but he was wicked.
They both died and went to Hades where the table was turned. Lazarus was comforted in Abraham’s bosom while the rich man was in torment. But they were both in the same place, just separated by a great gulf. They could see each other, even talk to each other. That is proof they were not in heaven. (Luke 16:19-31). That place of torment where the wicked go is also called Tartarus. (2 Pet 2: 4,9)
Tartarus and Paradise were separated by a great gulf so the dead could not cross over. The story of the rich man with Lazarus mentions the gulf.
When Jesus died, he went to that place of the dead, he emptied paradise by taking all the dead believers’ souls to heaven (Eph 4:8-10). So now, after the cross, dead believers don’t go to paradise anymore; when we die we go straight to heaven while we are waiting for our new supernatural bodies. (2 Cor 5:8). The Lord Jesus is in heaven now, not in paradise, so that is where we go too. (Eph 1:19-20).
Coming back to eternal judgment, if you have not yet made Jesus the Lord of your life, I invite you to do it now. It is not too late as long as you are alive. But you don’t know when and how you will die so why risk it.
you will be saved – Romans 10:9-10
Even if you could control when you will die, why wait until then and live under the devil’s control? When you give your life to Jesus, you immediately enter eternal life here on earth. You come under the blessings of God right here in this life. There really isn’t a reason to postpone it. Ask Jesus to come into your heart right now and save your life and you will escape eternal judgment. Read Romans 10, verses 9 and 10 in this regard.
Once you have that done, the fun begins then. When you are baptized with the Holy Spirit, you will receive power from heaven to be able to start doing great miracle works in the name of Jesus. And on the believers’ Judgment Day, you will receive a great reward for the next life to come where you will rule with Jesus. It will be a great day for those who are not lazy today.
It will be a great day for those who are going about the Father’s business and are not just sitting around, warming up the church seats every Sunday and doing nothing with the gifts they received from God.
