The Apostles Creed | Jesus Christ Will Come To Judge The Living and the Dead
I believe Jesus Christ will come to judge the living and the dead.
One day Jesus Christ will physically return to usher in the eternal and final age that will last for all eternity. Some of sought to bury this doctrine in mythology and metaphor that Jesus Christ will only return in our hearts. The second coming will merely be something that occurs at the point of salvation. Others have sought to remove the doctrine of the judgment of God upon the world and proclaim that Jesus will save everyone irrespective of their beliefs, and submission to Jesus Christ. It paints a picture of a man-centric understanding of love that will merely forgive everyone and Hell will be empty. Neither of these doctrines can be reasonably found within scripture. The second coming of Jesus Christ is a real event that ushers everyone into eternity based solely on the judgment Christ brings. It will be different than first coming but will bring to conclusion the unity we experience with Jesus Christ. For now, we know Him under the banner of a future glory, after the second coming of Jesus Christ, we will know Him fully.
For Christ has entered, not into holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true things, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf. Nor was it to offer himself repeatedly, as the high priest enters the holy places every year with blood not his own, for then he would have had to suffer repeatedly since the foundation of the world. But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment, so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him. (Hebrews 9:24-28, ESV)
Jesus Christ will come again, in physical form, to return creation fully to Himself and bring those whom He loves to be with Him in eternity forever. The first coming of Jesus Christ, came as a sacrifice for the sins of mankind and to deal with the problem of salvation. Jesus made a way for His beloved people who previously had no way. Now, Jesus comes to judge the merit of their works as earning salvation or not. Our works do not merit salvation but only the works of Jesus Christ. Furthermore, when we discuss the second coming, we do so in the hope of eternity that comes from our union with Jesus Christ.
Righteous Imputation of Christ’s Works
In the last day, the appearance of Jesus Christ will be a welcome sight for the believers. We will, on that day, stand before the Lord and give an account for our actions and what we have done with the time we have been given. Yet, our own actions cannot produce any form of righteousness within ourselves. “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” (Ephesians 2:8-10, ESV) As Jesus comes to judge the living, those who are in Christ, we will be judge according to the works of Jesus Christ, rather than our works. When we are one with Christ, bound together by the marriage of the lamb as the bride of Christ, we are judged by the works of Christ and declared righteous, having been washed by the blood of Christ and forgiven of our sins through His death, burial, resurrection, and ascension.
The works of Jesus Christ count as ours by faith. “No unbelief made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised. That is why his faith was “counted to him as righteousness.” (Romans 4:20-22, ESV) We are saved by works, just not ours. Instead, the works of Christ are counted as our own as an act of grace for those who submit to the Lordship and Kingship of Jesus Christ. As Jesus comes to judge the living, they are judged according to His works as we stand with Him. By faith, we know that the works of Jesus Christ counted as our own, having been credited to us as grace. For whatever difficulties we face in this day and age, we know that a day is coming when we will be judged by Jesus Christ according to His righteousness knowing that we have been declared righteous because of His mighty works on the cross.
Judging The Dead and the Urgency of Our Witness
Yet, those not in Christ will also be judged at the return of Jesus Christ. The response to the face of God will be vastly different than those who know Him and in whom the Holy Spirit resides. Romans 6:23 makes it abundantly clear that the wages of sin is death. Where Jesus freed the captives from Hades those declared dead through the merit of their own words works will be eternally punished in Gehenna. Scripturally, there will be much weeping and gnashing of teeth as the fullness of God’s wrath is poured out on those who have stood in opposition to sovereign ruler over all creation. God, being a Holy God, must punish sin because He is a loving God. If God merely just ignored the sins of people, it would make Him unjust and thus, unholy. For God to remain Holy, sin must be fully dealt with, either by the blood of Christ or the blood of the offenders.
While those of the faith live in hope, when we understand that Jesus will also judge the dead should spur us to an urgency in our witness. For now, our lives proclaim the glory of grace of Jesus Christ as we have been rescued from the clutches of death. Those who do not know Christ will one day be judged according to their own deeds and found wanting. Yet, hope is not lost. Just as Jesus made Himself known to us in order to reveal the Kingdom of Heaven to us, we can be that witness of the glory of God to the world around us. God has ordained us to represent the Gospel to the world around us. And not just to proclaim the avoidance of the eternal torture of Gehenna but the thriving eternity that comes from being in the presence of God. One day, Jesus Christ will come to judge the dead. Until them, we must, out of love for the lost, broken, and down-trodden, proclaim the Gospel that we are saved by Jesus Christ. Do not give up, the day is coming but for now, we have the distinguished privilege, as those united with Jesus Christ in His glory and His mission, to prepare the hearts of non-believers to receive the Gospel.
