Spiritual Warfare -What are the different Judgment Days in the Bible?

From the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden in Genesis 3, to the Great White Throne of Revelation 20, there are number of Judgements described in the Bible. But who is being judged, for what and when? And, considering that God knows “the end from the beginning”, why do these judgements need to be carried out at all?

The idea of God’s Judgement has been used as a stick to beat people down with – believers and non-believers alike! is this Scriptural? How should we respond? Is there another way of looking at God’s Judgements?

Firstly, we need to put this all in to the context of the Big Story of the Bible. The first three chapters of the Bible and the last three are remarkably similar – almost mirror images of each other!

The parallels between the beginning and the end of the story

Genesis		Revelation
1 v1	Heavens and Earth	21 v1	New Heavens and earth
1 v2	Order out of Chaos	21 v5	Making all things new
1 v3/14	Light, sun and moon	21 v23; 22 v5	No sun and moon – glory of God gives the light
1 v9/20	Sea created and populated	21 v3	No longer any sea
1 v11	Land produces vegetation for food	22 v2	Tree of life producing fruit every month and leaves for healing
2 v2	God ceasing from His work	21 v6	God completing all things
2 v8/14	Garden, tree of life, river	22 v1-2	City like a garden, tree of life, river of life
2 v12	Gold, pearls and precious stones	21 v18-21	New Jerusalem – gold, precious stones, pearls
2 v15	Man tending the garden for God	22 v3	His servants shall serve Him
2 v15-17	God walking and talking with man	22v3	God dwelling with men
2 v18-25	A wedding – a bride for Adam	21 v2	A wedding – a bride for the Last Adam

But it all goes wrong in Gen 3 and we see the culmination of that in Rev 20, followed by the restoration of all things

Things start to go wrong	God’s end purpose
Gen. 3 v1	Sin enters	Rev. 22 v8, 17	Sin excluded
Gen. 3 v14-19	Curses pronounced	Rev. 22 v3	No more curse
	Pain declared as a result	Rev. 22 v4	No more pain or tears
	Death stated as the end result	Rev. 22 v4	No more death
Gen. 3 v22-24	Way to tree of life barred	Rev. 22 v25	Way to tree of life open
	Access to God lost	Rev. 22 v4	Access to God restored

As we read the NT, we discover that God had His plan in place before the foundation of the world and that plan is completed after the end of the world – not an afterthought or ‘what shall we do next?’

To that end, the Bible records seven times when God comes down to earth to rectify what has gone wrong. And this is the reason why God needs to judge men and women, nations and individuals (and demons) – He is putting things right, according to His standards of holiness and righteousness. Ultimately, all sin is against God Psa. 51:4; Rom. 3:4 and He is the Judge of all – the Bible is replete with declarations of that from Gen. 18:25 to Heb. 12:23. In fact the Psalms suggest that the earth should rejoice when God comes to judge the earth (Psa. 96:10-13; 97:1) as only He can satisfy the innate desire of creation for things to be put right!

And He has provided a way for us (and ultimately everything) to be put right, as Paul argues in Rom. 1-3, and, having done that, He has the right to have “set a day when He will judge the world with justice by the Man He has appointed. He has given proof of this to everyone by raising Him from the dead.”

So the fact of God’s Judgement Days should fill our hearts with hope that one day, all our longings for rightness and justice will be fulfilled – in the most glorious way beyond human imagination! And, as we will see, believers in Jesus will actually be part of the ‘bench’ in most of them, not in the ‘dock’!

This process has been going on all through the Bible story and, while it is unusual for God to step in to reorder the steps of mankind, there have been specific times when He has done so, and things change dramatically when He does so!

Taking a timeline from eternity past to eternity future (a human perspective!!), we start in Gen. 1 & 2 with the creation of the heavens and the earth, and God putting Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden to care for it. All is well, until the Serpent gets in and tempts them to disobey God.

So God comes down, Gen. 3:8 and this results in the judgment of expulsion from the Garden, which is a mercy as otherwise we could eat from the Tree of Life and live forever with unbridled wickedness!

But it’s bad enough and goes from bad to worse, until we come to Gen. 6:5 when God saw that the wickedness of man we great in the earth, and this resulted in the judgment of the Flood. However, God made a covenant with Noah and set boundaries for human behaviour, with promises of His protection and provision for mankind.

When we come to Gen. 11, we see that mankind has disregarded God’s boundaries and instructions and in Gen. 11:5, God comes down again to look at what was going on at Babel and this results in the judgment of confusion of language and scattering of people across the earth. But God then makes a covenant with Abram with magnificent promises to his family, who wold become God’s chosen people.

After a few generations, God’s chosen people end up in slavery in Egypt and the promises seem lost. But God comes down again at Sinai (Ex. 3:7) and commissions Moses to rescue His people and bring judgement on Egypt for their oppression. He then gives them His recipe for the Good Life (the Law) and commissions them to be a light to the other nations of the earth.

Once again, and many times over, the people fail. Eventually, God comes down again in the person of His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ and the Word became flesh (John 1:14) so that He might save His people from their sins (Matt. 1:21). He sends His Holy Spirit to empower His people to live for Him and be a witness to the people of the earth.

Eventually, as wickedness again increases to a climax (the Man of Sin), He will return to judge His enemies and deliver His people. This results in the establishment of His Kingdom on earth – a Kingdom of peace and plenty, no more violence or wars, no more inhumanity of man to man, no more despoiling of the creation, the no more disruption of the earth, no more satan to deceive and lead mankind astray – the Garden of Eden restored. Glorious!

But, once again, after a long period of time, the wickedness of men’s hearts will be revealed when satan is released from his temporary prison and God comes down in person one last time (Rev. 20:9, 11) and the Last Judgement takes place at the Great White Throne. After this, God creates a New Heaven and a New Earth “and there will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the former things have passed away.”

Now I’d like to highlight seven eschatological (end time) judgement events in the Bible, which are integral to the overall theme of God putting things right! There is not just one final judgement as is often thought (encouraged by the so-called Apostles’ Creed – He shall come again to judge the living and the dead) and I want us to be clear in our own minds about that – and about where we stand in relationship to each one of the seven – as I said earlier, we are usually on the bench rather than in the dock!

1. The judgment of believers’ sins at the Cross (Isa. 53:4–8)
2. The judgment of believers’ sins as discipline (1 Cor. 11:29-32), a process which relates to …
3. The Judgment Seat of Christ (2 Cor. 5:10)
4. The judgment of Israel (Matt. 19:28) , a process which is related to …
5. The judgment of the nations (Matt. 25:31–46; 1 Cor. 6:2)
6. The judgment of angels (1 Cor. 6:3)
7. The Great White Throne Judgment (Rev. 20:11–15)

We’ll look at each one in more detail later, but let’s zoom in on the last section of our chart so we can put them in perspective as to order and timing. Two of them are on-going processes but five of them occur at specific points in God’s plan for the restoration of all things.

	Who is being judged	By Whom	For what	When	With the result
At the Cross The believers’ sins were judged And the World and the devil	Christ	God	Our sins	At the Cross	Total justification
The World The Devil	God	Rebellion	At the Cross	Their authority was annulled
The judgment of believers’ sins as discipline, a process which relates to …	Believers	Themselves	Our continuing sins	Daily	That they will not be condemned with the world
The Judgment Seat of Christ	Believers	Jesus	For how we have lived our lives, and our motivations	After our resurrection	They will be Rewarded
The judgment of Israel, a process which is related to …	The nation of Israel	The Disciples		At the establishment of, and during, the Millennium	Justice is administered in the Kingdom
The judgment of the nations	The nations of the earth left at the Second Coming of Christ	Jesus	How they have treated ‘these brothers of mine’ (Israel?)	At the establishment of, and during, the Millennium	Entry in to the Kingdom, or eternal punishment
The judgment of angels	(Fallen) angels	Believers		At the end of time	Eternal punishment
The Great White Throne Judgment	Everybody who has ever lived, apart from believers	God the Judge of all	Disobedience	At the end of time	Eternal punishment

So Paul tells us in 1 Cor. 6:2-3 that we will participate in some of these judgments as judges and that should affect how we behave now. He also says in 2 Cor. 5:10-11 that our standing before the Judgement Seat of Christ is a strong motivation for serving the Lord, we need to understand what he meant, lest we end up like the wicked servant in the parable who hid his Master’s talent in the ground, because of fear (and opened himself up to exactly what he feared!).