Category Archives: Final Judgment

Moral application of the final judgment

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The biblical doctrine of final judgement has several important consequence for our lives here and now.

  1. It satisfies our sense of a need for justice in the world.  There is so much in the present world which is not fair.  Good people suffer, while evil people get off scot free.  Even the judicial system itself is susceptible to bias and bribery.  The Bible tells us that there will be a final reckoning, when the ‘books’ (Rev 20:12 – symbolising God’s record of what everyone has done in this life) will be opened. 
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Judgment according to works

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Recent re-thinking about the doctrine of justification throws up a related question about the final judgment:-

Are we warranted to say that we are justified by faith, but are judged by works?  The very idea seems to undermine the grace of God and to take away with one hand what has so freely been given with the other.

N.T. Wright on ‘Justification by Works’

‘Here [in Rom 2:1-16] is the first statement about justification in Romans, and lo and behold it affirms justification according to works!

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Must God punish sin?

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Few Christians are willing to do any sustained thinking about sin.  Of course, evangelical preachers will mention it from time to time.  After all, they need to convince their hearers that they are ‘sound’.  But they will feel under intense pressure from those same hearers to move quickly and as smoothly as possible from anything to do with sin and judgment to a positive and uplifting message about God’s love.

The fact is, that for most modern Christians the doctrine of the love of God has become the one great ‘givens’, the unargued and unarguable axiom. …

2 Pet 3 – The Day of the Lord – sermon notes

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“If only we’d known how that holiday would turn out,” muttered the Jones family as they returned wet and muddy from a week of camping in North Wales.

“If only we’d known how that marriage would turn out,” reflected Jenny and Brian as they signed their divorce papers.

“If only we’d known how that evening would turn out,” lamented the family of a young man who was shot in the back after asking some bar customers to stop smoking.…

“Sinners in the hands of an angry God”

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In this famous sermon – a negative icon of everything that people perceive to be wrong with Puritan evangelism – Jonathan Edwards describes the state of his hearers who are outside of Christ:-

That world of misery, that lake of burning brimstone, is extended abroad under you. There is the dreadful pit of the glowing flames of the wrath of God; there is hell’s wide gaping mouth open; and you have nothing to stand upon, nor any thing to take hold of; there is nothing between you and hell but the air; it is only the power and mere pleasure of God that holds you up.

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The ‘Evangelical Universalist’

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I’ve been listening to some episodes of the Unbelievable podcast from Premier Christian Radio.

I really like the show.  It’s all about getting a discussion going – often between a Christian and a non-Christian – on a particular aspect of belief.  The host, Justin Brierley, is a calm and even-handed moderator, and the guests usually behave themselves with courtesy and thoughtfulness.

I appreciated the discussion of ‘The Evangelical Universalist’ between Robin Parry and Laurence M. Blanchard. …

Lk 19:11-27 – The parable of the ten minas – sermon notes

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It shouldn’t be too difficult for us to unlock the meaning of this parable: the key is hanging at the door.  V11: ‘…because he was near Jerusalem and the people thought that the kingdom was going to appear at once’

Luke’s record of this journey to Jerusalem began at ch. 9:51 – ‘As the time came for him to be taken up to heaven, Jesus resolutely set out for Jerusalem’

Jesus had spoken repeatedly about what was going to happen to him when he got to Jerusalem, but his listeners had not been able, or had not wanted, to understand. …