allenroy@cs.pdx.edu (callen roy) (06/10/91)
What is the Judgment? When is it going to happen? Or, is it happening now?
For whose sake is the judgment held?
Does God need to make up His mind on some matters?
What aspects of the sin problem must be dealt with that was not taken
care of at the cross?
Having been justified apart from works (Romans 3:28; 4:5), why is the believer
and the record of his works brought up for consideration in the judgment?
(2 Corinthians 5:10; Romans 14:10; and 1 Corinthians 4:4,5)
Who are the protagonists in the judgment?
And what are the real, centeral issues being debated in this cosmic courtroom?
I hope to stimulat your thinking caps on this subject. It is my conviction
that we need to place the judgment in the midst of the larger theological
framwork in a way that it makes good sense and does not conflict with what
we already understnad of Gow and how He works.
What is Sin: A problem with many sides
The activity of God since Lucifer's rebellion in heaven has had but one goal:
to eradicate sin from the universe. And all of the activity of God's
sanctuary--illustrated by the earth and carried out in the heavenly--has been
in service of that same goal.
But sin is a problem with many sides. To see the sin problem as too simple is
to expect too simple a solution. OUr study of the final judgment will only
frustrate us unless we see it in the contest of all that God is doing to
eradicate sin. And in order to do that, we must have a clear picture on the
nature of the sin problem.
At its very core, sin is a problem of binary relationships--broken relation-
ships between God and His people. Only in one way can Satan cause and
maintain a broken relationship between free and thoughful creatures and their
Creator. That is to deceive them concerning the character of their wonderful
God. The fundamental activity of Satan is to lie, to delude, and to mislead
minds.
Jesus labeled him a liar by nature--the father of all lies(John 8:44).
Satan's power over people and nations has been through deceit.(Revelation
20:3; Jeremiah 9:5). Satan drew away a third of the angels of heaven by
misleading them into choosing his tryanny over God's fairness(Revelation
12:9). Using the very same method--implying untruths about God, so he
could ruin their faith in God--Satan enticed our first parents into rebellion.
(1 Timothy 2:14; Genesis 3:1-7) Seven times in Revelation, Satan's activity
on earth is identified as deception(Revelation 12:9; 13:14; 18:23; 19:20;
20:3,8,10).
To know God is to love Him and trust Him. So Satan fears nothing more than
that people might come to a knowledge of the truth (2 Timothy 3:7) Not
'truth' in some abstract, but truth about a Person. Sin, therfore, has
both its origins and its continued power in deception about God!
When deception reaches it's target--the minds of God's free creatures, and
they choose to believe it--the result is a shattered relationship. Trust in
God gives way to skepticism. Loyalty gives way to rebellion. Intelligent
submission gives way to defiant independence. Faith, that dignified, mutual
relationship between God and His people, is fractured by Satan's deceptions.
No longer seeing God as someone to be trusted, we strike out to set up our
own sovereignty. Our resulting stupid and self-destructive behaviors are
not the real sin problem. They are but the result. The REAL sin problem,
the very heart of the matter, is the broken faith relationship!
More than anything else, it is the broken faith relationship with His
creatures which has greived the heart of our God. Jesus promised that the
Holy Spirit would convince the world if this problem, because they do not
believe in me (John 16:9). Paul asserts that whatever a person does, even
good deeds, apart form a faith relationship with Jesus, is sin, for whatever
does not proceed from faith is sin (Romans 14:23).
The broken faith relationship causes there distinct, but related, results.
We will look at them separately, since they each call forth a different
part of God's healing work.
God told Adam and Eve that mantaining the vital faith relationship with Him
was so essential that should they ever break it (as symbolized by eating
from the forbidden tree), the result would be death.(Genesis 2:16, 17)
Notice that God did not threaten to kill them, as in revenge. Rather he
shared with them a profound and accurate truth about the results of seperation
from the Life-giver (Proverbs 8:36; Ephesian 4:18). Notice, too, that the
death which is the inherent consequence of alienation from Life is a death
of eternal separation from God. The Bible terms it 'the second death.'
(Revelation 20:6; 21:8)
But when Adam and Eve did choose another master, God immediatly interposed,
holding off what would have otherwise resulted in their immediate destruction.
God never has been 'willing that any should perish'; instead He desires 'that
all should come to repentance.'(2 Peter 3:9) And bringing one to repentance
takes time--time to replace error with truth and distrust with confidence.
Yet even though God had purchased for them time to repent, still they know
that they deserved to die. This rightful sentence of death, properly
hanging over all of us, is passed because of our guilt.
Guilt is not just a feeling of remorse--though such feelings are involved.
Guilt is an accurate, legal status. It does not call forth God's anger or
His personal rejection of us as sinners. Indeed, the fact that we are alive
(even though guilty) rather than eternally dead is proof of God's loving
compassion for sinners. But not even God can change the facts, the reality,
of the situation: separation from Life WILL result in death. To be guilty
is to be deserving of death.
But a broken relationship with God changes more than my legal status. It
changes ME! Perhaps far more than I may recognize, estrangement from God
directly affects how I view myself and thus, how I view others. Adam and
Eve immediatly became defensive of themselves and accusing towards others
(Genesis 3:7-13). Alienation from God devastates my self-worth, making me
utterly self-centered. All of my values become grasping, distrustful,
exploitive. I become totally unfit to live in heaven's society of unselfish
love. Were Jesus, by some miricle of grace (and contrary to His own wisdom)
to transport me to the heavenly realms, I would be totally out of place there.
Being still duped by Satan's deceptions and thus a rebel at heart, I would
surely start the sin problem all over again.
The third consquencs of a broken faith relationship is the damage which sin
does to this organism in which I live. Even though it is sometimes difficult
to draw clean lines between this body in which I live and the things I do
while in this body, there is value is speaking of them as distinct aspects of
the sin problem. (One of the times we see the value in speaking of them in
this way is when we consider the humanity of Jesus. He was born in a body
just like ours (Philippians 2:7,8; Hebrews 2:17; 4:15; 10:5). Yet that
body presented no ultimate deterrent to His living a life of perfect
submission to the will of His Father.)
Paul is refering to this sin-damaged organism when he discusses sinful
flesh (Romans 7:25; 8:6-13). Because Satan has had such great success in
perverting the normal drives of the body and in taking advantage of hunger,
weariness, and pain, the body can indeed be viewed as a 'source' of sin.
More precisely, it is a 'door of access' through with Satan most often gains
control over the mind. And God's plan must recon with it.
The Sin Problem
Selfish Character
and Values
--->--->---> --------------------
Satan's Decptions Broken Faith Guilt: deserving
about God Relationship the Second Death
----------------- -->--> ------------- --->--->---> -------------------
Sinful Flesh:
Sin-damaged Body
-->--->---> ----------------------
Keep in mind noy only the different parts of the sin problem as illustrated
here, but also their sequence. For we would expect that God's solution must
match the problem in every particular.
Next time: God's Multiple Remedies