CHAPTER XXIV

 

THE FINAL GREAT JUDGMENT DAY

 

(Rev. ch 20:10-15)

 

A FULL thousand years have now passed since the saints came to earth to rule it.  Jerusalem has been besieged unsuccessfully by Gog and Magog and Satan banished for the earth into eternal punishment with Antichrist and the False Prophet.  All during this period of a thousand years the ordinary mortals have been dying in the usual way on earth, but with an increasing length of days, few if any being cut short in years.

 

After God and Magog with Satan have been conquered, and not a human being left on earth who wishes to sin, or who will sin, then the reign of the saints on earth is over—there is no one there who needs to be governed; no one to whom to teach righteousness “And they shall teach no more every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, know the Lord; for they shall all know me from the least to the greatest of them”  because, as Isaiah and Habakkuk say, “the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea” (Isa. 11:9; Hab. 2:14)

 

St. Paul tells us that next after this Jesus Christ Himself gives over the government to God, the Father.  Christ “must reign till He hath put all enemies under His feet,” and “when He shall have put down all rule and all authority and power,” “then cometh the end when He shall deliver up [R.V.] the kingdom to God, even the Father”  (1 Cor. 15:24,25, transposed).

 

We come now to a scene following upon the delivering over of the Kingdom to the Father.  John says: I saw a great white throne, and Him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was no place for them.”  Who is this?  God and Christ as one’ Christ as ,more that the King of the kings of this earth, in full possession of His Godhead:  One with God the Father, whose the Kingdom now is.  He is about to judge the world for the last time, to judge three classes of beings.  1st, Those persons who though Christians, because of their unpreparedness (like the foolish virgins who did not provide sufficient oil with their lamps) were left in the “outer darkness”   When the Bridegroom came.  They were not translated with the saints, but were killed perhaps during the great battle of Armageddon, or lived throughout the great Tribulation and into the Millennial age, dying like ordinary mortals; not given crowns and dominions nor lengthened days.2nd, Those mortals who have been born and died during the Millennium.  The test will not be, as with us, whether we believed in and trust the Lord Jesus, because the Lord Jesus will be ruling visibly over the earth throughout the Millennial age, and all will believe in Him, but some (the rebels of Gog and Magog) will , like the demons, “believe and tremble” (James 2:19), but not yield their hearts wholly to Him.  These dead will be judged” according to their works” (v.12).  3rd, To judge all the wicked who, since the beginning of the world, have died, and have been in Hades all this time, for none of these has any part in the first resurrection (v 5).

 

At the time of this great judgment day, the earth will be enveloped in flames.  St Peter describes this time:  “The heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements  [all solid parts] shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.  Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness, looking for and hasting unto the coming [rather “hastening the coming”] of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat?  Nevertheless we, according to His promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness” (2 Pet. 3:10:13).

 

This day comes “as a thief in the night,” too for this time not even a trumpet is sounded to warn the faithful of its coming.  And besides, there is nothing for the faithful to fear or to flee from—no Antichrist; no great battle of Armageddon to catch the unprepared.  Those who pass through this last judgment will be mostly evil persons whose names are “not found written in the book of life” (v. 15).  Those who have lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years” have passed their judgment day a thousand years before.  They will not be hurt in the least by this fire which dissolves all things.  The pious mortals who have died during the Millennium will now be raised to life, and rewarded “according to their works”(v. 12).  Lastly. since the “book of life” is produced again as “the Lamb’s book of life” (20:.12, 13:8, and 21:27), we must believe that some, who would have been translated at the Seventh Trumpet had they been ready, forfeited the blessedness of the exaltation and service of reigning with Christ on the earth a thousand years.  In the end, they are acquitted at the Great Judgment Day because their names are found in “the book of life.” They are saved, “yet so as by fire,” being acquitted at the Great Judgment Day.

 

            The burning of the earth and the atmosphere about it is what Peter meant when he says, “the heavens being on fire” (II. Peter 2:12).  Also, we read, “the heavens fled away,” and all melts with the “fervent heat.” Such action secures the destruction of every corrupting thing, and the whole is purified through and through.  All that can die is destroyed by the fire.  The very abode of the wicked dead, which seems to be somewhere in the bowels of the earth in Hades, is burnt out and cleansed by fire. “From this period on, no need will exist for a place for the dead (Hades), awaiting their final punishment, for there will be no death.  Both death and Hades are cast into the “lake of fire,” into which the Antichrist, the False Prophet, and Satan are cast “along with “whosoever was not found written in the book of life . . .” in this second death (v. 14, 15).

 

NOTES________________

[1] Abraham would not allow Isaac to go to live at Rebecca’s home (Gen. 24:4,8), as his trusted servant thought might be required, because God had expressly called Abraham and Sarah its idolatry, (Joshua 24:3,3.)

 

        CHAPTER 25