Judged… Or Just Accepted?

FRI., MAY 24, 1996, 5:40 AM
FARM, STUDY

As you anticipate “judging” the responses to one item on the test you gave yesterday you will have to decide what the basic Christian perspective is, in reference to a mass death, like the recent airliner crash into the Everglades. This will be difficult for you, but you gave yourself the challenge. But here I am, before sunrise, to help out.

You’ll have to waffle a bit, for those who claim to be Christians have somewhat of a range of views. Though you didn’t emphasize this in your brief presentation, there is one traditional, Christian view that all shall be and remain “asleep” until I come again to the earth, as the Risen Christ… the Second Coming. I’ll legitimize this by saying that some of those who were far from Me in their earth lives will be unconscious or asleep until it is their time for judgment. You can mention this and elaborate upon it when you offer an expansion of the Christian perspective.

It will be important to initially affirm that when a Christian develops or accepts a perspective on death she tends to identify that with the religion. In other words, the Christian perspective is what any self proclaimed Christian believes. You will have to counter that fundamental to this perspective is the matter of judgment. There is a general purpose for each human life, and that is to accept Me as the Christ, as an important “aspect” of the Triune God. This means knowing about Me, from study and from the instruction that comes in worship services, accepting My Grace, and living in ways that I taught while in the earth. These should be evident in the New Testament Scriptures.

This perspective, in its “toughest” form, holds to the truth that each of you, at the time of bodily death, will be judged on how you lived your life, however long or short that it was. The general criteria are those you just wrote, above, but there is no clear, single message in the Scriptures as to how I will actually judge you. Will I be strict and “hard-nosed”, remembering your sins and reminding you of them? Or will I look more closely at your spirit and at your acceptance of Me as the forgiver of all that you did that was wrong? If I’m judging behavior will I focus on your shortcomings or on the good that you did, specifically or in general? If I’m judging commitment how do I determine how deep and real yours is?

Ah, judgment. The fundamental Christian perspective includes the premise that each individual, at bodily death, will be judged, and from this judgment your eternal life will be in heaven or in hell. You will be “in” or “out”, but it still isn’t clear, in the Scriptures, whether this is relative or absolute. There is that glimpse of the disciples wanting to be the one sitting at the right hand, for eternity… and there is the admonition that the last shall be first, and… It also isn’t clear whether this judgment is “once and for all” or whether there can be further growth toward Me, in heaven or in hell. The tough Christian perspective, however, is that you have this one earth life to live, and how you live it, in relation to Me and to your fellow humans, will determine where your soul will be for eternity, in heaven with Me or in hell, far from Me and with others judged similarly.