For many people the idea of judgement, and of God as Judge, is so unpalatable that it renders faith in the God of the Bible impossible. Perhaps that might describe you? Although I am a Christian, and a church leader, I admit to occasionally feeling a palpable sense of awkwardness upon reading some of what the Bible says about judgement.
How are we to navigate this challenging topic?
One comment I would venture is that I wonder whether at least some of our struggle with the topics of justice and judgement is connected with our lack of experience with injustice? If, for example, we were suffering daily as citizens under an unjust leadership would not the idea of justice and judgement seem far more desirable and attractive?
Secondly, for most of us, our view of what it is to be human is that we are responsible creatures. We want our actions to matter and, for them to matter, they must have consequences. A lack of any form of judgement would actually deprive us of this key part of our personhood in a way that would ultimately become unbearable.
More positive is what the Bible tells me about what God is like. For example, in the context of one of the most well-known examples of God’s judgement in the Bible – His judgment on the city of Sodom – Abraham declares:
“Will not the judge of all the earth do right?” – Genesis 18:25
David, Israel’s most famous king, suffered all kinds of injustice during his life. In a number of his psalms he vocalises the emotions that this produced. His response was to fall back on his God. Psalm 7 is one example:
“O righteous God, who searches minds and hearts, bring to an end the violence of the wicked and make the righteous secure” – Psalm 7:9
“God is a righteous God, a God who expresses his wrath every day” – Psalm 7:11
Because David knows that God is “righteous” – that is, He is always right and always does right – he concludes his psalm by giving thanks that this is true, and even singing about it:
“I will give thanks to the LORD because of his righteousness and will sing praise to the name of the LORD Most High” – Psalm 7:17
How fortunate that for us today God has made his commitment to justice even more obvious than it was for Abraham and David. In a 1stcentury meeting of the Areopagus in Athens, one early Christian leader, Paul, declares:
“In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to all men by raising him from the dead” – Acts 17:30-31
I still retain a sense of awkwardness at times when it comes to the idea of God’s judgement. And I continue to struggle to comprehend precisely how God’s justice will work out in the end. But I am ultimately comforted by the truth presented in the Bible that God is righteous. He is right and he will do right. Jesus’ resurrection is all the proof that I need and I can rest in that.