Resisting Trump with Revelation (33)
The Great Judgment (20:11-15)
The
Great Judgment
Images of power introduce this
scene. A “great white throne,” an undescribed but imperious “one” sits on it.
Creation felling in terror but finding no place to hide. Even more terrifying,
the dead are all over the place. Famous infamous, unknown, uncared about, they’re
all there. From the sea and Death and Hades the dead come. Before the throne
they watch as “books” are opened, full of the deeds of the deed (20:13). Death
and Hades join the two beasts in the lake of fire. The sea too, after
disgorging its dead disappears and has no place in the new creation. The dragon
is already caged in the abyss. The powers that oppose God are defeated.
Human beings still face a reckoning
before God based on what they have done (20:13). And those who have not done
enough to get their name written in the “book of life” join the evil powers in
the lake of fire, “the second death 20:14). The first death, of course, is our
physical death. The faithful who have experienced the first resurrection (20:5)
have nothing to fear from the second death. Their names are written in the book
of life.
Faith
and Works
Protestants get all queasy when
we read God will judge us based on what we have done. That smacks of salvation by
works which is just what the Reformation of the 16th century fought
to reject. Instead, “justification by faith alone was counterpointed to
salvation by works as the evangelical truth. Salvation was either due to God’s
work in Christ or due to our own efforts and accomplishments. This was an unfortunate
binary as the scripture never places faith and works over against each other in
this fashion.
When the New Testament does
oppose faith to works, or works of the law, the issue is how we can identify the
people of God. Is it those works that most set Jews apart from all other
peoples: circumcision, sabbath, and food laws? Or is it faith in Jesus Messiah
that marks out God’s people? There was never any question, whatever choice one
made about this, whether works appropriate to the people of God were to be
expected and performed. They were!
Faith and works should never
have been opposed. Instead, we should have embraced an understanding something
like this: we are saved by faith without works but faith which saves is never
without works. Faith indicates who we believe in; works demonstrates and
verifies that faith. To be judged by our works before God is but another way of
determining the genuineness of our faith. Those who fail this examination of
our faith are those who have failed to believe in the true and living God. And
those who pass are those who have works which validate that faith.
And the latter need never fear
that such faith is in vain! They will not be disappointed but rather validated and
vindicated, no matter the suffering or even death that may have befallen them.
For in the economy of the Lamb suffering and death are chief marks of faith and
the primary ways God’s kingdom makes its way in our world.
Now the great drama is over.
The struggle is resolved. Everything is back on track, restored to the role and
purpose God ordained for it. All that’s left is to explore the pictures of this
fulfilled state of affairs given us in chs.21-22.
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