Following the return of Christ, John sees an angel imprison Satan for a thousand years. During that time, those who were beheaded for their witness to Jesus are raised to reign with him. At the end of this time, Satan rises once again to deceive humankind. Vast armies of evil surround the saints, but they are instantly defeated by fire from heaven. Some commentators note that Satan does not fight in this war: he is merely the deceiver who tricks a human army into rising against God. At length, Satan is thrown into a lake of fire, and all who have died are raised to face judgment for their deeds. Anyone whose name is not written in the Book of Life is thrown into the lake of fire.
As a Lutheran Christian, my first instinct is to break out in hives at any mention of judgment according to our "works" or "deeds." I'm a grace person. My core conviction is that salvation is an unmerited gift of grace, through Christ. I believe, to the extent the New Testament speaks cohesively about anything, it speaks to God's grace. We are accepted by God, not because of what we do, but because of what Jesus has already done for us.
That said, I do believe in the judgment, because I believe in truth. I believe grace and forgiveness are meaningless unless we first understand what the charges were in the first place. We need to know and fully understand what happened: the choices we made, what we did and didn't do, say, or think. Most importantly, we need to know how our choices affected others. Judgment is not my life flashing before my eyes, so much, but my life shown to me through the eyes of others. Beyond my good or ill intentions, judgment is knowing what really happened because of me, and how it felt. Bullies feel the pain and fear of their victims. Liars feel the violation of those they deceive. Gunmen and careless lawmakers learn what it's like to hide under school desks. Tyrants feel the terror of those they imprison. Generals and rulers feel the crush of rubble in buildings they bomb, and the hunger pangs of children they starve. Judgment is telling the truth in a way we never could or would before.
But Judgment and sentencing are two different things. Judgment is knowing what we have earned for ourselves, which is death. Sentencing is up to God, and in Christ, God has promised mercy. We earn death, we get life.
I can't accept a heaven that operates on simple amnesia: where joy comes from forgetting, where this life was ultimately a pointless side quest. God promises to wipe tears from our eyes. That means, at first, there will be tears to dry. There will be truth. There will be judgment. And then, there will be grace.
My poetic interpretation of REVELATION 20
20. A thousand years, the serpent’s locked away,
A thousand years the faithful dead shall reign;
With Christ, the priests, until the Judgment Day,
For them, the second death shall hold no pain.
Unleashed at length is evil’s second wave,
As numerous as sand upon the sea;
Yet fire from heaven brings a fiery grave,
The Devil in the lake of fire shall be.
The great white throne two holy books unveils,
The Book of Works, beside the Book of Life;
The dead are judged, and Death and Hades fail,
The pit itself–flung in the pit of strife!
By God’s grace, in the Book of Life are we:
By faith alone, from death, are we set free.
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