Will there be a rapture? A nuclear winter from a world war? Alien invasions? When there are so many convoluted conspiracies and predictions out there, the truth is not that complicated. The Athanasian Creed puts it this way:
From thence He shall come to judge the quick and the dead. At whose coming all men shall rise again with their bodies; and shall give account of their own works. And they that have done good shall go into life everlasting and they that have done evil into everlasting fire. This is the catholic faith, which except a man believe faithfully he cannot be saved.
The Athanasian Creed
As the Church Year is coming to a close, I thought it would be helpful to reflect on what Christians are expecting as we get ready for the Advent season.
Christ will return.
Our Lord Jesus Christ will return visibly as a judge. He will return in the same way He ascended to heaven:
Which also said, Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? this same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven.
Acts 1:11
In His first coming, He came into the world as a newborn baby in a humble manger, with the news of his birth proclaimed only to a few insignificant shepherds. His second coming on the other hand, will be a glorious and public event, witnessed by ‘all tribes of the earth’:
And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.
Matthew 24:30
This coming will be sudden, at an hour one would least expect. This suddenness is compared to lightning (Matthew 24:7). St. Paul writes that ‘the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night’ (1 Thessalonians 5:2). This is why Christ repeatedly tells His followers to be vigilant at all times:
Watch therefore: for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come.
Matthew 24:42
Henry Eyster Jacobs notes in his Summary of the Christian Faith that while there will be signs that precede the Second Coming of Christ, they will not be so ‘clearly interpreted or interpreted as to prevent it from being a surprise even to those earnestly expecting it’. Hence, the Christian must always be ready for His coming at any time.
Christ will raise up all the dead.
There will be a resurrection of ‘both the just and the unjust’ (Acts 24:15, John 5:28).
For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.
1 Thessalonians 4:16-17
However as Jacobs notes, the ungodly will not be raised because of the imputed merits of Christ, but ‘because of God’s immutable decree’ in Hebrews 9:27 by which it is ‘appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment’.
Hence, all of mankind will be judged by our Lord after the resurrection.
For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad.
2 Corinthians 5:10
The Final Judgement
It is commonly assumed that judgement would look something like weighing a person’s good works against his bad works, and as long as one’s good works exceeded the bad, he would be good to go. However, Hebrews 11:6 is clear that without faith it is impossible to please God. Before Him, all our works are filthy rags (Isaiah 64:4).
For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God;
Romance 3:23-25
A person can only be righteous by receiving the grace of God in Christ by faith (Romans 3:28). By faith, Christ’s righteousness is imputed to the believer, making him righteous before God. Hence, the verdict would ultimately rest on whether one has faith or unbelief.
He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.
John 3:18
This does not mean that people will not be judged according to their works. Scripture repeatedly talks about how men will be judged according to their works (Psalm 62:12, Matthew 16:27, 1 Corinthians 3:8). Jacobs makes the distinction between being judged ‘on account of their works’ and ‘according to their works’. Men will be judged according to their works in the sense that they are ‘fruits and testimonies of faith or of unbelief”; how their faith (or lack thereof) had expressed itself in ‘deeds of merciful love’.
The wicked in deed, will be judged “on account of their works,” and “on account of their unbelief” as well as “according to their works”; but the righteous, not “on account of,” but “according to their works.”
A Summary of the Christian Faith, 38, Q12
Hence, God will look at more than just the outward act and speech, but every intent, secret thought in the heart (Romans 2:16, 1 Corinthians 4:5).
The verdict is then delivered:
Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world… Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels…
Matthew 25:34, 41
Those who are condemned only have themselves to blame for their fate, as they do not perish by God’s will, but by their continual rejection of Him, leaving them to go to the place that was intended for mankind’s adversaries (i.e. the devil and his angels).
The world will be destroyed.
After judgement, the universe; heaven and earth, along with the elements will perish and ‘melt with fervent heat’ (2 Peter 3:10).
And 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 found no place for them.
Revelation 20:11
The judgement will separate the godly from the ungodly for all eternity. The godly to eternal life with God in the new heaven and new earth, and the ungodly to eternal damnation.
Christ will give eternal life and everlasting joys to the godly and elect
Eternal life, according to Jacobs, has 3 elements:
- Complete deliverance from sin and all its consequences.
- The perfection of the work and grace begun in this life.
- The realization of all the divine purposes in man’s creation.
In the resurrection, the godly would no longer be able to sin or experience any of its consequences (i.e. sickness, pain, death and sadness).
And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.
Revelation 21:4
One could say that the godly would attain this after death, but only in the resurrection would they be able to fully be delivered from the consequences of sin; that is they would be able to enjoy this bodily. After all, bodily death, the separation of the soul from the body, is still a consequence of sin.
Perfection of the work of grace
For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.
Romans 8:29
The fruit of the Spirit as described in Galatians 5:22-23 would thus be perfected in the resurrection. The godly would be able to love perfectly as described in 1 Corinthians 13 and their bodies would be transformed to be like Christ’s glorious body (Philippians 3:21).
Attainment of all the divine purposes in man’s creation
Everything that mankind once had and possibly could achieve before Adam’s fall would be fully realised.
Man was created, in order by the use of his free will to develop capacities with which he was endowed. As he came from the hand of God, his perfections were like those of the acorn, not like those of the oak. It was within his choice to advance from a state of possibility to one of impossibility of sinning; from one of possibility to one of impossibility of dying. As his liberty, so also his knowledge and holiness were to be developed. Although in the image of God, his chief significance lay in the possibilities be fore him, through out all eternity, in his free choice to abide in the path in which God had placed him.
A Summary of the Christian Faith, 40, Q5
Adam never had infinite merit, but the godly would have the infinite merit Christ earned for us by His perfect obedience to the Law, as well as His imputed righteousness.
Christ will condemn the ungodly men and devils to be tormented without end.
This fate is also known as Eternal Death or Second Death, the final stage of death brought about from the fall. The ungodly are eternally separated from God body and soul, condemned to be tortured day and night.
And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever.
Revelation 20:10
Conclusion
If you have not noticed, this article has just been a somewhat more detailed exposition of Article XVII of the Augsburg Confession:
Also they teach that at the Consummation of the World Christ will appear for judgment, and will raise up all the dead; He will give to the godly and elect eternal life and everlasting joys, but ungodly men and the devils He will condemn to be tormented without end.
Article XVII. Of Christ’s Return to Judgment p. 1-3
We do not know when the day of the Lord will come. Keep watch and be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love, and as a helmet the hope of salvation. (1 Thessalonians 5:8).
