The Final Judgment Seat
The Final Judgment Seat
This passage describes the final sentencing of the lost and is the most serious, sobering, and tragic passage in the entire Bible. Commonly known as the Great White Throne judgment, it is the last courtroom scene that will ever take place. After this there will never again be a trial, and God will never again need to act as judge. The accused, all the unsaved who have ever lived, will be resurrected to experience a trial like no other that has ever been. There will be no debate over their guilt or innocence. There will be a prosecutor, but no defender; an accuser, but no advocate. There will be an indictment, but no defense mounted by the accused; the convicting evidence will be presented with no rebuttal or cross-examination. There will be an utterly unsympathetic Judge and no jury, and there will be no appeal of the sentence He pronounces. The guilty will be punished eternally with no possibility of parole in a prison from which there is no escape.
The language of this passage is plain, stark, and unembellished. Few details are given, and the description is utterly lacking in the vivid, eloquent modifiers that might be expected. But the scene is frightening enough in its own right that such language would be superfluous. The beloved apostle John, recording this vision in a cave or on a hillside on the island of Patmos, no doubt was shaken as he wrote of the eternal damnation of the wicked.
Ever since the Fall, Satan, the father of lies (John 8:44), has attempted to deceive people about the reality of the coming judgment. He has done his best to convince people that there will be no final tribunal. Satan has deceived sinners into believing that they can live as they please without fear of ultimate accountability or future punishment. Satan said to Eve, “You surely will not die!” (Gen. 3:4), thus voicing his denial of judgment on sin. The primary means the devil uses in his deception are atheism (particularly the godless theory of evolution) and false religion. Atheism’s denial of God’s existence means there is no moral Judge to whom people are accountable after they die. They wrongly believe that they are free to sin as they please and then simply pass out of existence. The gods of most false religions are not holy, requiring inward righteousness and heart obedience, and they are appeased by ritual and ceremony; thus these gods inspire no fear of accountability in their worshipers.
But despite the vain, foolish speculations of men, the true and living God is the Supreme Judge of the universe. His judgment of unbelievers will be just, because He is just. Deuteronomy 32:4 says of God, “His work is perfect, for all His ways are just; a God of faithfulness and without injustice, righteous and upright is He.” Job 37:23–24 declares, “The Almighty—we cannot find Him; He is exalted in power and He will not do violence to justice and abundant righteousness. Therefore men fear Him.” God cannot but be just, because the absolutely holy perfection of His nature will not allow Him to do anything but what is right. God’s will is the supreme standard of justice and equity, and He wills nothing but what is just, right, and true. Nothing outside of Himself compels God to act justly; justice is His very nature. Thus, all of God’s acts toward people are perfectly just; sinners have all wronged God’s justice, but God’s justice has not wronged them, nor could it ever.
No one at the Great White Throne judgment will have the slightest grounds for complaint about his or her sentence. Those who reject God’s grace and mercy in this life will inevitably face His justice in the life to come. God said of wayward Israel, “My people did not listen to My voice, and Israel did not obey Me” (Ps. 81:11). To their equally stiff-necked descendants Jesus declared, “You are unwilling to come to Me so that you may have life” (John 5:40) and “You will die in your sins; for unless you believe that I am He, you will die in your sins” (John 8:24). Unrepentant sinners will experience God’s justice at the Great White Throne judgment.
This simple, but powerful text describes the terrifying reality of the final verdict and sentence on sinners under four headings: the scene, the summons, the standard, and the sentence.
Then I saw a great white throne and Him who sat upon it, from whose presence earth and heaven fled away, and no place was found for them. And I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne, (20:11–12a)
The apostle is shown the Judge seated on His throne of judgment
all the accused standing before Him
The first thing John saw was a great white throne. Nearly fifty times in Revelation there is the mention of a throne. In this case it is the seat of God’s sovereign rule (cf. 4:2–6, 9; 5:1–7, 13; 6:16; 7:10, 15; 19:4; 21:5). It is called great not only because of its size as greater than the thrones mentioned in 20:4, but also because of its significance, majesty, and authority. That it is white symbolizes its purity, holiness, and justice. The verdict handed down from this throne will be absolutely equitable, righteous, and just. “The Lord abides forever,” wrote David, “He has established His throne for judgment, and He will judge the world in righteousness; He will execute judgment for the peoples with equity” (Ps. 9:7–8). Daniel described this scene in Daniel 7:9–10:
“I kept looking
Until thrones were set up,
And the Ancient of Days took His seat;
His vesture was like white snow
And the hair of His head like pure wool.
His throne was ablaze with flames,
Its wheels were a burning fire.
A river of fire was flowing
And coming out from before Him;
Thousands upon thousands were attending Him,
And myriads upon myriads were standing before Him;
The court sat,
And the books were opened.”
Even more awe inspiring than the throne was the vision of Him who sat upon it. The judge on the throne is none other than the eternal, almighty God, described in the throne scene of 4:8–11:
And the four living creatures, each one of them having six wings, are full of eyes around and within; and day and night they do not cease to say,
“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God, the Almighty, who was and who is and who is to come.”
And when the living creatures give glory and honor and thanks to Him who sits on the throne, to Him who lives forever and ever, the twenty-four elders will fall down before Him who sits on the throne, and will worship Him who lives forever and ever, and will cast their crowns before the throne, saying,
“Worthy are You, our Lord and our God, to receive glory and honor and power; for You created all things, and because of Your will they existed, and were created.”
Introducing the final element in this fearful scene, John writes that he saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne. The setting is the indescribable void, the inconceivable nothingness between the end of the present universe and the creation of the new heaven and the new earth. The prisoners before the bar are all physically dead, since there are no longer any living people—none could possibly have survived the destruction of the present universe. The last living unbelievers will perish when God crushes the rebellion at the end of the Millennium (20:8–9). The last living believers will be translated and transformed into their eternal bodies, like Enoch (Gen. 5:24), Elijah (2 Kings 2:11), and the raptured church (1 Thess. 4:13–18).
The dead pictured here standing before the throne of divine judgment are not just from the millennial rebellion, but include all the unbelievers who ever lived. This is the “resurrection of judgment” (John 5:29), the resurrection “to disgrace and everlasting contempt” (Dan. 12:2), the “resurrection of … the wicked” (Acts 24:15). The Bible teaches that no believer will ever face God’s judgment, because “there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 8:1). Everyone “who believes in Him is not judged” (John 3:18); they have “eternal life, and [do] not come into judgment, but [have] passed out of death into life” (John 5:24). Far from being judged, all the godly participants in the first resurrection (20:6) will have already received their rewards (cf. v. 4; 19:7–9; 1 Cor. 3:12–15; 2 Cor. 5:10).
To emphasize the all-encompassing scope of the judgment, John notes that the sweeping mass of unbelievers before God’s throne includes both the great and the small. All will face judgment, the somebodies and the nobodies, “for there is no partiality with God” (Rom. 2:11; cf. Deut. 10:17; Job 34:19; Eph. 6:9; Col. 3:25; 1 Pet. 1:17). John Phillips provocatively wrote:
There is a terrible fellowship there.… The dead, small and great, stand before God. Dead souls are united to dead bodies in a fellowship of horror and despair. Little men and paltry women whose lives were filled with pettiness, selfishness, and nasty little sins will be there. Those whose lives amounted to nothing will be there, whose very sins were drab and dowdy, mean, spiteful, peevish, groveling, vulgar, common, and cheap. The great will be there, men who sinned with a high hand, with dash, and courage and flair. Men like Alexander and Napoleon, Hitler and Stalin will be present, men who went in for wickedness on a grand scale with the world for their stage and who died unrepentant at last. Now one and all are arraigned and on their way to be damned: a horrible fellowship congregated together for the first and last time. (Exploring Revelation, rev. ed. [Chicago: Moody, 1987; reprint, Neptune, N.J.: Loizeaux, 1991], 242–43)
And the sea gave up the dead which were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead which were in them; (20:13a)
As the next scene in this ultimate courtroom drama unfolds, the prisoners are summoned from their cells to appear before the Judge. Since their deaths, their souls have been tormented in a place of punishment; now the time has come for them to be sentenced to the final, eternal hell. Before the sea was uncreated and went out of existence (cf. 21:1), it gave up the dead which were in it. The sea may be singled out because it is seemingly the most difficult place from which bodies could be resurrected. But God will summon from its depths new bodies for all who perished in the sea throughout human history, including those who drowned in the Flood, those who went down with the Titanic, the Lusitania, the Arizona, and the countless other ships that have sunk, as well as all the millions of other people who met their end at sea. Death symbolizes all the places on land from which God will resurrect new bodies for the unrighteous dead. The sea and death are pictured as voracious monsters that have swallowed those bodies and will be forced to disgorge them before their uncreation.
and books were opened; and another book was opened, which is the book of life; and the dead were judged from the things which were written in the books, according to their deeds.… and they were judged, every one of them according to their deeds. (20:12b, 13b)
As the judgment commences, the Judge opens the books. The scene is reminiscent of the one described by Daniel:
“I kept looking
Until thrones were set up,
And the Ancient of Days took His seat;
His vesture was like white snow
And the hair of His head like pure wool.
His throne was ablaze with flames,
Its wheels were a burning fire.
A river of fire was flowing
And coming out from before Him;
Thousands upon thousands were attending Him,
And myriads upon myriads were standing before Him;
The court sat,
And the books were opened.”
(Dan. 7:9–10)
The books contain the record of every thought, word, and deed of every unsaved person who ever lived. God has kept perfect, accurate, and comprehensive records of every person’s life, and the dead will be judged from the things which were written in the books, according to their deeds. Sinners’ deeds will be measured against God’s perfect, holy standard, which Jesus defined in Matthew 5:48: “Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”
God’s justice demands payment for every person’s sins. Christ paid that penalty for believers: “He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the chastening for our well-being fell upon Him, and by His scourging we are healed. All of us like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; but the Lord has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on Him” (Isa. 53:5–6). “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law, having become a curse for us—for it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree’ ” (Gal. 3:13). God “made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him” (2 Cor. 5:21). “[Christ] Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross, so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness” (1 Pet. 2:24). But unbelievers, not having Christ’s righteousness imputed to them (Phil. 3:9), will themselves pay the penalty for violating God’s law—eternal destruction in hell (2 Thess. 1:9).
After the books containing the prisoners’ evil deeds were opened, another book was opened, which is the book of life. This book’s imagery corresponds to the registry of citizens kept by ancient cities; it contains the names of all those whose “citizenship is in heaven” (Phil. 3:20). It is referred to several times in Revelation (v. 15; 3:5; 13:8; 17:8; 21:27). The book of life is the record of God’s elect (cf. Dan. 12:1; Mal. 3:16; Luke 10:20; Phil. 4:3; Heb. 12:23), and all whose names are not recorded in it will be eternally damned.
Since their names were not in the book of life, the prisoners before the Great White Throne were judged, every one of them according to their deeds. Some, in shock and horror, will protest, “Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?” (Matt. 7:22). But they will hear in reply the most chilling, terrifying words that any human will ever hear: “I never knew you; depart from me, you who practice lawlessness” (Matt. 7:23). Those who refuse to plead guilty to their sins in this world, repent, and ask God for a pardon based on the substitutionary work of Christ will face trial after they die. And on that day, they will be pronounced guilty.
Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire. And if anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire. (20:14–15)
The evidence is irrefutable, the verdict rendered; judgment will be swiftly carried out. As the sentence is passed, death and Hades (the grave, and the temporary place of punishment for everyone whose name was not found written in the book of life) were thrown into the lake of fire, meaning that they will go out of existence, swallowed up by the final hell
The blessed and holy participants in the first resurrection will not experience the second death (20:6). But the rest of the dead, who did not participate in the first resurrection (20:5), will face the second death, which is defined here as the lake of fire. Those who die in their sins in this present world of time and space will die a second death in eternity—they will be sentenced to the lake of fire forever.