Heaven, Part 2

Thoughts From a Bible Reader

We ended up the last time arriving at the Great White Throne judgment. At this point the church, Christ’s bride, has been in heaven for a thousand years. There is a special group of 144,000 Jews who follow Jesus wherever He goes. The group of those who had been beheaded for Jesus’ sake are now priests of God and Christ, and have ruled the earth with Him for the thousand years, and all of Israel have now been given hearts to follow God fully. “Then I saw a large white throne and the one who was seated on it; the earth and the heaven fled from his presence, and no place was found for them. And I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne. Then books were opened, and another book was opened—the book of life. So the dead were judged by what was written in the books, according to their deeds. The sea gave up the dead that were in it, and Death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them, and each one was judged according to his deeds. Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death—the lake of fire. If anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, that person was thrown into the lake of fire” (Rev. 20:11-15). This is the point where every person who hasn’t yet been resurrected is brought back to life and now stands in judgment before God, where we are clearly told that they will be judged for their deeds. Not their beliefs, their deeds. When we attended a fundamentalist Baptist church, the teaching about the Great White Throne judgment was that none were saved at this judgment, that all were condemned to the lake of fire because they weren’t Christians. But there are a number of passages in the Bible that certainly seem to contradict that belief, and we’ll look at those here.

To start with, there is the “sheep and goat” judgment, where Jesus told us, “When the Son of Man comes in his glory and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. All the nations will be assembled before him, and he will separate people one from another like a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left. Then the king will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.’ Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or naked and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?’ And the king will answer them, ‘I tell you the truth, just as you did it for one of the least of these brothers or sisters of mine, you did it for me.’… And (the unrighteous) will depart into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life” (Matt. 25:31-39, 46). Is this judgment the same as the Great White Throne judgment? Since Jesus says that it occurs when He comes in His glory, many think that it’s not. And what many say happens is that Jesus judges whole nations in this judgment, as opposed to individual people. The Greek word that is translated “nations” here is ethnos. And while ethnos was translated in the King James Version of the New Testament as “nations” 37 times, it was translated as “Gentiles” far more – 93 times! And most times where ethnos is translated as “Gentiles” it doesn’t seem to be referring to nations, but rather simply to non-Jews in the world. So, instead of thinking of groups of countries, what we think of as nations, gathered before the throne, think instead of Gentiles, of all of those who aren’t Jewish, who aren’t the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. And God invites some Gentiles into His kingdom, and condemns others, all based on how they had treated the least of Jesus’ brothers and sisters. These are judged on their deeds, which makes me think that there’s a good chance that this is the Great White Throne judgment. But the important thing to understand here is that Jesus does not bring into play that any of these Gentiles asked Him for salvation while they walked the earth, they didn’t answer His call. No, He chooses them, and they seem surprised!

Luke recounted Jesus telling the parable of the great banquet, where those who had been invited made excuses as to why they couldn’t come. “Then the master of the household was furious and said to his slave, ‘Go out quickly to the streets and alleys of the city, and bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind, and the lame.’ Then the slave said, ‘Sir, what you instructed has been done, and there is still room.’ So the master said to his slave, ‘Go out to the highways and country roads and urge people to come in, so that my house will be filled” (Luke 14:21-23). Jesus tells us that the poor, crippled, blind, lame, and others will be brought into His kingdom. Once again, this choice is Jesus’s, and not the recipients’, and this passage seems to go with what Jesus told us in the Sermon on the Mount, when He said that the poor in spirit would receive God’s kingdom, and the meek would inherit the earth (Matt. 5:3-5). Matthew recounts Jesus telling a similar version of this parable, told to a different crowd in Jerusalem mere days before His death. On the day that Matthew records, Jesus ended this parable with, “For many are called, but few are chosen” (Matt. 22:14). There are those who will end up in heaven because Jesus chose them, but there’s only a few in that group. Don’t put your bets on being one of the chosen. It’s far better to answer His call today, and make your salvation certain!

Jesus also told us, “I tell you the solemn truth, the one who hears my message and believes the one who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned, but has crossed over from death to life. I tell you the solemn truth, a time is coming—and is now here—when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live…. Do not be amazed at this, because a time is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice and will come out—the ones who have done what is good to the resurrection resulting in life, and the ones who have done what is evil to the resurrection resulting in condemnation” (John 5:24-25, 28-29). Jesus begins here by saying that those who have believed Him have already gained eternal life. He also says that those who have died would hear Him, and some would hear what He tells them and live. And then Jesus goes on to tell us that those who have done good will be resurrected to life, and those who have done evil to punishment. Jesus gave no indication here that those who are resurrected to life ever believed in Him, only that they did good. And this certainly sounds like He is talking about the Great White Throne judgment, when all of the dead come back to be judged.

To go with what Jesus just said, Paul told us, “He will reward each one according to his works: eternal life to those who by perseverance in good works seek glory and honor and immortality, but wrath and anger to those who live in selfish ambition and do not obey the truth but follow unrighteousness. There will be affliction and distress on everyone who does evil, on the Jew first and also the Greek, but glory and honor and peace for everyone who does good, for the Jew first and also the Greek. For there is no partiality with God” (Rom. 2:6-11). Once again, this does not look like the version of the Great White Throne judgment that so many have been taught, where every person who did not become a Christian while on this earth is condemned without exception. And yet these verses have to be 100% completely true. People will be given eternal life because of how they behaved.

And then there is also this: There will be people at the Great White Throne judgment who were born and lived on the earth during the millennium. These people are not part of the church, because the church was taken into heaven before the millennium began. We can’t condemn every single person who lives on the earth during the millennium just because they were born too late to become part of the church. And even though Jesus rules the earth during the millennium, we also can’t say that everyone who lives in this time lives righteously, since Satan will be able find people willing to join his armies to attack Israel at the end of the millennium. And so anyone who claims that all must be condemned at this judgment seems to be hoping that God will not judge justly. Do you really think that God would ever judge unfairly? No, He will judge each person fairly, saving the righteous and condemning the unrighteous.

But what also has to be 100% completely true is Jesus telling us, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me’” (John 14:6). Even those who lived righteously are still sinners, and that sin must be dealt with to gain eternal life. And Jesus is our only answer to sin. And so what we are left with is this. There are people who believed in Jesus before they died, and who will see eternal life, gained through Jesus. There are people who never heard of Jesus before they were in their grave, but they heard Him there and responded. These will gain eternal life, and again that is gained through Jesus. There are others who sought glory, honor and immortality through good works, and they will receive that immortality. But not through their good works, but rather through Jesus. For all of these are told that they will be given eternal life, and yet we also know that Jesus is the only way to gain that. We don’t have to figure out exactly how all of this works together. We simply have to believe God that justice is all in His hands.

It all makes me think of C.S. Lewis’ last book in the Chronicles of Narnia, The Last Battle, where the time of judgment has come. Aslan, Lewis’ Christ figure, stands as every creature who had ever lived in Narnia lines up and approaches him. As each reaches him, that creature either turns to Aslan’s one side, heading into the heavenly hills, or turns the other way, into the darkness. But for each creature this moment rests on how they look upon and respond to Aslan. Do they look upon him with terror, or with love? I don’t think that this is exactly how the Great White Throne judgment will happen, but I think that Lewis respected in his depiction the fact that our eternal destiny has to go through Jesus, and none other. And I can only imagine that there are people all over the world who, if we Christians had only been better at taking the gospel to the ends of the earth to let these people hear it (as Jesus commanded us to do - Matt. 28:19-20), would have responded, “Yes, that is what my heart has been looking for!” And these people will, when they see Jesus, be drawn to Him, seeing in Him what they had always desired in their lives. And others will look at Him and be repelled. They never wanted anything like Him. They just wanted to live life for themselves in their darkness.

And then, heaven begins! “The Lord of Heaven’s Armies will hold a banquet for all the nations on this mountain. At this banquet there will be plenty of meat and aged wine— tender meat and choicest wine. On this mountain he will swallow up the shroud that is over all the peoples, the woven covering that is over all the nations; he will swallow up death permanently. The Sovereign Lord will wipe away the tears from every face, and remove his people’s disgrace from all the earth. Indeed, the Lord has announced it! At that time they will say, ‘Look, here is our God! We waited for him, and he delivered us. Here is the Lord! We waited for him. Let’s rejoice and celebrate his deliverance!’” (Is. 25:6-9).

“Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and earth had ceased to exist, and the sea existed no more. And I saw the holy city—the new Jerusalem—descending out of heaven from God, made ready like a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying: ‘Look! The residence of God is among human beings. He will live among them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death will not exist any more—or mourning, or crying, or pain, for the former things have ceased to exist.’ And the one seated on the throne said: ‘Look! I am making all things new!’ Then he said to me, ‘Write it down, because these words are reliable and true.’ He also said to me, ‘It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the one who is thirsty I will give water free of charge from the spring of the water of life. The one who conquers will inherit these things, and I will be his God and he will be my son’” (Rev. 21:1-7).

“Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls full of the seven final plagues came and spoke to me, saying, ‘Come, I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb!’ So he took me away in the Spirit to a huge, majestic mountain and showed me the holy city, Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God. The city possesses the glory of God; its brilliance is like a precious jewel, like a stone of crystal-clear jasper. It has a massive, high wall with twelve gates, with twelve angels at the gates, and the names of the twelve tribes of the nation of Israel are written on the gates…. Now I saw no temple in the city, because the Lord God—the All-Powerful—and the Lamb are its temple. The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, because the glory of God lights it up, and its lamp is the Lamb. The nations will walk by its light and the kings of the earth will bring their grandeur into it. Its gates will never be closed during the day (and there will be no night there). They will bring the grandeur and the wealth of the nations into it, but nothing ritually unclean will ever enter into it, nor anyone who does what is detestable or practices falsehood, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life. Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life—water as clear as crystal—pouring out from the throne of God and of the Lamb, flowing down the middle of the city’s main street. On each side of the river is the tree of life producing twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit every month of the year. Its leaves are for the healing of the nations. And there will no longer be any curse, and the throne of God and the Lamb will be in the city. His servants will worship him, and they will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. Night will be no more, and they will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, because the Lord God will shine on them, and they will reign forever and ever” (Rev. 21:9-12, 21:22-22:5).

In my post on The Importance of Your Testimony I shared about how in my prodigal days I had gotten to a point, through drinking and drug use, of thinking, “Why would I ever want to go to heaven and sit on the same stupid cloud, singing the same stupid song, forever and ever?” And then, I am pretty certain in answer to the prayers of my parents and their friends, on one night when I was at my lowest God came to me and let me be in His presence for a few moments. And those few moments changed my life. I know, and can tell you without a shadow of a doubt, that the most wonderful thing about heaven is simply going to be being in God’s presence. A powerful, loving, comforting and holy presence that surrounds you like you are floating in the middle of the most wonderful ocean, completely aware that nothing else surrounds you, that nothing can harm you. Believe in Jesus today, live a life of obedience to Him, and an eternity in God’s presence is yours!

Do you have questions or comments that you would like to share with me? Feel free to drop me an email (stevesuterfaithandfruit@gmail.com).

My posts come from my observations in reading the Bible literally dozens of times, always hoping to understand it a little bit better. If you want to go back and read more of what I’ve observed in my reading, click here.

Unless otherwise noted, the Scriptures quoted are from the NET Bible® https://netbible.com copyright ©1996, 2019 used with permission from Biblical Studies Press, L.L.C. All rights reserved