When Will the Judgment of the Elect Take Place?

Now I will abandon my foolishness and get serious.

We have listed thirteen judgments on the elect. The only judgment we can think of that falls on the secular realm is the judgment concerning the sheep and goat nations. This makes fourteen judgments to consider.

There is, of course, the business of the wheat and tares, the removal from the Kingdom of God of offences, and then of those who offend, when that which has been planted in the earth comes to maturity. This probably will take place at the coming of the Lord Jesus, when the wicked of the world are trampled underfoot by the Lord's army.

Then you will trample down the wicked; they will be ashes under the soles of your feet on the day when I do these things," says the LORD Almighty. (Malachi 4:3-NIV)

Here is the big question. When do each of these fourteen judgments take place?

This question is not as easy to answer as one could wish. We'll take a shot at it realizing that our understanding may change in the future. It truly is a difficult question in several instances.

The ten virgins. Closing the door against the foolish believers could take place at any time. Even today the Lord is calling to His people, inviting us to enter a closer relationship to Him. Some are responding. Others are discovering they do not have what it takes to deny themselves, take up their cross, and follow the Lord with a perfect heart.

If this parable is pointed toward the first resurrection, the resurrection that will occur when the Lord returns, then we are saying a multitude of the Christians alive at the time will be left when the trumpet sounds, for it is obvious the saving element is not our profession of belief in Christ but the amount of oil we have in reserve. How many believers are living foolishly, wasting their time, hoping for a "rapture" that will deliver them from all trouble and inconvenience? These are not carrying extra oil with their lamp.

The talents. Again, this could happen at any time. The Lord could come, demand an accounting of us, and either entrust us with more Kingdom ability or remove what we do have. It is obvious the believer could not be raised from the dead (or transformed), glorified, ascend to meet the Lord in the air to be ever with the Lord, and then have his or her talent removed and be thrust into the outer darkness. Can you see the illogic of this?

On the other hand, the judgment of the talents may take place before the White Throne, at the end of the thousand-year Kingdom Age.

The Vine. I think this could happen at any time. The Lord comes to us and perceives there is none of His Nature obvious in our behaviour. He removes us from Himself, and we are so accustomed to living in the impulses of our adamic nature we do not notice the loss of His Presence.

Sowing and reaping. This seems to be to be pointed toward the Day of Resurrection, although again it could take place at any time. Peter tells us judgment has begun in the household of God. Peter informs us that not only the living but the dead also are being judged.

The Christian who persists in living in the lusts and appetites of his flesh will certainly produce a crop of corruption now, and in the day when his or her body is called forth from its place of interment. Our resurrection from the dead will be either the putting on of eternal life and immortality or else entrance into a state of being that is stunted, corrupt, and void of the Presence of God. Our resurrection will be according to the sowing we have done.

The sower. This judgment takes place in the present life. Either we bear lasting fruit in our personality or we do not.

Workers of iniquity. This may take place at the resurrection. Many Christian workers of our day are not known by the Lord. We understand this to be true because of the things they do, robbing widows and living in adultery. Although they have genuine gifts of ministry that are operating, the Lord one day will say, "I never knew you. Get away from Me you wicked person." This in spite of all their accomplishments in the ministry.

Beating the menservants and maidservants. It is difficult to tell exactly when this judgment will occur. When it does take place we will lose our position with Jesus because of our harsh treatment of other Christians.

Not doing God's will. This judgment sometimes happens in the present life as the Lord chastises us severely for not doing His will, as in the case of the prophet Jonah.

Practicing sin. As long as we are walking in the sinful passions of our body we are not entering the Kingdom of God. There is no sin in the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom is the doing of God's will on earth as it is performed in Heaven.

We will not inherit the Kingdom at the coming of the Lord if we choose to live in the flesh and soul rather than the Spirit of God.

Slaying our own resurrection. When we choose to live in the flesh, putting the major emphasis of our life on eating, sleeping, working, playing, and reproducing, leaving little time for prayer, for meditating in the Scriptures, for gathering with fervent believers, the Life of God given to us when we received Jesus Christ begins to be crowded out. If we do not repent, then when the Day of Resurrection arrives there will be no eternal life in our personality to make alive our body. Instead we will reap the corruption of the flesh.

Repaid according to our deeds. We are beginning to see that these judgments can be exercised at any time. Christians who listen to the Jezebel voices that call to the flesh, loving partying and sensual behaviour, may be struck spiritually or even physically dead at any time.

The believer will be repaid by Jesus according to how he or she has lived. The original lie, the greatest lie ever told, is that we will not receive back what we have practiced in our body.

The secular realm fights against creationism, preferring evolution, because creationism suggests there is a God who will call people to account for their behaviour.

The Christian realm fights with the same desperation against the truth of the Scriptures that believers certainly will receive back what they have done.

The satanic lie that "you shall not surely die" pervades Christian theology.

God has put the promise of staggering rewards of glory, and also of punishment so dreadful as to be beyond the mind of man to comprehend, in His unchanging Word. Consider sometime the curses pronounced from Mount Ebal, curses directed toward God's chosen people, not toward the Canaanites. Yet the threat of the Lake of Fire passes far, far beyond Mount Ebal.

These promises of glory and dreadful punishment are in the written Word for a purpose. The purpose is to remind Satan and his followers, and also human beings, of the consequences of obedience to God and disobedience to God.

Satan and his angels, who never can be redeemed, are terrified of what they are facing. Like wicked people often do, they put the fear out of their mind and go on their way, bound hideously with their own lusts and self will.

Satan and his angels will be judged by the saints. Therefore Satan is using every device possible to persuade the believers, God's future judges, that they need have no fear of the Judgment Seat of Christ. Satan is hoping by some means he will be able to persuade the judges to live in sin so when the time of judgment comes they will be unable to judge him. God will have to free Satan and his followers because God's own people are so similar in character and behaviour to Satan.

The error in Christian thinking that once we have believed in Jesus Christ we can never be lost can have unacceptable consequences.

I know of the great importance attached to this false security because Christians who will go along with me that God desires righteous, holy, obedient behaviour will object strenuously when I insist that if such behaviour does not follow, the Christian may be subjected to dreadful punishment or even the maximum penalty.

The believers simply won't hear of this even though the Scripture clearly and in many places, as I have pointed out above, shows that every person on earth, believer in Christ or not, will be judged and rewarded according to his or her behaviour.

"You shall not surely die" was the beginning of the insane howling debauchery known as world history. "You shall not surely die" is being preached today in the great majority of Christian churches to "believers" who are not serving the Lord. It is Satan who is speaking behind the pulpit, though the preacher may be a fine man. Peter was a fine man but Satan through him tried to keep the Lord from going to Jerusalem and making the atonement for our sins.

The truth is (and no one knows it better than Adam and Eve) if you do not obey the commandments of God you will surely die, and there is no grace, or mercy, or love, or dispensation, or any other of the devices employed today that will prevent your death if you do not keep the commandments of Jesus Christ and His Apostles.

A minority of the churches. The judgments concerning Sardis seem to be pointed toward the next age. Only a minority of the believers of Sardis are eligible for the first resurrection, the resurrection of the royal priesthood. Only those clothed in white robes are members of the priesthood. The rest will be judged for their refusal to return to their first works of prayer, of continual repentance and turning away from sin, of meditating day and night in God's Word and practicing what the Word teaches.

Only the victorious saints have the assurance in writing, in the book of the Bible that preempts all of the other books because it is a direct revelation from God through Jesus Christ, that the Lake of Fire no longer has authority over them.

Lukewarm Christians. How wonderful to be spit from Christ's mouth! Not really. When will the lukewarm be spit from Christ's mouth? Probably when He, after warning and chastising them, has decided they are not going to seek Him with their whole heart.

The sheep and goat nations. After no small amount of wondering we have come to the conclusion that the separation of the sheep from the goats will take place at the end of the thousand-year Kingdom Age.

To place the sheep and goat judgment at the time of the return of Jesus Christ presents certain problems, problems that do not arise if we move this judgment to the time of the White Throne.

For instance, we are of the opinion that these will be the sheep and goat nations of the entire Christian Era, and perhaps of all world history. Christ's brothers, who either were ignored or assisted by the nations, probably include all the righteous from the time of Abel. At least the eleventh chapter of the Book of Hebrews could be viewed as suggesting this.

If this is true, if the sheep-goat judgment is not limited to nations on the earth at the time of the Lord's coming, then we have people being raised from the dead and judged prior to the time of the White Throne. This to me seems unlikely. Why pick on just the living nations when multitudes of people long since deceased also have either refused to help God's witnesses or else have gone to their assistance? In addition we have the problem of people being sent to the Lake of Fire at the beginning of the Kingdom Age, the time of Jesus' return. This means they will not be raised from the dead and appear before the White Throne at the end of the Kingdom Age. Actually we would then have had two White Throne judgments, one at the beginning and one at the end of the thousand year Kingdom Age.

I think only the Beast and the False Prophet will be cast in their bodies into the Lake of Fire at the return of the Lord. There is no reason to wait until the end of the Kingdom Age to judge them. They already are known to be the very personification of Satan. Into the Lake of Fire they go while still in their bodies.

But the beast was captured, and with him the false prophet who had performed the miraculous signs on his behalf. With these signs he had deluded those who had received the mark of the beast and worshiped his image. The two of them were thrown alive into the fiery lake of burning sulphur. (Rev 19:20-NIV)

Now we come to another departure from Christian teaching. It is our point of view that the first resurrection, the resurrection that will take place when Jesus returns, is reserved for the victorious saints.

I saw thrones on which were seated those who had been given authority to judge. And I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded because of their testimony for Jesus and because of the word of God. They had not worshiped the beast or his image and had not received his mark on their foreheads or their hands. They came to life and reigned with Christ a thousand years. (The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were ended.) This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy are those who have part in the first resurrection. The second death has no power over them, but they will be priests of God and of Christ and will reign with him for a thousand years. (Rev 20:4-6-NIV)

Everything about this resurrection suggest an elite, a firstfruits. This is not a resurrection to salvation but to rulership.

A study of the second and third chapter of the Book of Revelation leaves at least two impressions. First, those who overcome are a minority of the church members. It is always to "him" who overcomes, not "them" who overcome.

Second, the rewards to the overcomers are not those of basic salvation, or residence in Paradise, but have to do with crowns, thrones, closeness to God. It is our opinion that the rewards presented in these two chapters are steps toward the first resurrection from the dead.

As we look about us in Christendom we can see there are few truly self-denying, cross-carrying, victorious saints. The rest are churchgoers, good people but they simply are not disciples. In fact, the demands of discipleship are frightening to them.

The fact is, however, immature as they may be they are God's elect, His family.

Now, since Revelation 20:5 states "the rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were ended," we are forced to the conclusion that the great majority of God's elect will be raised from the dead at the end of the thousand-year Kingdom Age.

Since we have written extensively concerning the division of the one Church into a firstfruits, and then the balance of the Church, and have discussed the several major supporting types such as the separation of the Ark of the Covenant from the remainder of the Tabernacle of the Congregation, we will not rehearse that topic here. But we are satisfied from the Scripture that Armageddon will be fought by a Gideon's army, a remnant of Israel, and that these are the participants in the first resurrection. They are a firstfruits of the Bride, having clothed themselves in the radiantly white linen of their righteous conduct, and will follow the Lord on the white war stallions as He invades the earth and establishes His Kingdom.

We have also written elsewhere of our opinion that one of the major purposes of the thousand-year Kingdom Age is to give the Lord's firstfruits time to assist the balance of the Church, to prepare those who did not qualify for the first resurrection, for the descent of the entire Church to the earth as the new Jerusalem, the Tabernacle of God among the saved nations.

Now let us think further, for we rapidly are approaching the time of the Lord's return when these ideas will pass from the realm of paper to the substance of the Kingdom of God.

I believe the spirit realm is somewhat different from what we suppose. I think it is a place of intense activity. I believe people are trained there, educated, judged, punished, have wonderful opportunities to minister. While some aspects of character such as iron righteousness, fiery holiness, and stern obedience are probably learned best on the earth (the Logos Himself learned obedience on the earth), yet it must be true that we can grow in many aspects of Divine Life after we leave our probationary period on earth.

We are in a sort of boot camp now. As I see it our present embryonic existence on the earth is only the first of a multitude of stages through which we will pass until we truly are in the image of Him who can inhale or breathe out firmaments at His will.

One day, I do believe, we will be in the image of Christ as presented in the first chapter of the Book of Ezekiel.

So we might think of the spirit realm as a very busy place where the spirits of the righteous are perfected, where people are punished, or healed, or educated. This present life is really the valley of the shadow of death because of the presence of Satan and his followers.

What I picture, then, is the coming of the Lord to raise the members of His army into the air in preparation for their descent with Him in the attack of Armageddon.

But what about the majority of the elect, those who are nowhere near qualified to ride behind Christ in the great cavalry charge.

For example, how about those Corinthians believers who were sick or who died prematurely because God had judged them for taking the Communion improperly? By no stretch of the imagination are they members of the royal priesthood, ready to ride behind the Commander in Chief.

How about those who are saved as by fire, having lost all inheritance as did Lot? These hardly are members of the Lord's firstfruits who will follow the Lamb wherever He goes.

So if we are to have any coherent picture of the next age we must make allowance for the great diversity of spiritual strength in God's people, and that allowance is not to make everyone who makes a profession of belief in Christ a king and throw the rest of the population of the earth into the Lake of Fire. This is simplistic thinking. It does not satisfy the relevant passages of the Scriptures.

Therefore I see a Gideon's army governing the earth for one thousand years, working alongside Christ and growing to be more like Him.

I see this same company preparing the balance of the Church for her appearing as the Bride of the Lamb, the new Jerusalem. The concept of the stronger dressing the weaker for the wedding can be found in the eighth chapter of the Song of Solomon.

According to the Scriptures, no person other than the members of the royal priesthood, the overcomers, will be raised at the return of Jesus. The remainder of the elect, as well as the rest of mankind, must wait until the thousand years have been concluded. This fulfils the type of the partial reign of David over Judah prior to his rule over all Israel.

Now we come to the general resurrection from the dead, after the earth and sky have fled from the face of Christ.

We see a great white throne. On the throne are Jesus Christ and His brothers, as we know from other passages of Scriptures (Revelation 3:21, for example).

Before the judges stand every person born on the earth except those who were raised in the first resurrection and now are seated on the throne of judgment.

And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the book of life. The dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books. The sea gave up the dead that were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them, and each person was judged according to what he had done. Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. The lake of fire is the second death. If anyone's name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire. (Rev 20:12-15-NIV)

The families of Israel will be there. They will be judged by the Apostles, according to the word of the Lord Jesus.

The sheep and goat nations will be there, I believe. When Jesus says, "Inasmuch as you did it to the least of these My brothers," He is referring to His brothers who in that hour will be surrounding Him, His fellow judges.

The sea, death, and Hades gave up the dead in them. The sea probably refers to the great sea of mankind. The dead small and great are standing before God, not on the earth because the earth and the sky had fled from the face of Christ.

I believe, however, they are standing in resurrected bodies. I may be incorrect in this, but it is God's way to judge us in the body, to reward us in the body, and to punish us in the body. Also, Jesus plainly stated that all shall be raised at one time or another.

"Do not be amazed at this, for a time is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice And come out-those who have done good will rise to live, and those who have done evil will rise to be condemned. (John 5:28-29-NIV)

How could a flesh and bones body be in the spirit realm? How could Elijah and Enoch be caught up in their flesh and bones? There is an lot we do not know, isn't there?

It is the exception who is cast into the Lake of Fire. We know this from the statement, "if anyone's name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire." The wording implies that only a minority were assigned to this fate that is dreadful beyond comprehension. Otherwise it would say, "if anyone's name was found in the book of life he was not thrown into the lake of fire."

The current Christian position that this is only a mock judgment and everyone without exception will be cast into the Lake of Fire is based on an unscriptural philosophy that makes a mockery of the exact wording of the passage. Nothing of the kind is implied in the text itself.

The fact that each person was judged according to what he had done does not mean he was lost! In several places in the New Testament we are told that we will be judged according to what we have done.

We have previously quoted the following:

I will strike her children dead. Then all the churches will know I am he who searches hearts and minds, and I will repay each of you according to your deeds. (Rev 2:23-NIV)

We are in need of a midcourse correction in Christian theology.

We have discussed the judgment of Israel, of the sheep and goat nations, and of the rest of the people of the world.

The one group remaining consists of the members of God's elect who did not attain the first resurrection.

Their judgment is special because they are the Lord's servants. We already have set forth thirteen examples of the judgment of the elect. These thirteen aspects of the judgment of the elect may take place during the present life, after they die, during the thousand-year Kingdom Age, or after the judgment of the White Throne.

A great deal of time (if time is a factor in the eternal age) may be devoted to the final preparations of the Bride of the Lamb, and also to the introduction of the members of the sheep nations to the Lord Jesus so they may receive the eternal life promised to them.

"Then the King will say to those on his right, 'Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. (Matthew 25:34-NIV)

"Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life." (Matthew 25:46-NIV)

All of this activity may take place after the last verse of Chapter Twenty and before the first verse of Chapter Twenty-one.

The next thing we are allowed to see, after the White Throne judgment, is the new sky and the new earth, and the completed Church coming down through the sky to rest forever on a high mountain of the new earth.

Consider the following:

In visions of God he took me to the land of Israel and set me on a very high mountain, on whose south side were some buildings that looked like a city. (Ezekiel 40:2-NIV)

It is our point of view that the description of the temple found in the Book of Ezekiel is a symbolic way of setting forth the inward nature of those who compose the new Jerusalem, the work that must be done before we are ready to wipe away the tears of the saved nations.