Will everyone really rise from the dead? Will there truly be a final judgment, and what kind of judge will we face? Scripture answers clearly.
Christ Raises All the Dead
The resurrection follows Christ’s appearing. Scripture sometimes calls it God’s work (1 Cor. 6:14 and 2 Cor. 1:9), but specifically it belongs to the Son. The Father has given him life in himself (John 5:26); he is the resurrection and the life (John 11:25); and he has the authority to call all the dead from their graves with his voice (John 5:28-29). Scripture teaches plainly, here and elsewhere,1Dan. 12:2; Matt. 10:28; Acts 24:15; and Rev. 20:12-13. that everyone will be raised, the unjust as well as the righteous.
But the two resurrections differ. Raising the unrighteous shows Christ’s power and justice; raising the righteous shows his mercy. For the unrighteous it is simply the reuniting of soul and body, for judgment (John 5:29). For the righteous it is a resurrection to life, a renewal of the whole person, soul and body, in fellowship with Christ and by his Spirit.2John 5:29; Rom. 8:8; and Phil. 3:21.
They don’t happen at different times; they differ in nature and character. Only the second is blessed, rooted in Christ’s own: he is the firstfruits, then those who are his (1 Cor. 15:20-23).
The Same You, Raised
In the resurrection the unity of the person, soul and body, is preserved. How, through the catastrophe of death, we don’t know. So many reject bodily resurrection and suggest the soul takes another body, human or animal. But keeping the soul’s identity in another form faces the same difficulties. So some teach only that the spirit lives on, without continuity of consciousness. That gives up immortality altogether. If self-awareness and memory are cut off at death, whoever lives on is no longer the same person.
Why the Body Matters
Our self-awareness includes a body as well as a soul. The body isn’t the spirit’s prison; it belongs to being human. So Christ, the perfect Saviour, redeems the body as well as the soul. The whole person was made in God’s image and corrupted, and the whole person is redeemed and re-created.
The resurrection body matches the earthly body in essence, not in outward form, incidental features or material quantity. It is not a natural but a spiritual body (1 Cor 15:44). It is beyond marriage (Matt. 22:30) and food (1 Cor. 6:13), immortal and glorified (1 Cor. 15:42-44), like Christ’s risen body (Phil. 3:21).
The body is not a prison of the spirit but belongs to the essence of human beings.
A Judgment Already Under Way
Resurrection is followed by judgment. Since God put enmity between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent (Gen. 3:15), there has been a great division among people: Seth and Cain, Shem and Ham, Israel and the nations, and within Israel itself. Christ sharpened this division, though he came to save, not condemn (John 3:17); his word and person brought separation (John 3:19-21).
That judgment runs through the history of every people, family and person. But world history isn’t the final judgment. Too much evil goes unpunished and too much good unrewarded. Reason and conscience, philosophy and religion, and all of history cry out for a last, righteous judgment.
It is out of the perfection of his own being that God judges. God is righteous; therefore he removes evil and maintains the good. In that way, God’s righteous judgment is also an act of his love. In the face of the deep corruption our sinfulness has brought and continues to bring to his original creation, God in Christ is acting in love to rescue us, to bring in the new creation. In its consummation at Christ’s return, all evil will have been punished and removed from its power amongst us (Rev. 21:1-8).
Christ the Judge
It is appointed for people to die once, and after that the judgment (Heb. 9:27). God alone is Lawgiver and Judge of all,3Gen. 18:25; Ps. 50:6; Isa. 33:22; and James 4:12. but he has given the last judgment to Christ, because he is the Son of Man.4John 5:22; Acts 10:42; 17:31; and Rom. 14:9. It completes his work as Mediator, the last step in his exaltation, showing that he has done all the Father gave him and fully redeemed his church.
What kind of judgment will it be? Merciful and gracious, yet completely just. Christ sees every hidden evil in the heart, but also the smallest beginning of faith and love. He judges not by appearances but by truth. With law and gospel as his standard, he will judge our deeds (Matt. 25:35 ff.), words (Matt. 12:36) and thoughts (Rom. 2:16 and 1 Cor. 4:5), for nothing stays hidden (Matt. 6:4 and 10:26).
For everyone who can say with Peter, “Lord, you know everything, you know that I love you” (John 21:17), that judgment is a comfort. For all who refused Christ as King, it brings fear and dread.
Comfortable Illusions
The judgment brings an eternal separation. In Israel some said, “The LORD does not see” (Ps. 94:7), or, “Where is the God of justice?” (Mal. 2:17). Today some flatter themselves that there is no last judgment, that repentance stays possible after death, that everyone, even the devils, will be saved, or that the wicked will be annihilated.
Conscience and Scripture both reject these vain imaginations. Two will be in one bed, two grinding at the mill, two in the field: one taken, the other left (Luke 17:34-36). The righteous go to eternal life, the ungodly to eternal punishment (Matt. 25:46). There is a heaven of glory, and there is a hell, where the worm does not die and the fire is not quenched (Mark 9:48), where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth (Matt. 8:12), where darkness and death reign for ever (Matt. 7:13; 8:12; and Rev. 21:8). It is where God’s wrath is revealed in all its terror.5Rom. 2:8; 9:22; Heb. 10:31; and Rev. 6:16-17.
Perfectly Fair
Yet there will be degrees of punishment. Those without the law will perish without the law (Rom. 2:12). It will be more bearable for Sodom and Gomorrah, Tyre and Sidon, than for Capernaum and Jerusalem (Matt. 10:15 and 11:22 and 24). The servant who knew his master’s will and didn’t do it will be beaten with many blows (Luke 12:47). Even evil spirits differ in their wickedness (Matt. 12:45). Everyone will be repaid according to what they have done.6Matt. 16:27; Rom. 2:6; and Rev. 22:12.
The judgment will be so just that every conscience will have to approve it. Christ fights only with spiritual weapons, and on that day he will justify himself in every conscience by his Word. He is Faithful and True, who makes war in righteousness, and the sharp sword from his mouth is the Word (Rev. 19:11, 15, and 21).
The Final Purpose
So in the end, willingly or not, every knee will bow at Jesus’ name and every tongue confess that he is Lord, to the glory of God the Father (Phil. 2:11). The punishment of the wicked isn’t the final goal; God’s glory in Christ’s victory is. Sinners will vanish from the earth and the wicked be no more. “Bless the Lord, O my soul! Praise the LORD!” (Ps. 104:35).