What Are You Looking For? Part 1: The Nicene Creed

To Judge The Living And The Dead

To Judge the Living and the Dead

            Okay, the good news, Jesus is coming again.  The bad news, he’s coming to judge everyone.  By virtue of his death on the cross, he earned this right.  This isn’t what he came to do.  “For God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him.” (John 3:17 NABRE)  But when he comes again it is what he will do.  He will judge everyone according to their hearts.  And he will grant us what our hearts want.  John 3:18 goes on to say, “Whoever believes in him will not be condemned, but whoever does not believe has already been condemned, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.”  (NABRE)  That’s what we’ll be judged on.  Did we believe or not.  Do we really want to spend eternity with him, or don’t we.  That’s a choice we make here while we’re alive. 

            How will he be able to tell if we believe or not?  Besides the fact that he is God and knows all things, knows all hearts, he’ll be able to tell by what we did in this life.  In Matthew 25 he gives us a list.  Feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit the sick and those in prison.  Take care of those less fortunate than yourself.  This isn’t some cosmic checklist, however.  Fed the hungry, check.  Clothed the naked, check.  Oops, I forgot to visit someone in prison.  The people in the parable didn’t even realize they were doing the work of the Lord.  They were just doing whatever he put in front of them to do, not for their honor, but for his.  They were loving their neighbor the way they were commanded to do.

            Our motives will matter, too.  In Matthew 8:22, he tells of people coming to him at the last judgment and saying, “’Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name?  Did we not drive out demons in your name?  Did we not do mighty deeds in your name?’  Then I will declare to them solemnly, “I never knew you.  Depart from me you evil doers.”

            These people did all the right things.  They were using their cosmic checklist.  But they did them for the wrong reasons.  They believed their own press.  They were doing it for their honor and glory, not his.  Because they didn’t know Jesus, he didn’t know them.  They knew his name, but they didn’t know him.

            When Jesus comes again in glory to judge the living and the dead, He will give each of us what we really want.  If we didn’t want to spend time with him and get to know him and let him get to know us here on earth, he will honor that desire to not know him for all of eternity.  Those who make such a choice will spend eternity without him.

            For us Christians, he’s not going to ask if we had the right end-time teaching.  He’s not going to ask what mighty deeds we did or did not do.  He’s not going to ask if we changed the world.  Did we do whatever he put before us to do?  Not for our honor and glory, but for his.  Does he know us?  Do we let him intimately know us?  If we do, then he will say to us what the king says in the parable in Matthew 25:34, “’Come, you who are blessed by my Father.  Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.’” (NABRE)