Judgement - Why is it necessary, ? - An essay in the rough. - A work in progress as is my life.
All cultures that I know of have an acceptance of judgement. Each culture has a form of carrying out judgement and reward or punishment which comes after the judgement.. You find it in animistic cultures, atheistic cultures, Western and Eastern culture.
The aboriginal dreamstories often carry a theme of judgement. One of the 'dream time' figures does something, detrimental or otherwise to nature or to each other and is judged and punished or rewarded. Sometimes this punishment involves taking on the form of an animal. The other day on ABC there was a story of a woman who's husband turned the water salty, she saved the last bowl of fresh water. He turned into a beetle and she turned into a wallaby.
We all acknowledge that crimes need to be judged in a court of law. How many times do you see people upset when the punishment for the crime is too lienient? There have been many such cases recently in Australia. We have local courts, international courts etc. We acknowledged the need to judge 'war crimials' such as Hitler and Stalin. Would we have preffered to give them a 'pat on the back', or do we feel that it is just and right to judge bad deeds and inflict a penalty on those who choose to commit them? Even people who would subscribe to a postmodern type of worldview are quick to act if their rights are infringed upon. Just look at how full the courts are today!
Judgement can be a positive thing too!.....
If judgement and following consequences of it are so universally accepted then it should not be hard to understand the 'idea of judgement' in the Bible. The idea of judgement begins in the first book of the Bible - Genesis. In Genesis we find both positive and negative Judgements. God said His creation was good. Whilst it is a statement, judgement is inherent in that you must make a judgement to arrive at a conclusion
Negative judgement does not arrive until we find disobedience. It comes straight after Adam and Eve partook of the tree of Knowledge. Judgement here is implicit, as it does not specifically say "God judged them", rather we see the punishment of the actions, which God must have judged as bad because the results were deadly. In Genesis chapter 4 we find an explicit statement of judgement where we see how God looks upon the offerings of Cain and Abel . Abel's offering was looked on with favour ( a good judgement), Cain's was not.
However the idea of judgement is more fully employed later in Genesis. We find God referred to as judge 18:25, Sarah calls God to judge between her and Abraham. In Deut 32:36 it says "the Lord will judge his people". 1 Sam 2:10 tells us "the Lord will judge the ends of the earth." I could go on there are so many passages where God is seen as judge, called upon to judge and seen as the "judge of the whole earth'. Furthermore the people were given Judges to rule them and taught to judge fairly.
So right from the begining of the Bible we see the idea of Judgement being accepted, being used, being requested and a comming world wide judgement was expected. It is definately a major theme in the Bible and cannot be ignored because just about every book of the Bible mentions it. But what about judgement in prophecy, because that is why we are here.
Is judgement a major theme in Biblical prophecy?
Many times in scripture that looks to the future rather than the present we find Biblical characters saying of God "he will judge the world, the nations and the earth. In pslams there are at least three references, In Isaiah chapters 2,11, 34,and 66:16 "The Lord will execute judgement upon all men. In Joel Chapter 3 We have a passage about the Nations being judged, we know it is about a future time because it begins "In those days and at that time, when I restore the fortunes of Judah and Jerusalem, I will gather all nations. We also can see that it is in a future time becasue the chapter preceding this talks about the "comming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord. One more, *(though there are countless others) is Micah Chapter 4 which starts "In the last days"....and then states about judgement...in verse.3 "He will judge between many peoples and will settle disputes for strong nations. Note it says many peoples, which refers to 'people groups' for if it were talking about just many individuals it would state 'many people'.
Aside from passages that deal with the future judgement of the world to come, there were also passages that foretold of judgements to come that have already happened in Old Testament times. Take for example Noah - God told him of the Flood which was to come because God judged mankind to be evil.and did not God say Israel would be judged and punished if it 'broke Covenant' which it often did and was often punished. In fact the nation of Israel can be seen as 'prophetic' for the world, because God reveals His nature and His plans through His nation. Just as we see it necessary for Israel to be judged when it disobeys we are to recognize our coming judgement for refusing the Saviour - Jesus.
So that shows us that in the Old Testament judgement prophetically speaking was a well accepted theme among the prophets and the prophecies they gave. (If you get a concordance you will find others). We can conclude from this that Old Testament believers were looking forward to a day of judgement for the whole world. A great and terrible day - (great for some not so great for others).
So why do we need judgement?..................
Why does there need to be judgement and why will God judge the earth.
Judgement means to make a decision, to decide for or against, or to determine what is right and wrong. Judgement has both negative and positive connotations. IF something is judged bad, there must be a good that exists in opposition, or in comparison. So when the wicked are judged it must be because there is an opposite - the good. Judging distinguishes between the two and usually after judgement comes the sentence, the reward or the punishment. The good are rewarded the bad are disciplined or sometimes punished.
So why does the world need judgement? Well you only have to take a look what goes on in court to learn that. Why do we take criminals to court? Why do we have a police force to bring people to justice? Why do we try 'war criminals?" The simple answer is because some things are just not good, not acceptable, not right or beneficial. Each one of knows somethings just should not be. Well the Bible has a lot to say about things that should not be.
Why can't God just forgive and forget?Why does there have to be judgement reward and
penalties?
Sin which is disobedience against God should not be. The results of sin are death. A heavy penalty for sure but think of the ramifications if it were not so. Imagine a world where everyone is immortal (they cannot die), now imagine that there are people here who insist on always doing bad things. They don't want to change, they like what they do. Think about an immortal world with lots of Hitlers etc. Withiout judgement and punishment, these people could never be removed, their actions never stopped. Hitler's hell would go on forever and ever. Not a nice picture Huh? Well that is what the afterlife would be if God didn't sort out those who want to stop doing bad (sin) and those who don't. The Bilble oftern refferst to them as the sheep and the goats. So becasue humans sinned and God being holy, righteous and all round perfect cannot tolerate sin for eternity He came up with a plan that deals with Sin but also makes a way for those who would like their sin dealt with. It's the plan of salvation and redemption and Jesus is the Key figure. Judgement must occur becasue sin cannot be allowed to go on forever More comming soon.
Speaking of going on forever - What about the end of all things?
Why there must be a conclusion a final moment for the earth.
A couple of years ago I had and interesting conversation with a friend about the earth comming to an end. She was of the belief that if the world could get it together, become perfect and follow God's ways then the end would not be necessary. A nice view perhaps but what are the chances of us becoming perfect? Is it possible that everyone would suddenly recognize God and His son Jesus. I thing that the answer to that is no and for several reasons.
1) History. We only have to look at the history of the world to see that in every age mankind has failed. Even modernism which promised us things were getting better and science would perfect us, has failed. We have experienced just about every type of government immaginable (except Jesus ruling personally on earth as KIng). Not one form of Government has been able to do awa with evil. We see that mankind has a propensity to be greedy, to be self-seeking overall. That does not mean that we have not been blessed with the odd individual who has been self-sacrificing for the benefit of humanity, but overall there are more of us who seek our own good before that of others on a fairly regular basis.
2) The present state of the world. I for one am truely shocked at the direction our world is taking at present. We have cultures which promote things that are not beneficial to the world. Hyper-consumerism where we are constantly bombarded to buy, buy , buy. Stock markets where they gamble on our future, just to make a buck.We have subcultures of death and minority groups which insist on re-writing the Bible so they can justify their sin.
We have a rising culture in the west that is increasingly guity of what Isaiah says in 5:20 "Woe to those who cal evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and who put bitter for sweet." This can be seen in such ideologies as Hegelian Dialectic-synthesis. Where two opposing views are to moulded into a new view. Take for example the current rise in issues relating to the Gay communities in the western world. When comming to the Bible and what is says about sexual relations with same sex partners, and about sex outside of God's idea for marriage. The Bible is clear that marriage is firstly that between a man and a woman. We know this because no alternative is given. Secondly we have many passage which tell us sex outside of this married state is a sin. ( get bible verses) However those who choose to have relations another way want to justify their actions by changing what the Bible says. One such argument would be using the hegelian dialectic Thesis God is love antithesis God hates sexual fornication. However if my fornication is a so called act of love, then God being love must think it is ok. Or we get the radical feminism theology who state that the bible is God's word there for an authoritative book for faith (thesis). However it was also written by men, who were patristic (against women's rights) (antithesis). Therefore the Bible must be in error when it comes to issues relating to women and needs feministic review (synthesis) With this thinking both groups are able to re-write those passages which go against their chosen beliefs. It can also be said that many denominations have used this approach also to make their pet doctrines 'right'.
But far worse than this there is the Genetic modification issue which alarms me the most.
Companies are taking our seeds, our foods and changing them at a rate so fast that no-one knows the consequences of the changes. They are taking away the distinction between species mixing humans genes with animals, they are on the verge of making mankind something other than what we were intended to be. No longer will a person with a food allergy be certain that a food is safe. Take for example someone allergic to gluten. They know they can eat rice, but what happens when a protien is changed in rice? The original change may not be a gluten one but they open the rice upto the possibility of pollinating with something that does have gluten because they have changed the DNA. How long until all crops are going mad with new combinations. And what will happen when we make pigs or monkeys part human. Do we give them human rights?
Our world is becomming so polluted with diseases and this will increase with the DNA changes as more diseases will be able to cross species barriers due to the fact we have removed these barriers. We also have the problem of pollution in general. We have not found a way to deal effictivley with the fly -ash from coal burning which contains carcinogens and radio-active substances, let alone know what to do with urianium by-products. We are running out of room for landfill rubbish dumps and our water surplies are being fouled up with pollution from the skies and chemical spraying on our agricultural land. I know of one resivour in South Australia near the Barossa Valley which can no longer be used for human consuption due to chemical infiltration.
Tell me do you want to live in a world that cannot distinguish between human and animal, do you want to live in a world where humans are cyborgs (part machine part human). Can you see us with all of our failed accomplishments suddenly turning the corner and getting it right. Lets not forget the social issues either like the ever increasing drug problems which education and legislation fail to stop. We have new concerns like 'road rage', school shootings and mental health patients on the steep incline. All of this in a world that has more educated people than ever before. A wolrd that is full of the so called promise of science and technology. We have discovered so much only to discover that the basic nature of man has not really changed at all.
3) There must be an end before an new begining. You can't have a new begining without the old passing away. If the old does not go it will infect the new. We can't have a new world that is empty of sin, disease, pollution, corruption until the corrupted stuff is dealth with. It's like getting a new computer program on your old infected computer. You get this whiz bang program that makes your computer error free, super fast etc, but because you have a fault, maybe a virus already inherent in your system it gets corrupted. Oh you say but this program is so perfect it removes all virus's but what if the problem is inbuilt in the computer itself. It would not work perfectly until it had the perfect enviroment.
Well for us to have a perfect world we need one that has no trace of sin. Sin and death must be banished for good. The corrupted DNA needs to be totally replaced with that which is perfect. Don't you want to have a world where this is so.
4) The end is comming anyway! We know from science and observation that Suns in the universe end. Supernovas that take out planets with them. We are told also by science that our sun will end one day. Wouldn't a loving God have a plan that takes this end factor into account. Because of sin the world is on a crash course to die. Our God is so loving that He reassure us that He has a plan of making a new heaven and earth. He takes out the fear factor by saying don't worry I have this covered, I will make all things new. Better yet we are told that "Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, no mind has concieved what God has prepared for those who love him." 1Cor 2:9 Now there is an exciting promise.
5) The Bible tells us so.