Theopedia

Judgment of God

“Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just?”

— Genesis 18:25

Definition

The judgment of God is his exercise, as Judge of all the earth, of perfect knowledge and perfect righteousness in evaluating his creatures and rendering to each what is due (Gen. 18:25; Ps. 96:13).1 God judges throughout history, in his providential government of nations and of his own covenant people, not only at a single future moment.1 Every person also faces a particular judgment immediately at death, before the final judgment still to come at the end of the age (Heb. 9:27).2

Confessional Witness

The Westminster Confession (1646), the Savoy Declaration (1658), and the 1689 Second London Baptist Confession open their opening chapters on God with identical wording on this point. God is

“most just and terrible in his judgments, hating all sin, and who will by no means clear the guilty.”345

This names judgment as one of God’s own perfections, not merely something he does on a single occasion: the confessions place it in the same sentence as his holiness, wisdom, and goodness, as a settled trait of his character rather than an isolated future act. The 1689 returns to Christ’s own office as Judge at greater length in its own account of the final judgment, the day appointed for him to “judge the world in righteousness.”6

Biblical Basis

Abraham’s question to God at Sodom, “Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just?” (Gen. 18:25), assumes rather than argues for the doctrine: there is a Judge, and his judgment will be righteous.7 Scripture repeats the same conviction throughout: “God is a righteous judge” (Ps. 7:11); “he shall judge the world with righteousness” (Ps. 96:13); “righteousness and judgment are the habitation of his throne” (Ps. 97:2).8 This conviction holds even where God’s dealings are not yet visibly vindicated. Hodge notes that it persists “notwithstanding all the apparent inequalities in the distribution of his favours; notwithstanding the prosperity of the wicked and the afflictions of the righteous,” on the assurance that “somehow and somewhere he will vindicate his dealings with men, and show that he is righteous in all his ways and holy in all his works.”8

God’s judgment is not confined to a single future day. Bavinck traces it through Israel’s own history: God “manifests his righteousness in history, in his government of the world, and in his providential guidance of Israel,” and he judges the wicked, “including and even especially his own covenant people,” through the very events the prophets record (Ezek. 7:4, 9, 27; Jer. 7:20; Lam. 2:2).1 Paul reaches the same conclusion from general revelation: everyone who practices unrighteousness “knows God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die” (Rom. 1:32), and God “will render to each one according to his works” (Rom. 2:6).

Each person also stands before God in a particular judgment at the moment of death, distinct from the final judgment that follows the general resurrection: “it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment” (Heb. 9:27).2

Historical Development

Gill reads the doctrine of a righteous Judge as older than any post-biblical formulation, already assumed in Abraham’s address to God at Sodom and reaffirmed across the Old Testament: Moses’ song, “the Lord shall judge his people” (Deut. 32:36), and Hannah’s song, “the Lord shall judge the ends of the earth” (1 Sam. 2:10), both take a righteous, universal divine judgment as an established point of Israelite faith.7 The Reformed confessions gave the doctrine its fullest post-biblical statement in the seventeenth century, placing it alongside God’s other perfections in their opening chapter on the divine nature: Westminster (1646), Savoy (1658), and the Second London Baptist Confession (1677, reissued 1689) all describe God as “most just and terrible in his judgments” within a few lines of naming his holiness, wisdom, and goodness.345

At the Reformation, the doctrine of a particular judgment at death became a point of dispute with Rome specifically over what follows it. Bavinck reports that the Reformers, “by virtue of [their] principle of justification by faith alone,” taught that a believer, “immediately after a particular judgment undergone in the death struggle, entered into the blessedness of heaven or the perdition of hell,” against Rome’s teaching that most believers first pass through purgatory.9

Opposing Views

Roman Catholic doctrine agrees that souls face a particular judgment at death, but holds that most believers, lacking full satisfaction for “temporal punishments” still owed for forgiven sins, are not immediately admitted to heaven’s presence of God but pass first through purgatory to complete that satisfaction, aided by the living church’s own intercessions, Masses, and indulgences.9 Reformed theology holds instead that the particular judgment issues at once in one of only two outcomes, heaven or hell, with no intervening state of purgation.9

Objections and Responses

If Christ’s own sacrifice is a perfect satisfaction for sin, why would any further, personal satisfaction still be owed at the particular judgment? Hodge answers that Rome’s doctrine of purgatorial satisfaction is unnecessary on the Reformed reading of the atonement: “if the one offering of Christ forever perfects them that believe; if his sacrifice be a perfect satisfaction for our sins, then there is no reason why believers should be kept out of blessedness until they have expiated their sins by their own sufferings.”2

The prosperity of the wicked and the suffering of the righteous in this life count against a present, righteous divine judgment. Hodge answers that Scripture holds this conviction anyway, without waiting for visible proof in the present life: “notwithstanding all the apparent inequalities in the distribution of his favours… the conviction is everywhere expressed that God is just; that somehow and somewhere he will vindicate his dealings with men.”8 Paul draws the same conclusion from Christ’s resurrection specifically, grounding a future reckoning in a historical event rather than in present appearances (Acts 17:31).

Related Doctrines

References

  1. Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics: Abridged in One Volume, ed. John Bolt (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2011), chap. 8, “The Living, Acting God”: “God is the Judge of all the earth (Gen. 18:25) who manifests his righteousness in history, in his government of the world, and in his providential guidance of Israel. God is righteous and all his judgments are righteous (Pss. 119:137; 129:4)… He judges the wicked (Ezek. 7:4, 9, 27; 8:18; 9:10), including and even especially his own covenant people… Still, in Scripture, while God’s retributive justice is real, his remunerative justice is far more prominent.” ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  2. Charles Hodge, “Chapter I. State of the Soul After Death,” in Systematic Theology, vol. 3 (New York: Charles Scribner and Company, 1873), 710-768. ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  3. The Second London Baptist Confession of Faith (1689), chap. 2, “Of God, and of the Holy Trinity,” para. 1. ↩ ↩2

  4. The Westminster Confession of Faith (1646), chap. 2, “Of God, and of the Holy Trinity,” para. 1. ↩ ↩2

  5. A Declaration of the Faith and Order Owned and Practised in the Congregational Churches (Savoy Declaration) (London, 1658), chap. 2, “Of God, and of the Holy Trinity,” para. 1. ↩ ↩2

  6. The Second London Baptist Confession of Faith (1689), chap. 32, “Of the Last Judgment,” para. 1. ↩

  7. John Gill, A Body of Doctrinal Divinity; or, A System of Evangelical Truths, Deduced from the Sacred Scriptures, 2 vols. (London: Printed for the Author, and Sold by George Keith, 1769), book 7, chap. 9, “Of the Last and General Judgment.” ↩ ↩2

  8. Charles Hodge, “Chapter V. Nature and Attributes of God,” in Systematic Theology, vol. 1 (New York: Charles Scribner and Company, 1871), 366-442: “Notwithstanding all the apparent inequalities in the distribution of his favours; notwithstanding the prosperity of the wicked and the afflictions of the righteous, the conviction is everywhere expressed that God is just; that somehow and somewhere He will vindicate his dealings with men, and show that He is righteous in all his ways and holy in all his works.” ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  9. Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics: Abridged in One Volume, ed. John Bolt (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2011), chap. 23, “The Intermediate State.” ↩ ↩2 ↩3