20.3 Judgment to Life
© 2016 Christ Revealed Bible Institute
And I saw thrones, and they sat on them, and judgment was committed to them (Revelation 20:4a). – Do you not know that the saints will judge the world? And if the world will be judged by you, are you unworthy to judge the smallest matters? Do you not know that we shall judge angels? (1 Corinthians 6:2-3a).
What is judgment? To begin to answer that question, we must first know the difference between legislation and law. And here I am using only the judicial and cultural meaning of the word, “law,” a definition completely other than law under the Old Covenant. (Count it a different word.)
Opposing Things
Legislation and law are completely opposing things. Legislation, if unleashed, will always destroy law.
Let me give a historical example, the arising of the beast out of the sea around the year AD 1650. Charles I, by law, sought to impose an unusually high 10% tax on the noblemen of England. And the noblemen of England, by law, opposed Charles I’s tax. Then, after Charles I was executed, parliament took full control of the country and went on immediately to create legislation for the first time in modern history. By legislation, parliament seized 50% of England’s wealth in taxes, and law could no longer prevent them.
Law versus Legislation
Let me explain the difference between law and legislation. Law is established in custom, in precedence, in culture. Law is known and agreed upon by all. Law makes sense; law preserves justice in human society.
Legislation is entirely different. Legislation is the endless creation of “rules” coming out of the whim of the legislators. Legislation is what the Pharisees did to Moses’ law. Legislation is the turning of normal human action into “crimes” and then inflicting pain on those who disagree. The crimes committed by legislators are always greater than the crimes committed by solitary thieves.
Customary Law
Now, this is important to us in providing the background for any understanding of – judgment was committed to them.
The best example of customary law known by most people is English common law and the processes of justice developed out from the merging of Anglo-Saxon due process with Norman French “right” through the Middle Ages. A different study would take us through a comparison of Biblical principles with God’s order for life in the promised land for the children of Israel with English common law. We would see much agreement among those three things.
Here, however, we want to know about these thrones and the judgment committed to those who sit upon them.
Judgment Committed to Them
God will not judge. Jesus, alone, will not judge. All judgment coming out of the Father and the Son will flow only through Their symmorphic relationship with those who sit upon these thrones and through the judgment COMMITTED to them. All judgment in all the ages to come will come only through the one Body of Christ.
And to understand their judgment, I rely on my knowledge of English common law rooted in what God says in His Word. All judgment arises out from precedence.
Precedent
Let me define “precedent.” Precedent (Webster’s 1926): Law: A judicial decision, or a form of proceeding, or a course of action, that serves as a rule for future determinations in similar cases; an authoritative example.
A precedent is a guide from the past used by a present judge in making a present decision. A precedent comes out from the wisdom of past judges who are considered by all to have been just and wise.
Here is this principle of precedent ruling present action for us. By this we know love, because He laid down His life for us, and we also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.
You Are the Judge
Now, let us consider precedent for the judgment of men and of angels.
Let us say you have two daughters. The first daughter was ten when the Lord moved upon her to give her heart to Jesus. But the second daughter was eight when she died, old enough that, by the church, she is responsible before God for her sins. Yet she had not yet given her heart to Jesus. You are the judge. Which precedent do you choose?
Nicene Christianity chooses hellfire forever for your daughter. Yet all things that are of God must come through you, thus it is you that must inflict constant pain on your daughter forever.
Only One Guide
Now, if you give yourself the task, by your own judgment, of inflicting unbearable pain upon your own daughter whom you love, in screaming cries of anguish without hope forever, would you call your own action evil? You bet you would; and ALL common human dignity would agree.
Yet many who do not define God as a demon, then turn and do something almost as bad. “Oh, God just forgives everybody.” The lesson on justice showed us how cruel such unjust “forgiveness” really is.
We have only one guide, the precedence set by the wisest and most just Person who came before and who now lives as us.
Forgive or Retain?
As the Father has sent Me, I also send you. – If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained (John 20:21 & 23).
A judge sits upon his seat as a line of accused persons passes before him. To one, he says, “I judge you by forgiveness.” To the next he says, “I judge you by your sins.”
I have known two individuals who judged me by my sins. These two were both Spirit-filled believers in Christ. Do they have power from God to retain my sins? Jesus said they do. Do I have power from God to retain their sins? Jesus said I do.
It Is the Judge Who Judges
It is not the prosecutor who judges, but the judge. It is not the law-giver who judges, but the judge. It is not the defense attorney, the advocate, who judges, but the judge. It is not the executioner who judges, but the judge.
And judgment was committed to them. A judge does not make things up. Rather, he reaches back and finds precedence for his decisions. A judge finds a word and by that word he establishes judgment. What word will “they” find? Upon which precedent will “they” cast their judgments?
Which Line?
Paul reached back and found one tiny little word, in one minor and obscure prophet, the just shall live by faith, and by that one line, he annulled, by divine decree coming through him, all the claims of the law that had put everyone to death. Then Paul continued grubbing around and found another line in another minor and obscure prophet, “I will call them My people, who were not My people,” and we Gentiles rushed through the doors of Salvation flung open by Paul.
By which line will “they” judge? The second witness of Christ possess all power to strike the earth with any plague they wish any time they want. Will they use that power?
Individual Judgment
Consider the entire human race, every single individual born of Adam, laboring under the vanity of not knowing God. Yet no judgment is ever given upon the group. Paul said it this way: For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive the things done in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad (2 Corinthians 5:10).
But God is not the judge; “they” are: and judgment was committed to them. Consider your purpose as judge. Is your purpose to magnify sin or to prove, to reveal Christ?
A Scoundrel
Here is a scoundrel (not at all your daughter). Through his time on this earth, this filthy man has murdered 15 people and taken their wealth for his own lusts. He has raped dozens of women, most of them young. He has boasted of his prowess and of the hardness of his heart. He refuses ever to consider anyone else's pain. He successfully avoided any thought of his own actions during his entire lifetime. All the centuries he has wandered in the shades of hades, he has screamed and cried, denouncing God and everyone else, blaming everything on everyone. Never has one thought of his own personal responsibility ever crossed his mind.
What Is Your Judgment?
This wicked, wicked man stands before you now, restored back into his physical body, yet naked and alone. Let's make the picture even more stark. He is slimy in appearance; coy deceit fills his eyes. He is thinking hard on what personal pain he can bring against you, his judge; and he stinks. What is your judgment? Do you retain or do you forgive?
Jesus said, “I have the authority to forgive sins.” He said, “Whose sins you forgive, they ARE forgiven.” Do you retain or do you forgive? It is not a simple decision. You see, the only way you and I can pronounce our judgment is by precedence.
A Personal Investment
Yes, we can find word that condemns, most certainly, if we wish, but not precedence.
Yet here is the absolute Being of God. God is utterly Personal, and all things of God are very, very personal. Your judgment, and the carrying out of your judgment is your own personal investment in the one whom you must judge.
We have one precedent only, one WORD to guide us in our decision. By this we know love, because He laid down His life for us. And we also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.
You are the judge! HOW do you judge? – There is no substitute sacrifice.
And We Also
Those who look AT Jesus walking the path of the Atonement see Him as their substitute sacrifice. But those who look out from His eyes alone, those who see through eyes of fire, knowing that they are utterly inside of Him, also know the full fellowship of His sufferings, being symmorphosed together with His death. They know the words by which the determination of God has seized them: And we also.
Jesus died once for all. There is no more death. A laid-down life is God Himself present in Person in us. God is; when we know that we are filled with all the fullness of God, then God is what He is in full symmorphy with us.
To Walk Alongside
Thus for you to lay down your life for that perverse and filthy man is not for you to take his place “in hell.” Rather, it is to willfully bring him into the Mercy Seat of Love, your own heart. It is to walk alongside of him, day after day, in persistent gentleness, in patient kindness, winning his attention, winning his heart, winning his soul, until Christ as you has subdued this hopeless one entirely to Himself.
How will you judge? Hanging there between heaven and earth, naked, bloody, bruised, and unashamed, Jesus spoke the judgment of God into the most arrogant of men. – Father, forgive them.
Walk Them into Life
Forgiveness is the first part of salvation, but salvation costs the bearer everything. Jesus forgiving those men was Jesus bearing all that they were through all the tangled horror of their folly and hardheartedness, all the way into life.
That is salvation. Will you retain or will you forgive? You see, when Moses said, “Let me be accursed in their place,” God's real answer was, “Sorry, Moses, salvation is not so easy. No, you get to walk with this same people for forty years, you get to walk them through all things until all the old is gone and only the new remains. You get to walk them into life.”
The Scapegoat
Jesus is not just the Passover Lamb; He is also the Scapegoat. It was not agreeing to be God's Lamb, only, that caused Jesus to sweat drops of blood in mortal agony. Jesus drank His Father's cup by agreeing to be the Scapegoat, the One who lives as us, carrying all of our sin and agony to the forgetfulness of God, carrying us to thrones of judgment. Would we know Him thus? Would we be just like Him?
Here is God’s purpose: For God has committed them all to disobedience, that He might have mercy on all (Romans 11:32). Always remember that you ARE the mighty energy by which Christ subdues ALL things to Himself (Philippians 3:21).
Judgment Is Love
Love (judgment) suffers long and is kind… Love (judgment) bears all for all, believes all for all, hopes all for all, endures all for all. Love (judgment) never fails (1 Corinthians 13:4-8 modified and condensed). Judgment is the lake of fire; judgment is the Love of God revealed through us; judgment is to Life.
There is no difference between that wicked and filthy man and you and me when Jesus drew us into Himself in Gethsemane that He might carry us all the way through death and into life.
That I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being symmorphosed with His death, that is, sharing His laid-down Life as God-revealed (Philippians 3:10).