2 Peter 3:10 The Final Judgment

Peter is not reticent to remind his readers about what they already know,

“But the day of the Lord will come like a thief.” 2 Peter 3:10

In the church’s calendar Advent refers to both the first and second coming of Jesus.  Yet today few refer to the second coming, preferring to focus on the celebration around the birth of a baby and presents.  It was very different in medieval times.  The church controlled people through fear as the church insisted that only through allegiance to the Holy See in Rome would anyone go to heaven.  This picture ‘The Ladder of Judgment’ found in St. Catherine’s monastery in Sinai shows men trying to climb to heaven with the wicked being dragged by devils from its rungs and falling into hell.  Such ideas were typical of this medieval religion.  As people reach the top they are judged on how they have lived as to whether they should be admitted to heaven.

St. Fulgentius was a bishop of the city of Ruspe, a Roman province of Africa, North Africa, in modern day Tunisia, during the 5th and 6th century.  He strongly opposed the prevalent Arian doctrines saying that Jesus was not equal to the Father but he is also said to have taught, ‘Mary the Mother of God came down from heaven.  God came down this ladder that men may, through Mary, climb up to him in heaven.’  There are medieval pictures in churches of a fierce Jesus standing at the top of a ladder as an angry judge pointing to another ladder held by Mary!

Such images are so opposed to the teaching of the Apostles.  Everything centres of Jesus.  Jesus himself is the ladder who came down from heaven.  He alone is the way back to God.  It is his love that is welcoming us.  The most important feature of apostolic teaching is that it is not our efforts that can ever make us acceptable to God.  We cannot climb up to God by good works or by being religious.  We are utterly dependant on what Christ has done by sacrificing himself on the cross, once for all time.  He took on himself our sin and gave us his righteousness.  The only way to be reconciled to God is to submit to Christ, to accept the forgiveness he alone won for us, to be credited with his righteousness he alone can offer, and then submit ourselves to his rule.  Paul made this appeal to members of the troubled church in Corinth,

“Be reconciled to God.  God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that we might become the righteousness of God.” 2 Corinthians 5:21

The apostle John wrote,

“Dear friends, now we are children of God . . . But we know that when he appears we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.  Everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself, just as he is pure.” 1 John 3:2

What a relief it is to know that anyone can be given the righteousness of Christ and so become acceptable to God, even if we are a dying thief on a cross, simply because of who Jesus is.  The apostle Paul wrote,

“For in the gospel a righteous from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last.” Romans 1:17

What a tragedy it is when churches suggest that we can earn ourselves a place in heaven.  The emphasis on the role of Mary in assisting in our salvation is completely contrary to apostolic teaching. It is always Christ who is central in their message.  It is he and he alone who we need.  Read through the Bible and you will find no other message.  These deviations show how far some churches have drifted away from apostolic teaching even if they formally repeat the orthodox creeds.  The first Council of Constantinople (381 AD) improved on the original creed of the council of Niea (325AD) and included the words that are now in the Nicean Creed,

“I believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church . . .”

An apostolic church is one that is built on the teaching of the apostles and on nothing else.  This is the common feature of Christ’s universal church, which is what the word ‘catholic’ means.

The Bible repeatedly warns the churches that when God comes he will judge unfaithful churches severely, just as he did his own people in the Old Testament times.

When Peter was told to go an explain the gospel to the Gentile centurion, Cornelius, and his household he was insistent that God’s message first begins with judgment.  He said to them,

“He (Jesus) commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one whom God appointed as judge of the living and the dead.  All the prophets testify about him that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.” Acts 10:42-43

Notice also how his message is all about Jesus, he is both judge and Saviour.  This should be the Christmas message of an apostolic church.  There is a judgment to come.

Prince Philip gave a sermon in St Georges Chapel in 1988 and the headline of a national newspaper subsequently read,

“Prince Philip warns of the end of Mankind.”

This idea was somewhat ridiculed then but now people are much more concerned. Ecological disaster, global warming, Covid and other lethal pandemics, Iran, Russia, China and radical Islam all threaten us.  But, some may say, man is learning to deal with these problems.  Yes, but it cannot change the fact that God has appointed the day when he will judge us all.  The Bible is not talking about nuclear war or any other threat but about the great day of judgment when Christ returns.  There will be a fixed point when God will bring this universe to an end although we don’t know the details.  For most of us the reality will be the day we die.  We will certainly face God’s judgment then.

The writer of the book to the Hebrews made this clear,

“Just as man is destined to die once and after that to face judgment, so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many people.” Hebrews 9:27

What does this mean for us today?

Dreams of humanism can never be fulfilled on this earth

The humanist says that we have to depend on ourselves to achieve anything.  Man must grow up and become responsible.  If there is to be a heaven on earth it is up to man to build it.  Marxism was such a dream. 
I have just been reading Alexandre Solzhenitsyn’s ‘Gulag Archipelago’ in which he describes the effect of the communist revolution in Russia.  In search of the ideal state where everyone was cared for, horrendous atrocities were perpetrated.  Millions were murdered in the quest for an eventual ideal state.  Similar tragedies occurred in the French Revolution.  Solzhenitsyn, in his Templeton Prize address said this,

“It was Dostoevsky who drew from the French Revolution and its seeming hatred of the Church the lesson that “revolution must necessarily begin with atheism.” That is absolutely true. But the world had never before known a godlessness as organized, militarized, and tenaciously malevolent as that practiced by Marxism. Within the philosophical system of Marx and Lenin, and at the heart of their psychology, hatred of God is the principal driving force, more fundamental than all their political and economic pretensions.”

When man forgets God, any behaviour can be rationalised.  Yet history shows us that whenever man tries to build heaven on earth without reference to God he always makes a hell on earth.  It is the recognition that all we are and do will be scrutinised by God that is the ultimate check on our behaviour whether we are Presidents, Prime ministers or peasants!  One survey concluded,

“If a person is religious they are fundamentally concerned about others.  If they are not religious they are only concerned about themselves.”

Pagans can dream because all people are made in the image of God with a reflection of his aspirations.  Without him however they will never materialise.

God has a Plan

Without God, this world is meaningless and people will become increasingly selfish and depressed.  Some suggest that we shouldn’t tell young people that there is a creator and a judgment to come because this will make them increasingly depressed.  Yet cut us off from where we come from and where we are heading leaves people in an existential madhouse with no way out.  Real answers give us real hope.

This is why it is a disaster for churches to become just a medium for social care.  The voids of people’s needs can never be filled, social, medical and financial needs are like a black hole.  If all that churches can offer are groups to entertain children, keep-fit classes, foodbanks and jumble sales then we have slipped disastrously away from what Jesus came into this world for.  The Bible gives us real answers to our deepest problems.  We are not on our own.  We have a creator who loves us but who longs for us to be secure within a relationship with him and his Son.

Security is always found in certainty.  God wants us to be convinced that just as there was a beginning to this world, so there will be a climax when everything will make sense.  There is no security to be found in the teaching of liberal churchmen, such as Bishop Robinson. He said,

“If you want God, you must find him in your own head, in the depth of our being.”

That is not good news, there is no gospel within ourselves. The great news is that the real God has acted for us and entered his world.  We do have a King who was prophesied in the Old Testament and was authenticated in the New.  Our hope is based on facts, facts about Jesus, and not on our feelings.  Christians have a date to look forwards to because of what happened at a time in the past.  We live in the light of this. To live without a plan is madness.

In the mid twentieth century people living in Hong kong knew that 1988 was approaching, when that state would be returned to the sovereignty of China.  That future certainty should have affected how people lived and planned.  So we also should live and plan in the knowledge that our lives are finite and that there is an end that we should be working towards.

BVP