“Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. From his presence earth and sky fled away, and no place was found for them. And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Then another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged by what was written in the books, according to what they had done.” Revelation 20:11-12
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Happy New Year! Thank you for your kindness to me and my family this Christmas with the many nice gifts and cards. We sure appreciate your generosity, and I am grateful to be beginning another year as your pastor at Trinty Glendora. Last Fall I put a question box outside of my office and invited you to ask questions that I would take turns addressing in newsletter articles. You were slow to come forward with your questions at first, but I got several before we put the box away for the Christmas season. Two of those had to do with the End Times and Judgment Day so that means we are going to start off this new year at THE END. The question on the timeline of the End Times I will save for next month, and for this month here is the question I received:
“What is Judgment Day? I hear people say things like, ‘Some day they will have to stand before God and answer for that.’ It sounds to me like my sins are forgiven by grace through faith until Judgment Day when that doesn’t matter, and I’ll have to pay the ultimate price.”
What a great question! I agree that this is confusing. Revelation 20 sure sounds like our works are judged. Yet, if you read it carefully, you will notice that there is more than one book. You have books that record the deeds of our lives, but you also have another book called the book of life. How does our name get in there? Is that based on works or something else? It is helpful to look at other passages in Revelation that mention the book of life to get a more complete picture. One of those is Rev. 13:8 where we find out that our names are written in this book before the foundation of the world, and the book is called the book of life of the Lamb who was slain. Also, in Rev. 3:8, Jesus promises that he will never blot out the names of those clothed in white garments who are written in the book of life. We know from elsewhere in Revelation that their garments are white because they have been washed in the blood of the Lamb.
When you take all this together, what I understand is that our names are only written in the book of life by grace through the blood of the Lamb. At the same time, our deeds are also judged. The righteous deeds that we have done through faith in Christ will endure while all else will be thrown into the lake of fire. A good connection is the book of Malachi which says, the day of the Lord is coming, burning like an oven, and it compares this to a refiner’s fire which purifies and refines silver and gold. Our deeds are judged, but our salvation is still by grace. It is awesome to think that our righteous deeds follow us, while all the dross (sin and impurity) will be no more. What we do is important and makes a difference, but it is not how our names get in the book of life or how we are saved. This is by God’s grace through faith.
We will return to the topic of the End Times again next month focusing more on the time leading up to Judgment Day and what the Scripture reveals about this. May the Lord bless you and keep you and fill you with His Spirit so that you abound more and more in good works as we look to the coming of our Lord.