Judgment By Fire

We’re talking about the Olivet Discourse and the answer to the disciples’ question to Jesus: “What will be the signs of your coming at the end of the age?” In that context, we’ve been looking at four parables, the fourth being the parable of the sheep and the goats, which is about judgment.

According to a recent poll, eight out of 10 Americans say that they have no doubt that God exists, and that prayer is an important part of their life. Eight out of 10 also agree that we all will be called before God at the Judgment Day to answer for our sins. 

The notion that a future judgment defines what happens to us eternally is commonly held. After all, it makes sense. In this life, things are not fair: Bad things happen to good people and good things happen to bad people. But in the judgment, bad things will happen to bad people and good things will happen to good people. We will all get what we deserve, we will reap what we have sown, and everything will be made right.

We envision a book in heaven that contains a record of every one of our deeds, and that’s the basis for the judgment:

 For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive compensation for his deeds done through the body, in accordance with what he has done, whether good or bad. (2 Corinthians 5:10) 

and:

 For the Son of Man is going to come in the glory of His Father with His angels, and will then repay every person according to his deeds. (Matthew 16:27)

What does it mean that you’ll be recompensed or repaid according to what you have done? Where does that leave grace? And how should we understand the relationship between grace and judgment? Is it possible that “according to what we have done” is about what we have done with grace, not what we’ve done with our deeds? Do we have the correct view of judgment? What are we judged by? 

We have looked at the topic of fairness as it relates to grace. Human beings rely on fairness, just in order to exist. The idea that life is fair—that there should be equality to our actions and our opportunities, that we should get what we deserve and not get what we don’t deserve—is deeply rooted in who we are as humans. 

In the Garden of Eden before the fall, God’s intention was that mankind should exist with total dependence upon him. The Tree of Life in the center of the garden is the tree of dependence. It is the opposite of the tree of reason. It is the antithesis of cause and effect. You don’t get you what you deserve from the tree of life—you get God’s sustaining power. You might call the Tree of Life the tree of grace. The Tree of Life is just what the name implies: It is the source of everlasting life. To simply eat from the tree of life is to tap into the power of eternal life.

The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil is the tree of independence. It is the tree of judgment and discrimination. It is the tree of getting what you deserve. It is the tree of cause and effect. It is the tree of fairness and consequences. But fairness is a human trait. God is not fair. Cause and effect is fair; grace is not fair. Maybe all we really want out of life is for things to be fair. But Isn’t it remarkable, given what we know about ourselves, particularly as it relates to our own standing before God, that we should seek what is fair? Why do we seek fairness so tenaciously? Why are so we so angry when we feel that God is not fair? 

If I were to ask you: “Is life fair?” What would you respond? How would you respond? Taken as a whole, would you say that your life is fair? Why were you born here while I was born there? Why are people richer than you are? Why are people thinner, more beautiful, smarter, have better hair, or different color of skin? Why do I get cancer and yet I’ve lived a clean and healthy life? Why are my children brats and yours are little angels? Why do you live in a mansion and I’m homeless? Why are you my neighbor and your basement flooded but mine did not? 

Manifestly, I think we can see that life is really not fair. But if life is not fair, if you have an advantage over me, then why should we be judged by our works? Only if we all start at the same place and had the same tools should we be judged the same. My life is more difficult, so I should have more leniency. 

Paul told the Corinthians:

 According to the grace of God which was given to me, like a wise master builder I laid a foundation, and another is building on it. But each person must be careful how he builds on it. For no one can lay a foundation other than the one which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, or straw, each one’s work will become evident; for the day will show it because it is to be revealed with fire, and the fire itself will test the quality of each one’s work. If anyone’s work which he has built on it remains, he will receive a reward. If anyone’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss; but he himself will be saved, yet only so as through fire.  

 Do you not know that you are a temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? If anyone destroys the temple of God, God will destroy that person; for the temple of God is holy, and that is what you are. (1 Corinthians 3:10-17) 

In trying to understand what this passage means, particularly as it relates to judgment, it is very important that you note the two conditions on which this passage depends: The first is that the building must occur on a foundation of Jesus Christ. Paul makes the argument strongly that Jesus Christ is the foundation on which anything is built—whether the building is of gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay or straw. The second is that when you receive God’s grace, you receive the Spirit of grace. You become full of God’s grace and the Spirit of God dwells in you. And that, Paul says, makes you the temple of God. 

Being “burned up,” in this passage, refers to the work, not to the people doing the work. Fire is a way, it says, of testing the quality of people’s work. Even if their work is of poor quality and therefore succumbs to the flames, the person responsible for it, says the passage, will still be saved. The passage also asserts that the presence of God’s element—the spirit, the inner light, the eternity inside us all—will not be consigned to the flames. That notion is flatly rejected by the passage. Judgment is our salvation, not our destruction. 

Is it possible that my deeds might be consumed in flames but that I myself might be saved? Paul told the Romans that we will be repaid, each according to his works, at the judgment (Romans 2:6). And he told the Corinthians (in the first passage quoted above) that each of us will be called before the judgment seat of Christ, and that each of us may then receive recompense or compensation or reward for his deeds done through the body.

Is it possible that we have a wrong construction, a wrong conception, of the judgment? Have we seen the judgment in the wrong way? Is it possible that evil deeds could be judged in the judgment of works but, as the text says, if our works are burned up, we ourselves will be saved? Can I do evil deeds but not be evil? Can I do good deeds and good things and yet not be good? We so like to quantify how much good and how much bad we do. Is it possible that we can be perfect yet still do bad things? Can my works be just that—some good and some bad—but neither good nor bad is the condition of my soul? Can I be a recipient of God’s grace, and yet still not be perfect? 

When we receive God’s grace, Paul explains, we become filled with the Spirit of grace. And this turns us into the temple of God and, believe it or not, it makes us holy—holy, but not perfect. Some of what I do in my works is golden. Some is like silver. Some is like straw, and some is like wood. It’s as if we are surrounded by our works—some good, precious metal works, and some works which are highly flammable—yet somehow we are not consumed by the fire. 

Malachi contrasts two different kinds of fire: A refining fire and a consuming fire:

 “Behold, I am sending My messenger, and he will clear a way before Me. And the Lord, whom you are seeking, will suddenly come to His temple; and the messenger of the covenant, in whom you delight, behold, He is coming,” says the Lord of armies. “But who can endure the day of His coming? And who can stand when He appears? For He is like a refiner’s fire, and like launderer’s soap. And He will sit as a smelter and purifier of silver, and He will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, so that they may present to the Lord offerings in righteousness.” (Malachi 3:1-3) 

This passage refers to a refiners fire* that consumes our useless and evil deeds, but grace supplies a fire-resistant suit, as illustrated in the story of the three Hebrews worthies thrown into a furnace for refusing to bow down before king Nebuchadnezzar:

Then Nebuchadnezzar the king was astounded and stood up quickly; he said to his counselors, “Was it not three men that we threw bound into the middle of the fire?” They replied to the king, “Absolutely, O king.” He responded, “Look! I see four men untied and walking about in the middle of the fire unharmed, and the appearance of the fourth is like a son of the gods!” Then Nebuchadnezzar came near to the door of the furnace of blazing fire; he said, “Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, come out, you servants of the Most High God, and come here!” Then Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego came out of the middle of the fire. The satraps, the prefects, the governors, and the king’s counselors gathered together and saw that the fire had no effect on the bodies of these men, nor was the hair of their heads singed, nor were their trousers damaged, nor had even the smell of fire touched them.

 Then Nebuchadnezzar was filled with wrath, and his facial expression was changed toward Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego. He answered by giving orders to heat the furnace seven times more than it was usually heated. And he ordered certain valiant warriors who were in his army to tie up Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego in order to throw them into the furnace of blazing fire. Then these men were tied up in their trousers, their coats, their caps, and their other clothes, and were thrown into the middle of the furnace of blazing fire. For this reason, because the king’s command was harsh and the furnace had been made extremely hot, the flame of the fire killed those men who took up Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego. But these three men, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, fell into the middle of the furnace of blazing fire still tied up.(Daniel 3:19-27)

Here we see the Son of God, the evidence of grace, protecting us in the fire. For those who accept God’s grace, the fire, the passage says, has no power. Our evil deeds will be consumed but we will be saved; not because of our works, but because of the Spirit of God’s grace which is within us. It is possible that we will still be doing evil works and evil deeds, that we will still be selfish and self-centered. But through God’s grace, we ourselves will not be an evil to be destroyed. On the contrary, we are God’s temple and he is dwelling within us. 

He is protecting us from the flames just as he did Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. The fire is a refining fire for those who are in God’s grace, This is a consuming fire with regard to our evil deeds, our straw, and our wood, but a refining fire in leaving the gold and the silver behind, not because of our righteousness but because of God’s grace. What turns a consuming fire into a refining fire is nothing but the grace of God. 

A fairly long passage in Isaiah 1 presents a picture of the contrast between God’s wayward Israel, which is refined with a refining fire, and rebels and sinners who are consumed by a quenching and consuming fire. It shows the contrast between the refining fire, which burns away (it says) the dross, and the consuming fire which no one can quench. 

Do you see a picture of judgment as the judgment of your works but not your soul, which is protected by God’s grace? Can you a picture a judgment of your evil deeds but your evil self? Can you picture a judgment of refining fire, a non-consuming fire for those who are temples of God’s grace but a consuming fire for those who have turned the offer of grace aside. 

What does the passage in 1 Corinthians 3 really mean? Do we need a new understanding for judgment? What does this concept do to the fires of hell? Do you fear the judgment? Do you fear the fire? Does this make the judgment fair? What are the rewards promised for works not consumed in the refining fire? Is it fair that some build with straw and some build with gold? Isn’t it likely that we all really are building with a variety of building materials, that we all build some things with straw and hay and wood and we all build some things with precious stones, silver, and gold—that we’re all a hybrid? 

David: Which came first, Romans or Corinthians? I ask because I’m wondering if Paul changed his mind in the meantime. Don’s analysis of the Corinthians passage seems to me right on. Certainly, it describes the kind of God I hope we have. But the God in the Romans passage is totally unforgiving. Verse 6 says that God will repay each person according to his deeds, and verse 9 says that “there will be tribulation and distress for every soul of mankind who does evil”—period. It seems that Paul changed his mind, or was refining his thoughts about judgment, between Romans and Corinthians.

C-J: I think: That every single soul that is in this dimension at any given time, good or bad, is an instrument in the hand of God; that we learn through and by that experience of interaction about the importance of a spiritual life; that we recognize that this is temporal; and that we do have choice to do good or to do evil. But I believe God preserves the soul. Because if God created me with intention and purpose, even people like Hitler have a purpose too, and they have a conscience. Even if they are in a state of mental illness when they do harm. 

I believe that God uses all of us as an instrument, and that grace is what God is, and especially to those who would be looked upon in this lifetime as lacking or being perverse, or just like “What happened there?” God knows the beginning and the end. Some of my greatest lessons have come from adversity and taking care of those who were innocent but great harm had come to them. 

I took care of a boy once who had been electrocuted. He was a Boy Scout, it rained, electricity ran along the ground, and he was no longer able to talk very well. But his sense of humor and all of that was intact. Another one was hit riding his motorcycle; innocent yet hit by an act of nature. You might say “What kind of God is that?”—many people do. But it is God’s grace that preserves the soul and God’s grace that created it.

Don: This passage in 1 Corinthians 3 is highly provocative. It certainly undoes many of our concepts of judgment and the fire of judgment. So I’m particularly interested in your thoughts concerning it. Who wants to stand up for good ol’ fire and brimstone?

Donald: It just doesn’t seem that what we’ve read is consistent. In one passage grace prevails but in another the gate is narrow. I don’t know that any of us would think of judgment as a good thing. Judgment Day is pretty scary—I doubt many of us look forward to it. I certainly don’t. Is that my lack of faith? 

The remarks made at funerals say or imply that the souls of the departed have gone to heaven, but there is no consideration of the good or bad in their lives. It seems that one’s perspective depends on what verses one reads about judgment. In golf, the tees are placed differently for different people. That’s not fair. Why do they do that? One is born with a leg up or a leg down. What’s my responsibility if I have opportunities or if I don’t have opportunities? As Connie said, adversity sometimes brings out the best in us. So a life void of many challenging moments, without exercise, becomes pretty soft. 

C-J: Nelson Mandela spent 25 years in prison. But like Daniel he had access and opportunity. What started as a dissident became an international figure of grace and wisdom and diplomacy. His ability to be confined in person made his words unstoppable. We do not measure by the same instruments that the Lord does. What may seem profoundly inhumane or unfair (and it is, in our domain, in our reality) is a way of saying, “Look deeply, look beyond the appearance of what is obvious, and be that voice of change, that action that goes out. Don’t just say somebody should do something.” 

It is in the small quiet places: Reading a book to a child before he or she goes to sleep; Going up behind someone you love and giving them a surprise kiss with no other thought than: “I love this person.” It is the person I drive by all the time, panhandling. They make more in an hour than I ever did, and they get all kinds of freebies. I may think they are mentally ill, but then I talk to some people who do it and I see that it’s a way of life for them. It’s sort of like a game for them. Not all of them. 

But when I go by them, I don’t stop. I wave. Sometimes I say “No” and then I say: “That’s just wrong, Connie”, but because I’ve seen the other side of it, spoken to the other side of it, my heart is impelled to give a $1, but I don’t have that compassion because I know how much they can pull down in an hour and they get everything free—housing, food, whatever, they get all kinds of things, and I go “Get up and do something.” So who’s right and who’s wrong? The hustler? Or me for being cold hearted?

Michael: Why is it that although there are contradictory verses in the Bible that may imply something different than the normal Christian view of judgment, we focus on only one view, one way: Burning, consuming hell for fairness of judgment? What about the other verses? Why are they just discarded or not mentioned? 

To be fair, it’s not just a Christian thing. I’ve seen it in the Quran, which has some really beautiful verses of God’s love for everyone (not just Muslims) but you never hear these verses. It seems to be a human rather than a religious trait, but I think it’s a question that people should be asking Christians, pastors, priests,… the religious elite. I don’t think we should just let it be.

Don: Why do you think it is, Michael? Control?

Michael: Control through fear. Maybe that’s the point of view of the religious elite. They control people through fear. But why do they themselves believe in it? It fits with us—we take it, we accept it, we put it as the main view of life; instead of questioning it and pointing out things that are different, such as the concept of grace, and Jesus Christ himself. But no, to the elite, it’s Allah, it’s the Ten Commandments. But what about Jesus Christ? 

David: I agree it is about control over people by asserting power over what happens to them after death, which, of course, is just impossible. So I agree with Don’s analysis of the Corinthian passage, which describes a good God, not a vindictive God punishing his very own creation. This is the beef I have with religion and Scripture: Religion exists because it is empowered by passages in the Bible, the Quran, and probably other Scriptures that facilitate control by a clerical elite, 

Michael asked a great question: Do the elite believe it themselves? I’m sure that at some level there’s a great deal of cynicism in the religion elites and that many don’t really believe, or practice, what they preach. It’s a con job, a confidence trick, and it’s unnecessary. Michael points back to Jesus. I don’t think Jesus would have any of what the religious elites peddle. It would be wonderful to have Jesus in this conversation and see what he would say about God punishing souls for any evil that they’ve done. I can’t see Jesus agreeing with that.

C-J: The mandate of heaven giving authority to humanity through religious texts and civil texts—laws, consequences—is a way of controlling, but with religion, it also controls the parameters and structure (cause and effect) of your soul, so you have to have order in society and with the mandate of heaven, God has given me this wisdom, or this insight, or this list of rules. And because people fear what they cannot see or touch and they need order that will be more than the confines of a home—a father, parents or the traditions within a household. 

This is how we do it here. It’s got to have a wider net, and it’s got to be something large so it becomes the mandate of heaven. “Heaven” may go by other names but the idea of something greater than ourselves that is a spirit that will strike you dead and you’ll wish you never were born is a common thread in all faiths.

Donald: Months or maybe years ago, in this class, we just wanted God to tell us the rules. We want very definitive guidelines, or else we’re not comfortable. It is frustrating because then we can say, “Okay, is it fair? Where am I in this basis of rules?” As a kid, you just open the box, and you read the inside of the box that gives the rules of the game. You don’t argue with the rules. You want them to be very definitive. If you pick up the box, and it’s the un-game [?], it drives everybody nuts, because you don’t know what the guidelines are. 

Adventists are often called legalists, because we are very legal: “You do this, you don’t do that; you do this, you don’t do that,” and so on. We don’t look at grace. Why did we come down on the side of legalism? Some Adventists love the very defined ways in which Adventism presents life. It helps some people greatly. But other people don’t want anything to do that—it’s too legal for them. We want the rules so that we know if we’re within the guide rails and going down the right pathway and don’t scrape the edges. But when you take the rails off, it seems it’s a free-for-all. Maybe we don’t really want a free-for-all. We’re grateful that people have said: “No, this is the way it’s going to operate.” But we’re also pushing back.

Adaure: I like structure myself, yet I hate to be micromanaged. That seems a little contradictory! I wonder, do we maybe not need order and structure, especially if faith is in play? Maybe the concept of “popular sovereignty” whereby people rule themselves based on free will has some merit? If some people come out of the furnace unchanged while others are burnt, then maybe we don’t need order and we don’t need rules and we need to redefine what we currently think of as chaos. That might be a little radical, though!

Don: If you read the Scriptures, there is a picture, without doubt, of destruction of evil at the end of time, which is hellacious and horrific. Scripture makes clear that separation from God has a decidedly adverse consequence and that evil, however you define it, will be destroyed in the conflagration. I’m not saying there is not a fiery end to evil. The question is: What is evil? 

We’ve always equated evil with doing bad things. What I’m suggesting is that maybe we need to redefine evil not as “bad things” but rather as turning your back on grace. We can argue what “turning your back on grace” means. There are some illustrations of it in the parables we’ve discussed. But the concept that if you do something bad, that if you do evil deeds, that you’re selfish, that you’re self-centered—however you want to describe it—but are not evil yourself and therefore not part of the destructive process is what, it seems to me, is being advanced by Paul in Corinthians. 

As for Romans: Paul talks about the destruction of evil and the words are graphic. They are hellacious. But I don’t think that they necessarily contradict the passage in Corinthians.

Carolyn: How do we know where grace comes in? And what is our responsibility? Is it just the Ten Commandments that we line up our life with, or do other parts of Scripture also tell us what is right to do? To me, we’ll always fall short, but if we line up with the Ten Commandments and have grace, we’re whole, like the body. Every part of our body—the hand, the head, the eyes, all depend on each other. I feel that if we line ourselves up with the Ten Commandments and attempt to follow the footsteps, the example, of Jesus, we can tell how well we are lined up. This is where grace comes in and covers us if we fall short. 

These discussions are unsettling, but in a good way. I want to be free. People reject legalism because they feel they’re not free. I feel we are free if we give it all to Jesus. I don’t know any other rule of thumb except the Ten Commandments, but we sometimes make trivial rules about what to eat, what to wear, what to drink, what to say, and what to do. There’s no way we can follow the Commandments perfectly. We can attempt to line ourselves up with them, but we must have the wonderful peace and grace that God alone gives us.

C-J: I think regarding the narrative, God is always asking us, what did you learn in the whitespace, and what did you learn about yourself? That’s my answer to legalism, that God is really interested in growing us, making us aware. What do you learn that was not spoken? A good novel is going to want you to learn more from the whitespace. 

The other part to that is what did you learn about yourself? Do I deceive myself thinking that my good works are enough? Or that as long as I do XYZ, at least I’m not going to have this consequence or God found favor with me. But I think the whole idea is what is the narrative and where’s my place in that story? What did I learn in the whitespace? And what did I learn about myself?

Reinhard: I equate evil with sin. God hates sin but loves sinners. I think that’s the key. We encounter legalism in the Seventh Day Adventist church. There are nitty-gritty rules to follow, but the grace of God will cover our human failings. From the perspective of the Adventist Christian, I think the Ten Commandments are the key. 

In the New Testament, Jesus talked about loving your neighbor as a general rule.The parable of the sheep and the goats, which talks about taking care of the needs of the have-nots, the people in prison, and so on, shows us the extra mile we need to go as Christians. As for the law: We are told to be perfect as our Father in heaven is perfect. There are a lot of rules we have to go through to achieve that. As for being saved by grace, and by faith: Other verses say we will be judged according to our deeds. I think “deeds” means things we have to do, things that God wants us to do through our faith. That’s why God only counts our faith. Faith will bring fruit to our deeds. 

Good deeds are going to be judged. There is no judgment for the people resurrected in the first resurrection. They are going to be saved. Procedurally, everybody’s probably going to face the seat of judgment, but I think good people are saved through the first resurrection and when Jesus comes again he will take people to heaven. I think we already feel good that even though probably we’re going to go through certain judgment, we already know the outcome. I don’t know if there’s still chance for those in the second resurrection but I think not. Before Jesus comes again there will be angelic messages giving people the chance to repent. 

To me, the fiery burning of Hell is needed. The end will justify the means. Christian churches in general talk about fiery hell and severe consequences. As long as the church and its leaders’ motives are pure, it doesn’t matter if they scare people, because if by doing so they can save some, why not? As long as they don’t have a hidden political agenda—to grow their membership or raise more money—and their only motive is to talk about the consequences, the severe punishment, and the harsh judgment, I think that’s fine. 

Even Jesus said it’s better we pluck out our eyes than that we go to hell. We have to balance the messages. If we follow what the Bible says we feel safe. We need to adjust, we need to position ourselves through our discussions. In the end, we just want to live the way Christ wants us to live. These discussions help us to enhance our beliefs and ensure that eternal life awaits us. 

Don: It’s a provocative subject and one that may require some revision of our thinking. 

David: The notion that we have to obey the Commandments seems to me to be the problem. If I don’t go out and kill someone today, simply because the Bible told me not to, does that make me a good person? Is that what God will judge me on? When Jesus said to love your neighbor, he did not add: “…or else you’ll be in big trouble!” He made no reference to any law saying you have to love your neighbor or you’ll go to hell. It’s an exhortation. God is imploring us to love our neighbor, but he’s not making it a condition for going to heaven or hell.

Don: Thanks, everyone, for your thoughts. Think about the judgment, think about fire. Think about refining fire. Think about this passage from Corinthians. Think about what the destruction of evil actually means. These are all subjects to to ponder in the coming week. 

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* Click here to hear a hymn about the Refiner’s Fire.