Lesson Seventeen • Judgment and Hell
Patrick Bicknell
I recently saw this video of a man, some years ago, who was interviewing a celebrity from the United Kingdom whose name was Stephen Fry. In the interview the man asked him, “Suppose when you die, and everything about God is true, and you have to stand before Him one day what will you say?” He responded like this, “I guess I would say, bone cancer in children? How dare you. How dare you create a world where there is such misery that is not our fault.”
I think what he believes might happen when people stand before God someday is something that a lot of us envision as well. I have commonly heard people talk about standing before the throne of God as something like a courtroom. In this courtroom, we will be able to give our case, present the facts of our lives, and give a plea as to why we should not take the judgment that God would pronounce on us. This is not what is being described here in Revelations 20:11-15. The throne and judgment that is revealed are the Great White Throne. What is unique about this throne, and the scene that John is depicting, is that it is not a trial but a sentencing. In this place. God is not waiting to hear the cases of the people of the world and determine if they are to be sentenced as guilty or not guilty. Here God is pronouncing the just judgment of sinners and condemning them to Hell. We see this in Revelation 20:12, “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.” The idea of standing before the throne means that the sentence is already in and they are waiting to hear their condemnation. John Walvoord, a commentator talking about this verse says, “The standing posture means that they are now about to be sentenced.”
Now most of us when we hear this can become afraid and ask, “What will I do when I stand here?” Thankfully, as many commentators believe, this is not a place that followers of Christ will ever have to be. The punishment for our sins was already judged and sentenced in the person and work of Jesus Christ. When Jesus went to the cross for us, He already was sentenced in our place and took the punishment we were supposed to take. So now, we no longer have to stand before the Great White Throne because Christ did that for us. How amazing is it to see that the place where we should have been standing, the sentence we were supposed to hear, was taken for us by Jesus?