"Love each other as I have loved you."

Saturday, November 24, 2007

Is God the Judge?

I have heard a few times in the last few days that neither God the Father, or Jesus Himself will judge the unbelieving. Instead the point has been made that Jesus own words judge men. Let's evaluate this. We'll also look at whether this changes anything concerning the judgment, punishment, and eternal destination of these people.

For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son to have life in himself. And he has given him authority to judge because he is the Son
of Man. "Do not be amazed at this, for a time is coming when all who are
in their graves will hear his voice and come out—those who have done good will
rise to live, and those who have done evil will rise to be condemned. By myself
I can do nothing; I judge only as I hear, and my judgment is just, for I seek
not to please myself but him who sent me. John 5:26-30


So Jesus has been given authority to judge because He's Human. Rather, the perfect Human being, being both God and Man. Also, this could be a throwback to Daniel 7:

"In my vision at night I looked, and there before me was one like a son of man, coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into his presence. He was given authority, glory and sovereign power; all peoples, nations and men of every language worshiped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will
never be destroyed." Daniel 7:13-14

Jesus said something interesting at the end of Chapter 5 which I think is relevant here:
But do not think I will accuse you before the Father. Your accuser is Moses, on whom your hopes are set. If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me. But since you do not believe what he wrote, how are you going to believe what I say?"

So Moses judges these Jews? But wait...how can Moses have that authority? But notice it's what Moses wrote...in which these Jews trusts are, that will judge them. They're being judged according to what they know. The problem for them becomes that Jesus is written about by Moses and the Law, and if they really believed what Moses had said, they would believe in Jesus. But as it stands, because they think they know Moses words so well, and choose to ignore them concerning Jesus, Moses will judge them. See how that works?

In the next post, I'll be looking at what Jesus says concerning His Words and His Judgment, and we'll see if Jesus Himself judges, or if His Words do.

Grace and Love to All,

Joe

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Hey Joe!

Good stuff here.

I added you to my infamous and ever growing blog roll...

Blessings
iggy

Joe C said...

Thanks Iggy, your blog is pretty neat and has good thoughts, so it was a given when decided on who should be on my blogroll. Now if they would only unspam me on CRN.info, I could get in on the good talks you guys are having over there. Peace!

Joe