May 11 – LD 19, Day 5: Christ Will Come to Judge
Saturday the 11th of May
in Heidelberg Catechism Meditations
Revelation 20:11,12a -“And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened...”
We come now to the ultimate expression of Christ Jesus’ exaltation - He is judge of all rational and moral creatures. Remember this is the same Jesus that the Father gave to cover the sins of the elect. For Him to do this required the ultimate humiliation, His lowly birth, His suffering as the substitute for sinners, His willingness to die, His burial, and greatest of all, He bore on the cross the hellish wrath that the Righteous God had against all the sins of all His people.
Now, we see this same Jesus, Who arose from the dead, ascended into heaven, and sits at the right hand of God, come at the end of the ages to function as the judge of all creatures. Once condemned by the law, He now sits as judge of the very same law.
The catechism expresses it this way, “That in all my sorrows and persecutions, with uplifted head, I look for the very same person who before offered Himself for my sake to the tribunal of God, and has removed all curse from me”
Jesus will be the judge because God rewards Him with that position. He alone has the right and the power given to Him of His Father to call every creature, past, present, and future, whoever lived on the earth, inhabited the heavens or dwelled in the deep under the earth to stand before HIM in judgment. In the above passage, this is described as “the dead, small and great”
This is important for us to understand.
The purpose of this final judgment of Jesus is not to discover who will go to heaven and who will go to hell. This is well-known to Jesus as judge for He is Lord of all. It is even known to those who stand in judgment, for they will appear in their resurrected body and their bodies will indicate their destiny, heaven or hell.
The purpose is for Christ to publicly declare that God is just in saving His own and casting the wicked into hell. That is for somber reflection.
