22. The Doom of the Wicked

There are two groups of people in this world. They are often and in various ways distinguished from each other. They are called the righteous and the wicked, the saints and the sinners, the holy and the unholy, the good and the bad, those who fear God, and those who do not. Many things are said about one group that are not said about the other. Of one group it is said that they are "in Christ," justified, sanctified, saved, children of God, heirs of God, joint heirs with Christ, an elect race, a royal priesthood, a special people. Of the other group, these things are never said in the Bible. They are not in Christ, not justified, not sanctified, not saved; children of the devil, "children of wrath," not an elect race, not a royal priesthood, not a special people.

These have not been reconciled to God through the atonement of his Son. They are still enemies of God at heart. And for those who loved darkness rather than light, and would not have God's Son as their Savior, he has appointed a day of judgment; a day for the final destruction of ungodly people. Then they will perish "with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power, when he comes to be glorified in all his saints, and to be admired by all who believe." Then the King will say to them on his left hand, "Depart, you cursed, into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels." They are allies of Satan in his rebellion against God and have spent their energy and resources on his side of the conflict; therefore, it is reasonable that they should share their final fate with him.

Of this judgment, Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied, saying, "Behold, the Lord comes with ten thousand of his saints, to execute judgment on all, and to convict all the ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds, which they have ungodly committed, and of all their harsh words which ungodly sinners have spoken against him." God had, long before the Christian era—from the foundation of the world—"appointed a day" in which he will judge the world (the whole world) righteously by Jesus Christ, whom he has made Judge of all the dead as well as the living.

"It is appointed for people to die once, and after this comes the judgment." The judgment following death is not the general but the particular judgment of individuals, as the phrase would seem to indicate, whose spirits returning to God are judged and immediately rewarded, as far as in a separate state they can be the subjects of reward or punishment. But the "judgment of the great day" is for another purpose: not, as some irreverently say, "to bring people out of heaven and hell to judge and send them back again;" but in the presence of an assembled world to vindicate the administration of God's moral government and providence, to reveal the true characters of angels and humans, and to pronounce an irrevocable sentence on all according to their deeds. For, says Paul, "we must all appear before the tribunal of Christ, so that each one may receive, in his body, what he has done, whether good or bad." It is, then, because of the actual and public pronouncement and execution of this judgment that the last day is called "the day of judgment," and that the judgment itself is called "the judgment of the great day."

The final judgment and "destruction of ungodly people" is described by the Lord himself, as well as by his Apostles, in the clearest and strongest terms, and in the boldest and most terrifying imagery that human language and knowledge can provide. Indeed, to fully present this awesomely sublime and glorious day before human understanding is impossible. The best efforts have exhausted the powers of nature in all her usual energies. John, in his sublime visions of the last acts of the great drama of human existence, says, "I saw a great white throne and him who sat on it, from whose face earth and heaven fled away, and there was no place for them. And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is called the Book of Life; and the dead were judged according to what was written in the books, based on their deeds. And the sea gave up the dead in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead in them; and each person was judged according to what they had done. Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death. Anyone whose name was not found written in the Book of Life was thrown into the lake of fire." Surely "it is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God."

1 Hades.