Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"
It's Impossible to Be Afraid of the Judgment
if There Is Love (Agape) in Our Hearts.
"Love [agape] has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness in the day of judgment. ... There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear" (1 John 4:17, 18). The reason is that this kind of love (agape) is the point where our identification "with Christ" takes place, because His agape has already gone to hell and come back, and if that love dwells in our hearts, all fear is automatically expelled. The cross does it for us. In abolishing the fear of hell, all lesser fears are also overcome.
Satan hates the cross, but if you love it, you no longer have anything to do with him. That stinging--"The Lord rebuke you, Satan!"--is a slap in his face from which he can never recover. I don't know how anyone could adequately describe the dramatic excitement of that moment in final judgment!
Scripture makes plain that so far as believers are concerned, a triumphant vindication takes place before Christ returns. Those who have died in Christ "sleep in Jesus" until the first resurrection (see 1 Thess. 4:14, 15; Rev 20:5, 6).
There are two resurrections: "The hour is coming in which all who are in the graves will hear His voice and come forth--those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of condemnation" (John 5:28, 29). The first comes at the return of Christ when He calls the sleeping saints to arise: "Blessed and holy is he who has part in the first resurrection. Over such the second death has no power" (Rev. 20:6). The second comes at the end of the 1000 years when the lost must come forth to face final executive judgment, "the resurrection of condemnation" (John 5:29; cf. Rev. 20:5).
What determines whether one comes up in the first resurrection or has to wait for the second? Jesus spoke of a pre-advent judgment when the cases of all believers will be taken up--necessarily before the first resurrection. Those "are counted worthy to attain that age, and the resurrection from the dead" (Luke 20:35). Such "counting" requires what some have called an "investigative judgment," a term that is meaningful in the light of Scripture teaching. All judgments must include honest investigation!
Daniel saw in vision the saints vindicated in judgment before the end of human history (see Dan. 7:9-14, 22, 26). Obviously, Jesus' confessing their names "before My Father and before His angels" (Rev. 3:5) must precede the first resurrection. "The time of the dead, that they should be judged, and that You should reward Your servants the prophets and the saints, and those who fear Your name" occurs at the sounding of the seventh trumpet, while human life goes on and "the nations were angry" (Rev. 11:18; see also verse 15).
We are living in those times today. This means that this most momentous judgment is now in progress.
--Robert J. Wieland
From: The Good News Is Better Than You Think, pp. 133-135 (2002).
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