WAITING FOR THE END

According to the promise of scripture we are looking for the new heavens and a new earth, in which righteousness dwells’ (2 Peter 3:10-13). We are not waiting for ‘final judgment’ like some kind of school child waits for a report card with grades to see how we did, but we are being judged daily by our response to encounter, or non-encounter, our neighbor (Matthew 25:40). Our judgment is, as it has always been now, in this life, which is eternal. Jesus said in his time on earth, which is now our time, “Now judgment is upon this world; now the ruler of this world shall be cast out” (John 12:31).

Final judgment will be when Christ intervenes in our work on earth, and our work finally compliments his work and becomes one. It will be a fresh intervention and a new time. The final judgment will not be a ceremony of handing out medals and haloes and report cards, but will be the transformation that compares to the splitting of the veil at the crucifixion. The curtain was ripped and heaven and earth were joined, from the holy to the holy of holies. We enter the holy place by the natural temple being split wide open allowing a spiritual temple, Christ’s very body, to be the mediation between heaven and earth (Matthew 27:51-53). Now, “we have this confidence to enter the holy place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which He inaugurated for us through the veil, that is, His flesh” (Hebrews 10:20-21).

“This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.” Jesus