“Then I saw thrones, and the people sitting on them had been given the authority to judge. And I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for their testimony about Jesus and for proclaiming the word of God. They had not worshiped the beast or his statue, nor accepted his mark on their foreheads or their hands. They all came to life again, and they reigned with Christ for a thousand years. This is the first resurrection. (The rest of the dead did not come back to life until the thousand years had ended.)”
At the glorious second coming of Jesus Christ, this period of 1000 years, which is often referred to as the millennium, will not only commence with Satan being locked up, but also begins with the resurrection of the righteous dead and the righteous living both being caught up together to be with the Lord as He returns to Heaven. I wonder if Satan will be able to hear the joy of the righteous way off in the distance, in Heaven, and be tormented because he can’t do anything to stop it. Now, contrary to popular belief, Heaven is not our permanent home, but rather our temporary, 1000 year vacation home. Or think of it like this. Heaven is the honeymoon spot for Christ and His bride before He relocates Heaven to the earth, which He will make new at the end of the 1000 years. So what will we be doing in Heaven for 1000 years? The text says we will be placed on thrones and given the authority to judge. Just let that blow your mind for a second. We will be kings and priests of God, reigning with Christ for 1000 years. Why? Because God will bring evil to a transparent end by…
INVITING THE RIGHTEOUS TO REIGN AND JUDGE.
Many of you may remember getting the letter in the mail that asked you to report for jury duty. For some of you this was an annoying interruption to your already busy life. While for others it may have been a welcomed change to your daily routine. However, you went because you knew your role was important in a court case. Someone may have been charged with a crime, arrested and awaiting their day in court. Your role, as part of the selected jury, was to examine the records in order to evaluate the details of the case. The jury deliberations could sometimes take a while. However, this process was necessary for there to be full disclosure and total transparency in the evaluation of evidence in order to reach a fair and just consensus among the jurors. But ultimately a verdict would be reached, sentence given and judgment executed. And in a similar sense, as the righteous are reigning with Christ, they will be placed on thrones to judge or evaluate some things in complete transparency.
So what’s being judged? Well the Good News is that it won’t be those of us who trusted in Jesus’ gift of salvation by grace. As it says in verse 6, the second death, or hell, holds no power over us. As we can clearly see from this passage, hell is a future event and not a present reality under the earth. We’ll already be in Heaven, because judgment for our sins has already fallen on Jesus Messiah at the cross, over 2000 years ago. That’s why Paul says in Romans 8:1,
“There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus…”
So who’s getting judged?
Well, the world will be judged. As Paul was writing to the church in Corinth, he said,
“Do you not know that the saints will judge the world?”
By the world, he is referring to those who are finally lost as a result of hardening their hearts against the grace of God. You will have questions in your mind if you get to heaven and don’t see people you expected to be there. So God transparently invites the righteous to evaluate the life records, choices and actions of the lost. But that’s not all.
The fallen angels or demons will be judged. Paul continues in verse 3, by asking the Corinthian church,
““Do you not know that we will judge angels?””
As astonishing as it may sound, we shall even be invited to evaluate the life records, choices and actions of the fallen angels, or demons, that followed Satan in his diabolical rebellion against God's character and reign of love. Yet what’s even more astonishing than that is when we discover who the main Person is that we’ll be invited to judge and evaluate.
God will be judged. You see, what’s really happening behind our judging the lost and the fallen angels, is that God is inviting us to judge Him in how He handled each case, in complete transparency. He wants you to see in the books of their life’s record how He did everything within His divine power to relentlessly pursue and penetrate each heart with His love manifested in Christ, without violating their freedom of choice. Yet, tragically, we’ll see each lost person’s final choice to resist the grace of God and the incomprehensible pain it caused Him. He will answer all our questions, in detail, regarding the horrific suffering and evil experienced on earth and the depth of complexity He was dealing with when exercising His power to prevent evil without violating human free will. After having all of our why questions answered and knowing fully what was behind every story, we will finally be settled in our minds and conclude that God has been good, just and fair. It will be clearly seen that God has been love in all He has done. He will be cleared when we judge, and found innocent of any charges.
My friend, God is love and totally transparent, even when it comes to the judgment of the wicked. He knows you have questions now and will have questions then, even though you are saved. But He will not execute final judgment without answering your questions in full disclosure; allowing you to evaluate His character of love in light of all His efforts to save every lost person. He invites you to judge Him, as if to say, with tears in His voice, “Was there anything else I could have done to save them?” He wants all of our hearts and minds to be clear in the justice of His final judgment, because He wants our hearts to safely trust Him forever.
Once this 1000 year temporary stay in Heaven is complete, it is then that God moves in to execute the final phase of His judgment and here’s how it happens, beginning in verse 7…