A Great White Throne

Then I saw a great white throne and Him who 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, standing before God, and books were opened.  And another book was opened, which is the Book of Life.  And the dead were judged according to their works, by the things which were written in the books.

Revelation 20:11-12

The return of Christ brings with it some sobering events.  Whereas the people of God will rejoice to see Christ return in victory, we realize that His return also entails what we call, ‘The Last Judgment.’  Our text brings us to the consideration of that judgment.  In order to come to a clearer understanding of it we consider Christ’s description from Matthew 25, ‘When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then He will sit on the throne of His glory.  All the nations will be gathered before Him, and He will separate them one from another, as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats.  And He will set the sheep on His right hand, but the goats on the left.’  What follows is a detailed record of the verbal exchanges between Christ and those who stand in the judgment before the Great White Throne.  This largely centers around the works, or lack of them, which have arisen out of belief.  Based on what we know from the rest of Scripture, acceptance with God rests upon the imputed righteousness of Christ.  The result of the work of the Spirit in the lives of those whom He transforms is Christ-like behavior.  This means that they, as He did, go about doing good.  Christ views this good as treatment of Him Personally.  He says, ‘And the King will answer and say to them, Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me.’  This is that behavior which arises out of faith in Christ.  Therefore, we ought to begin by embracing Christ as the Gospel freely offers Him, and then go on to imitate Him in our relationships with other people.  We can then stand in the judgment unashamed.

Our righteous and Holy God,
we rejoice that You are the judge of all the earth,
and that You will do right.
We praise You that we shall stand before Your throne,
wholly and solely upon the merits of Christ.

Tomm Tice
Where the Bush is Burning