The Order of Events in the Judgment.
When our Lord says to those at his right hand, “Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world,” he takes his saints into the presence of his Father (compare John 13:36; 14:1–3; 1 Thess. 4:14–17; Rev. 19:1–9), to the Paradise of God, once here upon earth (Gen. 2:8, 9; 3:22–24), now in the third Heaven (2 Cor. 12:2–4), within the heavenly Jerusalem itself. Compare Rev. 2:7; 22:2, 14. Here they sit down with him at his table and eat the marriage supper. Rev. 19:1–9. These things being accomplished, the work of judgment is committed to the saints, a work so vast that we may well conceive the long period which lies between the two resurrections, to be requisite for its accomplishment. Rev. 20:4–6. The sitting of the saints in judgment upon the wicked, must begin after they have heard the words of Christ approving them in his Father’s name, and before the sentence, “Depart ye cursed,” is pronounced by the Saviour upon those who shall be thus judged. This judgment by the saints is thus presented in the Scriptures: Dan. 7:21, 22: “I beheld, and the same horn made war with the saints, and prevailed against them; until the Ancient of Days came, and JUDGMENT WAS GIVEN TO THE SAINTS OF THE MOST HIGH; and the time came that the saints possessed the kingdom.” 1 Cor. 4:5: “Therefore judge nothing BEFORE THE TIME, until the Lord come, who both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts: and then shall every man have praise of God.” 1 Cor. 6:1–3: “Dare any of you, having a matter against another, go to law before the unjust, and not before the saints? Do ye not know that THE SAINTS SHALL JUDGE THE WORLD? and if THE WORLD SHALL BE JUDGED BY YOU, are ye unworthy to judge the smallest matters? Know ye not that YE SHALL JUDGE ANGELS? how much more, things that pertain to this life?” Rev. 20:4–6: “And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and JUDGMENT WAS GIVEN UNTO THEM: and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshiped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years. But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years.” According to the first of these texts, the saints of the Most High are to have the judgment work committed to them. But before this is placed in their hands, they are themselves to be judged by God the Father. And this very act of determining who are worthy to be saved, really determines that all the others are unworthy of eternal life. The judgment work of the saints cannot, therefore, relate to the salvation or damnation of those who are judged by them, but solely to the determination of the measure of their guilt. The second of these texts, in forbidding the work of judgment “before the time,” plainly implies that when that time does come, then this work is to be done by those who are at present forbidden to do it. And the time is fixed when this prohibition expires. For it is thus limited: “Until the Lord come.” That they will not err in the judgment which they will then perform, is guaranteed in the further statement that the Lord shall bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and make manifest the counsels of the heart. And this will no doubt be accomplished by placing in their hands the books of record which contain an accurate statement of the deeds of those to be judged by them. Barnes, in his notes on this text, makes this remark: “‘And then shall every man have praise of God.’ The word here rendered praise (epainos) denotes in this place reward, or that which is due to him; the just sentence which ought to be pronounced on his character. It does not mean, as our translation would imply, that every man will then receive the divine approbation—which will not be true; but that every man shall receive what is due to his character, whether good or evil. So Bloomfield and Bretschneider explain it.” The third text states, in the most explicit manner, “that the saints shall judge the world.” As it occurs in the same epistle which forbids this judgment “before the time until the Lord come,” it is manifest that this is a work which the saints enter upon immediately after they have been exalted to reign with Christ. The nature of the judgment which the saints are to decide is clearly determined by two facts: 1. It is rendered by the saints after the Lord has brought to light the hidden works of darkness, and made manifest the counsels of the hearts. 2. It is said in this same passage, and in the same manner, that the saints “shall judge angels,” meaning of course those angels that have sinned whose cases are thus stated: 2 Pet. 2:4: “For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be RESERVED UNTO JUDGMENT.” Jude 6: “And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the JUDGMENT OF THE GREAT DAY.” These two facts are decisive as to the nature of the judgment which the saints are to engage in when exalted at Christ’s right hand. They are not to be judges over men in a state of probation, something as the ancient judges of Israel were raised up to rule over God’s ancient people; but their judgment is to be rendered in the case of wicked men, when the Lord brings “to light the hidden things of darkness,” and it is to be exercised alike in the case of sinful men and fallen angels. It is not a judgment to determine the guilt or innocence of the parties to be judged; for the guilt of the angels was virtually pronounced to be unpardonable when they were cast out of Heaven, and delivered to chains of darkness, i. e., to utter despair, and to the hopeless bondage of their own sins. And the last condition of wicked men has, before their judgment by the saints, already been determined by the resurrection and translation of the just, leaving all others as unworthy of eternal life. This judgment of the saints is, therefore, simply designed to determine the measure of the guilt of wicked men and fallen angels. As their rejection from the kingdom of God is determined by God the Father before they are thus judged by the saints, this judgment by them for the determination of the measure of each man’s guilt, is a most convincing proof that God designs, in rendering to every man according to his deeds, to inflict tribulation and anguish upon every soul of man that doeth evil. Rom. 2:5–9. Dr. Bloomfield says of 1 Cor. 6:2: “Upon the whole, there is, after all, no interpretation that involves less of difficulty than the common one, supported by some Latin Fathers, and, of modern divines, by Luther, Calvin Erasmus, Beza, Casaubon, Crellius, Wolf, Jeremy Taylor, Doddridge, Pearce, Newcome, Scott, and others, by which it is supposed that the faithful servants of God, after being accepted in Christ, shall be in a certain sense, assessores judicii, by concurrence, with Christ, and being partakers of the judgment to be held by him over wicked men and apostate angels; who are, as we learn from 2 Pet. 2:4; Jude 6, reserved unto the judgment of the last day.” And Dr. Barnes speaks thus: “Grotius supposes it means that they shall be first judged by Christ, and then act as assessors to him in the judgment, or join with him in condemning the wicked.” But the fourth text relative to this judgment by the saints is very remarkable. It shows that the resurrection of the just precedes the work of judgment by them. It elevates them to thrones of judgment, where they live and reign with Christ, during the period between their own resurrection and that of “the rest of the dead.” It assigns the space of time occupied in this vast work; viz., a thousand years, a period none too long for this examination of the books containing the deeds of all wicked men and fallen angels, even though all the saints engage in it, as we have learned that they do. There is in this statement respecting the thrones, an evident allusion to Dan. 7:9, which speaks of thrones being “cast down,” or more correctly rendered “were placed,” as many able critics inform us. These thrones were placed for the judgment work, when entered upon, as we have seen, in the second apartment of the heavenly temple by God the Father. And when the judgment is given to the immortal saints, and they are able to enter the temple after the outpouring of the plagues (Rev. 16:8), it appears that they sit upon the thrones thus placed for them, and with the Saviour at their head finish the work of the judgment as indicated in the text examined. They are in this exalted state, priests to God and Christ, not as mediators with them in behalf of wicked men, but as worshipers of God and the Lamb, even as Christians in their mortal state are a royal priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God, by Jesus Christ. 1 Pet. 2:5, 9.