Dear friends,
One of the great themes of the early chapters of Genesis is the judgement of God. In our discussions of the New Testament use of the themes of Genesis, we come today to talk of judgement in the New Testament. While it sounds, and is in fact, an unpleasant topic, we will see that it brings us into the heart of the wonderful topic of God’s mercy and love. So I hope you enjoy our discussion on judgement in the New Testament.
Yours,
Phillip
Phillip Jensen: Welcome again to Two Ways News. Throughout the year we’ve been looking at the themes in Genesis 1, 2 and 3, but for a few weeks, we have focused on how the New Testament deals with these subjects. Today’s focus is on judgement in the New Testament.
The word ‘judgement’ has a variety of connotations. It can mean discrimination, but it can also mean condemnation, punishment, and sentencing. The world uses judgements all the time. But what does the world think of judgement?
Peter Jensen: I would say the world is very much in favour of it. We exercise judgement continuously. All of us make moral judgements of other people, and occasionally of ourselves, but you’ve only got to walk into a coffee shop and eavesdrop, and you’ll hear people talking about someone else; passing judgement on them. Of course, many of our judgements that we pass on to others are entirely hypocritical. But on what basis are people making judgements?
Phillip: I agree with you about our continuous exercising of judgement. I also agree with you about the hypocrisy, particularly when judgement is exercised within the framework of atheism. For the atheists have no basis for moral judgement. Professor Joel Marks, an atheist and a great moral philosopher of the late 20th and early 21st centuries, concluded that there was no basis for morality. He spoke of his “shocking epiphany that the religious fundamentalists are correct. Without God, there is no morality.”1 Richard Dawkins, a more famous atheist, said much the same. “The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is at bottom no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.”2 Professor Jesse Prinz at New York writes about human behaviour as neither right nor wrong, just culturally conditioned emotions. He writes, “No amount of reasoning can engender a moral value because all values are, at bottom, emotional attitudes.”3 The judgement that something is morally wrong is an emotional response. So repeatedly you can find atheist after atheist concluding that there is no right and wrong, there is no morality.
But nearly all of them write passing judgements about what we should be doing, how wrong it is to speak against self-determination and how wrong it was for missionaries to impose culture upon other nations, like cannibals or those who sacrifice children or widows in burning. Their moral judgements are very strong, but philosophically, they claim there is no morality. Lord Denning, who was a great jurist of the mid to late 20th century, wrote, “Without religion there can be no morality, without morality there can be no law, and if religion perishes from the land then justice will also.” 4 The problem is that we all are very judgemental, but the hypocrisy of atheism is particularly great. So the moral judgements of our society seem to come from Christianity.
Peter: Would our society, and presumably a society in which there is no Christianity, have its own source of morality?
Phillip: Yes, although what about conscience? I don’t quite grasp the universality of conscience when there seems to be different content to it.
Peter: The Bible tells us that there is conscience and that our conscience will tell us things about God’s law, even though we’ve never heard the law of God. You may recall the Disney movie Pinocchio and the saying, “Always let your conscience be your guide.” That’s nonsense, because our conscience is shaped by our person, and our person is riddled with sin. Although the mere fact of a conscience, and the stirrings of a conscience, may indeed point to the law of God, we would do well to not only follow the law of conscience but also refer back to the basis, namely the word of God. That’s worth bearing in mind: it’s a gift of God, but it has been corrupted by the fall.
Phillip: There are certain events in history where there is universal condemnation.
Peter: There are: the Nuremberg trials, for example, which generally agreed that what went on in Germany in the 1940s was horrible and very, very wrong.
Phillip: It’s interesting, because we had capital punishment of those people, but I wonder if we would have capital punishment of the Nazis today.
Peter: We probably would not; and yet, when you think about what happened, you’d have to say, ‘They deserve to have their life taken as long as it is certain that they committed those acts.’ There’s an interesting story about conscience: one of the leading figures in Nazi Germany ran a concentration camp, and it is alleged that he once let a Jewish prisoner go, and he had an attack of conscience, so he went and confessed his ‘sin’ to a superior officer. There’s a conscience at work. There’s a glimmering of truth in it, but in fact, it was corrupt.
We all want justice. It’s interesting how you sometimes see a news report of a particularly awful case, where a family has taken their case to court, and the reporter often says, ‘All the family wanted was closure.’ They don’t want closure; they want justice, because justice is at the heart of the universe.
Phillip: Yes, and closure never comes. I can see the other person punished for killing a member of my family, but the member of my family is still dead. My grief for them continues. Closure doesn’t happen.
Peter: No, and here, of course, is where forgiveness comes in. Can we forgive? Otherwise, we carry the burden of wrongdoing all our lives, because we just seek vengeance. We are so angry with what has happened, and often rightly so, but there is a place for forgiveness too.
Phillip: But the God of this world who brings forgiveness is also the God of justice. Without that sense of justice, forgiveness doesn’t altogether make sense. You can’t be forgiven for things that are not wrong.
Peter: What a paradox. God is just, and we long for justice. Therefore it is good news that God is at the heart of the universe. But is he a forgiving God? Can forgiveness and justice be reconciled?
Phillip: Helen and I have finished reading Hosea at our breakfast Bible readings, and that battle is right at the end, about the God of justice who is forgiving as well. Think of the terrible massacre that took place in Srebrenica, for example, and the question arises: where do we see God’s justice now in this world? Do we have to wait until the end before God’s justice takes place, or is there justice already?
Peter: To answer the last point first, there is justice in this world. Not only do people exercise judgement themselves in condemnation of others, but also those who are in ruling authority exercise justice, never perfectly, but often effectively. We do have structures of justice, and I thank God for the country we’re living in, because the structures of justice here, defective though they may be, are able to be exercised for the best. We’re very fortunate from that point of view. But is the world under judgement now?
Phillip: What you’ve just said, in terms of the justice of God in the world now, is the New Testament teaching. That is, Romans 13 picks up and explains Romans 12:19, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord,” by teaching that the government is one of the agents of God’s justice in the world, even though the government that he was talking about was the Roman government. But God’s justice is seen more broadly in the world.
Peter: It is. We live in a world where, to put it in terms of Genesis, we have been expelled from the garden. Or to put it in terms of the epistle of the Romans, this world groans and is not the world that we would wish to live in, because we are reminded through life that we live under a judgement that is deserved, because that is how things are. God brings judgement on human obstinacy, where people, to quote Romans 1:18, “suppress the truth” and engage in idolatry. In this life we can see that is the case.
Phillip: That Romans passage demonstrates that the justice of God is in giving us our freedom. But whereas our community loves its freedom, giving sinners freedom is to multiply sin. So, the justice of God is referred to three times in Romans 1; ‘God gave them up’ is the justice of God. So the sufferings of this world are human-caused, because they’re God’s judgement on human sinfulness.
Peter: Yes. Having said that, the Bible also tells us that not every instance of suffering is connected to a particular sin for which the sufferer is at fault. There may be other reasons for it. There is the general reason that we’re living in a fallen world, but that doesn’t directly cause a particular thing. As a result, Jesus, when confronted with a blind man, was asked, “Who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” And Jesus said, ‘Neither. It’s been done for another reason altogether.’ We need to bear that in mind when we look at the sufferer. Job’s friends looked at him and said, ‘You must be a great sinner because you’re suffering in the way you are.’ Job, of course, vigorously defended himself. Since the opening chapter of Job shows what it was about, we know he was right. So again, not all suffering is directly connected to sin in the person who suffers.
Phillip: While it’s not a one-to-one connection, it’s still part of the generality that we live in a world of death outside the garden. In that context, there are some actions with consequences that are the consequences of punishment. Galatians 6:7 says, “Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that he will also reap.” It’s not just ‘What you sow you will be reaping’; it’s ‘What you sow you will reap under the hand of God.’ Verse 8 says
For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life.
Yes, there is a sense of judgemental consequences. But the context of it is God’s involvement. So it’s not just an automatic ‘karma’. However, there is that fundamental truth in Romans 6:23 that “the wages of sin is death.” I believe that a more precise way to express this would be ‘the wages sin pays is death.’ It is consequential to our sin that we have death.
Peter: It’s a very strange verse, because Jesus died.
Phillip: Yes, but that’s only half the verse. The rest of it reads, “But the free gift of God is eternal life in Jesus Christ, our Lord.” It is by his death that we have the forgiveness of our sins and the reconciliation of justice and mercy. It’s in the cross that you see the full-blown justice and the full-blown mercy of God.
Peter: But does this mean that death is the end in terms of judgement?
Phillip: No. Death is the judgement, but it goes beyond. Hebrews 9:27 says, “It is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgement.” Or Romans 2:4-5
Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? But because of your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God’s righteous judgement will be revealed.
That is, there is a judgement beyond death. Jesus speaks of it in terms of hell. ‘Hell’ is an interesting word that people bandy around quickly and easily, but there’s only one hellfire preacher in the Bible, and that’s Jesus. The word ‘hell’ occurs 12 times in the Bible, but 11 of them occur on the lips of Jesus, where he is speaking about a judgement that is not just death, but after death, and one so horrific that you would chop off your hand or pluck out your eye rather than be thrown into this place of punishment beyond the grave.
The word ‘hell’, or ‘gehenna’, comes from the municipal garbage tip outside of Jerusalem. It was the place where the Canaanites used to offer up children as sacrifice, and so it was considered a defiled place; one of the only suitable usages of it for Israel was to use it as the garbage tip, and so the fires never went out there. The bodies of executed criminals were also thrown into the garbage tip. It is the image of punishment, not being given the privilege of decent burial, that goes beyond death, where there is no relief from the horror of what is being spoken of; that’s the language that Jesus uses to help us see a judgement that goes beyond death, for which there is no relief, and which we must make sure we’re never thrown into.
Peter: Yet there is resurrection. Though Jesus taught that resurrection is for all, not just for some. In fact, John 5:28 says
Do not marvel at this, for an hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice and come out, those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgement.
When we think of resurrection, we smile because it’s a wonderful thought for the future, but for many, it will result in a judgement in which they are turned away and suffer acutely because of the responsibility we have for our own sins. I find this judgement difficult to talk about, but Jesus didn’t, because he loved us and wanted us to know what was going to happen.
Phillip: There’s a hypocrisy in us talking about it, isn’t there? Because we know that we deserve it. Yet we can’t wish it for anybody else, and we can’t rejoice in it. We can’t speak of it easily without great sorrow that anybody should.
Peter: It’s a reminder to us to pray for all those around us. This judgement that resurrection leads to is interestingly connected to the return of Jesus as the judge. You think of God as being the judge, and the Lord Jesus is indeed God himself, but it’s particularly linked to him. Acts 17:30-31 tells us
The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.
So our judgement is in the hands of one of us, but he’s not merely one of us. He is the last Adam, the one we ought to have been, and he is indeed the Son of God himself. So our judgement comes through him.
Phillip: The great news is that the judgement has come. In John 12, Jesus is approached. It’s the turning point of John’s gospel, where the Greeks come to Jesus and say they want to see him. Instead of responding to their request, Jesus immediately launches into this enormous statement, which then changes the direction of John’s gospel. For from there on, he goes with his disciples into the punishment that is to lie ahead of him. But at the great turning point in John 12:31-32, he says
Now is the judgement of this world; now will the ruler of this world be cast out. And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.
John then comments, “He said this to show by what kind of death he was going to die.” The ruler of this world is, of course, Satan, who has now been cast out of his power and beaten by the death and resurrection of Jesus.
Peter: Can there be any hope for us faced with this absolutely deserved justice?
Phillip: Because the ruler of this world has been cast out, because of Jesus’ death and his resurrection, we can laugh in scorn at Satan now, like God does in Psalm 2, if you remember the nations he holds in ridicule, because we know the victory has been won in the death of Jesus. We know that the judgement of this world has already come. It is now to be put into effect, but it’s already come. We live in a world under judgement by our governments and by God giving the world over to sin. We know that because of our sin, we will die. We know that after death there is judgement, but we also now know that that judgement has already taken place in the death and resurrection of Jesus, so that those who have their faith in him have the mercy and the forgiveness of God. The things that were written against us have been wiped clean by the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, so that we have nothing to answer for in the court of judgement. This is fantastic news. This is where justice and mercy are to be found.
Joel Marks, ‘An Amoral Manifesto (Part I)’ 2010 (viewed 10 October 2025) https://philosophynow.org/issues/80/An_Amoral_Manifesto_Part_I
Richard Dawkins, River Out of Eden: A Darwinian View of Life (UK Basic Books, 1995)
Jesse Prinz, ‘Morality is a Culturally Conditioned Response’ 2011 (viewed 10 October 2025) https://philosophynow.org/issues/82/Morality_is_a_Culturally_Conditioned_Response
Rt. Hon. Lord Justice Denning, The Influence of Religion on Law, (Newcastle upon Tyne: King’s College, 1953)
Scripture quotations are from The ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Links & Recommendations
For more on this topic, listen to this sermon by Phillip on 1 John 1:9. It’s called Jesus Brings Justice and Forgiveness.
Freely available, supported by generosity.
If you enjoy Two Ways News, why not lend us a hand? Consider joining our Supporters Club—friends who make it possible for us to keep producing this article/podcast.
To join the Supporters Club, follow the link below to the ‘subscribe’ page. You’ll see that there’s:
a number of ‘paid options’. To join the Supporters Club take out one of the paid ‘subscription plans’ and know we are deeply grateful for your support!
also the free option (on the far right hand side)
