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IV. The Final Judgment
Another one of the important concomitants of the return of Christ is the last judgment, which
will be of & general nature. The Lord is coming again for the very purpose of judging the living
and consigning each individual to his eternal destiny.
A. THE DOCTRINE OF THE LAST JUDGMENT IN HISTORY.
The doctrine of a final general judgment was from the very earliest times of the Christian era
connected with that of the resurrection of the dead. The general opinion was that the dead
would be raised up, in order to be judged according to the deeds done in the body. As a solemn
warning the certainty of this judgment was stressed. This doctrine is already contained in the
Apostolic Confession: “From thence He shall come to judge the living and the dead.” The
prevailing idea was that this judgment would be accompanied with the destruction of the
world. On the whole the early Church Fathers did not speculate much about the nature of the
final judgment, though Tertullian forms an exception. Augustine sought to interpret some of
the figurative statements of Scripture respecting the judgment. In the Middle Ages the
Scholastics discussed the matter in greater detail. They, too, believed that the resurrection of
the dead would be followed immediately by the general judgment, and that this would mark
the end of time for man. It will be general in the sense that all rational creatures will appear in
it, and that it will bring a general revelation of each one’s deeds, both good and evil. Christ will
be the Judge, while others will be associated with Him in the judgment; not, however, as judges
in the strict sense of the word. Immediately after the judgment there will be a universal
conflagration. We leave out of consideration some of the other particulars here. The Reformers
shared this view in general, but added little or nothing to the prevailing view. The same view is
found in all the Protestant Confessions, which explicitly affirm that there will be a day of
judgment at the end of the world, but do not enter into details. It has been the official view of
the Churches up to the present time. This does not mean that no other views found expression.
Kant inferred from the categorical imperative the existence of a supreme Judge who would
right all wrongs in some future life. Schelling in his famous dictum, “The history of the world is
the judgment of the world,” evidently regarded the judgment merely as a present immanent
process. Some were not inclined to grant the moral constitution of the universe, did not believe
that history was moving on to some moral termination, and thus denied the future judgment.
This idea was given a philosophical construction by Von Hartmann. In modern liberal theology,
with its emphasis on the fact that God is immanent in all the processes of history, there is a
strong tendency to regard the judgment primarily, if not exclusively, as a present immanent
process. Says Beckwith: “In his (God’s) dealing with men there is no holding in abeyance, no
suspension of any attribute of his being. The judgment is, therefore, no more truly future than