Final Judgment: When?

ln His parable of the wheat and the tares, Jesus pictured the future day of judgment as a day of harvest when the crop will be separated from the weeds. (See Matthew 13:30.) That day of judgment is the day toward which the entire universe is moving, for it's the day when God finally brings Satan’s great rebellion to an end.

Notice how Jesus described the judgment: "But when the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him, then He will sit on His glorious throne. And all the nations will be gathered before Him; and He will separate them from one another, as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats; and He will put the sheep on HIs right, and the goats on the left.

"Then the King will say to those on His right, ’Come, you who are blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world…. Then He will also say to those on His left, 'Depart from Me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels’” (Matthew 24:31-34, 41 NASB).

The judgment, with its proclamation of reward and punishment, is a future event. No one, not even Satan himself, has yet been sent away "into the eternal fire” of which Jesus spoke. Nor have the saved been ushered into the kingdom prepared for them. The dead are "sleeping” in the grave, unaware of events going on in the world, neither suffering punishment nor enjoying rewards.

Peter testified that Jesus "is the One who has been appointed by God as judge of the living and the dead" (Acts 10:42) Those who have died are not beyond the reach of judgment. The day will come when the entire human race will be gathered together before the judge. The dead of all ages will be raised for that ultimate event.

The apostle John saw that the dead would be raised for the judgment. According to his prophecy, all the dead who were loyal to God will be resurrected 1000 years before the rest of the dead. (See Revelation 20:4.) John calls this "the first resurrection." At the end of the 1000 years the second resurrection will take place. Then it is time for the final judgment.

In a vision, John "saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne, and books were opened; and another book was opened, which is the book of life; and the dead were judged from the things which were written in the books, according to their deeds.

"And the sea gave up the dead which were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead which were in them; and they were judged, every one of them according to their deeds.

"And death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire. And if anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of tire” (Revelation 2012-15, NASB).