What are all the different judgments in the Bible?

Besides the sessional judgement of the empires in Dan. 7:9-14, there are two other such judgements in scripture, with more or less of detail, which do not take place at the same time, nor embrace the same people. The Lord Jesus has been appointed to judge the living and the dead. Acts 10:42. In Matt. 25 the living are judged, and in Rev. 20 the dead are judged, both of which cannot refer to the same judgement. In Matt. 25: In Rev. 20. It is the living nations, and no }{It is the dead, and no mention of mention of the dead, this earth }{ the living, the earth having 'fled being the scene of it, to which }{ away' before His face who sits the Son of man comes. }{ upon the great white throne. Some are saved and some are lost. }{No mention of any saved: all are lost. Judged solely according to their }{Judged according to general sins, treatment of the Lord's brethren, }{ and no mention made of their and no mention of general sins.}{ treatment of the saints.

It is plain that these are separate and distinct judgements. The judgement of the 'living' will be at the beginning of the Lord's reign. After the Church has been taken to glory, Christ will still have His own servants doing His work upon the earth, such as His two witnesses in Rev. 11:3; cf. also Matt. 10:23. When He comes to reign, the nations will be judged as to how they have treated these whom He calls His 'brethren.' The judgement of the wicked 'dead' will be after the millennium, and will embrace all who have died in their sins from the creation of the world. They will be judged according to their works, and the secrets of men will then be judged.

All this is impossible to enlarge on now. But it needs to be seen in order to get rightly hold of two very different epochs of judgment which, if confounded, confuse the whole subject of the prophetic future. There is a judgment of the quick, and a judgment of the dead; and these are quite distinct from one another. The judgment of the living is at the coming of the Lord, and before the millennium. The judgment of the dead is after it, not when the Lord comes to the earth, but when the earth and the heavens flee away (Rev. 19, 20). The judgment of the living is the purification of the earth in order to its blessing, and that the meek may inherit it, as we have partly seen. The judgment of the dead is the final award at the close of all, when the object, is finally to give every one not a sharer in the "first resurrection" his discriminate award.

The Judgment of the Quick or Living.

Christ is ordained of God to be the Judge not only of the dead, but of the quick, as Peter declared to Cornelius and his company (Acts 10:42). This is a large theme, and can only be dealt with briefly here. It is but little understood, though confessed as doctrine in all the Creeds of Christendom. It is quite the fashion to merge all into the judgment of the dead. The judgment of the living really covers a wide area. It commences with the judgments that will be poured out from heaven after the heavenly saints are removed, and which will go on until the public appearing of the Lord Jesus to put down all His foes. It will be continued more or less throughout the millennial reign, ending with the overthrow of the gathered hosts at the close (Rev. 20:8-9). Then will come "the time of the dead, that they should be judged" (Rev. 11:18).

Now this dominion over the earth is subdivided with respect to the human race. The Jews are to be subjected to Him, and the Gentiles also. King of the Jews is His indefectible title; He must also reign over the nations, and in Him shall the Gentiles trust. Every creature is also subjected to Him (see the passages referred to); they sigh after His reign; Rom. 8:21. At the same time all judgment is committed to the Son, because He is the Son of man; John 5:27. He has power over all flesh (John 17:2), and judgment is committed to Him, that all men may honour the Son even as they honour the Father. In this judgment there is the judgment of the living and the judgment of the dead. The first connects itself with the government of God on the earth, while at the same time it is final as far as individuals are concerned. The other is the boundary of all the revealed ways of God, when the secrets of heart of all the wicked, when their hidden motives, shall be brought into light.

If the Father has given to the Son to have life in Himself in the same way that the Father has, the natural corollary to this is that "He hath given Him authority to execute judgment, because He is Son of man." The giving of life we have already seen in fact to imply such authority, inasmuch as it is at the same time a freeing from judgment; that is, from coming personally into it. A giving account of ourselves there will surely be, and a judgment of works, but not a judgment by works or according to works. That is the judgment of the "great white throne" (Rev. 20:12-13), and in it no fallen creature could ever stand. Even the psalmist cries: "Enter not into judgment with Thy servant: for in Thy sight shall no man living be justified" (Ps. 143:2). The confusion that exists among Christians in such a matter as this is as lamentable as it is inexcusable: for Scripture has made it as plain as can be, that, raised or changed into His image in glory, all the saints of the present and the past shall at Christ's coming be caught up to meet the Lord in the air and to be ever with Him. When He comes to judge even the living, we shall be with Him, and with Him "the saints shall judge the world." The judgment of the dead before the great white throne is separated from this by an interval of a thousand years: a broad enough division, surely. But the indifference to prophecy, and even to the subject of the Lord's coming itself, has had its sad recompense in the loss of knowledge of things of fundamental importance to Christianity itself.

When the Lord comes, His attendants are sometimes spoken of as the saints, sometimes the angels, sometimes both. It is here the judgment of the living nations on the earth. In Acts 10:42, the Lord is called the "judge of living and dead"; here He is seen judging the living"; 1000 years later He will judge "the dead," at the end of the millennium. We have the same expression in 2 Tim. 4:1, and 1 Peter 4:5 tells us He "is ready to judge the living and the dead." In what sense ready? If a judge has a prisoner before him, evidence is given on both sides, and he has to weigh that evidence before giving judgment. There is nothing like that with the Lord. He knows everything perfectly, He reads the secrets of the heart, and hence He "is ready" to judge the living and the dead.

Next we find here three classes, the goats, the sheep, and the brethren of the judge; that is to say, those who had not received the messengers, those who had received them, and the messengers themselves. It is the judgment of the quick, of the nations; a final judgment. They go thence to Gehenna, to everlasting torment, whilst the righteous possess everlasting life here on earth, but enjoy it with God. It is the judgment of the valley of Jehoshaphat when Jehovah shall have gathered the nations, and there shall be multitudes in this valley of decision. The judgment of the quick is a scriptural truth as certainly as the judgment of the dead. Not only so, but the Jews were much more familiar, and this according to their own scriptures of the Old Testament, with the judgment of the quick than with the judgment of the dead. Doubtless there were in the Old Testament words which had given the Pharisees to understand the latter, as also the Lord justifies them on this point whilst He condemns the Sadducees. Yet these were held as good Jews, and the high priest and his family were of this sect. Nobody put their orthodoxy in question. They were wrong, we know; but when we see the passage by which the Lord convicts them, we understand how some who had not the Spirit of God might remain in ignorance of the truth in this respect. If one did not seize the fact that God looks at man as having a body as well as a soul, so that the life beyond death demonstrates also the resurrection, one has still trouble to seize the force of the proof alleged by the Lord. For him who knows that the Lord is risen and that we are to be conformed to Him, the thing is simple. Death touches only the body; if one subsists afterwards, it is to be a complete man. One thing proves the other. The soul is happy with Christ meanwhile, but the man is not complete. He lives, the man who died; after death, all live for God, they are only dead for man; this last state of death must cease, but will only cease at the resurrection. Meanwhile the soul is with the Lord, the witness, since life is not terminated, that death is not to retain him who is subjected to it.

Christ judges the living from among the nations (Mt. 25:31-46; Joel 4:2, 12).

Our subject to-night is the two resurrections. The resurrection of the just and of the unjust. The one takes place at the beginning and the other at the end of the millennium. The Lord Jesus will judge the living and the dead. 1 Peter 4:5.

There is much of which the Lord Jesus spoke in John’s Gospel that awaits fulfilment at His coming again. In chapter 5 He spoke of all judgment having been committed to Him, but He will not exercise this judgment until He returns in glory. First of all there will be the judgment of the living, at the beginning of His reign, and at the end, at the great white throne, the judgment of the dead. The Lord also spoke in the same chapter of the resurrection of life, and the resurrection of judgment. Both await His coming. He will come to raise “the dead in Christ” first, then He will bring all that remain in death out of it to stand before Him at the great white throne.