The Pre-Advent Judgment in the New Testament

Is Daniel 8:14 the only place we can turn for evidence of a judgment taking place before Jesus comes?

Seventh-day Adventists stand alone among Christians in teaching both pre- and post-advent phases of the final judgment. Unfortunately this doctrine has come under considerable criticism.

Theologians who are not Seventh-day Adventists sometimes accuse Adventists of being naive in believing that God needs to conduct an investigative judgment to determine what the destiny of each individual should be.

For example, Anthony A. Hoekema has written, "Seventh-day Adventists teach that at the end of every person's life there will be an investigative judgment to determine whether he will be saved or lost."1

This statement represents a misunderstanding, because the purpose of the investigative or pre-advent judgment, as Seventh-day Adventists perceive it, is certainly not to enable God to determine what destiny each person is to receive, but rather to reveal to heavenly intelligences the fairness of His justice and mercy.

Article 23 of the Fundamental Beliefs of Seventh-day Adventists clearly states, "The investigative judgment reveals to heavenly intelligences who among the dead are asleep in Christ and therefore, in Him, are deemed worthy to have part in the first resurrection.... This judgment vindicates the justice of God in saving those who believe in Jesus."

Even inside the Seventh-day Adventist church some have challenged the doctrine of the pre-advent judgment. Their perception is that the doctrine rests primarily on a single text, a difficult one at that, Daniel 8:14. The time has come, they say, for Adventists to abandon a belief which because of its limited biblical support has exposed the Adventist church to unnecessary criticism.

Objective. The objective of this article is to examine some of the biblical understanding of the judicial process which precedes the second coming. A brief analysis will be made of the most significant New Testament passages which refer implicitly to the investigative process of the final judgment. It is our hope that this study will help the reader to appreciate the broad biblical basis of the pre-advent judgment.

Reality Over Modality. The emphasis of the Scriptures is not on the dynamics of the final judgment, but rather on its inevitability and finality. To Bible writers the reality of the final judgment was more important than its modality. This observation applies to other biblical truths, such as the second coming and the resurrection. For example, no attempt is made by Christ or by most of the New Testament writers to differentiate between the resurrection of believers at the time of Christ's coming and the resurrection of unbelievers at the end of the millennium.

Jesus speaks of "the hour" that is coming "when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice and come forth, those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of judgment" (John 5:28-29). Yet Revelation 20:4-5 distinguishes between the resurrections of the good and evil by placing them a thousand years apart.

The same principle applies to the biblical references to the final judgment. In most cases their concern is to emphasize the reality and finality of the event rather than its modality. Yet as in the case of the resurrection, there are biblical passages which implicitly suggest pre-advent and post-advent phases of the final judgment.

1. Jesus' Teaching. The concept of a pre-advent judgment is an underlying assumption of much of Christ's teachings. It is implied even in those numerous passages from which the technical terms for judgment are absent. Jesus often spoke about receiving or missing God's reward, implying an evaluative judgment.

In this text Christ indicates that people will be resurrected not to be judged but as already judged.

The accountability of each human being obviously is decided before Christ comes to call forth to the resurrection of life those who have done good, and to the resurrection of judgment those who have done evil (John 5:28-29). The actual resurrection to life or to condemnation represents Christ's executive judgment, which presupposes the completion of the evaluative judgment. In this text Christ indicates that people will be resurrected not to be judged but as already judged. If those who are resurrected to eternal life or death were still to be judged, we would have an incongruous situation whereby the results of the judgment would be meted out before the convening of the judgment itself.

The phrase "resurrection of judgment" actually means resurrection of condemnation, since it is contrasted with the resurrection of life. This meaning is accurately rendered in the New International Version: "Those who have done good will rise to live, and those who have done evil will rise to be condemned." The judgment that decides who will rise to live and who will rise to be condemned must obviously have take place before the resurrection itself. This thought was expressed by Christ in a conversation with the Sadducees when He said that only those who are accounted worthy will attain to that age and to the resurrection from the dead (Luke 20:35).

Josiah Litch, the Methodist-Adventist expositor, recognized this teaching of Jesus and was the first to write about a pre-advent investigative judgment. His book on prophecy, An Address to the Public, and Especially to the Clergy, which came out in 1841, made this point clearly: "Difficulty arises from confounding the resurrection and judgment, or at least from giving the resurrection the precedence in the order of time; whereas the Scriptures place the judgment first" (italics his). A year later (1842), in a two-volume work, Prophetic Expositions, Litch noted that according to John 5 and Revelation 20, some people will be resurrected "to life" at the second coming, and others will be resurrected "to death" at a later time. This proves clearly, he said, that judgment comes before resurrection, because the decision as to who is righteous and who

isn't is made before anyone is resurrected. And inasmuch as the resurrection of the righteous occurs at the second coming, their judgment must precede the second coming.

In his 1842 work, Litch went on to ask his readers to distinguish between two "senses" (or phases) of judgment, the punishment or "executive" phase and, on the other hand, the "trial" or investigative phase, which precedes the punishment phase. To quote him: "THE TRIAL MUST PRECEDE THE EXECUTION [his capitals]. This is so clear a proposition that it is sufficient to state it. No human tribunal would think of executing judgment on a prisoner until after his trial; much less will God."

The idea of a pre-advent evaluative judgment is an underlying assumption in Christ's teaching about the judgment.

The idea of a pre-advent evaluative judgment is an underlying assumption in Christ's teaching about the judgment. The same idea is implicitly expressed, as we shall now see, by other New Testament writers.

2. Paul's Writings. Paul, like Christ, emphasized the certainty and inevitability of the final judgment, rather than its modality. He wrote that "we shall all stand before the judgment seat of God; ... so each of us shall give account of himself to God" (Rom 14:10-12; cf. 2 Cor 5:10; Acts 17:31). No explicit explanation is given by Paul regarding the time of this universal accountability. Did Paul associate it with the coming of Christ? If he did, he failed to say so, even when speaking expressly about the second advent, which he describes as the joyful reunion of believers with their Lord. He never describes it as the inauguration of a judicial process to examine everyone who ever lived.

For Paul, the advent is the time for the "disclosure" (1 Cor 4:5) or revelation of God's judgment rather than a time for judicial investigation. In Romans 2:5, he describes it as the time when God's righteous judgment will be revealed. The revelation will consist of the executive act of Christ in giving eternal life to those who by patience in well-doing have sought for glory and honor and immortality, but in giving wrath and fury to those who are factious and do not obey the truth (see Rom 2:7-8).

The second-coming revelation of God's righteous judgment presupposes some prior process of investigation that determines who is to receive life or death (see 2 Thess 1:8-9).

The same inference can be drawn from Paul's reference to Christ as the judge of the living and the dead (2 Tim 4:1; cf. 1 Pet 4:5). The personal presence of defendants is unnecessary, because the existence of perfect record "books" for each person's life (Dan 7:10; Ps 69:28; Mal 3:16; Rev 20:12) provides all the evidence needed by the heavenly court.

If the dead are judged while still dead, their judgment must precede the executive judgment when resurrection to eternal life or eternal death takes place.

The King James Version of 2 Timothy 4:1-2 places the judgment of the dead at the time of Christ's appearing: "I charge thee therefore before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom,..." but this translation has been largely rejected by modern translators and commentators for textual reasons.

The major clause in the Greek text contains the two conjunctions, kai. kai, "and...and." A literal translation would be, "In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus (who is going to judge the quick and the dead), and [in view of] His appearing, and [in view of] His kingdom, I charge you, Preach the Word." Compare the translation in the New International Version, "I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: preach the word" (2 Tim 4:1-2).

William Barclay notes the significance of the sequential order of the charge: (1) Judgment, (2) Appearance, (3) Kingdom. This sequence, he points out, reflects the logical progression that leads to the consummation of salvation history.2 Christ's judgment of the living and the dead is followed by His appearance, which will usher in His eternal kingdom.

Of all the New Testament writers, Paul provides the most vivid and informative descriptions of the second advent. Our understanding of the manner of Christ's coming and of the events associated with it would be very deficient if we did not possess his descriptions (1 Thess 4:13-18; 2 Thess 1:7-10; 1 Cor 15:51-58).

These descriptions, we should note, exclude the possibility of a universal investigative judgment being set up and conducted by Christ at His second advent. For example, we find this sequence in 1 Thessalonians 4:

1. The glorious descent of Christ from heaven (v. 16)

2. The resurrection of the dead in Christ (v. 16)

3. The transformation of living believers (v. 17)

4. The meeting of believers with the Lord (v. 17)

5. Eternal communion with the Lord (v. 17)

The shorter description found in 2 Thessalonians 1:7-10 makes mention only of the immediate outcome of Christ's coming, namely, eternal destruction for the wicked and glorification for the saints. Neither description mentions or allows for a universal judicial process conducted in conjunction with the second advent. The coming of Christ is followed immediately, not by a trial process but by Christ's executive act in resurrecting and transforming believers and in destroying unbelievers. Any process of evaluation and determination of each human destiny has already taken place.

A Prevailing Misconception. Many Christians mistakenly view the resurrection as a step preliminary to the final judgment. Thus, the judgment is regarded as an event distinct from the resurrection and taking place after it. This is not the teaching of Jesus, as we have seen above, nor is it the teaching of Paul or of the rest of the Bible writers, who view the resurrection to life or to death as being a revelation and execution (Jude 15) of God's righteous judgment.

J. A. Seiss, like Josiah Litch long before him, perceptively notes in this regard: "The truth is, that the resurrection, and the changes which pass in the twinkling of an eye upon the living, are themselves the fruits and embodiments of antecedent judgment. They are consequences of adjudications then already made. "3

3. Judgment in Revelation. The theme of judgment is central to the book of Revelation, and nowhere is the pre-advent judgment we have been talking about more evident than in Revelation 14.

Revelation 14 contains three sections, each introduced (verses 1, 6, 14) by the phrase, "Then I looked."

The theme of judgment is central to the book of Revelation, and nowhere is the pre-advent judgment we have been talking about more evident than in Revelation 14.

The first section (14:1-5) presents the 144,000 singing a song of triumph before God's throne, and introduces the second and third sections. The second section (14:6-13) announces the arrival of God's judgment hour; the third (14:14-20) describes the execution of the judgment.

The function of the introductory section (14:1-5) is to offer believers the assurance of divine vindication on the day of judgment. For them, the proclamation of God's judgment in the second section is not moral deterrent, as it is for the wicked, but moral stimulation to continue living "chaste," "spotless" lives, expecting to "follow the Lamb wherever he goes."

The second section (14:6-13) describes three angels flying in mid-heaven, proclaiming three judgment messages. The first declares, "Fear God and give him glory, for the hour of his judgment has come; and worship him who made heaven and earth, the sea and the fountains of water." The second angel announces God's judgment on Babylon; and the third warns people about God's judgment on those who worship the beast and its image.

The third section (14:14-20) uses harvest imagery to portray dramatically the execution of the final judgment by Christ at His coming.

It is noteworthy that in Revelation 14 the harvest of earth is preceded by the announcement that "the hour of his judgment has come" and that the setting of this announcement is the "eternal gospel." The conclusion is inescapable that the judgment here spoken of precedes the execution of the judgment at Christ's coming.

The book of Hebrews provides additional insights into Christ's work of pre-advent judgment, corresponding to the ministry of the high priest on the Day of Atonement in the Old Testament tabernacle. I have treated some of these in my book, The Advent Hope for Human Hopelessness.

Conclusion. The doctrine of the pre-advent judgment enshrines many vital truths. It points to the existence of a transcendent moral order and of a transcendent Moral Ruler, thereby giving meaning and seriousness to our daily living. It reveals that God places great value on each person and on our decisions and actions, providing a sense of accountability and moral worth to our lives. It reassures us that God operates on the principles of love and freedom and that ultimately all the moral universe will be given opportunity fully to understand and accept God's justice and mercy. The cosmic vindication and triumph of God's love and justice will help guarantee the eternal security, peace, and harmony of the universe. It is part of the Blessed Hope that inspires us to godly lives as we await the realization of the "blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ" (Titus 2:13).

This doctrine of the pre-advent judgment is not taught exclusively in Daniel 8:14 but is discernible in many other Bible passages as well, a few of which in the gospels, in the writings of Paul, and in Revelation-we have looked at briefly here.

NOTES

This article is based mainly on a chapter in the book, The Advent Hope for Human Hopelessness, by the same author and available from him.

1. Anthony A. Hoekema, The Bible and the Future (Grand Rapids, 1979), p. 253.

2. William Barclay, The Letters to Timothy, Titus, and Philemon (Philadelphia, 1960), pp. 232-234.

3. J. A. Seiss, The Apocalypse (Philadelphia, n.d.), p. 18.