We Believe: To Judge the Living and the Dead
“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. Before him will be gathered all the nations.”
Matthew 25:32
When the Lord Jesus returns to earth in glory, as discussed in our last reflection on the Nicene Creed, it will not be so that we can look at him. He is coming with a purpose: to judge the living and the dead. Theologians sometimes call this the “Last Judgment” or the “General Judgment.” In the twinkling (i.e., blink) of an eye, Christ, present on earth and sitting on his throne of Judgment, summons all human beings to stand before him
An angel will blow a trumpet (1 Thessalonians 4:16), and the angels will gather everyone before him (Matthew 24:31). When I say everyone, I mean everyone—those who are alive and those who have died. In the course of human history, as of right now (2025), about 700 billion people have lived and died, and their bodies are on the earth. Every one of these will rise from the dead to come before the judgment seat of Christ.
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If the Lord returned today, 708 billion ± people would stand before him. We sometimes forget that it is not just Christians who will rise, but all people. This is an easy mistake to make since 1 Thessalonians 4, a key passage about the second coming, only speaks about the “dead in Christ” (i.e., Christian): “The dead in Christ will rise first” (1 Thessalonians 4:17).
Both the Just and Unjust
Elsewhere, scripture clearly states that God is going to raise everyone. St. Paul, speaking before Felix the Governor, testifies, “there will be a resurrection of both the just and the unjust.” (Acts 24:15). St. Paul is echoing our Lord Jesus’ teaching to the Jews in Jerusalem,
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 judgment.
John 5:29
In both cases, life and judgment, it is still a resurrection. Later in his ministry, he refers to the resurrection of those who will inherit eternal life: “For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the just” (Luke 14:14).
During this general resurrection, happening after Jesus returns and before he proclaims his judgment, we who are alive at the time—the eight billion of us—will also instantly transform our resurrected bodies. The scripture describes this with various images,
Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep [die], but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed.
1 Corinthians 15:51-52
Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air.
1 Thessalonians 4:17
Our Resurrection Bodies
Now, the resurrected bodies of the “just” and the “unjust” will not be the same. They will have two properties in common: they will be our real bodies, and they will have eternal existence. However, they will differ: the bodies of the just will suit them for heaven, where there is no weeping (Revelation 21:4), while the bodies of the unjust will suit them for hell, a place the gospel characterizes by weeping (Matthew 13:42). Henry Percival, a careful theologian of a century ago, gathered up the writings of the dogmatic theologians of the past (like St. Thomas Aquinas) and distilled the difference in the resurrected bodies like this:
The just will rise with bodies made like unto the glorious body of the Lord. All will be perfect, the infant will rise as a full-grown man, and the decrepit old man as a man in full vigour and beauty. Their bodies will be possessed of agility, clarity, impassibility, and subtilty.
By agility is understood the power of passing at will from place to place without fatigue and without exertion. This involves the absence of ponderosity. By clarity is meant a glory truly heavenly which will shine forth from the soul within and make luminous the glorified body. 546. By impassibility is meant the lack of capacity to feel suffering, so that fire will not burn, nor cold freeze, etc. This also includes indestructibility. By subtility is meant the power of passing through other bodies without breaking them, as our Lord entered this world from the womb of his mother and again from the womb of the grave, etc. The unjust will rise with earthly, ponderous bodies, fit for their resurrection to damnation.
Henry R. Percival, A Digest of Theology: Being A Brief Statement of Christian Doctrine According to the Consensus of the Great Theologians (Philadelphia: McVey, 1893), p. 179.
A Scene of Judgment
Included just in the words the living and the dead, we have the general resurrection in view. Try to picture the scene: a portion of humanity that until this moment has been living as disembodied souls in the miserable forecourts of hell (cf. Luke 16:25-26) now rises in their earthly bodies to stand before Christ the Judge. The other portion of humanity that, until this moment, has been living as disembodied souls in the blissful forecourts of heaven (cf. Revelation 6:9-10) now rises in their earthly bodies to stand before Christ the Judge. Additionally, there are all the angels, who traditionally outnumber redeemed humanity 99:1 (Luke 15:7), so trillions of them, in all their glory, surrounding the scene.
In this setting, Christ Jesus gives his judgment over each human being simultaneously. As it were, as if reading from a book of record,
And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Then another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged by what was written in the books, according to what they had done.
Rev 20:12
To Judge
The General Judgment publicly proclaims what God determined “privately” at the particular judgment, at the time of each person’s death. There is no reversing of the particular judgment, no post-mortem opportunities for repentance. The Church Fathers were very clear about this: “As the tree falls, so it lies”. The General Judgment is the public display of God’s perfect justice and mercy, manifested in the judgment made over all 708 billion of those whom he made in his image. A rough analogy from our present judicial system helps explain the relationship between the particular judgment (at the time of each of our deaths) and the General Judgment in the resurrection: the difference between a verdict and the sentencing of a criminal. The verdict comes in (like at the particular judgment), but the “sentencing” is at the General Judgment.
How Will Christ Judge Us?
This raises the question of what criteria Christ will use to judge us. The other of our three authorized Creeds—the Athanasian—supplies this for us,
At whose coming all men shall rise again with their bodies, and shall give account for their own works. And they that have done good shall go into life everlasting, and they that have done evil into everlasting fire.
As the Nicene Creed “amplifies” the Apostles’ Creed, so the Athanasian, coming onto the scene about 50 years later, “amplifies” the Nicene Creed.
Now, this answer strikes our evangelical ears very unfavorably, our works? Our good deeds? But before we dismiss this as less than Christian, see that this is only what the scriptures also say, concerning the General Judgment.
Jesus himself, as quoted earlier, says,
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 judgment.
John 5:28-29
And St. Paul, the great apostle of justification by faith, is Spirit-led to proclaim the same,
For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil.
2 Corinthians 5:10
This is the self-same message from every prophet in the Old Testament and the New, through whom God spoke to reveal what happens at the end. This cannot contradict the gospel of our salvation by grace and not by works (Ephesians 2:5); St. Paul wrote 2 Corinthians 5 and Ephesians 2! Our God is not a God of confusion (1 Corinthians 14:33).
Here is the synthesis: The “works” by which Christ will judge us will be the works of faith. These will end in us inhabiting the new heavens and new earth (the same place, after Christ comes again) with God himself in a glorious resurrected body, or else be put away from God forever in a passible resurrected body in the place of fiery torment where the demons will be sent forever.
Judged in Christ Jesus
Namely: Were we found in Christ Jesus, incorporated into his own life and receiving his righteousness through the indwelling Holy Spirit given at baptism? Do we have faith itself? Did we believe in the gospel of Christ Jesus when we heard it? And repentance—did we genuinely repent of our sins? And did we bear fruit in keeping with repentance? Humility and charity are manifested in mercy to the needy (this is how the parable of the sheep and the goats fits in, as well as the early Church’s high language about the value of alms).
The sentiments of our heart, our best intentions, our warmest feelings—these are not the “evidence” of saving faith that Christ will be judging—because they may or may not be evidence one way or the other – what can and will be judged is our deeds. Do they show forth faith and trust in Christ Jesus and love for him as our Savior, or do they not?
An Exhortation
If this makes the Parousia and the General Judgment seem awe-inspiring, then it means I have described them accurately. The Day of the Lord is indeed always spoken of in the scriptures as being full of holy terror and woe and wonder. Like Amos,
Woe to you who desire the day of the LORD! Why would you have the day of the LORD? It is darkness, and not light.
Amos 5:18
It should inspire and stir us up to live vigilantly before him, as St. Peter exhorts us,
What sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness, waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God […] be diligent to be found by him without spot or blemish, and at peace.
2 Pet 3:11,14
Image: Detail from The Last Judgment by Michelangelo, Sistine Chapel, Vatican. Courtesy of Wikipedia.
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