Divine judgment in the New Testament

When do we talk about divine judgment? Not often. But the theme cuts right through the heartlands of the New Testament like a punishing Roman road (not that Roman road), from Mary’s Magnificat to the final judgment of all the dead in Revelation 20.

There is only one way to walk this road meaningfully in the modern era, and that is by reading historically rather than theologically, until we get almost to the end. I’ll keep this brief, which means there will be holes, and for the most part in the past tense because it’s history. Follow the links for more background.

Judgment against a wicked and adulterous generation

At the heart of Jesus’ message about the coming kingdom of God was the warning that his people faced divine judgment—the wrath of God—in the form of a devastating war against Rome that would culminate in the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple and massive loss of life. This would be a “judgment of Gehenna” for the current wicked and adulterous generation of Jews, but especial blame is attached to the various Jerusalem elites:

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! …how are you to escape from the judgment of Gehenna? (Matt. 23:29, 33*).

Jesus had very little to say about what would come next, but he assured his disciples that if they followed him down the narrow path of suffering, they would not be condemned along with their ill-fated compatriots, they would not be cast into outer darkness where there is wailing and gnashing of teeth, but would be vindicated and would attain the life of the age to come, in one form or another. Not least, in the “regeneration” they would sit on twelve thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel (Matt. 19:28; Lk. 22:30).

The outworking of the wrath of God against Israel is vividly and realistically conceived, for good historical reasons. It was not difficult for a first century Palestinian Jew to imagine the sort of catastrophe that might come upon Jerusalem given the presence of a brutal occupying force and the precedent of the Babylonian invasion. Jesus had the mind of Jeremiah, and like Jeremiah he entered the temple, declared to Israel that it had become a den of robbers, and prophesied its destruction (Jer. 7:1-15; Matt. 21:12-13; Mk. 11:15-17; Lk. 19:45-46).

Perhaps surprisingly, he had nothing to say about a subsequent judgment of the nations—for example, a judgment against Rome as the overweening aggressor against his people. His eschatological imagination was entirely dominated by the premonition of the events of the war of AD 66-70.

Wrath against the Jew

Paul does not appear to have envisaged wrath against the Jew (Rom. 2:6-10) with the same graphic historical clarity as Jesus did.

Frustrated by Jewish opposition to his mission to the gentiles, he declared that “the wrath came upon (ephthasen) them to an end (eis telos)” (1 Thess. 2:16*). Very similar language is used in Testament of Levi 6:11 with reference to the destruction of the city of Shechem: “The wrath of the Lord came upon (ephthase) them to an end (eis telos).” Did Paul mean that the Judeans who killed the Lord Jesus were now inexorably subject to a wrath that would find concrete historical fulfilment in the destruction of Jerusalem?

Wrath against the Greek

In the field of the apostolic mission across Asia Minor and into Europe the prospect of a judgment of the pagan world comes firmly into view. It is a two-sided theme. The distinction is important, especially for understanding Paul’s letter to the Romans.

There would be a judgment against Greek idolatry. This is Paul’s wrath against the Greek in Romans (Rom. 2:6-10), the wrath that was to come upon those who worshipped the created object rather than the Creator (Rom. 1:25), who did not turn from their idols to serve the living and true god (1 Thess. 1:9-10; cf. Rev. 9:20). It was the message of Luke’s Paul to the men of Athens:

Being then offspring of God, we ought not to think that the divine is like gold or silver or stone, an imprint of the craftsmanship and imagination of a human person. Having then overlooked the times of ignorance, God now commands all people everywhere to repent because he determined a day on which he will judge this civilisation in righteousness, by a man whom he appointed, having provided proof to all, having raised him from the dead. (Acts 17:29-31*)

What form would this judgment take? Cities fall suddenly and dramatically, but cultures and civilisations pass away more slowly (cf. 1 Cor. 7:31). Over time, the ends of the earth turn to the living God who acts to judge and deliver his people in history; they bow the knee and swear allegiance; and the old gods, the idols, are carried into oblivion by beasts of burden (Is. 45:22-45:2).

The overthrow of Babylon the great

Significantly, Paul thought of Rome as an agent of judgment (Rom. 13:3-5), principally against the troublesome Jews of the diaspora, not as the object of the wrath of God.

But perhaps the obscure apocalyptic narrative of 2 Thessalonians 2:3-12 provides evidence that he expected a Roman “man of lawlessness” to commit an act of blasphemy in the temple after the manner of Antiochus Epiphanes or Pompey. This figure would be “removed” by the Lord Jesus “by the spirit of his mouth” and nullified “by the appearing of his parousia“ (2 Thess. 2:8*). In other words, the acclamation of Jesus as Lord by the nations of the Greek-Roman world (cf. Phil. 2:10-11) would bring to an end the reign of the blasphemous Roman tyrant—either a particular individual or the type.

The author of the book of Revelation saw things somewhat differently. His elaborate sequence of judgment events that begins with the emergence of the beast from sea (Rev. 13:1) climaxes in a spectacular judgment against decadent and degenerate Rome, in the guise of Babylon the great, as the seat of an empire that had corrupted the nations (Rev. 18-19).

The outcome would be a new civilisation for the Greek-Roman world that would worship one God instead of many and confess Jesus as having supreme political authority.

The language of apocalyptic

It was not so easy to imagine what judgment against an idolatrous civilisation, dominated by Roman power, would look like, so the prophetic language is less precise, heavily dependent on apocalyptic symbolism—though still grounded in biblical and Hellenistic-Jewish narratives and visualisation.

A mighty angel throws a great stone into the sea and declares, “So will Babylon the great city be thrown down with violence, and will be found no more” (Rev. 18:21). This appears to recall the words of Jeremiah to Seraiah:

When you finish reading this book, tie a stone to it and cast it into the midst of the Euphrates, and say, ‘Thus shall Babylon sink, to rise no more, because of the disaster that I am bringing upon her, and they shall become exhausted.’ (Jer. 51:63-64)

Does John predict the violent disappearance of Rome, with its musicians and craftsmen? In the end, it seems that the historical instrument of judgment would be not a greater earthly power, such as the Persians, but the faithful witness of the churches to the civilisation to come. The rider on the white horse, who is “King of kings and Lord of lords,” is called “the word of God”; the sword with which he would strike down the hostile nations on the day of God’s wrath issued from his mouth (Rev. 19:11-16).

A final judgment of all the dead

What follows the overthrow of Babylon the great in John’s apocalyptic narrative is a long period in which Christ and the martyrs rule over the nations. Then I think we have a properly final judgment of all the dead before the throne of the God who will remake heaven and earth. At last, the road of judgment has brought us to the end of history.