Death and Judgment
J. Prescott Johnson, Ph.D.,
Northwestern University
Professor Emeritus of Philosophy
Monmouth College (IL)
κα_ καθ__σσv _πόκειται τo_ς _vθρώπoις _παξ _πoθαvε_v, μετ_ δ_ τo_τo κρίσις…
And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment (Heb. 9:27).
The writer states that, in distinction to human kind, Jesus did not die only to receive judgment, but that He died, without the consequence of judgment. To confirm his affirmation that the Christ’s’ sacrifice was “once or all” the writer appeals to the normal condition of human death. To human beings generally it is appointed but once to die, but they are not permitted to return to earth to compensate for neglect or failure. Upon death the results are entered into the books of heaven. The result of life is settled. The judgment follows in consequence.
There may be an allusion to the reappearance of the High Priest after the solemn ceremonial in the Holy of Holies on the day of atonement to the anxiously awaiting people. In Luke 1:21 it is stated “And the people waited for Zacharias, and marvelled that he tarried so long in the temple.” With respect to Christ, it is stated: “So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for him shall he appear without sin unto salvation” (Hebrews 9:28).
Thus Christ, as do all human beings, died but once. This singularity of his death affirms his association with humanity; his and their death are similar. But the final account of Christ’s death takes on a new and differing significance. The next phase in his life is that he appears the second time without sin unto salvation, the sin having been destroyed by his death. He will come, not to be a sin offering, but irrespective of sin, to make for them that wait for him to be partakers of the great salvation.
It is helpful to consider the meaning of the expression “without sin” (Heb. 9:28). The Greek reads εωρ_ς _ματίας. The meaning is that at Christ’s second appearing He makes for those who wait for Him partakers of the great salvation.
Thus Christ died once and the next thing before Him is the Advent. So, in Hebrews 9:28, the comparison extends to both terms, the once dying and the judgment. Thus the “offering” includes both His death and His entrance into the Holiest with His blood, but it is the death that is more prominent. In Greek, the expression is ε_ς τ_ πoλλ_v _vεvεγκε_v _ματίας (to bear the sins of many). “The burden which Christ took upon Him and bore upon the cross waa “the sins of many’ not primarily or separately from the sins, the punishment of sins” (Wescott). The question becomes: in what intelligible sense can sins be borne except but by bearing their consequences?
The copies of the heavenly things were themselves not sufficient, but required a more effectual sacrifice. For Christ has not entered a holy place made with hands; He has entered heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for our behalf. Unlike the ritual sacrifices, He has now appeared with his self-sacrifice to abolish sin. And just as it is appointed to die once and after that to be judged, so Christ after being to bear the sins of many, will appear again, not to deal with sin, but for the saving of those who look out for him.
In distinction to the serial ritual levitical sacrifices, there is now a nobler sacrifice made in heaven itself, where Christ offers the final and complete sacrifice. This sacrifice provides humanity with a close and continuous access to God sush as no cultus could secure. It is of absolute value, and therefore need not be repeated.
The phrase “to bear the sins of many” is taken from Isaiah 53:20: “. . . he hath poured out his soul unto death: and he was numbered with the transgressors; and he bare the sin of many, and made intercession for many.”
“He was numbered with the transgressors.” In some sense He became a transgressor. It is now necessary to explore and clarify this subject.
It is implied that Christ as the Son of God is eternal and pre-existent; also that when His sacrifice did take place, it covered sins of the past, the single sacrifice of Christ in our day availing for all sin, past as well as present and future. As surely as human kind has once to die and then to face the judgment, so Christ, once sacrificed for the sins of humans, will reappear to complete the salvation of His own.
The respect in which Christ became entangled with sin is not a factor of morality. He was not, personally and morally, a sinner. 2 Corinthians 5:21 reads: “For he hath made him to be sin for us who knew no sin that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.” The italics, “to be” is not in the Greek reading. The Greek says he was “made sin.” It was used in the effort to disassociate God, completely and absolutely, from any entanglement with sin. But the emphasis is untrue to the original meaning of scripture. He was in an entanglement with sin. The entanglement is that, in a representative sense. he was a sinner. He assumed the entanglement, although not personally, to serve as the destroyer of human sin. It is the necessary price to bring the grace of salvation.
After the Last Supper Jesus “began to show unto his disciples, how that he must go unto Jerusalem and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and the third day be raised up” (Matt. 16:21). The necessity here is entirely his own. It was not something imposed upon him beyond the freedom of his one self-determination. Finally, the scene in Gesthemane shows that Jesus viewed his death as purely a matter of obedience to his Father.
Yet, not withstanding his self-dedication to the point of his death, Jesus appeared to hesitate when facing impending death: “O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me . . . .” (Matt. 26:39). How is one to explain this hesitancy, when, at the same time, Jesus regarded His death as purely of His own volition, as a self-initiated covenant act of redemption.
Professor Curtis suggests that the answer to this question may be found in Christ’s fourth cry from the Cross: “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”[1]
Curtis points out that there are several layers of significance regarding bodily death: personal significance, moral significance, and racial significance. The personal significance consists in the fact that for the first time the individual is absolutely alone. The moral significance consists in a further isolation: the individual is alone with conscience. The racial significance is the loss of all connection with the human race.[2]
In His death Jesus experienced a profound personal loneliness. He was not only separated from the race; he was thrust into personal isolation. As the text indicates, He was abandoned by His Father. He passed through the gates of death alone. God the Father was absent from the consciousness of His only Son.
Now it must be that the alienation of the Son affected the harmony of the Divine individuality. There could be no other consequence of the crisis of the Cross. What happened there in time reaches outward into the farthest reaches of eternity. The Father, too, and the Spirit——the bond of harmony——feel the force of the estrangement of the Son. The infinite agony of the Son is thus lifted from this world into the experience of God Himself. God now becomes forever thenceforth forward the “Fellow-Sufferer” with the Son and with His stricken people for whom the Son willingly came to save.
But none of the ransomed ever knew
How deep were the waters crossed,
Nor how dark was the night that the Lord
passed through,
Ere He found His sheep that was lost.[3]
There is more, however, to His death than the personal factor. There is also a racial factor in His death. His suffering was not merely individual suffering. His death stood for the race; it was a representative death. Having lost the consciousness of God the Father, His death bore for the race the awful consequence of racial sin: abandonment by Deity. Taking that abandonment upon Himself willingly, He provisionally released the fallen race from its own consequence of sin, namely, the loss of the God-relationship. He thus becomes the Redeemer. And only by means of that representative death can He indeed become the Redeemer. To refer, again, to Curtis:
But, on the other hand, his suffering was not ordinary individual suffering——it was official, representative suffering. He suffered, as the Race-Man, for the whole race. He carried the race in his consciousness. Thus, Christ’s death is a racial event from the double fact that he bears the racial penalty against the old race and that he is the racial center of the new race. And whether we consider the dying Saviour a sinner or not, depends entirely upon our point of view. From the Arminian standpoint of personal sin, he surely was not a sinner. Nor was he a sinner from the standpoint of depravity. But from the racial standpoint he was a sinner, because he stood for the race, and allowed himself to be shut into its category, and actually bore the racial penalty, actually died, and was broken off from the race like any son of Adam. It matters not so much about the words you use, though, if you only catch and firmly hold the idea that our Lord’s death was a racial event through and through.[4]
All this——the redemptive import of Christ’s death——is captured in the next-to-the last cry from the Cross: “It is finished.”[5] The original Greek has, again, but one word: Τετέλεσται (tetelestai). We have previously mentioned that the word is a verb: the perfect passive indicative of τέλλω (tell_), from which the noun end (τέλoς – telos) is derived.[6] It does, indeed, connote a temporal ending, namely, the close of the earthly life of Jesus. But it also connotes infinitely more than temporal ending. True to its dynamic intension, the verb further signifies non-temporal consummation, fulfilment, perfecting, i.e., the perfect consummation of redemption. Here then, at the Cross, redemption has been fully secured, and, for humankind, the final secret has been disclosed. In and through death, redemptive life has been ultimately and finally achieved.
. . . .
This document regards God as the agent of judgment. It is a supernatural pronouncement. However, those who disbelieve the view that the judgment is of a sacramental character do not escape the view of the actuality of judgment. It is true that there is no empirical or logical proof of a transcendental judgment. The view of such a judgment is a matter of faith. However, the judgment also bears a secular form and significance. Others who know the situation may also, and often do, pronounce judgment. Thus, the view of the actuality of judgment, on any interpretation, cannot, in principle, be denied. It is an inescapable aspect of human existence.
[1]Matt: 27:46; Mark 15:34.
[2]Curtis, op. cit., pp. 295-96.
[3]Elizabeth C. Clephane, “The Ninety and Nine.”
[4]Ibid., p. 321.
[5]John 19:30.
[6]Supra, p. 13.