Judgment

The judgment of God is the righteous response of a holy God to sin. It is not arbitrary anger, not cosmic revenge, and not a failure of God’s love. It is what must happen when the God who is perfectly good and perfectly just confronts what opposes his nature. To say that God judges sin is to say that God takes sin seriously.

This is established from the beginning. When Adam and Eve sin in Genesis 3, God judges: the serpent is cursed, the woman bears suffering in childbirth, the man labours against a cursed ground, and both are expelled from the garden. The judgment is proportionate, explained, and executed with exactness. The same pattern runs through the whole of the Old Testament: Yahweh warns, the people sin, and the covenant curses are executed as promised. The exile of Israel and Judah is the most devastating expression of this: Yahweh keeping his covenant word, doing precisely what he said he would do if his people broke the covenant.

The cross is the place where God’s judgment falls most fully and most finally. Jesus Christ bears the judgment that sinners deserve: “He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” Judgment does not disappear at the cross; it is executed there. And at the end of history, the final judgment will extend to all: every person standing before the throne, each receiving what their deeds deserve. The articles below trace how Scripture treats judgment across many of its most serious passages.