Weird Ideas: Coming to JudgeSýnishorn

Many today assume there is no cosmic standard or accountability to a higher power. If there is, those standards and that higher power can’t really be known. For some, this creates a low-grade anxiety. So the natural response is to avoid thinking about it because thinking about it creates too much fear and uncertainty. For others, it brings a faux freedom: “I don’t know and I can’t know, so I’ll do what I want. I am only answerable to me.” At worst this leads to an approach to life that says: “Live for me. Get ahead. No matter how. Before I die. And whoever has the most toys at the end wins.” Or on the opposite side of the spectrum, nihilism.

The Bible teaches something different. It has the weird idea that we are accountable to God and that he has revealed his standards. It goes even further. Jesus teaches that your life is known, even the things nobody knows about. Your life is known to God and will someday be laid bare. In the end, we all must answer to God. It’s a key aspect of what it means when the creeds say that Jesus will come to judge the living and the dead.

Jesus’s answer is to repent. “Repent,” he says, so that when judgment comes, you do not perish. Repent, because God is merciful. Repent, because God does not want to punish us according to the inclinations of our heart and the choices we’ve made. Repent, because God’s solution to the ways we’ve adversely affected it all is forgiveness and renewal.

The good news is that Jesus is our judge. He’s been there. He’s been through it. He knows what it’s like. He can sympathize. This doesn’t do much in the way of giving us an excuse. No one can claim, “You don’t know what it’s like! You don’t know what I have to face! You can’t understand what I’ve been through!” Much the opposite. Because Jesus does know what it’s like and because he too had to face the struggles and temptations of life, he does understand what you’ve been through. Rather than hide, rationalize, or downplay your thoughts, motives, and choices, you can come to him with all your sins, regrets, and failures. This judge is on your side.