Righteous Judgment: The Judge's Gavel in the Hands of the Church

Most Christians understand that God normally works through means. For example, when He heals our illnesses, He usually does so through doctors, medications, surgeries. When He converts an unbeliever, He does so through the means of the Christian who shares the Gospel with that unbeliever. This is not to deny that he also works miraculously, that is, directly, without means. It is merely a belief that miracles are necessarily the exceptions, not our daily experience.

The number one means that God uses in achieving His purposes in this world is His Church. For example, Psalm 149:6-9 describes the role of the Church in applying God's judgment in an unbelieving world:
"Let the high praises of God be in their throats
     and two-edged swords in their hands,
to execute vengeance on the nations
     and punishments on the peoples,
to bind their kings with chains
     and their nobles with fetters of iron,
to execute on them the judgment written! 
     This is honor for all His godly ones."

This is the downside of evangelism. As Paul says, our message is "to one a fragrance from death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life" (II Corinthians 2:16, compare the words of Jesus in John 9:39). While the Gospel is a source of life to the elect, those who are being made alive by the Spirit, it is a message of death to the reprobate, those who remain in their spiritually-dead state.

Jesus repeats the Psalmists message in Matthew 19:28: "Truly, I say to you, in the new world, when the Son of Man will sit on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel." The Apostles, who had suffered, and who were to suffer much more, even martyrdom, at the hand of the apostate Jews, were given this comfort, that someday they would sit in judgment on those very persecutors. 

What means will we use in applying that judgment? The Psalmist tells us "two-edged swords," a phrase which is explained in Hebrews 4:12: "The word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart." We also have the description of Jesus: "In His right hand He held seven stars, from His mouth came a sharp two-edged sword, and His face was like the sun shining in full strength" (Revelation 1:16). Thus, this judgment will not be by any prejudices of men, but rather by the applying of God's infallible word. And that word was given by Jesus Himself!

We live in an age of syrupy Christianity, a Christianity which must only speak sweetness and light, never the truths of sin and judgment. I call it the Osteenification of the church. But that is not the Christianity or the Church of Scripture. Shall we live by the standards of a self-esteem world? Or shall we apply the truth of God's Word, and warn of the judgment to come?