Jesus often talked about judgment, and in Matthew 13:47-50 He talked about the terrifying place prepared for bad people at the end of the age. But how will He decide who is good and who is bad? Will the dividing line He uses be reasonable or arbitrary? This sermon reflects on that question.
We’re probably less familiar with fishing methods these days. We go to the supermarket and buy fish nicely filleted, but everyone knew how a dragnet worked in Jesus’ day. These long nets could stretch up to half-a-mile. The ends were attached to boats, while the top of the net would have floats and the bottom would have weights attached. As the two boats moved through the water towards the shore, the net would catch everything in its path.
But the concern of the parable is less with the net and more with the fish. They then need to be sorted. The good ones are kept while the bad ones are thrown back. And, says Jesus, that’s how it will be on that final Day of Judgment. Good people will be saved, but bad people will be thrown into a blazing furnace where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Strong words!
But before we get into that, let’s think about the fish. What did Jesus mean by ‘bad’ fish? I don’t think He was commenting on their behaviour, and I don’t think He meant they were diseased. He was probably referring to clean and unclean fish. You’ll probably know that Jews have dietary laws – some creatures are ‘clean’ (i.e. kosher or okay to eat), while others are ‘unclean’ and definitely not for human consumption. The critical distinction when it comes to fish can be found in Leviticus 11:9-10: “Of all the creatures living in the water of the seas and the streams you may eat any that have fins and scales. But all creatures in the seas or streams that do not have fins and scales you are to regard as unclean”.
Now some Christians still hold to these laws, while others say that they were given in an era when food hygiene was harder to manage, and eating some foods was more likely to make you ill. Exodus 15:26 talks about diseases that the Israelites would be protected from if they followed God’s laws. So, for example, you could eat saltwater cod, salmon, sea bass, haddock and mackerel, but you were not allowed to eat freshwater cod, dogfish, skate or sturgeon (so no caviar!).
But all this is just a prelude to what Jesus wants to say about the final judgment. When we stand before God there will be good and bad people, or in the language I’ve just used, clean and unclean. “Who may ascend the hill of the Lord and stand in His holy place”, asks the 24th Psalm? “The one who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not trust in idols or swear by a false gods”.
So I’m thinking: but aren’t we all flawed? Who would dare to say they have clean hands? Sure, there are both amazing and awful people, but in between a whole spectrum of possibilities. Sometimes we get it right, but quite often we get it wrong. Life is a battle – our motives can be mixed, our attitudes can be skewed, our words can be unkind, and each of us has character flaws to which we may well be oblivious. The internationally celebrated evangelist Billy Graham frequently quoted Jeremiah 17:9 in his sermons – “the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” When we song that song ‘Only by grace can we enter’ we rightly come to those disturbing words: ‘Lord, if You count our transgressions, who can stand?’ And then there are the sins of omission to which we confess each Sunday – good things we could have done but failed to do!
But if none of us is clean, is there any basis at all for hope? If there is to be a judgment day, how will God decide who passes the ‘clean enough’ test, and who’s simply too grubby? We know that God is gracious and forgiving, but on what basis will the judgment be made? Will the line be an arbitrary one? Will some scrape over the line while others just miss out? This is a question that has exercised the greatest Christian minds across the centuries, so let me give you a little bit of history to reflect on, and reflecting is all I’m asking you to do today. I want you to think about three big things … the after-life, the meaning of Christ’s death, and faith.
THE AFTER-LIFE
Christians have long believed in heaven and hell. Evangelists preach on it, Christians use phrases like ‘lost eternity’, and at funerals we tend to go soft because we want to see our loved ones again. Some hope that there might be a second chance beyond the grave. In fact, in 1274AD the Western Church led by the Pope articulated a new doctrine – purgatory. It offered hope for those not good enough for heaven to be purged of evil, and that period in purgatory could be aided by their relatives and friends praying for them (hence ‘prayers for the dead’). The Church offered the prospect of eventual promotion to heaven.
Protestant churches like ours don’t buy into that doctrine, but the prospect of unending torment in hell has seemed too harsh for some, and so slightly softer doctrines like annihilation and conditional immortality have proved quite popular. On top of that, the human societies like genetics, psychology and sociology have added a further dimension of complexity. People are far more complicated that we first thought. We inherit character traits and we’re shaped by people and events about us. You’ll often hear that people who abuse others were abused themselves as children. We are victims as well as perpetrators, sinned against as well as sinners. No wonder we should leave the issue of judgment to God!
So you get the sense that a lot of thinking and agonising has gone on. Christians have wanted to be faithful to the teaching of the Bible, but they have had to grapple with the legitimate insights of modern science as well as acknowledging their own inner reservations.
THE DEATH OF CHRIST
The Christian Church has taught for centuries that Jesus’ death was a redemptive act. Just as the blood of the lambs in Egypt saved the lives of the firstborn Israelites, so the death of Jesus, the Lamb of God, has far-reaching effects. In fact, say the NT writers, His death achieves forgiveness for people both across space and time. But how does that work, and why should we believe it? That’s the question that has exercised the greatest Christian minds for centuries.
Well, let me explain a doctrine that is widely believed in our Protestant churches. We owe a great deal to an Archbishop of Canterbury – Anselm. Around the year 1100AD he wrote an important book entitled ‘Cur Deus Homo’ (Latin for ‘Why God became a man’). It was a brilliant piece of scholarship in which he tried to make sense of what the NT writers were saying about how the death of one man, Jesus Christ, could forgive the sins of the whole world. He finished up describing God’s need to satisfy two competing demands – the demands of justice and the demands of love. As a loving father He longs to forgive, as a just judge He is obliged to punish.
Suppose one night I set fire to your house. Suppose your smoke alarm wakes you up and you make your escape with only a few minor burns, but the fire spreads rapidly and the fire-fighters are unable to save your possessions. The subsequent disruption to your life is considerable. The police get involved, and in due course some CCTV footage points to me as the culprit. I’m charged and I stand trial. The evidence is pretty irrefutable. Now, the law doesn’t quite work like this, but indulge me.
The judge asks me: ‘How do you plead?’
I say: ‘Guilty, your honour, but I’d like to add that I’m really very sorry and would like to apologise’.
The judge says: ‘That’s good to hear. Apology accepted. Case dismissed’.
You jump up and say: ‘But what about my house, my possessions, compensation for all the inconvenience we’ve suffered? And if you just let him off, he’ll do it again’.
God, said Anselm, is a father longing to forgive, but He’s also a just judge. And both those demands/urges need to be satisfied. Just saying sorry is not enough. And so God comes in person because He loves us, and on the cross He suffers the punishment that should have been ours. Jesus’ death on our behalf satisfies both God’s judicial obligation to punish sin and His parental longing to forgive sinners. As Isaiah foretold: “Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all”.
We often sing that hymn ‘In Christ alone’ and then that line ‘And on that cross as Jesus died, the wrath of God was satisfied’. It focusses on God the judge and omits God the parent, so a friend of ours wrote to Keith Getty and Stuart Townend and suggested a slight rewording which might better capture the tension in the heart of God: ‘And on that cross as Jesus died, God’s holy love was satisfied’. That phrase ‘holy love’ was used by earlier generations to express exactly that tension, but sadly my friend’s suggestion was politely rejected.
Now Anselm’s view is not the only understanding of how we are made clean in God’s sight. For one thing, it takes our focus away from the life of Jesus, and almost suggests that He only needed to come for a long weekend. But that view has been by far the most influential one among Protestants. 400 years later Martin Luther would talk about ‘imputed righteousness’ – none of us can stand before God and boast about our own goodness, but we stand clothed in Christ’s goodness. In the words of Charles Wesley’s famous hymn:
No condemnation now I dread, Jesus and all in Him is mine
Alive in Him my living Head and clothed in righteousness divine
Bold I approach the eternal throne
And claim the crown through Christ my own
FAITH
Which brings me to our final doctrine … faith. Anselm and Luther have given us food for thought, but are we all automatically saved through what Jesus has done? Will people of other Faiths and cultures, will kind-hearted humanists, will people with severe learning disabilities, will tyrannical imperialist like Hitler and Stalin, will Lucy Letby? Will everyone reap the benefits of Christ’s sacrifice regardless of what they’ve done in this world? Some Christians say ‘yes’, and you probably need to listen to their arguments before you dismiss them. But during this series on the parables of Matthew 13, I’ve been dealt the two which very clearly talk of judgment. And from reading Jesus, it’s hard to conclude that everyone will be saved.
So how can a person benefit from a sacrifice made 2000 years ago? Once again I’m simplifying centuries of debate. Jesus used different words – have faith, believe, follow. But 2000 years on those words convey different ideas in English. For us the word ‘believe’ has a pretty passive feel to it – God does everything, I do nothing. I believe I can cook a meal, but I leave it to my wife. Linford Christie once said he believed he could run the 100m in 9.6 seconds, but that he wasn’t practising it yet. The Devil could happily say the creed, but he clearly doesn’t follow Jesus!
By contrast, the word ‘follow’ suggests something more. Firstly, you believe the good news Jesus offers the world, but in the light of that, you decide to change direction and walk in His ways. Salvation is still an act of grace, but it requires a life-changing response. That’s why, with Jesus, salvation is ultimately associated with what you do.
J.C. Ryle, the first Bishop of Liverpool, would regularly ordain new priests. Each time, on the evening before, he would talk through the service with the ordinands, but then he said this: Tomorrow you will need to respons to a series of questions. I will ask you again and again ‘Will you?’, but there will come a day when you will stand before God and He will ask you ‘Did you?’
As Claire told us two weeks ago, there are 2.2 billion Christians in the world. I don’t know how many of them are genuine or what exactly they believe. But one day God will sort out the sheep from the goats, the wheat from the chaff, the clean from the unclean. Before that day comes, we need to reflect on the extraordinary sacrifice Jesus made, and on his challenging call to follow.
St. George's Church Ramsgate 