Divine Judgment & Final Salvation
In her catechetical tradition, the Catholic Church points to 4 realities that we need to reflect on during this life: death, judgment, heaven and hell. They are called “The 4 Last Things” and are collectively known as “the Eschaton.” We do not have the time to delve deeply into each of these but we will give a cursory overview of each.
Each and every one of us will one day die. Death is the result of original sin, and all of us are subject to its effects. What happens when a person dies? Man is a body-soul composite being. Death is the separation of the soul from the body, thus the ending of our earthly life. Once we are out of this life, we can no longer repent and change our ways. Our choice of either having accepted God’s love and grace, or proudly rejecting them, is fixed forever. Upon death, the soul is immediately brought before the Throne of God for judgment.
There are two kinds of judgment: Particular and General.
The particular judgment is when the individual soul stands before God and has his every thought, every word, every action, and every omission revealed to him in the light of God’s own love & justice. In this judgment, man receives final punishment or reward. Ultimately, he will be judged by just how much he loved God and His fellow man while he lived on earth.
Judgment is a natural function of Christ’s kingship in Heaven. It is to Christ, as the Son of God, the Messiah, the King, that God the Father has conferred the power of bringing all Humanity to judgment. We discover this reality of the particular judgement in sacred scripture by examining the short dialogue between Christ and the repentant thief, Saint Dismas. Christ’s response to Dismas gives us a clear indicator that our eternal lot begins the very day of our death: “This day,” said Jesus, “you will be with me in paradise.”
For the Christian who lives faithfully in accordance with God’s loving Will, judgment becomes nothing more than returning to the abode of the Father whom he has loved in this life. For the man who has deliberately and willfully chosen to live a life away from God, choosing created goods, even other people, over and beyond loving and serving God, then judgment becomes a time of reckoning, where recompense is to be made for all the sins that have offended the all-holy, almighty God. Fulton Sheen, the great preacher, warns us about this, “When the curtain goes down on the last day, and we respond to the curtain call of judgment, we will not be asked what part we played, but how well we played the part that was assigned to us.”
The second judgment is known as the “general” or “final judgment.” At the second coming of Christ, every human being who has ever lived will be judged by Him according to God’s full justice and mercy. In Matthew 25:31-46, Christ Himself narrates the events that will take place during the general judgment. We can also read about these events in the book of revelation.
At the general judgment, the souls of those who have died will be reunited with their former bodies, now resurrected and “glorified.” For people who are still living at the time of the general judgment, their bodies will be immediately “transformed” into the glorified state.
After this, Christ will “separate the sheep from the goats,” granting the inheritance of the kingdom of God to “the sheep” on his right because, during their time on Earth, they loved their fellow man in light of the love of God. The “goats” will receive eternal damnation for precisely the opposite reason; for they loved themselves above and beyond God and their fellow man.
In the general judgment, the actions of every single person from the beginning of history to the last man will be revealed to everyone, and we will view all these actions through the eyes of God’s own justice and mercy. It must be noted that the general judgment does not reverse the verdict of the particular judgment. Those who had previously received eternal damnation will return to hell while those who were given eternal life will remain in heaven. After this general judgment, earthly history is completed. Only the Kingdom of God, experienced as Heaven for some, and Hell for others, will exist.
Heaven is the state of eternal beatitude. It is the reward for those souls that have passed from this earth in friendship with God, or as the Church also puts it, “in a state of sanctifying grace.” The infinite happiness to be received in Heaven is the result of the soul beholding the face of the Infinitely God.
For souls that pass from this earth in a state of sanctifying grace but with debts of justice upon their souls that require purification, they experience an intermediate state prior to receiving the happiness of Heaven. This state is called “purgatory.” The imperfections that are upon the soul, while not mortally wounding, mar divine love within the soul. In Purgatory, the fiery love of God purifies the soul as by fire like a refiner and purifier of silver and Gold. The wondrous hope of Purgatory is that it is not permanent. After being purified, the soul will be in heaven.
Hell is the state of eternal damnation for the souls that loved created goods and persons more than God, the Creator, and in this way have rejected God here on earth. The existence of hell can be explained in this way: An all-loving God will not impose Himself upon any man or woman that does not love him. This is why CS Lewis wrote in his seminal work The Problem of Pain, “I truly believe that the souls in hell are, in one sense, successful rebels to the end; that the doors of hell are locked on the inside.” God continues to pursue each soul relentlessly while he or she is still alive. Death metaphysically seals the state of the soul; and the soul that rejected God in this life, rejects Him completely for the hereafter.
In looking at all of these Mysteries, we see that God has ordained all things in the order of his own love. Everything has been orchestrated in, through, for, and by his love. St. Catherine of Siena reiterates this reality by asserting, “Everything comes from love, all is ordained for the salvation of man, God does nothing without this goal in mind.”
This, therefore, is a brief overarching presentation of the “four last things,” which are indeed mysteries. The fact of the matter is, the entire Christian life should be lived in anticipation of these 4 Mysteries, so as to avoid the fourth of them, hell. As the Church Fathers so boldly wrote, the Christian does not fear death; in fact, he runs boldly into death knowing that through his trust in the Love of God, his lot will be Resurrection to Life in Christ Jesus.