Someday you will stand before God.
What feeling did that statement evoke in you? Due to our innate feeling of sin and of God’s God-ness (or “holiness”), we fear.
But what if
“The one who is our Judge,
is He who pleads for us”?*
What if the God we’ll stand in front of will be enthusiastically for us on that Judgement Day?
Two Main (and Opposite) Responses
It’s ironic that the two main human responses to such an idea are polar opposites. The first response, which has become more common in our culture, is “Of course!” People presume that if there is a God he must be for us. Of course he must be on our side. After all, we’re pretty great, and (the reasoning goes) God is love and so he must be for each of us no matter what.
But the other response is “Impossible.” This has been the default reaction in human history (and is probably more innate to each of us even today when we’re clear-minded and alone) to the idea that God can truly be enthusiastically for us on Judgment Day. Our guilt and shame are too obvious. We deep down know that whoever God is, he’s definitely perfect—or at least much better than us! God being enthusiastically for us seems unrealistic.
The Enthusiastic God in the Gospel of Christ
Yet this is exactly what the Christian gospel teaches. The Bible explains our brokenness, our guilt, and our shame; it explains how we’ve dreadfully defied the glory of God; and it addresses how God cannot sweep these issues under the rug. But the Bible also explains that God himself has made a way to deal with our personal wrongs to truly be dealt with. And dealt with in an enthusiastic way—a way where God is glorified as he rejoices with his whole heart to do us good (Jeremiah 32:41).
The gospel of Christ is in essence: Because of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection, people who deserve the opposite get God’s enthusiastic approval.
Again, the wonder of it all is that such approval doesn’t come from God looking the other way or begrudgingly forgiving or forsaking some of his justice for our sake. It comes from him doing the most right and beautiful thing that has ever happened. He spreads his Triune glory in a beautiful, fitting way as he forgives rebels and gives them a place in his joy.
In sum, God has made a way for us through Christ to enter into the joy of the Trinity. If you’re a Christian, you’re a part of that.
On Judgment Day
Which brings us back to the above statement: We will each one day stand before God. This is a fact. But it’s equally a fact that if you trust Christ, because of Christ, God will be enthusiastically for you on that day.
I hope now that you and I neither feel “Of course” nor “Impossible” to the idea. There’s can be no “of course” reaction to the gospel. We do not deserve it nor could we ever have dreamed of it. (In fact, that well-known verse about God’s thoughts being different our thoughts and his ways beyond our ways is specifically about his plan of the gospel! See Isaiah 55:7-9, noting the connecting “For” between verse 7 and verses 8-9).
But—mind-boggling and almost unbelievable as it is—there’s also no “impossibile” reaction to the idea of God being enthusiastically for us. It can be done and has been. Through the Son of God the Triune God has made a way for sinners like us to not only be restored from our fallenness, but to enter into the joy of him, our God—to become sons and daughters of God (like Jesus!), to have God be thrillingly on our side.
When we stand before him on Judgment Day it will be a welcoming, a confirming, a declaring of all this—of this gospel; of God’s grace, love, and joy; of his enthusiastically being for us. And specifically for each of us, it will be a marvelous manifestation of how he particularly displayed his excellencies through a unique soul he created. Through you. Through me.
Don’t Get Caught Up, Focus on the Gospel
We don’t know all the details about what Judgment Day will look like. And it’s true that what we did here in our lives will be taken into account and rewarded or disposed of (see 2 Corinthians 5:10 and 1 Corinthians 3:10-15).
But let us not get so caught up in that aspect of it (like we normally do). That’s not the emphasis of Judgment Day. For the Christian, it won’t mainly (even by a long-shot) be about us and what we did.
Judgment Day instead will be a day of declaration and delight. Declaration of the gospel. A display of God’s delight over us and our delight in him.
We’ll see clearer than ever our God. Our Jesus. His gospel.
He’ll be enthusiastically for us.
___
*A lyric from the song “Behold the Lamb of God” by Ghost Ship.
