Hebrews (Reformed Expository Commentary) by Richard D. Phillips

Author:Richard D. Phillips
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2011-02-02T16:24:00+00:00

THE FINALITY OF DEATH AND JUDGMENT

A right view of history is important to our writer, and to make things perfectly clear, he relates the history of God's redemptive work to the personal history of every person born on earth: "Just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment, so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many .. " (Heb. 9:27-28). There is a relationship between the personal history of every individual and God's redemptive history that centers on the death of Christ. Indeed, the latter is fitted to the needs of the former, and therefore they are similarly arranged.

The point verse 27 makes is important. People want to know-or at least they should want to know-what happens after they die. Are they disintegrated into nothing, or absorbed into a great impersonal cosmic sea? That was the general view of the ancient Greeks. At best their hope was a vague "if." As the Roman historian Tacitus wrote in eulogy of a man he admired: "If there be any habitation for the spirits of just men, if great souls perish not with the body, mayest thou rest in peace""If" was all he could hope for. Marcus Aurelius, the philosopher-emperor of Rome, could think only of a spark from man's soul returning to be lost forever in God.2 People who look to the Eastern tradition of reincarnation have a hope that is hardly better. They think of souls returning to the earth for near-endless toil in one life after another, until finally they merit the reward of oblivion.

The Christian answer to this question could not be more different. What happens after we die? The answer is in Hebrews 9:27: "It is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment." Therefore, there are no multiplications of a person's life. There is this life and death, and no others, after which comes judgment before God's holy throne. There is a resurrection for both the just and the unjust. All will die, and after death come to stand before God to be measured according to the perfect standard of God's holy law.

This rules out the many "second-chance" theories that are occasionally popular in Christian circles. People like to think that even if we deny Christ in this life and then die in our sins, we can have another chance when we see him after death. Not so, says this passage. After death is judgment. As Jesus warned, "Unless you believe that I am he you will die in your sins" (John 8:24). Indeed, the great gospel verses in John 3 make it plain that those who refuse Jesus Christ will perish: "Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God" (John 3:18).

If you have not reckoned on this reality, if you have not made provision for your coming judgment, a judgment that is as near to you as your death, the date of which you do not know, let this warning apply to you.

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