Why God’s Judgement Is Good News: A Biblical Look

How to Spot Media Bias: A Case Study From the Howe Controversy

It’s hard to think of a Christian doctrine that makes modern people more uncomfortable than judgement. Hell, wrath, condemnation and punishment sit awkwardly beside a God of love, and many believers quietly avoid the subject. Preachers skip it, and many of us would prefer to leave it in the footnotes of our faith.

Earlier this year, according to a recent sermon-based article on The Daily Declaration by Cody Mitchell, the Oxford Union held a debate on the motion “This House Hopes that Hell Exists.” Whatever one thinks of the wording, it points to something interesting. Even in a secular setting, people are curious about whether there is a moral reckoning at the end of things.

Mitchell, who preached on the topic at Moree Baptist Church, argues that God’s judgement is something Christians can actually celebrate, not just tolerate, and that the good news is that mercy comes before it. This post takes up that theme, adds some background, looks at how Christians differ on the details, and offers some cautions about holding this doctrine with humility and tenderness.

Why the Doctrine Is So Hard

It’s worth starting with honesty. There are good reasons why people struggle with divine judgement:

• Our culture prizes tolerance and avoids statements that sound like moral condemnation.
• The doctrine has been abused. Fear-based preaching and spiritual manipulation have left deep wounds, and some people associate judgement with controlling or cruel religion.
• It touches the people we love. The thought that someone’s final destiny might be sorrowful is painful for any parent, spouse or friend.
• It seems to clash with love. If God is love, how can he judge? That question has troubled believers and sceptics for centuries.
• We don’t want to be judged ourselves. Most of us are uncomfortable with the idea that our own lives will be examined.

None of those reactions is foolish. A Christian understanding of judgement has to take them seriously.

What God Himself Says About It

A good place to start is with what the Bible says about God’s attitude. Contrary to some caricatures, Scripture doesn’t portray God as eager to condemn.

In Ezekiel 18:23, God asks whether he takes any pleasure in the death of the wicked, and answers that he would rather they turn from their ways and live. In Ezekiel 33:11, he says again that he takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked and pleads, “Turn, turn from your evil ways!” In 2 Peter 3:9, the apostle says the Lord is patient, not wanting anyone to perish, but all to come to repentance. And Jesus wept over Jerusalem (Luke 19:41), the city that was heading for judgement.

So whatever Scripture teaches about judgement, it doesn’t picture a God who gloats. It pictures a God who pleads, waits and grieves.

Why the Bible Can Still Call Judgement Good News

Yet the same Bible also speaks of God’s judgement as a cause for joy. This is where many modern readers are surprised.

Psalm 96 calls on the heavens to rejoice, the sea to roar and the trees of the forest to sing for joy, because the Lord is coming to judge the earth. He will judge the world with righteousness and the peoples with truth. Psalm 98 says much the same. Isaiah 11:3–4 describes a coming ruler who will judge the poor with righteousness and decide with equity for the meek of the earth. Paul tells the persecuted Thessalonians that it is just of God to repay those who afflict them, and to give relief to those who suffer (2 Thessalonians 1:6–7). And in Revelation 6:10, the martyrs cry out, asking how long it will be until God judges and avenges their blood.

What do these texts have in common? In each case, the judgement being celebrated is the putting right of wrongs. It’s the answer to the cry of the oppressed. The joy of the psalmists isn’t a delight in suffering, but relief that the Judge of all the earth will finally act.

An argument from conscience

Mitchell draws on C. S. Lewis’s observation in Mere Christianity, that when people quarrel, they appeal to a shared sense of fair play: “That’s my seat, I was there first,” or “You promised.” We all assume a moral standard that others should know and keep. Paul says something similar in Romans 2:14–15, that the requirements of the law are written on human hearts, and our consciences bear witness to them.

The point is a powerful one. When we see injustice, whether a petty cheat or a genocide, something in us demands that it be made right. If we feel that, how much more must the perfectly good God? Our outrage at evil is a faint echo of his. In that sense, we agree with God about judgement more than we realise.

An argument from violence

The theologian Miroslav Volf has made a striking argument along related lines. Writing out of his experience of the Balkan wars, he suggested that belief in a God who will finally judge evil is not a threat to peace but a support for it. If we believe that ultimate justice is in God’s hands, we’re freed from the need to take vengeance ourselves. That fits what Paul says in Romans 12:19–21: do not repay evil with evil, but leave room for God’s wrath, and overcome evil with good.

On this view, a world with no final accounting would be a world where victims never receive justice, and where the powerful would always win. Divine judgement is the guarantee that this isn’t so.

But Here’s the Catch

If the story ended there, it would be good news only for the victims, and it would be terrifying for the rest of us. And that’s exactly Paul’s point in Romans 2:1–5. We’re quick to condemn others for the very things we do ourselves, and we imagine we’ll escape. The next chapter delivers the verdict: all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23).

This is what turns a comfortable doctrine into an uncomfortable one. If we agree with God’s standards, then we agree with them when they’re applied to us. We can’t have a God who judges the wicked and exempts ourselves.

Mercy First

The gospel announces that God has done something about this dilemma. Romans 3:21–26 explains that God’s righteousness has been revealed in Jesus Christ, that we are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ, whom God put forward as a sacrifice of atonement. In the cross, God shows that he is both just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus. He doesn’t ignore sin, and he doesn’t abandon sinners. He takes the penalty himself.

That’s why Jesus can say, in John 3:17, that God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save it. In John 12:47, he says that he came not to judge the world but to save it, while also warning that the word he has spoken will be the judge on the last day.

This is the order of the New Testament’s story: first mercy, then judgement. We live in what Mitchell calls the time of mercy, the interval in which God is patiently offering forgiveness to all who will receive it. Mitchell also notes that, according to the early Christian writer Tertullian, the early Christians prayed for the delay of the end. Peter gives a similar reason: the Lord’s patience is salvation (2 Peter 3:15). The delay isn’t indifference. It’s an opportunity.

How Christians Differ on the Details

It’s important to be clear that, while all orthodox Christians affirm that Christ will come to judge the living and the dead, they differ on what the final outcome looks like. Broadly, there are three positions within the Christian tradition:

• Eternal conscious punishment. This has been the majority view across church history, held by thinkers such as Augustine, Aquinas and Jonathan Edwards, and by many modern evangelicals such as J. I. Packer. It holds that those who finally reject God experience a conscious, unending separation from him.
• Conditional immortality (annihilationism). Held by a minority of evangelicals, including scholars such as Edward Fudge, and tentatively considered by John Stott, this view argues that Scripture’s language of “destruction” and “perishing” means the wicked will ultimately cease to exist, while only the redeemed receive eternal life.
• Universalism, and hopeful universalism. Some Christians, from Origen and Gregory of Nyssa in the early centuries to some modern theologians, have argued that God’s love will in the end win everyone. Most churches have rejected dogmatic universalism, but some theologians have kept a hope that God’s grace may reach further than we expect.

These are serious disagreements, and sincere believers hold each of them. What they have in common is a conviction that God is just, that evil will be dealt with, and that Christ is the only hope. It’s worth holding our own view firmly where Scripture is clear, and humbly where it’s less so.

Many writers, including Lewis, have also stressed that hell is not a place where God arbitrarily forces people, but, in some sense, the final choice of a person who refuses God. That’s one way of understanding how a loving God and a real hell can both be true. It’s not the only way, and people differ on whether it explains everything.

Our Take

Here’s where we’d like to add some commentary.

1. Celebrating justice isn’t the same as gloating.

Scripture forbids us from rejoicing when an enemy falls (Proverbs 24:17). When James and John wanted to call down fire on a village that rejected Jesus, he rebuked them (Luke 9:54–55). What the Psalms celebrate is the end of oppression and the vindication of the innocent, not the suffering of any individual. We should be able to long for justice while still weeping over those who may face it.

2. Judgement should humble us before it comforts us.

It’s tempting to apply this doctrine to other people. But the first person under the spotlight is ourselves. That should make us gentle, not harsh, and grateful, not smug.

3. Don’t use it as a weapon.

For people who have been wounded by threatening, fear-based religion, it’s vital that we speak about judgement together with its context: the character of God, the cross and the offer of mercy. Judgement without grace isn’t the gospel.

4. Be especially tender with the grieving.

Someone whose loved one died without faith needs compassion, not a lecture. We can say honestly that God is just and merciful, that we trust him with those we love, and that none of us knows the secrets of another heart.

5. Let it fuel justice now.

If God cares about justice, so should we. Amos 5:24 calls for justice to roll like a river, and Micah 6:8 calls us to act justly. A doctrine of final justice should lead to active compassion for the oppressed and the vulnerable in the present.

6. Use the time we’ve been given.

If this is the age of mercy, the church’s priority is clear: pray, serve, proclaim the good news and live in a way that shows what it means. Paul’s charge to Timothy (2 Timothy 4:1–5) links the coming judgement of the living and the dead with the urgent task of preaching the word.

The Other Side of the Conversation

In fairness, here are some other voices:

• Sceptics and some believers object that eternal punishment seems out of proportion to finite sins, and that it’s hard to square with a God who is love. This is probably the most common objection, and it’s the reason annihilationism and universalism have found advocates.
• Those who have experienced spiritual abuse may find talk of judgement painful, because it was used to frighten and control them. For them, careful pastoral care, not argument, is needed.
• Some biblical scholars argue that many of the “celebration” texts refer to God’s rescuing his people and putting the world right, and that it’s a mistake to read them as applying directly to the final destiny of individuals.
• Traditional voices respond that Scripture’s warnings are too frequent and too serious to be softened, and that Jesus himself spoke more about hell than any other figure in the New Testament.
• Some Christians worry that emphasising judgement can distort evangelism, turning it into threat, while others worry that not mentioning it leaves the gospel incomplete.

Each of these perspectives deserves a hearing. A mature response will hold on to the clear teaching of Scripture, admit what we don’t know, and treat people with kindness.

Practical Steps

• Read the key texts slowly. Try Psalm 96, Psalm 98, Genesis 18:25, Romans 2–3 and John 3:16–21, and notice the tone.
• Pray for a heart that matches God’s. Ask him to break your heart for the things that break his, and to give you both a hunger for justice and compassion for those who need mercy.
• Pray for those who are suffering injustice, and look for ways to help.
• Talk about it honestly, with a pastor or trusted friend, if this doctrine troubles you.
• Share the good news. The reason the doctrine matters is that there is a Saviour.

Questions to Reflect On

• How do I feel when I think about God as Judge, and why?
• Where do I most long to see justice done, in my own life or in the world?
• Have I been quick to judge others while forgetting my own need of mercy?
• Who in my life needs to hear the good news that mercy is on offer?
• What would change if I took the “time of mercy” seriously?

A Short Prayer

Lord God, Judge of all the earth, you do what is right. We thank you that you see every injustice, hear every cry and will one day make all things new. We confess that we too stand in need of mercy. Thank you for Jesus, who bore what we deserved. Soften our hearts toward those who suffer and those who are lost, and give us courage and compassion to share your good news while there is still time. Come, Lord Jesus. Amen.