The final judgment is vividly portrayed in John’s vision in Revelation:

Many other passages teach this final judgment. Paul tells the Greek philosophers in Athens that God “Now . . . commands all men everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed, and of this he has given assurance to all men by raising him from the dead” (Acts 17:30–31).¹ Similarly, Paul talks about “the day of wrath when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed” (Rom. 2:5). Other passages speak clearly of a coming day of judgment (see Matt. 10:15; 11:22, 24; 12:36; 25:31–46; 1 Cor. 4:5; Heb. 6:2; 2 Peter 2:4; Jude 6; et al.).

This final judgment is the culmination of many precursors in which God rewarded righteousness or punished unrighteousness throughout history. While he brought blessing and deliverance from danger to those who were faithful to him, including Abel, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, David, and the faithful among the people of Israel, he also from time to time brought judgment on those who persisted in disobedience and unbelief: his judgments included the flood, the dispersion of the people from the tower of Babel, the judgments on Sodom and Gomorrah, and continuing judgments throughout history, both on individuals (Rom. 1:18–32) and on nations (Isa. 13–23; et al.) who persisted in sin. Moreover, in the unseen spiritual realm he brought judgment on angels who sinned (2 Peter 2:4). Peter reminds us that God’s judgments have been carried out periodically and with certainty, and this reminds us that a final judgment is yet coming, for “the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trial, and to keep the unrighteousness under punishment until the day of judgment, and especially those who indulge in the lust of defiling passion and despise authority” (2 Peter 2:9–10).

Thus, in a dispensationalist view there are different judgments: (a) a “judgment of the nations” (Matt. 25:31–46) to determine who enters the millennium; (b) a “judgment of believers’ works” (sometimes called the bōma judgment after the Greek word for “judgment seat” in 2 Cor. 5:10) in which Christians will receive degrees of reward; and (c) a “great white throne judgment” at the end of the millennium (Rev. 20:11–15) to declare eternal punishments for unbelievers.²

The view taken in this book is that these three passages all speak of the same final judgment, not of three separate judgments. With regard to Matthew 25:31–46 in particular, it is unlikely that the dispensational view is correct: There is no mention of entering into the millennium in this passage. Moreover, the judgments pronounced speak not of entrance into the millennial kingdom on earth or exclusion from that kingdom but of eternal destinies of people: “Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. . . . Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. . . . And they will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life” (vv. 34, 41, 46). Finally, it would be inconsistent with God’s ways throughout Scripture to deal with people’s eternal destiny on the basis of what nation they belong to, for unbelieving nations have believers within them, and nations that exhibit more conformity to God’s revealed will still have many wicked within them. And “God shows no partiality” (Rom. 2:11). Though indeed “all the nations” are gathered before Christ’s throne in this scene (Matt. 25:32), the picture of judgment is one of judgment on individuals (sheep are separated from goats, and those individuals who treated Christ’s brothers kindly are welcomed into the kingdom while those who rejected them are rejected, vv. 35–40, 42–45).

The final judgment will occur after the millennium and the rebellion that occurs at the end of it. John pictures the millennial kingdom and the removal of Satan from influence on the earth in Revelation 20:1–6, and then says that “when the thousand years are ended, Satan will be loosed from his prison and will come out to deceive the nations . . . to gather them for battle” (Rev. 20:7–8). After God decisively defeats this final rebellion (Rev. 20:9–10), John tells us that judgment will follow: “Then I saw a great white throne and him who sat upon it” (v. 11).

This judgment of unbelievers will include degrees of punishment, for we read that the dead were judged “by what they had done” (Rev. 20:12, 13), and this judgment according to what people had done must therefore involve an evaluation of the works that people have done.^3...