Psalms 50:3-5 “Our God shall come, and shall not keep silent; a fire shall devour before Him, and it shall be very tempestuous all around Him. (4) He shall call to the heavens from above, And to the earth, that He may judge His people: (5) “Gather My saints together to Me, Those who have made a covenant with Me by sacrifice.”
At our Lord’s second coming He will not come directly to the earth, but rather He will first descend to the spiritual realm just above the earth called “the air”, which is why the scripture speaks of the saints rising to meet Him in the air (1 Thessalonians 4:17). We know that this is a spiritual realm because Satan is called the “prince of the power of the air” (Ephesians 2:2) and it is that realm that Satan and his angels currently inhabit, which is why scripture describes the saints wrestling against spiritual wickedness in heavenly places (Ephesians 6:12). Scripture reveals to us that just before the Antichrist sets up his reign in the temple, that war will break out in heaven and Michael and his angels will cast Satan and his angels out of their realm to the earth (Revelation 12:7-9). And so when our Lord Jesus returns, it will be to that realm of heaven which as a newly conquered territory would have become a part of His domain, and it is in that place that the Lord Jesus will enter into judgement with His saints. The above quoted passage of scripture describes this event to us by telling us that the Lord’s saints will be gathered to Him from both the heavens and the earth, to be judged by Him in that location.
2 Corinthians 5:10 “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive the things done in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad.”
In the above quoted passage of scripture the apostle Paul refers to the judgement of the saints, for this letter was addressed to the church. And so it will be during the three-year period that the earth incurs the wrath of God that we as Christians, will stand before the Lord Jesus to give an account of our lives on the earth. It will be at that time that each saint will either receive reward or experience loss, depending on what we have done with our lives as believers (1 Corinthians 3:12-15). This will be the saints’ eternal judgement, in that the judgement pronounced by the Lord Jesus on each saint in that day, will determine their standing in the kingdom of God for all eternity. However, this will not be a judgement to determine who will and will not be saved, for our Lord Jesus has taught us that as believers, we have already passed from death into life and thus we will not incur the judgement of condemnation (John 5:24).
Michael E.B. Maher
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