God, The Judge of the Heart

By Nathan DuBois
Nate 4 One Nation

Full Preterism vs. Idealism - Part One : Introduction | Part Two - Full Preterism's Achilles Heel | Part Three - Full Preterism's "New" Gospel | Full Preterism vs. Idealism: Part Four : Full Preterism's Single Dimension Focus

My Thoughts and Understanding of Preterist Idealism | God, The Judge of the Heart | Why I Needed to Repent: A Letter to a Friend... Among Friends | The Nature of the Christ: The Dilema of Chronology | Scripture Interprets Scripture: Part One - The Covenants, The Jerusalems, The Flesh and The Spirit | Response to "Expectations Demand a Rapture" | Nate4OneNation

How can God judge the world with an event like AD 70?

It is said that the hidden things would be judged, the inner thoughts would be judged, the world would be judged. How is this possible through the destruction of a temple? And more importantly, how can we, beyond the "end times" (supposedly), be judged according to that judgment which came at the Parousia?

I had a previous assumption; that chronologically every man living or dead or yet to be born was judged in AD 70, and that judgment was applied at that time forever. I believed that the effects of that judgment were felt throughout time. This was an easy answer to satisfy my purely chronological view of events of both the earthly and heavenly things.

My question now is, how is that judgment carried out by the destruction of a temple, especially when the names of the righteous were already written in the book of life from the foundation?

For whom was this judgment?

Did God make this judgment in AD 70 because He needed to scrub His book and make a decision?

Had not God's will already judged that Abraham and David and such WERE righteous?

It is only for OUR purposes that we are judged!

It is the revealing of the truth to our hearts and by that, we are condemned or made righteous. That judgment takes place in the heart.

In AD 70, a Jew may not have been in Jerusalem, or put to death by the Romans, to have been judged by Christ in His appearance. All a Jew had to see was the vindication of Christ. All he had to know in his heart was that he was on the wrong side of the temple. That his law and his covenant were meaningless because they were fulfilled by Christ whom he had rejected.

Judgment came to the world, because all are judged by the gospel and their response to it. It is the SAME WAY that men are judged today. There is no difference, and it continues.

1Co 4:5 - Therefore don't judge anything prematurely, before the Lord comes, who will both bring to light what is hidden in darkness and reveal the intentions of the hearts. And then praise will come to each one from God.

John 7:24 - Stop judging according to outward appearances; rather judge according to righteous judgment."

This is the only possible way for all men to be judged or to have been judged at that time, both the living and the dead.

The gospel is living, it is active. Today men are judged righteous or unrighteous by being "in Christ" or not.  Judgment accompanied the kingdom because it was at the "revelation of Christ" in AD 70, to the world, that men were judged by the gospel vs. the law. The law had been given to the Jew, and until Christ, it had been made known that the Jew would be judged by the law. But Christ came, fulfilling the law, and revealed that it was by the heart of men that we are judged. Though a Jew might have followed the letter of the law externally, his heart had broken that same law. This is all over Matthew 5-7. So until Christ was revealed in glory in AD 70 to the world as the true messiah, even to the unbelieving Jew, that law "stood in the way." The Jewish system had to be destroyed in order for those whose hearts were hardened to see that Christ was the true Messiah, that it was by their response to the gospel in their hearts that they have been condemned or made righteous. The revelation of Christ in His kingdom brought that very judgment to the world.

The issue here is do we limit that judgment to an AD 70 timeline? Or is that same judgment every bit as active and ongoing today as ever?

Can we not say that the judgment was occurring before it was revealed?

Does it matter that it had not been revealed to the whole world yet if God was still judging Abraham by the response to God in His heart? Or David having a heart after God's own heart?

God did not change the way man was judged in AD 70, man had always been judged by the heart. It just had not been revealed to us through the gospel until Christ came and completed His work, which was the revelation of God.

John 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. 4 In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. 5 And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.

The purpose and work of Christ was revelation. The revelation of God through Christ brought judgment, in His revelation came salvation. Christ was God, performing a mission of God, that mission was to reveal God to man. Judgment, the cross, the resurrection, was just an aspect of that revelation.

John 6:29 Jesus answered and said to them, "This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He sent." 30 Therefore they said to Him, "What sign will You perform then, that we may see it and believe You? What work will You do? 31 Our fathers ate the manna in the desert; as it is written, 'He gave them bread from heaven to eat.' " F23 32 Then Jesus said to them, "Most assuredly, I say to you, Moses did not give you the bread from heaven, but My Father gives you the true bread from heaven. 33 For the bread of God is He who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world." 34 Then they said to Him, "Lord, give us this bread always." 35 And Jesus said to them, "I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me shall never hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst. 36 But I said to you that you have seen Me and yet do not believe. 37 All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out. 38 For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me. 39 This is the will of the Father who sent Me, that of all He has given Me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up at the last day. 40 And this is the will of Him who sent Me, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in Him may have everlasting life; and I will raise him up at the last day."

John 14:6 Jesus said to him, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me. 7 "If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also; and from now on you know Him and have seen Him." 8 Philip said to Him, "Lord, show us the Father, and it is sufficient for us." 9 Jesus said to him, "Have I been with you so long, and yet you have not known Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; so how can you say, 'Show us the Father'? 10 Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me? The words that I speak to you I do not speak on My own authority; but the Father who dwells in Me does the works. 11 Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father in Me, or else believe Me for the sake of the works themselves.

God Bless
Nate

Many thanks Nate. You are clearly not dismissing the temple judgment, despite the continual charges of ignoring the outward to see the inward.

You are not dismissing the natural show, but rather illuminating it; you are allowing the temple to stand (and fall) for that which it was always intended - a visible show of invisible things.

To do otherwise is to risk giving greater glory to the shadow than is due.. neglecting to properly glorify the substance to which it ministers.

To me, that seems akin to the account in Revelation 19:10:

And I fell at his feet to worship him. And he said unto me, See thou do it not: I am thy fellowservant, and of thy brethren that have the testimony of Jesus: worship God: for the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.

blessings!
todd