Revelation 20:11-15

And now the chapter closes with the scene of the final and general judgment. "And I saw a great white throne and him that sat upon it from whose face the earth and heaven fled away." Then follows a description of the judgment.

Here is the place to put the second coming of Jesus Christ; when he sits on his throne and summons the whole human race to judgment. This is just the way, and the place in time, in which Christ himself described his coming. In Matthew 25:31 Christ says: "When the Son of Man shall come in his glory, then shall he sit on the throne of his glory and before him shall be gathered all nations and he shall separate them one from another as a shepherd divideth the sheep from the goats" his coming at the judgment. "The earth and heaven fled away;" so Peter writes that on that day that cometh as a thief, "the heavens shall depart as a scroll."

Some one may say that this is not much description of the second coming. Well the Bible nowhere gives us much description of it; it may not lend itself to much description, for it is "in the twinkling of an eye at the last trump." But sufficient description is given to connect it with the final judgment.

Here then we have the great judgment throne, and the dead small and great stand before God. The sea gives up the dead which were in it and death and hades give up the dead in them, and they are judged, every man according to their works. These terms are surely universal enough to include the whole human race, the dead small and great, the dead without distinction, the dead in the sea, and the dead in death and hades. Here is a general resurrection and a general judgment, if language means anything.

But the premillennialist tells us that this is the resurrection and judgment of the wicked only. He is driven to that because he has already resurrected the righteous at the beginning of the millennium, and so denies that they are represented here.

But besides the universal terms already mentioned, observe that the 'book of life' is here. The book of life is the list of the redeemed. Verse fifteen tells us: "Whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire." All the world falls into two classes; those who are written in the book of life and those who are not. Here then is evidence of the righteous as well as of the wicked. The destiny of the wicked is shown; they are cast into the lake of fire and we are told, "This is the second death." Into that lake of fire we saw that the beast and false prophet were cast, then we saw Satan consigned to the same place, and here his followers meet the same fate. If it is objected that here we have no mention of the destiny of the righteous and therefore they could not have been in this scene, we reply that the book of Revelation does not end here and that the story is to be continued and we shall see the destiny of the righteous in the portion that is yet to come.