Judgement By Gospel part 8

Judged by Good News

A Reflection on John 12, Acts 17, and the Gospel That Gives Life

We’ve been spending time in John 12, where Jesus tells us something stunning. He says that He judges no one. He speaks only what He hears from the Father, and the Father’s commandment is life. Yet Jesus also says that the words He speaks will judge in the end.

So what does that mean?

Paul gives us clarity in Romans:

“In the day when God will judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ, according to my gospel.”— Romans 2:16 (NKJV)

Judgment, Paul says, is according to the gospel — according to the good news. There will indeed be a judgment, a crisis, a revealing. But the standard of that judgment is not fear, condemnation, or religious performance. The standard is the gospel itself.

What Is the Good News?

Many people assume the good news sounds something like this: If I do something, God will have mercy on me. If I perform well enough, God will forgive me.

But that is not good news at all.

The good news is that God has already done something.

“[Jesus] was delivered because of our offenses, and was raised because of our justification.”— Romans 4:25

God has already made His judgment concerning humanity — and His verdict is life. Just like in Ezekiel when God passed by the abandoned infant and said, “Live,” God has spoken life over us, in Christ.

So we are judged according to the gospel, according to grace, not law.

Declaring the Unknown God

Paul gives us a powerful example of how this gospel sounds when proclaimed to any and all people.

In Acts 17, Paul is preaching in Athens. The city is filled with idols and temples, including one dedicated “To the Unknown God.” Paul says, That’s the God I want to declare to you: the One you worship without really knowing.

He tells them that this God created the world and everything in it, and that:

“In Him we live and move and have our being.”

Paul is saying this to pagans not church people, not Bible scholars. Not believers in the Messiah. He’s telling them that their very existence is sustained by God, that God is not distant or angry or absent, but present and sustaining every breath they take.

He goes on to say:

“He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their pre-appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation, so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us.”— Acts 17:26–27

If God is big enough to determine the times and places of our lives, if He’s big enough to decide whether you’re born in Texas or Louisiana or anywhere else, then surely He’s big enough to save you.

This is not a small God Paul is describing. This is a God who knows the end from the beginning.

We Are His Offspring

Then Paul says something that still shocks religious thinking:

“As also some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are also His offspring.’”— Acts 17:28

Offspring means someone born of another. Paul is telling pagans, people outside the covenant, outside the law that they are God’s offspring.

In other words: God is your Father.

That may sound radical to religious ears, but it’s exactly what Paul preached to people who had never read the Bible. We need a religious system to talk us out of what the apostle plainly declared.

God created humanity to dwell on the earth so that we might find Him yet He is never far from any of us. It is in Him that we live, move, and have our being.

Repentance: A Change of Mind

Paul continues:

“Truly, these times of ignorance God overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent.”— Acts 17:30

The word repent is metanoia: to change the way you think, to see differently, to adopt a new perspective about God and yourself. It is not about shame or fear. It is about awakening to truth.

A Judgment in Righteousness

Paul then says:

“He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man whom He has ordained. He has given assurance of this to all by raising Him from the dead.”— Acts 17:31

Notice two critical things.

First, the judgment is in righteousness — not wrath.

Second, God has given assurance to all by raising Jesus from the dead.

That brings us right back to John 12. Jesus said He does not judge anyone. The word that judges is the Father’s command and that command is life.

Paul confirms this again in Romans:

“He was delivered because of our offenses, and was raised because of our justification.”— Romans 4:25

The resurrection of Jesus is God’s public declaration that humanity has been justified. That is the assurance given to all.

Judgment, then, is not about exclusion. It is the unveiling of what God has already accomplished in Christ.

Good news indeed.