Why does God Delay Judgment ?
When will His cup be full ?
CK Quarterman
Judgment| Sin
Judgment| Sin
Many today write about the approaching juggernaut of the Apocalypse, and well they should, but why has it taken so long? Man has been upon this rock called Earth some 13,000 years. Surely God has had enough, why does the Almighty delay Judgment?
To begin to answer this question we must go back to a place before time, space and the [i]reality we know now. This is a time in the [ii]eons past when nothing existed but the Father and the Logos. This time is, “in the beginning of his way”, “before his works of old”, before the earth was created, and before the “heavens were prepared”. This is [iii]“from everlasting” a time when the cosmos and its laws (gravitation, diminishing return, and matter) were not in existence. I cannot stress this enough. In order to grasp the concept of judgment, one must grasp the time and place of its beginning. You might notice, I didn’t say anything about sin. We have not gotten there yet. We must first set the stage. We must see who the players are and what is at stake. Sin is a relative newcomer to this stage having been introduced only a mere 500 million years ago. (See Lucifer's Fall)
The earliest thing we are told is that the Father and the Word (Logos) are in the “beginning” and that the Logos created, “all things”. Who was this Logos; this [iv]Logos is Christ as mentioned by John in the Gospel of John [v](John 1:1-3).
We are given some hint of this time when we are told, in a very poetic way, “The LORD possessed me in the beginning of his way, before his works of old. I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth was…….. When he prepared the heavens, I was there:” [vi](Pro. 8:22-31)
We are also told in Job, which most theologians agree is the [vii]oldest of the scriptures, that there is a kind of Divine Council [viii](Job 1:6). We see this Council in Job 15:18, and again most poetically in [ix]Psalm 89:7 "In the council of the holy ones God is greatly feared; he is more awesome than all who surround him." It is a contentious thought in that we are told that there are elders [x](Rev. 5:6) around the throne. John sees the 24 elders sitting upon 24 thrones. We may conclude then that God has a council.
This council is nowhere seen more clearly than in a conversation we are given insight into in 1Kings 22: 20-22 “And Jehovah said, “Who shall entice Ahab, that he may go up and fall at Ramoth-gilead?” And one said on this manner; and another said on that manner. And there came forth a spirit, and stood before Jehovah, and said, “I will entice him.” And Jehovah said to him, “Wherewith?” And he said, “I will go forth, and will be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets.” And he said, “Thou shalt entice him, and shalt prevail also: go forth, and do so.” See Foot Notes[xi]
So in this time before time began, which time we can refer to as “from everlasting”, there was the Father, Son, and a Divine Council. This is alluded to in Genesis when God says, “let us make man in “our” image” [xii](Gen 1:27) but that is getting ahead of the story. In this “from everlasting” period God also must have created the heavenly beings. Because we see Lucifer’s story begin to unfold. So let’s start with what was going on there.
God refers to him by saying, [xiii]“O Lucifer, son of the morning”, and condemns him, for Lucifer's thought, “I will exalt my throne above the stars of God”. Now I often have wondered, what would make some being have this motivation?
It would have to have a basis in something, what is it then? Well first we must examine further both this statement and another where he says, “I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation”. Two things can be inferred from the verbiage here, one is that he had a “throne” and two that there were others watching, “congregation” (an assembly). This is important to remember when we look at the passage in Eze28:13-19.
We are told that he was in, [xiv]“Eden the garden of God, every precious stone was thy covering, thou wast created, Thou art the anointed cherub, and that “iniquity was found in thee”. We usually stop there and look no further, but upon looking further we see, “By the multitude of thy “merchandise” they have filled the midst of thee with violence, by the iniquity of thy “traffick” and because of thy “beauty”, thou hast corrupted thy wisdom. We must again look at the verbiage here; merchandise, traffic, beauty, and don’t forget “throne” and “congregation”!
All of these verbs carry equal weight. Why is it that we have only heard of “beauty”? Could the evil one be trying to hide something about him? I think perhaps so! What do these verbs seem to be saying? Let’s look at them again; they are merchandise, traffic, beauty, throne, and congregation.
Traffic and merchandise seem to carry the weightier side and mean commerce. Beauty and throne implies a set of authority and pomp, much like an earthly ruler. Well that leaves congregation, which is simple, it means a crowd. So let’s put this is context, Lucifer was in the garden (Earth) and had a throne carrying on some sort of commerce. His statement, “I will exalt my throne above the stars of God"can be seen in the dramas about the mob where one godfather decides he wants all of the action. Plainly put, Lucifer’s sin is that he wanted all of the “pie”, meaning he wanted all of the rights to the commerce taking place. The New Testament says [XIX]"the love of money (currency) a “medium of exchange” is the “root” of all evil". This is in basis saying, "the love of" “traffic - trading" or "dealing in a specific commodity or service" with a “medium of exchange”, is the root of all evil, thus referring to Lucifer’s fall in wanting all of the “traffic”.
So Lucifer falls about 500 million [xv](Cambrian–Ordovician extinction event) years ago, well what does that have to do with God delaying Judgment? Remember the verb; “congregation”. The congregation is referring to the other beings in the heavenly realm who observed this drama being played out.
How was it going to affect them? In order to answer this, we must use a worldly example. Let’s say, a man abuses his wife and that he has a child. This child observes this abuse. How will it affect him? Will the effect be seen as he is a child, or will it be years later, when as an adult he is married and has his own wife? The law of averages says he will himself become an abuser. One might say, a seed was planted when he observed the abuse as a child, and later the seed of abuse sprung to full growth when he took a wife at an older age. Could anyone have looked at the child and told that he would grow up to be an abuser? No, it takes time for sin to mature and to grow to its full blown proportions.
So how do we tie all of this together? Well, let’s look at what we have written. We know that before time, in the heavens there were heavenly beings. They observed God in the Council of the Almighty create Lucifer. The “congregation” of the heavenly beings [xvi](Angles and Ministers of Fire) and all of the others observed Lucifer’s bid for a greater “piece of the pie”. It would affect some of them. Its effects would not however be seen until the “end of time”. God of course would and did know in whose being sin had sunk its roots, but this would not be apparent to the other heavenly beings until “sin had run its course”. To see this by example we must look at [xvii]Matt. 13:36 where the tares and the wheat grow together until the end of the world. The reasoning behind this is that wheat and tares cannot be told apart until they mature. Anyone who has done any gardening knows that seedlings look a lot alike, it’s not until they obtain some maturity that they start to visibly differ. This is the same principal as has taken place among the heavenly beings, once having observed sin, it, “sin”, had planted a seed among the heavenly beings. Only in time would that sin mature and the unaffected “congregation” of heavenly beings see those who had allowed sin to harbor within them. This is true, as is evidenced by this parable concerning people, and by principal to those things as we discussed in Hebrews, of things which we do not see.
Yes, this does imply that heavenly beings have continued to “fall” and this is evidenced by [xviii]Gen. 6:1-4 where we see “the sons of God” copulate with the daughters of men and (Nephilim) giants are produced. Where we got the idea that all of the Angels and heavenly beings that were to “fall” all fell at once, I don’t know! Scripture certainly doesn’t say that they did.
Judgment has lingered because all sin in heavenly beings and man must first be made manifest. Once sin has run its full course, and is manifest as evidenced in Matt. 13:36, then Judgment will occur. Hence, the reason judgment has lingered long.
[i] Heb 11:3 Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.
The basic idea is that the fundamental constituents of reality are made from invisible things. This conjecture is contemplated in Superstring theory. Which solves some of the deepest problems in theoretical physics by harmonizing the theory of general relativity, which describes gravitation and applies to large-scale structures (stars, galaxies, super clusters), with quantum mechanics, which describes the other three fundamental forces acting on the atomic scale. These fundamental constituents of reality are strings which vibrate at resonant frequencies so that every string having a unique resonance, or harmonic. Different harmonics determine different fundamental forces and produce the reality we experience. Our minds have difficulty visualizing higher dimensions because we can only move in three spatial dimensions but string theory at last count predicts up to 26 dimensions. Douay-Rheims (Heb. 11:3) - "that from invisible things visible things might be made".
[iii] Everlasting
“The LORD possessed me in the beginning of his way, before his works of old. I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth was. When there were no depths, I was brought forth; when there were no fountains abounding with water. Before the mountains were settled, before the hills was I brought forth: While as yet he had not made the earth, nor the fields, nor the highest part of the dust of the world. When he prepared the heavens, I was there: when he set a compass upon the face of the depth: When he established the clouds above: when he strengthened the fountains of the deep: When he gave to the sea his decree, that the waters should not pass his commandment: when he appointed the foundations of the earth: Then I was by him, as one brought up with him: and I was daily his delight, rejoicing always before him; Rejoicing in the habitable part of his earth; and my delights were with the sons of men. Pro 8:22-31
[iv] Logos
Christ is the Logos (λóγος, the Greek for "word", "wisdom" or "reason") establishing the doctrine of the divinity of Jesus Christ and Jesus as revealer of the deus absconditus the unseen God.
[v] John 1:1-3
1In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2The same was in the beginning with God. 3All things were made by him; and without him was not anything made that was made.
[vi] Pro 8:22-31
“The LORD possessed me in the beginning of his way, before his works of old. I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth was. When there were no depths, I was brought forth; when there were no fountains abounding with water. Before the mountains were settled, before the hills was I brought forth: While as yet he had not made the earth, nor the fields, nor the highest part of the dust of the world. When he prepared the heavens, I was there: when he set a compass upon the face of the depth: When he established the clouds above: when he strengthened the fountains of the deep: When he gave to the sea his decree, that the waters should not pass his commandment: when he appointed the foundations of the earth: Then I was by him, as one brought up with him: and I was daily his delight, rejoicing always before him; Rejoicing in the habitable part of his earth; and my delights were with the sons of men.
[vii] Job
The time in which Job Lived was said by the historian Eusebius to be two ages before Moses, that is, about eighteen hundred years before Christ, or six hundred after the flood.
[viii] Job 1:6
One day the angels came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan also came with them. (NIV)
Now there was a day when the sons (the angels) of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan (the adversary and accuser) also came among them. (AMP)
Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan came also among them. (KJV)
Job 15:8
"Do you listen in on God's council? Do you limit wisdom to yourself?"
[ix] Psalm 89:7
"In the council of the holy ones God is greatly feared; he is more awesome than all who surround him."
[x] Rev 5:6
And I beheld, and, lo, in the midst of the throne and of the four beasts, and in the midst of the elders, stood a Lamb as it had been slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God sent forth into all the earth. Rev. 4:4 Rev. 4:11, Rev. 5:9-10, and Rev. 11:17-18
[xi] 1Kings 22: 20-23
And Jehovah said, “Who shall entice Ahab, that he may go up and fall at Ramoth-gilead?” And one said on this manner; and another said on that manner. And there came forth a spirit, and stood before Jehovah, and said, “I will entice him.” And Jehovah said to him, “Wherewith?” And he said, “I will go forth, and will be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets.” And he said, “Thou shalt entice him, and shalt prevail also: go forth, and do so.” Now therefore, behold, Jehovah hath put a lying spirit in the mouth of all these thy prophets; and Jehovah hath spoken evil concerning thee
Cook
“Visions of the invisible world can only be a sort of parables; revelation, not of the truth as it actually is, but of so much of the truth as can be shown through such a medium. The details of a vision, therefore, cannot safely be pressed, any more than the details of a parable” (Cook, 619). Cook, F.C., (1981 reprint), The Bible Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker), Vol.2.
Adam Clarke
It only tells, “in figurative language, what was in the womb of providence, the events which were shortly to take place, the agents employed in them, and the permission on the part of God for these agents to act” Clarke, Adam (no date), A Commentary and Critical Notes (Nashville, TN: Abingdon), Vol. II.
[xii] Gen. 1:26
And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
[xiii] (Isa 14:12-19)
How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations! For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north: I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High. Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit.
They that see thee shall narrowly look upon thee, and consider thee, saying, Is this the man that made the earth to tremble, that did shake kingdoms; That made the world as a wilderness, and destroyed the cities thereof; that opened not the house of his prisoners? All the kings of the nations, even all of them, lie in glory, every one in his own house. But thou art cast out of thy grave like an abominable branch, and as the raiment of those that are slain, thrust through with a sword, that go down to the stones of the pit; as a carcase trodden under feet.
[xiv] Eze 28:13-19
Thou hast been in Eden the garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius, topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold: the workmanship of thy tabrets and of thy pipes was prepared in thee in the day that thou wast created. Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth; and I have set thee so: thou wast upon the holy mountain of God; thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire. Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee. By the multitude of thy merchandise they have filled the midst of thee with violence, and thou hast sinned: therefore I will cast thee as profane out of the mountain of God: and I will destroy thee, O covering cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire. Thine heart was lifted up because of thy beauty, thou hast corrupted thy wisdom by reason of thy brightness: I will cast thee to the ground, I will lay thee before kings, that they may behold thee. Thou hast defiled thy sanctuaries by the multitude of thine iniquities, by the iniquity of thy traffick; therefore will I bring forth a fire from the midst of thee, it shall devour thee, and I will bring thee to ashes upon the earth in the sight of all them that behold thee. All they that know thee among the people shall be astonished at thee: thou shalt be a terror, and never shalt thou be any more.
[xv]Extinction
The Cambrian–Ordovician extinction event occurred approximately 488 million years ago. It was the first major extinction event in the Phanerozoic eon and it eliminated many brachiopods and conodonts, and severely reduced the number of trilobite species. The Cambrian–Ordovician event ended the Cambrian period, and led into the Ordovician period in the Paleozoic era.
[xvi] Hebrews 1:7
And of the angels he saith, Who maketh his angels spirits, and his ministers a flame of fire.
[xvii] Matt:13:36-43
Then Jesus sent the multitude away, and went into the house: and his disciples came unto him, saying, Declare unto us the parable of the tares of the field. 37 He answered and said unto them, He that soweth the good seed is the Son of man; 38 The field is the world; the good seed are the children of the kingdom; but the tares are the children of the wicked one; 39 The enemy that sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the end of the world; and the reapers are the angels. 40 As therefore the tares are gathered and burned in the fire; so shall it be in the end of this world. 41 The Son of man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity; 42 And shall cast them into a furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth. 43 Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Who hath ears to hear, let him hear.
[xviii] Gen. 6:1-4
1When men began to increase in number on the earth and daughters were born to them, 2the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful, and they married any of them they chose. 3Then the Lord said, “My Spirit will not contend with man forever, for he is mortal; his days will be a hundred and twenty years.”4The Nephilim were on the earth in those days—and also afterward—when the sons of God went to the daughters of men and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown.
[XIX] Love of money
Reaching after, to stretch after, covet after, from phileo, "to love," and arguros, "silver".