1. God is the judge of the living and the dead. The final judge. The judge of all.
Even in the catechesis preceding the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Gentiles, Saint Peter proclaims of Christ: “He is the judge of the living and the dead, appointed by God” (Acts 10:42). This divine power (“exousía”) is, already in Christ’s teaching, linked to the Son of Man. The well-known passage on the Last Judgement in the Gospel of Matthew begins with the words: “When the Son of Man comes in his glory with all his angels, he will sit on the throne of his glory. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate them one from another, as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats” (Mt 25:31–33). The text then describes the course of the judgement and foretells the verdict, that of approval: “Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world” (Mt 25:34); and that of condemnation: “Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels” (Mt 25:41).
2. Jesus Christ, who is the Son of Man, is at the same time true God because he possesses the divine power to judge human works and consciences, and this power is definitive and universal. He himself explains why he alone has this power, saying: “For the Father judges no one, but has entrusted all judgement to the Son, so that all may honour the Son just as they honour the Father” (Jn 5:22–23).
Jesus links this power with the ability to give life. “Just as the Father raises the dead and gives life, so also the Son gives life to whom he wills” (Jn 5:21). “For just as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son to have life in himself; and he has given him the power to judge, because he is the Son of Man” (Jn 5:26–27). Thus, according to this statement of Jesus, the divine power to judge has been linked to the mission of Christ as Saviour, as Redeemer of the world. And judging itself belongs to the work of salvation, to the order of salvation: it is a definitive salvific act. For the purpose of judgement is full participation in divine life as the ultimate gift bestowed upon man: the definitive fulfilment of his eternal vocation. At the same time, the power to judge is linked to the outward revelation of the Father’s glory in his Son as the Redeemer of mankind. “For the Son of Man will come in the glory of his Father . . . and will repay each person according to their deeds” (Mt 16:27). The order of justice has been inscribed, from the very beginning, within the order of grace. The Last Judgement must be the definitive confirmation of this bond: Jesus clearly states that “the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of the Father” (Mt 13:43), but no less clearly he also announces the rejection of those who have committed iniquity (cf. Mt 7:23).
Indeed, as is evident from the parable of the talents (Mt 25:14–30), the measure of judgement will be cooperation with the gift received from God—cooperation with grace or rejection of it.
3. The divine power to judge all and each belongs to the Son of Man. The classic passage in the Gospel of Matthew (cf. Mt 25:31–46) particularly emphasises the fact that Christ exercises this power not only as the Son of God, but also as a Man; He exercises it—and pronounces the judgements—in the name of solidarity with every person, who receives good or evil from others: “I was hungry and you gave me food” (Mt 25:35), or “I was hungry and you did not give me food” (Mt 25:42). A fundamental “element” of the judgement is works of charity towards one’s neighbour. Christ identifies himself precisely with this neighbour. “Whenever you did this to one of the least of these my brothers and sisters, you did it to me” (Mt 25:40); “Whenever you did not do it . . . you did not do it to me” (Mt 25:45).
According to this passage from Matthew, everyone will be judged above all on the basis of love. But there is no doubt that people will also be judged on their faith: “Whoever acknowledges me before others, the Son of Man will also acknowledge before the angels of God” (Lk 12:8). “Whoever is ashamed of me and my words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his glory and that of the Father” (Lk 9:26; cf. also Mk 8:38).
4. From the Gospel we therefore learn this truth—which is one of the fundamental truths of the faith—namely, that God is the judge of all men in a definitive and universal way, and that this power has been entrusted by the Father to the Son (cf. Jn 5:22) in close connection with his mission of salvation. This is attested to in a particularly eloquent manner by the words spoken by Jesus during his night-time conversation with Nicodemus: “God did not send his Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through him” (Jn 3:17).
While it is true that Christ, as we see especially in the Synoptic Gospels, is a judge in the eschatological sense, it is equally true that the divine power to judge is linked to God’s saving will, which is manifested in Christ’s entire messianic mission, as John particularly emphasises: “I have come into this world to judge, so that those who do not see may see (and those who see may become blind)” (Jn 9:39). “If anyone hears my words and does not keep them, I do not condemn him: for I have not come to condemn the world, but to save the world” (Jn 12:47).
5. Without doubt, Christ is and presents himself above all as Saviour. He does not consider it his mission to judge men according to merely human principles (cf. Jn 8:15). He is, first and foremost, the One who teaches the way of salvation and not the accuser of the guilty. “Do not think that I am the one who accuses you before the Father; there is already one who accuses you, Moses . . . for he has written about me” (Jn 5:45–46). In what, then, does judgement consist? Jesus replies: “And this is the judgement: the light has come into the world, but people preferred darkness to light, because their deeds were evil” (Jn 3:19).
6. It must therefore be said that, in the presence of this Light which is God revealed in Christ, in the presence of this Truth, in a certain sense one’s own works judge each person. God’s will to save humanity finds its definitive expression in the word and work of Christ, in the entire Gospel right up to the Paschal Mystery of the Cross and the Resurrection. It becomes, at the same time, the deepest foundation, so to speak, the central criterion for the judgement of human works and consciences. It is above all in this sense that “the Father . . . has entrusted all judgement to the Son” (Jn 5:22), offering in him to every person the possibility of salvation.
7. In this very sense, unfortunately, man has already been condemned when he rejects the possibility offered to him: “Whoever believes in him is not condemned; but whoever does not believe has already been condemned” (Jn 3:18). Not to believe means, strictly speaking, to reject the salvation offered to man in Christ (“He did not believe in the name of the only Son of God”) (Jn 3:18). It is the same truth foreshadowed in the prophecy of the aged Simeon, recorded in the Gospel of Luke, when he proclaimed of Christ: “He is destined for the fall and the rising of many in Israel” (Lk 2:34). The same may be said of the reference to the “stone rejected by the builders” (cf. Lk 20:17–18).
8. It is, however, a certainty of faith that “the Father . . . has entrusted all judgement to the Son” (Jn 5:22). Now, if the divine power to judge belongs to Christ, it is a sign that he—the Son of Man—is true God, for judgement belongs to God alone. And since this power of judgement is deeply united to the will for salvation, as we learn from the Gospel, it is a new revelation of the God of the covenant, who comes to mankind as Emmanuel, to free them from the bondage of evil. It is the Christian revelation of the God who is Love.
Thus, that all too human way of conceiving God’s judgement—seen as cold justice alone, if not outright vengeance—is corrected. In reality, this expression, which is clearly derived from the Bible, appears as the final link in God’s love: God judges because He loves and in the light of love. The judgement which the Father entrusts to Christ is in accordance with the measure of the Father’s love and of our freedom.
[Pope John Paul II, General Audience, 30 September 1987]