The eschatological process by which God intervenes in human history to reward “every man according as his work shall be,” to eradicate sin and its results from the universe, and to establish the righteous, universal, eternal reign of Christ. Seventh-day Adventists understand that the great final judgment involves three steps: (1) an investigative judgment, by which those eligible to eternal life are separated from those who are not eligible in a pre-Advent investigation; (2) an examination of the individual cases of the wicked by the righteous, during the millennium, to assure the latter that justice is being done in each case and to determine the sentence to be meted out in each case; and (3) the executive judgment, which takes place at the close of the millennium, when sentence is executed in the fires of hell.
In Millerite preaching, emphasis was placed on Christ’s coming to execute judgment upon sin and sinners, at His appearing. A strong emphasis in the 1844 message was the pronouncement that “the hour of his judgment is come” ( Rev. 14:7 ). But as early as 1841 the idea of a two-phase judgment began to be taught. Josiah Litch in that year published an Address to . . . the Clergy, in which he spoke of “the judicial scene of judgment” preceding the resurrection ( p . 39) and of the execution of the judgment following it ( p . 38). The next year he explained at length the distinction between the two: “1. It [the verb judge]is used in the Bible in the sense of a trial according to law and evidence; the idea being drawn from a civil or criminal court. The term is used in this sense in Luke xix. 22 . . . .
“2. It signifies a penal judgment; or the execution of judgment; and is so used, Acts vii. 7 . . . . The terms are both used in reference to the judgment of the human race. 1. All men will be brought to trial, or into judgment, and all their deeds and their moral characters will be examined and their everlasting states will be determined by the evidence produced from God’s books, including the book of life. . . . No human tribunal would think of executing judgment on a prisoner until after his trial; much less will God. He will bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good or evil.
“But the resurrection is the retribution or execution of judgment, for ‘they that have done good shall come forth to the resurrection of life” (Josiah Litch, Prophetic Expositions, vol. 1, pp . 49, 50).
“God, ‘The Ancient of Days,’ Will Preside in the Trial.
“1. Daniel vii. 9 , 10 , presents the Ancient of days coming on his throne of fiery flame; the judgment is set and the books opened. He is distinct from the Son of man, spoken of in the 13th verse, when he comes to the Ancient of days.
“The Son of Man Will Execute the Judgment.
“Thus the Saviour declares, John v. 27 : ‘And hath given him authority to execute judgment also, because he is the Son of man” ( ibid ., p . 52).
Of the phase of the judgment that takes place during the millennium Ellen White wrote that Christ and the saints “judge the wicked, comparing their acts with the statute-book, the Bible, and deciding every case according to the deeds done in the body. Then the portion which the wicked must suffer is meted out, according to their works; and it is recorded against their names in the book of death” ( GC 661; see 1 Cor. 6:2 , 3 ).
Concerning the executive phase of the judgment the Scriptures declare, “Fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them” ( Rev. 20:9 ). Commenting on the effects of this fire, Ellen White declares: “Some are destroyed as in a moment, while others suffer many days. All are punished ‘according to their deeds.’ . . . His [Satan’s]punishment is to be far greater than that of those whom he has deceived. After all have perished who fell by his deceptions, he is still to live and suffer on. In the cleansing flames the wicked are at last destroyed, root and branch” ( GC 673).
“This was the execution of the judgment ” (E. G. White, in Present Truth 1:86, November 1850).
An early Bible description of the great final judgment is that of Joel 3 . Here, God delivers His people and sits in judgment on the nations that have oppressed them, and annihilates them ( Joel 3:1 , 2 , 11–17 , 19–21 ). Daniel develops the idea further in his description of “the Ancient of days” sitting in judgment upon the little horn. “The judgment was set, and the books were opened.” As a result, the “fourth beast, dreadful and terrible,” was “slain, . . . destroyed, and given to the burning flame. The Ancient of days then awards the dominion of this earth to the “Son of man,” that “all people, nations, and languages, should serve him; his dominion is an everlasting dominion,” and “to the people of the saints of the most High, whose kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and all dominions shall serve and obey him” ( Dan. 7:9–14 , 26 , 27 ). John describes a similar scene at the close of the millennium, with the wicked dead of all ages raised to life and arraigned before the bar of divine justice to receive sentence and to be “cast into the lake of fire” ( Rev. 20:7–15 ).
The apostle Paul declares that God has appointed a day in which He will judge the world, and that all human beings, living and dead, must appear before the judgment seat of Christ, to be rewarded for what they have done in the flesh ( Acts 17:30–31 ; Rom. 14:10 ; 2 Cor. 5:10 ; 2 Tim. 4:1 ; cf . 1 Peter 4:6 ). The judgment is closely associated, in point of time, with Christ’s second appearing and the establishment of His kingdom ( 2 Tim. 4:1 ; cf . Dan. 7:9 , 10 , 13 , 14 ; Jude 14 ). In the judgment every deed will be considered ( Eccl. 12:13 , 14 ; Rev. 20:12 ). God’s moral law is the standard of judgment ( James 2:10–12 ). The books of record in heaven include the book of life and the records of individual lives ( Dan. 7:10 ; 12:1 ; Mal. 3:16 ; Rev. 20:12 ). God the Father and Christ the Son participate in the work of judgment ( John 5:26 , 27 ; Rom. 2:16 ; 2 Tim. 4:8 ; Jude 14 , 15 ). The premillennial phase of the judgment of the wicked is described in Rev. 14:14–20 and 19:11–21 . Prior to the executive judgment, at the close of the millennium, the unjust of all ages will be raised to life to hear sentence pronounced ( Rev. 20:12–15 ). The earth is then purified of sin and sinners and created anew to be the eternal abode of the righteous ( 2 Peter 3:7–12 ; Rev. 20:14 , 15 ; 21:1–5 ; 22:5 ).
Christ represented the judgment in the parables of the dragnet (separation of the righteous from the wicked), Matt. 13:47–50 ; of the talents (rewards), Matt. 25:14–30 ; and of the sheep and the goats (separation), Matt. 25:31–46 ; and of the man without a wedding garment (investigation of the guests, separation of the just and the unjust, and execution of the sentence), Matt. 22:2–14 .