How Are We Judged?

He knows what we are made of. He remembers that we are dust. (Psalm 103.14)

Everything God has created comes from the elements we find in the physical world. They are cosmic, the result of star dust. Out of nothing, God has created everything. Humans were formed from the earth or dust. What is significant here is that God knows we are but dust. Because we are the pride of His creation, but yet only dust, He is most merciful. So how will He judge us?

Elder Aimilianos in his commentary says,

Will He judge me according to the mud and clay from which I have been formed? No. He will judge me according to His love, He will look upon us in the light of what we are made. He knows that, being vessels of clay, we are fragile, like the pitcher that breaks at the fountain and quickly returns to dust (cf. Ecc 12:1).

We must not forget the foundation of our mortal life, a form and life given to us by God. He is continually shaping us to become more perfect, like Christ. He will forget how He formed us for the purpose of perfecting us. Everything He does for us, every struggle we face, are done our of His love and hope of our perfection. Knowing where we have come from He is sympathetic and compassionate towards us.

Ref: Psalms and the Life of Faith, by Elder Aimilianos of Simonopetra, pp 285-286.

Ten Points for an Orthodox Way of Life

Saturday of Souls

Saturday of Souls

Reading from the Synaxarion

Through the Apostolic Constitutions (Book VIII, ch. 42), the Church of Christ has received the custom to make commemorations for the departed on the third, ninth, and fortieth days after their repose. Since many throughout the ages, because of an untimely death in a faraway place, or other adverse circumstances, have died without being deemed worthy of the appointed memorial services, the divine Fathers, being so moved in their love for man, have decreed that a common memorial be made this day for all pious Orthodox Christians who have reposed from all ages past, so that those who did not have particular memorial services may be included in this common one for all. Also, the Church of Christ teaches us that alms should be given to the poor by the departed one's kinsmen as a memorial for him.

Besides this, since we make commemoration tomorrow of the Second Coming of Christ, and since the reposed have neither been judged, nor have received their complete recompense (Acts 17:31; II Peter 2:9; Heb. 11:39-40), the Church rightly commemorates the souls today, and trusting in the boundless mercy of God, she prays Him to have mercy on sinners. Furthermore, since the commemoration is for all the reposed together, it reminds each of us of his own death, and arouses us to repentance.

Expectations for Divine Judgment

Saint Theophan outlines the expectations given to us in Scripture for the Divine Judgment

1. Acknowledge the presence of the gift of grace within us.

2. Comprehend that the value of the grace for us is so great, that it is more precious than life itself, so that without it life is not even life.

3. Desire with all our strength to adapt this grace to ourselves, and to adapt ourselves to it, or, to put it another way, desire to imbue our entire nature with it, and become enlightened and sanctified.

4. Resolve to achieve this through the matter itself.

5. Carry this decision into reality, putting everything else aside, or, having removed one's heart from everything, give it over to the full action of divine grace.

When these five things are active in our lives he says that this will then begin our eternal rebirth and then if we continue to act with the same spirit continually in this inner rebirth of illumination will quickly grow.


Reference: Parable of the hidden treasure in the field (Matthew 13:44–46). The Spiritual Life, pp 134–135

Sobering words about Divine Judgment from St. Theophan

Here are some sobering words from Saint Theophan the Recluse,

At the Divine Judgment, those who have received grace and would not allow it to act within themselves will first of all have the gift of grace taken away, and then they will be plunged into hell. This was revealed by the Savior in the parable of the talent.

Parable of the Talent

Now as they heard these things, He spoke another parable, because He was near Jerusalem and because they thought the kingdom of God would appear immediately. Therefore He said: “A certain nobleman went into a far country to receive for himself a kingdom and to return. So he called ten of his servants, delivered to them ten minas, and said to them, ‘Do business till I come.’ But his citizens hated him, and sent a delegation after him, saying, ‘We will not have this man to reign over us.’ 

“And so it was that when he returned, having received the kingdom, he then commanded these servants, to whom he had given the money, to be called to him, that he might know how much every man had gained by trading.  andThen came the first, saying, ‘Master, your mina has earned ten minas.’ And he said to him, ‘Welldone, good servant; because you were faithful in a very little, have authority over ten cities.’ And the second came, saying, ‘Master, your mina has earned five minas.’ Likewise he said to him, ‘You also be over five cities.’ 

“Then another came, saying, ‘Master, here is your mina, which I have kept put away in a handkerchief. For I feared you, because you are an austere man. You collect what you did not deposit, and reap what you did not sow.’ And he said to him, ‘Out of your own mouth I will judge you, you wicked servant. You knew that I was an austere man, collecting what I did not deposit and reaping what I did not sow. Why then did you not put my money in the bank, that at my coming I might have collected it with interest?’ 

“And he said to those who stood by, ‘Take the mina from him, and give it to him who has ten minas.’ (But they said to him, ‘Master, he has ten minas.’) ‘For I say to you, that to everyone who has will be given; and from him who does not have, even what he has will be taken away from him. But bring here those enemies of mine, who did not want me to reign over them, and slay them before me.’” (Luke 19:11-27)

Saint Theophan says that we all received a talent at our baptism which is the grace of the Holy Spirit. It works within us as we grow but is in a ready state ready to act.  It will wait until we desire its full action and we seek it.


Good news:

The law is such already that man must himself begin to desire and to seek, and then grace will not desert him, as long as he continues to trust in it.

Reference: The Spiritual Life, pp 133–134 

Last Judgment Self-imposed?

Knowing the commandments of the Lord,   Let this be our way of life:   Let us feed the hungry, let us give the thirsty drink,   Let us clothe the naked, let us welcome strangers,   Let us visit those in prison and the sick.Then the Judge of all the earth will say even to us:   "Come, ye blessed of My Father, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you."

Vespers for the Sunday of the Last Judgment

.....
The Lord who judges, is the God who first and foremost forgives our sins with a love that we cannot fully grasp, not a celestial terrorist. Judgment is not a rigorous assessment before a suspicious and implacable diety, but the revelation of our inner being and the depths of our hearts. Judgment reveals with total clarity our "true selves." 
Thus, judgment as condemnation is self-imposed. In the judgment we will answer such probing questions as: What did God mean in my life? What was the concrete effect of our declaration "I believe in God?" Did I serve the neighbor or just myself The heart flush with love and mercy expands with good works. The cold heart shrinks with acts of selfishness. Fr. Sergius Bulgakov wrote: 
A merciful and charitable heart — that is what God wants from us: Be merciful like your Father in heaven. If in a human being's heart there is no love, then all that he has is dead and of no value. 


The judgment of the Lord is the light of God searching for love in the depths of our heart. Our glorified Lord will discover it in the enlarged heart, but not in the shriveled one. The presence of such love — for both God and neighbor — means that we spent our lives in actual-service, and not lip-service, to God and neighbor. Applying this specifically to our faith in Christ, Fr. Bulgakov added this: 
Love for one's neighbor is also love for Christ and contains the latter in itself. The sole Neighbor to whom all our works of love and all our love refer and can refer is the Lord Jesus Christ Himself...In the Divine Incarnation, the Lord became the new Adam, true Man, living in the human race like a vine in its vineyard, and thus establishing true humanity in every man. Christ lives in every man; to the eyes of love, every man is the image of God, the image of Christ. To the eyes of love, every man is Christ Himself living in him.


The judgment of Christ should not be conceived in negative terms. Nor should the prospect of judgment cast a frightening shadow or stir up anxiety over every deed, word or thought. No one is keeping score. Instead, remember that judgment before the Lord means that our lives have significance. Our deeds, words and thoughts are not empty gestures, meaningless sounds, or fleeting impressions destined for oblivion, but the accumulated evidence of a life that was brought into existence and destined to be lived according to the will of our Creator. A "cup of cold water" given "to one of these little ones" has eternal resonance. 


The Fathers tell us that we have the gift of "self-determination" (Gr. autexousia). This means that we are forming ourselves in the way we shall be for all of eternity — a sheep "at his right hand" or a goat "at the left."

Excerpted from "The Last Judgment" by Fr. Steven C. Kostoff
Link to full article

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