Judgement Day is not what you think

Popular imagination for judgement that is balanced and weighed.

The weekly Bible Study is incrementally making its way through Romans; this time the tail of chapter 3 and first lines of chapter 4. The idea of JUDGEMENT comes up and for some reason when hearing it read on this occasion that word stuck out in my mind. Like so many words, with modern ears a particular image comes to mind that could miss the meaning of the original word long, long ago. Besides the historical drift in meanings - what it refers to AND the connotations that echo from it, there is also the potential misalignment of (modern) English and the earlier translation(s) relied upon to arrive at the words printed today. Setting aside both concerns (historical and translational), though, consider the roots and several senses contained in 'judgement'.

The idea of "You will be judged" in a courtroom situation has the idea of punishment and maybe reformation or realignment: too lenient is considered unjust, but too harsh is also considered unjust. However, the folk image of "knocking on heaven's door" and being judged as to being admitted or else being denied admission is slightly different to the courtroom example. It is more of a pass/fail gatekeeper image. What the passage in Romans 3 and 4 means, though, could be something neither of the Pearly Gates or the courtroom bench. Clues to the full and true, intended sense of Justice that Paul describes can be found in the family of related words: Justice, Justify, Judgement, Judicial, Adjudicate, and so on. Assuming that God's nature is Love for all creatures, animal and vegetable (micro-organism, too?), and that his faith is abiding --no matter what is in a person's own mind or heart, then JUDGING is about realigning the out-of-tune soul, restoring neglected relationships between Creator and Creature. Therefore, when coming before God to be judged and/or for the Final Judgement Day the purpose is to put things in order, completion, Shalom, in-tune. It is not retribution, revenge, tit for tat, or punitive damages coming due in some kind of cosmic accounting. This sort of judging is more closely related to justifying something, in the sense of typewriters that arrange the lines of text along the left margin, or the right margin, or center-justified along the axis of the page.

See Romans 3:28 (NIV translation, emphasis added)

...we maintain that a person is justified by faith apart from the works of the law.

Or the same verse from The Message translation: Our lives get in step with God and all others by letting him set the pace, not by proudly or anxiously trying to run the parade.

Or from Hawai'ian Pidgin English translation: So dis wat we figga: Anybody can get um right wit God wen dey trus him, not wen dey ony do da stuff Godʼs Rules say. 

  Justified in this passage may sound to modern ears as a synonym for 'authorized' and 'by reason of' (in the sense of rationalizing or entitlement for something). But consider the earlier discussion where justified has the meaning of realigning and putting into order. With that emphasis, then the assertion that "a person is JUSTIFIED BY faith" gives a new picture: faith does not authorize or give excuses for a person's way of walking through the world, but instead faith is the mechanism by which a person's drifting off the path can thereby be put back into the proper standing again. Likewise of JUDGEMENT DAY: this is not a frightening threat of ultimate accountability. Instead it is a repair of misaligned and mistaken being for the purpose of putting things right all over again.

Similarly for the words, 'true' (and truths), 'righteous' (and self-righteous), and 'holy' (perfected, Shalom, full circle of completion). Taking the technical meaning in carpenter language, a cut line or a plank is 'true' when the line is straight, correct, right, aligned. Thus when something is seen to be true, this means it is right, and by extension that it is righteous. When things are indeed all in order (not chaos or in entropy) then there is a sense of completion and rest; thus everything is whole, holy, hale, healed, healthy, and complete. Shalom.

Where words intersect, fields of meaning do, too - 3 examples

 Rescue. Self-righteous. Knowing (God's grace). During today's weekly "Tuesday Men's Bible Study" (online video meeting during the pandemic) we wrapped up 2 Timothy starting from chapter 3, verse 10.

Wikipedia for 2 Timothy, (screenshot)

Rescue: save, salve, salvation, salvage. All these words overlap in some ways. While the Greek of Paul becomes "rescues me" in the New International Version (English), perhaps the original choice of wording in Greek had a different set of intersecting family of words and their fields of meaning different to this lexical string that resonates in English. In any case, when reading or hearing 2 Timothy from chapter 3 to the end, "rescue" does seem to convey a little from all these differing meanings since there is an aspect of being salvaged, saved, and and salved when the moment of rescue comes (unexpectedly).

Self-righteous: self-centered, self-serving, selfish, and the family of "idio" words to mean 'self' (idiosyncracy, idiotic, idiopathic, the Id). Maybe this one rose up from the discussion, rather directly from the text. Since "servant's heart" and "love your neighbor..." are prominently foundational in the Gospels and epistles, SELF (and getting over one's self fascination and anxieties) necessarily is meant to be minimized in order to make space in one's eye and heart for concerns of others. So the several facets distinguished in each of the members of this family of words shed light on dangers of foregrounding "self" and thereby blocking out "other" from one's awareness and care.

Knowing God: know about, know of, by known as, knowledgeable in. English is hobbled by the conflation of 'knowing' a person or place or subject intimately and 'knowing' about the facts pertaining to a subject or person or place. Others of the Indo-European languages make this difference clear by using different verbs according to the situation: knowing a person's name or profile is not the same as knowing that person all one's life. With God, too, there are people who seek "the facts" of God more than seeking to KNOW the creator as a dear friend, parent-figure, and giver of infinite grace and abundant life. So when the NIV footnote for 2 Timothy points out that 1/2 of the humans ever created happen to be breathing during the 21st century, but most of them do not KNOW God or the promise of salvation and other vivid teachings, the emphasis of the footnote writer seems to be "the facts" rather than the personal relationship of a person to God.

Each of these illustrations that came out of this morning's conversation point to the way that meanings overlap and make indirect meanings that echo or ripple out from the initial source. This property of words - that they belong to families of related words, but that meanings and emphasis in one expresses a significant distinction - is a kind of demonstration of the glory of creation: it has so many facets that may at first seem unrelated to each other, but upon further reflection important intersections can be traced so that hidden connections and family resemblances can be revealed.