Q&A Home > J > Judgment / Judgment Day

On Judgment Day, will everybody,alive and dead, be judged; even though the departed souls have already been placed either in Paradise or Hades? And if so, can the original judgment be reversed?

"For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive the things done in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad" (2 Corinthians 5:10). This verse is indicative of an inevitable appearance before Christ, in which every person will appear to give account of his/her life. Christ will execute the final judgment and its consequences with a scale of justice and mercy and various degrees of rewards and punishment. "In My Father's house are many mansions" (John 14:2).

When our Lord sent His disciples on their missions, He assured them that those who would not hear or receive them, would be tolerated less than the sinners of Sodom & Gomorrah, "Assuredly, I say to you, it will be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment than for that city" (Mark 6:11). Also, all those who had witnessed for themselves Christ's mighty acts, yet chose not to repent but rather rejected the Messiah, He assured them it will be more tolerable for the evil doers of Tyre and Sidon, and Sodom and Gomorrah, than for them in the day of judgment (Matthew 11:20-24).  

The process between death and the judgment day, is not a judgment process but just separation between the righteous and the wicked based on the foreknowledge of God.

In the parable of Lazarus and the rich man (Luke 16:19-26), a great gulf of separation is described to exist between the one who rests in the bosom of Abraham (God's beloved),and the other tormented in Hades. This scenario engages one to imagine, if the waiting place is depicted with peace or torment, then the Judgment Day  has to be an elevation of the departed faithful to a higher state of joy in God's presence and the unbelievers to a state of exceeding torment and pain without reversal.