Various passages in the gospels speak of judgment, of being judged on one’s behavior. One instance is the parable of the talents. (Mt. 25: 14-30) There are also the parables of the wheat and the darnel and of the dragnet. The images offered in these latter parables are clear in describing a separation of the good from the bad.
The longest and most dramatic passage about judgment is the description of the Last Judgment. (Mt. 25: 31-46) That judgment will be universal, applying to all. It will be definitive, resulting in either reward or punishment.
We do not like to think about judgement, especially judgement resulting in eternal punishment. That seems incompatible with our image of God as loving and forgiving. The great revelation of Jesus is that God is love. But we have to be clear about what that love means. It is not unusual to think and speak of God’s love as though it were nothing more than sentimental kindness.
C.S. Lewis described such an attitude quite well when he wrote: “What would really satisfy most people would be a god who said of any-thing they happened to liked doing. ‘What does it matter as long as they are contented?’” He continued, suggesting that “what we want, in fact, is not so much a father in heaven as a kind of grandfather – a senile benevolence who liked to see the young people enjoying themselves and whose plan for the universe was simply that it might be said at the end of the say a good time was had by all.”
Not many people would formulate a theology explicitly in those terms. But such a conception lurks at the back of many minds. No wonder it does. It is pleasant and attractive. It makes little demand either on the mind or the will. Who wouldn’t like to live in a universe governed along such lines? But we don’t. Efforts and sacrifices are to be made. We will be judged on how we have lived. St. Paul warned: “For at the judgment seat of Christ we are all to be seen for what we are, so that each of us may receive what we deserve, matched to whatever we have done, good or bad. (2Cor. 5, 10)
If in the end we find ourselves outside the kingdom it will be because we have refused to enter the kingdom now. We enter the kingdom by opening our minds and our hearts to the gift of salvation offered in the person of Jesus Christ, accepting his message and doing his will.