Introduction

God makes people a certain way, places them in circumstances He controls, and then judges them for what they do. How could a loving and just God do this? Because judgment is something very different from what religion has taught us. It is not God reacting in anger to creatures who acted independently of Him; judgment is part of the very process by which God forms, corrects, teaches, and ultimately perfects His creation.

Christians claim to know God, yet often fail to recognize Him as God. Religion teaches that man acts independently, makes the decisive choice, and then God reacts by rewarding or punishing him. Scripture presents the opposite: God is the Potter; we are the clay. He forms the vessel, directs its path, works through its experiences, and even uses judgment as part of creating that person into exactly what He intends them to become.

God Judges the Very People He Makes: Judgment as Part of the Creation Process

One of A. E. Knoch’s most penetrating observations in The Problem of Evil, in his discussion of responsibility, exposes a problem at the heart of traditional Christianity. Christians often insist that human beings must possess ultimate responsibility for their condition because, without that responsibility, their doctrines of judgment become morally indefensible.

If God determines the circumstances, limitations, desires, experiences, and ultimately the course of His creatures, how can He then judge those same creatures?

Knoch writes:

“The reason is that they are still self-centered, and imagine that they should be given a chance to display themselves, rather than be helpless vessels for the revelation of God.”

This completely changes the question. Scripture is not primarily the story of humanity proving what humanity can do. It is the story of God revealing Who He is through humanity.

And remarkably, Romans itself raises the objection that immediately follows from this truth.

If God Uses Our Unrighteousness, How Can He Judge Us?

Paul asks:

“But if our unrighteousness commend the righteousness of God, what shall we say? Is God unrighteous who taketh vengeance?”

Romans 3:5

That is an extraordinary question.

If human unrighteousness actually serves as the backdrop against which God’s righteousness is revealed, how can God judge the person whose unrighteousness contributed to that revelation?

Paul answers:

“God forbid: for then how shall God judge the world?”

Romans 3:6

Notice what Paul does not do.

He does not solve the objection by saying, “God didn’t cause anything. Man possesses an independent free will and therefore everything is ultimately man’s responsibility.”

Instead, Paul continues throughout Romans to progressively remove human boasting and independence.

By Romans 9, God is presented as the Potter and humanity as the clay.

“Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour?”

Romans 9:21

The vessel does not make itself.

The Potter makes the vessel.

That means God can form one person for one purpose and another person for another purpose. Their differences ultimately originate in the Potter rather than the clay.

Yet God still judges.

Why?

Because judgment itself is part of what the Potter is doing with the clay.

God Doesn’t Judge Because He Has Lost Control

Traditional theology frequently views judgment as God’s reaction to something that went wrong.

God supposedly wanted one outcome.

The creature independently chose another.

God therefore punishes the creature for frustrating His intention.

But Paul’s conclusion in Romans is almost the exact opposite.

“For God hath concluded them all in unbelief, that he might have mercy upon all.”

Romans 11:32

Who shuts them up together in unbelief?

God does.

Why?

That He might have mercy upon all.

The unbelief and the mercy are not two unrelated events. They are parts of the same divine process.

God brings humanity into an experience of failure so humanity can eventually experience something it otherwise could never comprehend to the same depth:

mercy.

And only four verses later Paul tells us why this is possible:

“For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things.”

Romans 11:36

Of Him.

God is the Source.

Through Him.

God is the Operator.

To Him.

God is the Goal.

That leaves no room for an independent creature operating outside God’s ultimate purpose.

Even humanity’s failure exists within the great movement of creation:

OF God → THROUGH God → TO God.

God Makes the Vessel—and Then Judges the Vessel

This is where the doctrine becomes uncomfortable if judgment is misunderstood.

God forms the individual.

God determines when and where that individual is born.

God determines the person’s limitations.

God surrounds that person with circumstances he did not choose.

God gives faith to some while others remain in unbelief.

God makes vessels of honor and vessels of dishonor.

And then God judges His creatures.

If judgment were endless torture, this would make God monstrous.

If judgment ended in permanent annihilation, the problem would remain. God would create a vessel according to His purpose, place it into circumstances He controls, use its failure within His plan, judge it for that failure, and finally destroy it forever.

The Calvinist system comes particularly close to acknowledging God’s sovereignty, but when combined with eternal conscious torment it produces a horrifying conclusion: God sovereignly creates and governs creatures whose final destiny is endless misery.

This is precisely why human religion desperately needs “free will.”

Free will becomes the theological escape hatch.

God didn’t really determine it.

God didn’t want this.

God tried to save them.

They did it to themselves.

Responsibility must therefore be pushed entirely onto the creature because otherwise eternal hell makes the character of God almost impossible to defend.

But there is another solution.

Perhaps Christianity has misunderstood judgment.

Judgment Is Part of Making the Creature What God Intends It to Become

If God is truly sovereign and God is truly love, judgment cannot exist merely to satisfy vengeance against creatures God Himself formed.

Judgment must accomplish something.

It must be corrective, revelatory and ultimately beneficial to the person experiencing it.

God does not merely make a person and then judge him.

God uses both the person’s experience and the judgment of that experience to complete His work in that individual.

Failure teaches something.

Consequences teach something.

Judgment teaches something.

Mercy teaches something.

Reconciliation teaches something.

And eventually the person understands God in a depth that innocence alone could never have produced.

This is why Romans 11:32 is so profound:

God shuts all up in unbelief so that He may have mercy upon all.

Unbelief isn’t the destination.

Mercy is.

Judgment isn’t the destination.

Restoration is.

Death isn’t the destination.

Life is.

Judgment Is for the Good of the Judged

Knoch takes the argument even further:

“Even the Deity cannot display Himself at the expense of His creatures and at their loss, for He is love, and such a revelation would be an exhibition of hate.”

That principle is enormously important.

Suppose God creates billions of people to demonstrate His holiness, justice, wrath, sovereignty, or power—but those creatures suffer eternal loss in the process.

God receives His demonstration.

The creatures receive endless misery.

What has actually been revealed?

According to Knoch, such an outcome could hardly be called a revelation of love.

He continues:

“It is only as we see that all the suffering which comes to the creature will be fully compensated by God, nay, will become a vital factor in his future bliss, that we are able to see why responsibility is practically absent from the Scriptures, yet so important a part of human religion.”

This is the missing piece.

The suffering isn’t merely compensated.

It ultimately contributes to the creature’s future joy.

The person who has known darkness understands light differently.

The person who has experienced guilt understands forgiveness differently.

The person who has experienced judgment understands mercy differently.

The mortal understands immortality.

The sinner understands grace.

The failure receives justification.

The estranged creature understands reconciliation.

God is not merely repairing damage.

He is creating understanding.

The Cross Is the Supreme Example

Nothing demonstrates this principle more powerfully than the crucifixion.

Human beings committed the greatest sin imaginable: they murdered the Son of God.

Yet Acts says Christ was delivered:

“by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God.”

Acts 2:23

Their actions were evil.

Yet their evil did not escape God’s purpose.

God used humanity’s greatest crime to produce humanity’s greatest blessing.

Through the cross humanity learns things about God that an untouched creation could never have known in the same way:

His grace.

His mercy.

His patience.

His forgiveness.

His love toward enemies.

His ability to bring life out of death.

And His power to overcome evil with good.

The very people whose sins reveal the need for grace will eventually become recipients of that grace.

That is not God displaying Himself at their expense.

It is God revealing Himself for their eventual benefit.

Human Religion Makes Man the Operator

Knoch summarizes the contrast beautifully:

“In holy writ, God operates the universe. Outside, man is the master of his fate.”

That may be one of the clearest summaries of the entire free-will problem.

Religion says:

Man determines his destiny.

Scripture says:

God works all things according to the counsel of His will.

Religion says:

Man creates himself through his choices.

Scripture says:

God is the Potter; man is the clay.

Religion says:

Human unbelief can eternally defeat God’s desire to save.

Scripture says:

God shuts all in unbelief that He might have mercy upon all.

Religion says:

Everything ultimately depends upon man.

Paul concludes:

“Of Him, and through Him, and to Him, are all things.”

God Is Creating Something Through the Entire Process

This gives judgment an entirely different meaning.

Imagine a person standing before God in judgment.

For the first time, every illusion disappears.

He sees himself accurately.

He understands the consequences of what he has done.

He understands the pain his actions caused others.

He experiences God’s righteous judgment.

But then he also learns something infinitely greater.

He discovers the God Who knew all of this before He ever created him.

The God Who formed him knew his failures.

The God Who placed him into mortality knew his weakness.

The God Who subjected creation to vanity already knew the destination.

And the God Who judges him is the same God Who intends ultimately to reconcile him through Christ.

The judgment therefore becomes part of his creation, not his destruction.

God is making something out of him.

His ignorance, failure, suffering, judgment, correction, mercy and eventual reconciliation all contribute to the person he will ultimately become.

And imagine the joy when such a person finally understands.

The sinner discovers grace.

The enemy discovers reconciliation.

The unbeliever discovers faith.

The dying creature receives immortality.

The person who once misunderstood God finally understands His heart.

What seemed like disconnected experiences are finally seen as parts of one enormous purpose.

This Is Why God Can Be Absolutely Sovereign and Absolutely Good

Remove universal reconciliation and God’s sovereignty becomes terrifying.

If eternal torment is true, sovereignty makes God responsible for creating an endless chamber of suffering.

If annihilation is true, sovereignty means God knowingly creates countless people whose existence ultimately ends in permanent destruction.

The usual theological solution is therefore to diminish God’s sovereignty and magnify human responsibility.

But Scripture offers a far greater resolution:

God is sovereign.

God judges.

God corrects.

God saves.

And every stage ultimately contributes to the creature’s good.

Romans 11 does not end with humanity escaping God’s control.

It ends with humanity completely enclosed within God’s purpose:

“For God hath concluded them all in unbelief, that he might have mercy upon all.”

And then:

“For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things.”

That is the answer to the apparent contradiction.

God can form the vessel and then judge the vessel because judgment is one of the instruments by which the Potter finishes His work.

He does not create imperfect creatures, judge them, and discard them.

He creates them through the entire experience.

He uses weakness.

He uses failure.

He uses consequences.

He uses judgment.

He uses mercy.

And ultimately He uses Christ to bring the entire process to its intended conclusion.

The creature does not emerge eternally ruined by God’s sovereignty.

The creature emerges perfected through it.

And when the purpose of the ages is finally complete, no creature will look backward and discover that God gained glory at his expense.

Every tear, every failure, every correction and every judgment will finally be understood within the immeasurable good God was accomplishing through it all.

Then God’s sovereignty will no longer appear frightening.

It will become the greatest reason creation can have for confidence.

Because the One operating the universe is not merely sovereign.

He is love.