Reflections on the Resurrection, Part 4: Absolute Clarity in His Presence

On Resurrection Day, every individual person will have opportunity to render commentary on everyone else without the possibility of deceit, conceit, or error. The Judge of all, scars still present in His resurrected body, will take his seat, and the Light of the World will dispel all darkness, be it the kind which comes through our ignorance or forgetfulness; or be it the kind we had propagated to cover that which we were afraid of others seeing. In this place of total clarity coming from the One who is the mediator of the unapproachable light of God, all will be totally revealed. But this revelation is not only an instant data dump. It may indeed be that, but it is not only that. For each of us will be purified of all that which was not really /us/ in the first place: our sin, our vanity, our false persona, our pretense, our blindnesses, our sicknesses, weaknesses,  various afflictions; and every form of pride, prejudice, and self assertion will evaporate. The only boasts remaining will be the story of having been known by God; and the story those we have loved so well that they too discovered this. 

With all of these things put to flight before the one who is Light, we will be who we really are and we will be able to see others for who they really are. That which reveals their identities: their narratives, their biographies. And having such a comprehensive understanding of each person’s and people’s choices and history, we, in that place of pure light, will be able to pronounce with absolute clarity and absolute accuracy an assessment of how each person and each people did in their response to all God had offered them:  truth; goodness; the invitations of heaven through innocently beautiful things; God’s servants; and  God’s gospel. We will, in the purest sense of the word, be able to render just judgments on how each of us responded to His invitations of self-giving love.  

Before the One who is the Word–the one who will give the final word of judgment once He has listened to each and everyone of us–these crystal clear pronouncements will come from our own mouths and cover everyone we knew in this life, from intimate friend to one-time acquaintance, even the stranger we greeted on the way. We will look one another in the eye and say with perfect, un-barbed honesty the fullness of what was. Statements such as: “You were right. I was wrong.” “You indeed loved me, didn’t you.” “You were justified in what you did.” “I was blind to the good of who you were.” “I was afraid, so I hid.” “You were a gift. You were a kindness of God to me.” Comments like these will be woven into the intricate and unique details of each story and each relationship.

But it will not be limited to only those we knew, for we will be set in the full context of the history of all peoples and all nations from all times . And with such absolute clarity of soul and sight, we will render just and fair judgments on other generations and other peoples’ histories. We will, in the end, no matter how much we might have missed it or resisted it in this life, carry out our original identity as image bearers of the King in the presence of the King of Kings.

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